Knives are out for Jamie Lee again
Laurie Strode has always been a straight-talking woman, and she remains that way as the new Halloween film feels the understandable need to notch it up another bloody gear or two. The body count is already mounting but we all know there’s still a long way to go.
‘He’s waited a long time for tonight,’ she tells her grown-up but ungrateful daughter Karen as they bolt doors, padlock heavy chains and raid the substantial family armoury. ‘He’s waited for me… and I’ve waited for him.’
Him? Ah, that’ll be Michael Myers, of course, the mask-wearing, knife-wielding psychopath who came after Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) in the 1978 original, didn’t quite get her but killed all her
This anniversary ‘celebration’ asks us to believe that those sequels never happened
friends instead, and pretty much made the John Carpenter film – with its simple but sinister piano score – one of the cornerstones of the slasher-killer genre.
And now he’s back, although I’m sure some of you will be scratching your heads, pointing to the seven sequels, not to mention the 2007 two-film franchise reboot, and protesting that he never really went away. But this 40th anniversary ‘celebration’ asks us to believe that none of those sequels ever happened and all that stuff about Michael being Laurie’s brother was a load of old nonsense.
As the new film begins, it’s swiftly and plausibly established that Michael has spent the past 40 years back in a psychiatric hospital, where he’s looked after by Dr Sartain (Haluk Bilginer), a man who’s dedicated his life to understanding what drives a man like Michael to kill.
As for Laurie, she’s dedicated her life to preparing – polishing her shooting skills, sharpening her knives and kitting out her panic room – for the day when he escapes. From the moment two ghastly British journalists discover he’s about to be transferred to a more secure unit, we know that day has arrived.
‘Michael Myers in Haddonfield on Halloween night?’ exclaims the local police chief: ‘We’re going to have a f ****** circus.’
Now that sounds like a line from a film that has its tongue firmly in its cheek but that’s not really true. Directed by David Gordon Green (whose highly respectable credits include Stronger with Jake Gyllenhaal, and Manglehorn with Al Pacino) and with horror specialist Jason Blum among its producers, the film does have its funny moments, but it’s also nicely constructed, respectful of the original and effectively scary too.
Yes, there are moments when the scares turn into out-and-out nastiness but these days that goes with the sanguineous territory. Nevertheless, Carpenter – now 70 and both executive producer and cocomposer here – has much to be proud of, with the exception of a rather silly late plot twist.
Curtis is splendidly convincing as a woman whose life has been defined by the events of a single night 40 years ago, and she gets good support from Judy Greer as her daughter and from Andi Matichak as her granddaughter, who represents the vulnerable babysitting generation of today. I loved a terrifying scene involving garden motion sensors and flashing security lights, let out a silent cheer as Carpenter’s score gets its big reprise, and appreciated the care with which Green quietlyreverses some of the iconic moments from the original’s climax. As for the masked and murderous Michael – one of the great screen monsters of our time – he’s where the bogey man always is at this time of year. Behind you!