Say what you want about 2018’s Halloween (I thought it was just ok), but at least it breathed new life into the Michael Myers franchise. Danny McBride and David Gordon Green hope to continue that momentum with the 2nd part of their planned trilogy Halloween Kills. So did they? I so want to palindrome this movie: Halloween Kills kills Halloween. It’s not that bad…but it’s sadly not very good either.
Halloween Kills picks up right after the events of the last film, with Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) injured, being escorted to the hospital by her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak), hoping their trap at the end of the first film killed Michael Myers. Obviously, it did not, and Michael starts wreaking havoc on poor Haddonfield Illinois, again. This time, survivors of the first attack, like Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall), Lonnie Elam (Robert Longstreet), and Lindsey Wallace (Kyle Richards), hear about Michael’s return on the news, and drum up support across town to hunt down and stop Michael…by any means necessary.
I don’t think McBride and Gordon Green knew how clever their conceit for Halloween Kills was, and should have accepted the fact that their story arc should have ended here. The theme of the first hour of this movie is about how deep trauma does affect you for life, but you can rise above it and overcome it, by channeling it into action. That’s perfect synergy with the host of franchise Easter eggs the movie uses that are critical to the plot, as we see all these previously frightened children, hardened by Michael’s trauma, transformed into Dr. Loomis like avengers, ready to take evil head on and overcome their fears. That joint anger turns into something that can be a powerful force that can overcome evil, or be absorbed by it, a frightening lesson for all the Myers victims, who now have to deal with the fact they’ve for a brief moment become the thing that they feared. That part of Halloween Kills is compelling, by far the best element of the storytelling.
But to tell that tale would betray the essence of the Halloween Franchise: Michael Myers wreaking havoc on Halloween night. So while we’re getting excited the mob is mobilizing, Michael goes on a bigger, gorier killing spree than he did in 1978, viciously murdering multiple unsuspecting, pretty innocent people. Like the 2018 version, this Michael isn’t suspense filled anymore: he’s brute force, murdering callously and violently. At some point, all that killing desensitizes you, and the movie becomes, well, boring. But as off-putting as the murders are, what’s more off-putting is McBride and Green resurrect one of the Halloween franchises worst traits: sh*tty character development. Almost every major character makes a dumb choice when confronting Michael Myers, culminating in a final 20 minutes that’s so stupid and dumb that even a well delivered Jamie Lee Curtis monologue can’t hide the ending’s stupidity. It was so bad that I felt like riling up a mob to destroy all known recordings of Halloween Kills.
There’s one final movie in this trilogy: Halloween Ends. You can feel that movie’s pall over Halloween Kills, because it places the movie in a state of stasis, waiting for the final movie to deliver some resolution for Michael, Laurie, and her family. I’m not looking forward to Halloween Ends other than the last part of that title, unless Danny McBride and David Gordon Green do something daring. That’s right, a Pineapple Express crossover, and we get James Franco, McBride, and Seth Rogen to get super duper high and lay waste to that quiet oversized virgin, Mikey Myers. You know Franco’s delivering a “yeah baby” at some point.