No Surrender Cinema: Halloween Kills
WARNING: Some spoilers are included in this review of Halloween Kills. Read on at your own risk!
Just a few days ago on this very site, I wrote about the return of an iconic character in horror history. The premiere of the Chucky series was something I’ve been anticipating ever since rumors of it began popping up online, and the first episode left me satisfied as a fan and anxious to see where things go next.
This review though…this one is going to be as different from that column as it gets. Because I’m still not quite sure what I watched today. Not that it featured some mind-blowing mega twist that changes the course of the franchise. Nor did it leave me feeling confused or needing to rewatch. Unfortunately, I’m coming here tonight to say something that I honestly didn’t expect to say…
Halloween Kills stunk.
Even though I don’t have the attachment to Michael Myers like I do with Chucky, Jason, or Freddy, I’ve still been a fan of the Halloween franchise since my youth. I’ve seen and own all the movies (even the one starring Busta Rhymes and the pair made by Rob Zombie). So when the reboot/continuation of the original story, complete with Jamie Lee Curtis becoming the world’s oldest Final Girl by stepping back into the role of Laurie Strode, was released three years ago, I was hyped. Usually reboots, especially in the horror world, are hit or miss. For every My Bloody Valentine or Friday The 13th, we get something like the Nightmare on Elm Street remake that comes along and lowers the average score. 2018’s Halloween was a film that I thought did a tremendous job of breathing new life into a 40 year old story and disavowing the weaker entries in the series. 2021’s Halloween Kills, a film that was delayed a year due to the ongoing pandemic, almost singlehandedly negates all of the goodwill that its predecessor earned Blumhouse Productions and would have been better off collecting dust on the shelf.
Kills picks up where we left off three years ago; Laurie, her daughter Karen, and granddaughter Allyson trapped Michael in Laurie’s cellar and left him to burn with the house. As they’re being driven to the hospital to be treated for their wounds, they notice the fire trucks heading to the house and shout to no one in particular that they should just let him burn. Of course, once the firefighters are on site, Michael is discovered, and the town of Haddonfield better hope that nothing else catches fire tonight, because each one of the firefighters is killed off in grisly fashion by Michael. This scene is actually a bright spot in a disappointing film, as there are some creative kills and the POV shots enable it to break out from the norm. Even this could have been done better, in my opinion, because having the majority of this scene in the trailers pretty much killed the mood for me (pun not intended).
So Michael’s back on the loose and Laurie’s back in the hospital, but luckily for the town of Haddonfield, she’s not the only one on a vigilante crusade to kill the killer. Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall), who as a child survived Michael’s original onslaught because of Laurie, has rounded up a crew of Myers survivors and other townsfolk itchy to get some blood on their hands. This is where the movie really goes off the rails, because you’d think with Michael on the warpath at least one of those 100 people would be able to talk some sense into the rest. Instead, the massive mob shows up at the hospital and makes the waiting room look like Walmart on Black Friday, and every single one of them looks like a jackass when faced with the reddest of red herrings. I get it, it’s a horror movie, you need at least one person to look or sound stupid for the sake of the story, but given the idiocy of Haddonfield’s residents here, it’s amazing they weren’t all killed off back in 1978.
Obviously, one would think that their ineptitude is simply a stepping stone to the final confrontation between Michael and Laurie, and that’s a confrontation that never happens. It appears that the producers are saving that for the already announced Halloween Ends next year, which just serves to make Halloween Kills pointless filler. All the film managed to do was increase Michael Myers’ body count while decreasing interest in another sequel because of how mishandled this one was. We get a few good kills, what amounts to an extended cameo from Jamie Lee (a good chunk of the runtime is devoted to Doyle’s wild pack of townspeople and their “plan” to finish Michael off once and for all), and… that’s it. Don’t even get me started on the climactic showdown between Michael and the townspeople where it feels like karma has finally caught up to Mr. Myers, only him to rally back like babyface Hulk Hogan in his prime.
It’s no secret that I love movies of all types. Classic cinema, direct to video action, low budget horror, screwy 80’s comedies… as far as I’m concerned, everything is fair game, hence why this column is called No Surrender Cinema. What I don’t like is when a movie wastes my time, and that’s exactly what Halloween Kills did. It felt like a chore, and that’s not the feeling I want, especially coming from a franchise that I’ve been following since my younger days. Feel free to hit the theater or tune into Peacock and judge for yourself, but as far as I’m concerned the only thing that Halloween Kills killed was my interest in the next chapter of Michael Myers’ killing spree.
