Halloween Kills

To be fair, Halloween Kills does exactly what it's title suggests, I guess? 

Despite impressing critics quite a bit with the "original" of this new Halloween trilogy - I was a little more tempered with my response to 2018's Halloween. The violence was brutal and entertaining in the way that slasher movies are, but the genre's tropes were in full force and there seemed to be a heavy reliance on nostalgia.

As I suspected, it didn't stick with me long after the fact and I'd all but forgotten there was another one coming until a few months ago when trailers came out. 

I like a good, classic horror film around actual Halloween time (#spookyszn), so it was worth it for me to check it out and get my "haunted house" trip out of the way, but unfortunately, Halloween Kills - much in the same footsteps as its predecessor(s) - delivers more of the same, and actually gets dumber as it does it. 

I'll start by reiterating that the film - in its defense - does what the title suggests. Michael Myers racks up quite the body count in Kills, almost comically so, but it's these scenes where the film is at its best in a lot of ways. For starters, the kills are brutal and despite all the other laughable stuff happening with characters in the "normal" scenes, the deaths are anything but laughable and Myers is vicious. Strangely, these moments not only featured some of the better characters in the film (Big John and Little John are a blast), but they're filmed well too. The editing is slowed down, the camera doesn't shy away from the kills, and the tension rises considerably. Some (read: most) are predictable, but the film still keeps these segments "fun" and exactly what the audience came for. 

"Look at all this ketchup!!"

Everything else in between these moments however? Man oh man is it a mess. The film boils down to about what you'd expect from the trailer, with a heavy helping of re-visiting past stories (through newly-filmed footage). Basically Michael Myers might as well be an alien/demon/superhuman/mutant at this point and surprise! He's not dead. And he's killing a bunch of people. Weaved within that are useless subplots about the chaos that Myers is spreading throughout the town. It's a heavy-handed and painfully obvious (and not well done) metaphor for our current political climate and a "hospital stampede" scene in particular almost sucks the movie completely dry with it's absurdity. Largely this is due to some awful editing, pacing, and organization of the film overall - seemingly jumping around whenever it wants and hyper editing to create the "chaos" in moments when Myers isn't on screen. It's exacerbated by Anthony Michael Hall's performance as Tommy Doyle that's so over the top, cheesy, and borderline cringe that it's shocking to be coming from the actor. Granted, I didn't expect any Oscars to come from Halloween Kills but my god the scene-chewing (and not in an entertaining way) he does is just uncomfortable. Either that or he just wasn't the right actor for the job but the film's lowest, most awful point is the "Evil Dies Tonight!" crowd mob that takes what could have been a breezy, effective 90 minute thriller and messes with the whole thing. 

And while that collection of scenes is somewhat the epitome of the stuff that doesn't go well with the film, there's a lot of other scenes that feel like filler, almost forcing this 2nd-of-3 films in a trilogy to feel like there should have just been a single sequel. Jamie Lee Curtis, arguably one of the better parts of the previous film (and this one) is sidelined for most of it but you can't help the film was designed for the final few frames - of which aren't all that consequential (IMO). The result then is a movie with a lot of clever, brutal design with its main, iconic villain, but with a lot of dumb stuff otherwise. 

Michael Myers took his turn at "We Didn't Start the Fire"
karaoke a little to seriously...

Normally "dumb" is just an adjective used to describe character decisions in slasher films, but here it has a much broader meaning past that trope. Fans of the franchise will surely like the film and those looking for...well...killing, will get plenty of it. But beneath that surface, this is poorly made from scene to scene, and shockingly messy for such a simple story. Here's hoping they can round out the 3rd film with more of the necessary meat they were clearly saving until the final course.

CONS

• Dumber than normal, with way too much time spent on a couple messy subplots that go nowhere (and are way-too-obvious metaphors)
• And it's too long because of them
• Poor filmmaking (especially editing) during non-kill-sequence moments
• Film doesn't need to exist save for the final few frames on how it sets up the final one
• Ooooof @ Anthony Michael Hall's performance and character. Cringe
• Holy hell is "Evil Dies Tonight" corny AF

PROS

• You get exactly what you're promised -- there's a lot of killing!
• Most sequences with Michael Myers killing victims are filmed well, create tension, and are brutal
• Broad strokes of the story is very straightforward - I imagine the callbacks to the original will appeal to most fans
• The original score is still iconic
• Jamie Lee Curtis, while underused, is still the focus point of the franchise along with the iconic Michael Myers

Rath's Review Score | 5.5/10