New Halloween offers few treats

of the classic’s iconic scenes. Cool tracking and tightly-framed shots greet Michael’s return to Haddonfield as he creepily makes his way around the neighbourhood among oblivious trick-or-treaters.

While not consistently terrifying, Gordon Green will have you gripping on to your chair — or the person next to you — during a tense, vehicle headlight-illuminated bus escape and the showdown in Laurie’s ‘panic house’.

Curtis makes a welcome series return and it’s interesting to see her transformation into a combination of traumatised survivor and Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2-esque action heroine.

Sadly Michael himself loses a lot of what made him such a terrifying, enigmatic presence in the 1978 flick. His spine-snapping, toothremoving, face-battering brute is more in keeping with Rob Zombie’s take on the killer.

Most of the best scares were given away in the film’s trailers and while the additions to the Strode family add new layers, other fresh characters are pure cannon fodder, while Haluk Bilginer’s Dr Sartain is a pale imitation of Donald Pleasance’s memorable Dr Loomis.

Given his comedic background, it’s little surprise Green and cowriters Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley inject humour and though some jokes work, others fall flat.

A late twist is surprising but dumb and the ending straddles the line between decisive and sequelbaiting.

But for this Halloween fan, given this wellmeaning-but-flawed effort, I think it’s time to let Michael Myers rest.