A proper slasher, but going nowhere
Halloween Kills 18 Cert, 105 min ★★★★★
Dir David Gordon Green
Starring Anthony Michael Hall, Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, Dylan Arnold, Robert Longstreet, Jamie Lee Curtis
By
It’s been 43 years since the serial killer Michael Myers first pulled on his ashen, rubbery mask, reached for the knife block and went after Jamie Lee Curtis’s teenage babysitter Laurie Strode. And it is three years since David Gordon Green added to the bloody franchise with a slatewiping sequel that threw out every prior entry except for John Carpenter’s still-peerless original. Now Green has made a further instalment which picks up where the 2018 film left off.
Curtis is in hospital recovering from a stab wound to the gut, and Myers is still on the loose, despite having seemingly been packed off to hell by three generations of Strodes – Laurie, her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) – in the last film’s fiery climax. Appalled by the failure of the police to put a stop to Myers’s spree, a group of citizens scour the suburbs for this overalled angel of death.
The leader of the posse is Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall), one of the traumatised youngsters under Laurie’s care back in 1978. But Tommy’s appetite for swift mob justice is his only substantial character trait – and the film doesn’t have much to say on that beyond observing that mass hysteria is bad.
What Halloween Kills lacks in ideas it partially makes up for in gruesomely authentic slasher texture. From cinematography to prosthetic gore, Green has recreated the feel of the Carpenter original. For some fans, this will be more than enough. But the game board is left as it was found in readiness for round 13; the only thing that advances is the body count.
In cinemas from today