Halloween (2018)
Directed by David Gordon Green
Laurie Strode comes to her final confrontation with Michael Myers, the masked figure who has haunted her since she narrowly escaped his killing spree on Halloween night four decades ago.
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In terms of the slasher elements to Halloween (2018) , the kills are incredible, with some playing off-screen and some of them just going right for the jugular (which is literal in some cases), and I love the fact that while Green wants to make something that will appeal to modern audiences, he often leans into the classicism of Carpenter’s approach to violence in Halloween (1978), thereby delivering a mix of brutality that honors its past while also making great strides in bringing familiar slasher tropes back to the big screen in new ways, akin to what Wes Craven was able to do with the Scream series.
Green ( The Pineapple Express ) and McBride have crafted a clever homage to the kind of flick that Jamie Kennedy geeked out on so memorably in the original 1996 Scream .
Today, after an onslaught of franchise building, it’s easy to take for granted that the original “Halloween” (1978), “Friday the 13th” (1980) and “A Nightmare on Elm Street” (1984) were actually inventive before they were satirized in “Scream” (1996), my own teenage touchstone.
While not completely meta in its laughs like a Scream, the film does play homage to its cannon and is littered with Easter eggs and call backs.
It’s hard to argue the point: Years have passed since the self-referential horror of the “Scream” franchise, not to mention snazzier home invasion thrillers from “You’re Next” to “The Babadook” that took the “Halloween” mold to fresh heights.
(Yes, even the second gets blipped from the continuity, along with Laurie’s blood relation to her stalker, which one of the film’s sub- Scream class of self-aware teens confirms aloud.)
Sequestered away in a fortress of a house, surrounded by homemade shooting ranges and avoidant of human contact, Reinventing Laurie as something of a killer herself, akin to Sarah Connor in Terminator 2 , both psychologically and physically, makes her inevitable confrontation with Michael one hell of a tense third act.
Fortified by the arsenal in her basement, she channels badass mother figures like Ripley from “Aliens” or Sarah Connor from “Terminator 2.” In 1978, Laurie had no one to rely on but herself.
In a way the script reminded me of Terminator 2 to Terminator.
You know, something akin to watching Ripley do the same in "Aliens 2" where she transformed from victim to warrior, or Sarah Connor in "Terminator 2." In fact, this offering -- directed by David Gordon Green from a script he co-wrote with Danny McBride & Jeff Fradley -- has plenty of similarities to that latter film, including the protagonist being deemed crazy and paranoid for believing the character who previously tried to kill her was going to come back and thus she's prepared herself, including being heavily armed, to deal with the menace.
A good portion of Halloween is dedicated to fleshing out the shell that is her former self; she looks unclean and ragged, totes around heavy firearms with the skill and marksmanship that would make Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2: Judgment Day proud, and is a recluse hiding away in an isolated compound full of safety cautions and weaponry.
The new "Halloween" functions as a direct sequel to the original, and Curtis' Laurie returns as buff and badass as Linda Hamilton was in "T2."
With original director John Carpenter's blessing, Green manages something that is both a tribute to and an evolution of the 1978 classic, with moments designed to create resonances that are not just re-enactment but part of his bigger theme of trauma-causing scars (there are also, in a nod to his days as an Austin resident, a couple of subtle visual nods to the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre).
Starting with George Romero’s 1968 Night of the Living Dead , Simon unpicked the rebellious socio-political threads of films such as Last House on the Left , The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Shivers before arriving at the more conservative inflections of Carpenter’s ruthlessly efficient modern morality tale.
Carpenter was also a classicist who grew up on the films of Howard Hawks and John Ford and looked to Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” and the 1960 French horror film “Eyes Without a Face” for inspiration when making “Halloween.”
As the daughter of “Psycho” (1960) star Janet Leigh, Curtis was born to pioneer the teen slasher genre.
While slasher films were not uncommon — Hitchcock popularized the genre in 1960 with Psycho — the format they followed was more along the lines of a whodunit.
She deserved that glorified cameo and had more than earned her acting chops in previous film classics, including Alfred Hitchcock’s legendary stab-happy thriller, “Psycho.”
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Friday the 13th may have lifted its gory riffs from Mario Bava’s A Bay of Blood (just as Carpenter looked back to Bob Clark’s Black Christmas ), but it was Halloween that paved the way for its blockbuster success.
Fortified by the arsenal in her basement, she channels badass mother figures like Ripley from “Aliens” or Sarah Connor from “Terminator 2.” In 1978, Laurie had no one to rely on but herself.
Curtis should have been allowed to own this picture, in much the same fashion as Sigourney Weaver owned Aliens and (sorry, Arnie) Linda Hamilton owned Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
The fact that it grafts a standard-issue Halloween film, where a serial killer cuts his way through the teenage populace of a small town, onto something with the emotional resonance and mother-daughter bonds of Aliens is a little curious.
And if you want to watch a female empowerment flick where a former villain turns into a well-armed warrior to deal with her former tormentor, check out the aforementioned "Aliens" and "Terminator 2" offerings.
Today, after an onslaught of franchise building, it’s easy to take for granted that the original “Halloween” (1978), “Friday the 13th” (1980) and “A Nightmare on Elm Street” (1984) were actually inventive before they were satirized in “Scream” (1996), my own teenage touchstone.
Although older films like Peeping Tom and Psycho laid the groundwork for the slasher, its golden age was between 1978 and 1984, which saw the release of classics like Friday the 13th (1980) and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).
Cinematographer Michael Simmonds' (2016's " Nerve ") lensing is exquisite, an ode to the ambitious, classy, textured camerawork of Dean Cundey (who shot " Halloween ," " Halloween II ," and 1982's " Halloween III: Season of the Witch ").
In 1982, Halloween III: Season of the Witch completely ignored villain Michael Myers in favour of a Scooby-Doo plot about a novelty company fronting an ancient Stonehenge cult.
Signing on to write, produce and score Halloween II allowed the two the freedom to make 1982’s Halloween III: Season of the Witch .
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Although older films like Peeping Tom and Psycho laid the groundwork for the slasher, its golden age was between 1978 and 1984, which saw the release of classics like Friday the 13th (1980) and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).
Carpenter was also a classicist who grew up on the films of Howard Hawks and John Ford and looked to Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” and the 1960 French horror film “Eyes Without a Face” for inspiration when making “Halloween.”