Review: 'Halloween Kills' (2021)

Hello, one and all.

Three years ago, I reviewed David Gordon Green's sequel-cum-reboot that shirked everything from 1981 and on. I felt it was a promising, but all-too-familiar-and-beyond-old-hat meta-sequel that capitalized on Jamie Lee Curtis' screen presence and her iconic "scream queen" status. Halloween Kills was held over due to the COVID-19 pandemic's grip on the theater industry. With vaccinations doled out now, will it be worth seeing the latest Shape bloodfest on the eve of All Saints on the big screen (scream)?

My verdict? Inoculate yourself from this one, please and thank you.

The events pick up from the last scene when Laurie Strode (Curtis) and her unbelieving brood, now convinced that The Boogeyman aka Michael Myers (not a blood relative after all) is very real and seemingly destroyed; survives his demise yet again, and now is set to stalk them at the now heavily staffed Haddonfield Memorial Hospital (painfully understaffed in the Rick Rosenthal directed sequel, Halloween II from 1981).

Here, we get a few of the film's scant pleasures. A reunion of sorts from some of the players from Halloween 1978. Nancy Stephens returns as Nurse Marion Chambers; the late Donald Pleasance aka Dr. Sam Loomis' aide-de-camp. Kyle Richards as Lindsey Wallace, Curtis' babysitting charge; very much full-grown now and Charles Cyphers as the one-time Sheriff Leigh Brackett, now the hospital's unretired security guard. He's still very much alive and kicking at age 82 and still with the world weary face that we grew to love.

In Haddonfield, IL, Michael Myers is now brought very much into the 21st Century. His dispatches are potentially a sea of pure equal opportunity victimhood. An interracial couple, an affluent black couple and (hold the fort!) a gay couple, now occupying the infamous creep house where he committed the heinous murder of his older sister! Yes, this veers into Scream territory where we get a shit ton of social commentary about vigilantism and the monster that can be created by fear. Deep, folks - soooo deep!

A noticeable change is that Brian Andrews doesn't return as Tommy Doyle, the plucky kid who was Laurie Strode's charge who was at first afraid of The Boogeyman and now wants to go all Death Wish on him. He's now replaced by seasoned comedian actor, Anthony Michael Hall, of all those early 80s John Hughes comedies. He's now grizzled, handsome, worldly and tortured. A far cry from the the geeky kid we grew to love and now, a much wiser, more careworn jock type. Also, a small asset.

My two cents? I was reminded of the early scene from the late Wes Craven's sequel, Scream 2, from 1997. A young black couple bemoan the fact that African-Americans are the first victims to be dispatched in horror/slasher scenarios, only to make good on their self-fulfilled prophecy. Here, it stands to say that the ideas and concepts are beyond uncomfortable and quease-inducing, especially when it comes to pointing out the human spectrum in a massacre murder spree.

Also, I wasn't too convinced of its new backstory; explaining police chief Will Patton's involvement in Michael Myers' escape and even how young bully, Lonnie Elam (played as an adult by Robert Longstreet) came to have a change of heart when he crossed paths with The Shape. Aww, hell! (Slight spoiler alert) The CGI'd Sam Loomis (or maybe a really good doppelganger) was far more convincing in his early scenes setting up the new story dating from 1978.

In closing, Halloween Kills has a few decent moments, but it's not enough for me to give high kudos. Curtis does what she can with her bare amount of screen time. Judy Greer as her daughter, adds some depth to an otherwise thankless role and yes, Virginia, what was shocking in 1978 (impalements, knife thrusts and even visceral decapitations), doesn't hold water or much gravitas in 2021.

But to be a sport about it, yes, it has spawned a new concept: The Slasher-Sequel-Cum-Reboot, ne Scream in 2022.