A review by Forrest Humphrey
Picking up right where “Halloween (2018)” left off, “Halloween Kills” once again drops us in Haddonfield on Halloween night. After thinking she and her family had finally stopped Michael Myers for good, Laurie Strode (Jaime Lee Curtis) and her family are rushed to the hospital. But evil never dies, and when the fire department responds to Lauri's house being on fire, they unwittingly save Myers from what should have been a fiery grave. After brutally dispatching the fire team, Myers goes right back to what he does best; killing everyone in brutal fashion. But this time, the citizens of Haddonfield have had enough, and they mobilize to search the town and finally put Michael Myers down for good.
That's the basic premise, and its a solid one. Everyone from the previous film returns, but in a neat twist, several other characters from the original film return as well. These include Tommy Doyle and Lindsay Wallace, the kids Laurie babysat in the original film, now grown up and ready to fight. And they got the actors back too, forty years later. Its a great “getting the band back together” moment, especially since John Carpenter himself also returned to do the music. And well, nobody scores a movie like John Carpenter. The music is phenomenal as always.
The film moves along very quickly, the pacing is frenetic and panicked, but it does know when to slow down and build a scene. The kills flow as one would expect as well, this film doing what many “middle trilogy” films do. Its bleaker and a lot more brutal. This is Michael Myers at what may be his most monstrous, and the effects on the kills are great, though I do slightly prefer the blend of gory onscreen kills and offscreen kills in the prior movie. Still, if you want to see Michael Myers get a nice big body count, this is your movie.
The performances are good all around for the most part, sometimes it can be a little overplayed and silly. I find myself feeling about “Kills” the same way I did about the previous movie. I like it a lot, but there is, on occasion, something really stupid to keep it from really being amazing. It also does slightly suffer from the fact we all know “Halloween Ends” will cap off this new trilogy so you may or may not guess certain things happening. But just like last time, the occasional dud moment doesn't detract from the overall piece too much, and its another solid entry in the “Halloween” revival.
Rating: 3.5/5
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