Halloween Kills Review

To start out with, this movie has nothing to do with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise. I've seen quite a few non-horror fan reviews that make that comparison and it's a strange one to make. Halloween has never been inspired by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, although it did have inspiration from Black Christmas.

This movie saw the return of David Gordon Green who directed the 2018 Halloween. This movie was a direct link to the original movie, ignoring all the movies that came after the original Halloween.

So, Laurie Strode was never Michael Myer's sister. There was no niece that he eventually magically impregnated, and there were no major supernatural things going on with him. It was a good idea, if we're being honest. Considering that Michael once got into a fight with Busta Rhymes, it might be hard to take it from there.

This movie picks up quite literally where the last movie left off. With Laurie, Karen, and Allyson escaping the flames in which they left Michael Myers to burn in the basement. Only as they're sitting in the back of the flatbed truck, trying to keep Laurie's blood in her; a fleet of firefighters are heading out to the compound.

There's been some criticism about how firefighters are brutalized in this scene with Michael. There are a lot of brutal deaths in this movie. And first responders do tend to get murdered at a higher rate in horror movies. Because they respond first. And when you're responding in a horror movie, it tends to not go well for you. That is why Michael absolutely slaughters them and then heads back into town, taking out anyone that he stumbles into on the way.

A lot of the promotional material for this movie really emphasized the Strode women. Jamie Lee Curtis is a huge draw for the promotional part of this movie and it was a huge disappointment when she didn't do a whole lot in this movie. As a matter of fact, until the final act of the movie, none of the Strode women do a whole lot.

I think Laurie gets out of a hospital bed once the entire movie.

Sidelining the Strode women is for a purpose though, as the movie takes a look at the town of Haddonfield.

They actually brought back a bunch of people from the original movie. Charles Cyphers returns as Leigh Brackett, the father of Annie. He is eighty-two years old in this movie and honestly looks pretty good. Kyle Richards returns as Lindsay Wallace, the neighbor to the boy that Laurie was babysitting, and honestly, I had no idea that was the same person. Nancy Stephens returns as Marion Chambers, the assistant to Dr. Loomis.

The only person not returning was the original actor for Tommy Doyle. Brian Andrews was the original actor, I have no idea why he didn't return to play Tommy. I'm a little disappointed that they didn't get Paul Rudd who portrayed Tommy in the sixth movie. But they did get Anthony Michael Hall, who I didn't recognize at all.

The plot of this movie is basically trying to hunt down Michael Myers. The town genuinely wants to get rid of him once and for all, and they're banding together to take care of business.

This is a pretty cool idea. Now if only it was executed well.

Since we know this is a trilogy, we know that Michael isn't going to die. He has to make it to the final movie where he will hopefully be killed in a wonderful and bloody way. I get the feeling that the next movie will also take place in a linear fashion. So, probably right after the end of this movie.

The pacing is definitely a problem in the movie. We don't even get to the current plot until about twenty minutes in. There's too much recapping what happened in the last movie, explaining what happened to side characters, and introducing characters from the original movie that we may have forgotten about. This definitely suffers from dragging a little bit.

We're introduced to a lot of characters. A fan-favorite couple seems to be Little John and Big John. Which, as it's been pointed out by older queers than me, that it is a reference to their penis sizes. I thought it was like, a reference to Robin Hood, but I can definitely see how I was wrong about that. Weird that the only characters frequently referencing their genitalia are gay men. I do like that they fuck around with some kids that broke into their house to steal cany and I do feel a bit of giddiness that there are openly queer characters.

I would in fact watch a movie about a gay house-flipping couple that moves into the houses of major spree killers like Jason Voorhees, Norman Bates, etc. It's a nice idea in theory but not ever going to happen. Anyway, they really made the Myers household look great.

Although the first movie in this reboot makes it seem as though Michael is chasing after Laurie, this movie changes things. I don't think that's necessary for the better. Basically, Michael just really wants to stand in his sister's room and look out her window. Or, in the reflection of the window at himself. As though he enjoys looking at himself and understanding what kind of monster he is.

But it's not just Michael that needs to take a look at himself, but also the town of Haddonfield.

There is a man that escaped the asylum the same night that Michael escaped. And he's been running around among this chaos and has been suspected of being Michael early in the movie. But he shows up at the hospital where a lot of the town is panicking.

Even though he is a chubby and relatively short man. There is no way that he is Michael. Karen tries desperately to save him, but a mob that reminds one of January 6th, attacks him. To the point where the only way that he can escape them potentially lynching him is to jump out of the window. And his death is gory to the point where I wondered if Rob Zombie was called in for this.

I did like that, although it was a bit heavy-handed in the pro-police theme going on.

Now, a good ending can go a long way with me. If there's an amazing brutal ending, I can forgive a lot of the problems with a movie. But a common theme of this movie is that it's so close to getting it. To the point where it's almost frustrating. Because there is a good movie within this movie. There just needed to be some parts cut off.

The ending has Michael surrounded by a bunch of Haddonfield residents that are ready to absolutely destroy him. There's like fifty people there with varying weapons (including, to many people's amusement, a woman with a clothing iron). Karen, Laurie's daughter, was used as bait and trapped Michael there.

We do see Michael's face. He's an old white man, understandably.

Karen stabs him in the back with his own knife and then leaves to go see her daughter in front of the old Myer's home.

I wanted to see more Michael getting the snot beaten out of him. But it doesn't really last that long as he removes the knife from his back and starting to fight back. And he ends up annihilating the town that was there to get rid of him. It doesn't make a lot of sense considering Michael is a 70+ year-old man that has been repeatedly shot, hit by cars, put in the basement of a fire, and is apparently not supposed to be paranormal. At least, not from what we saw in the last movie.

The movie ends with Karen potentially being murdered in Judith Myer's old room as Michael looks outside.

I don't know what they're going to do with the final movie in this trilogy of sequels. I am running with the assumption that Karen is dead so likely Allyson and Laurie teaming up to take him out with the old cop that stopped Michael from being killed by Loomis after the events of the first movie.

I hope that it's a little better edited. I hope that we get to actually see Laurie kick ass. I am interested in seeing how they finally take Michael down considering fifty people, some with guns, couldn't take him out.