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Every October, scary movie fans haul out the classics to rewatch in the days leading up to Halloween. This year, in addition to revisiting the old favorites, fans can also head to theaters to revisit the characters from a classic slasher flick from the ‘70s in David Gordon Green’s Halloween.
Halloween picks up the story 40 years after the Halloween night massacre that left just one survivor. Since then, Michael Myers (played by Nick Castle and James Jude Courtney) has lived in complete silence in an institution, and Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) has lived in fear and paranoia, preparing for the day when Michael would return. When the bus that’s transferring Michael to a new institution crashes outside his hometown on the night before Halloween, Michael sets out on a new killing spree while Laurie prepares for one final confrontation.
The latest installment in the Halloween franchise makes a solid attempt to return to its roots. It ignores the sequels and remakes of the last 40 years, choosing instead to imagine a storyline where Michael has been in custody since that one horrible Halloween night. It sticks to an old school feel, too, maintaining the same style and tone that made the original a classic.
Of course, that also means that there’s nothing new here. As you’d expect, as a 60-something Michael begins another killing spree, you’ll meet the kind of strong, virtuous characters who are bound to make it out alive. There are also a few idiotic characters who are destined to die a ludicrously slow and gruesome death. And each scene, each death is entirely predictable.
Really, though, a movie like this one is more about the experience than it is about the story itself. It isn’t about clever plot twists or smart dialogue; it’s about the ridiculous predictability of it all. It’s about sitting in a dark theater with a bunch of people who are all on the edge of their seats—a bunch of people who always know what’s coming next and will laugh together and yell at the screen together as the characters make the worst possible decisions in every situation. It definitely isn’t a smart, surprising thriller—but, thanks to its showdown between the original characters, it’s still an entertaining one.
If you still watch the original Halloween every October, you’ll enjoy this tense and bloody and entirely unlikely new installment. And you may even end up adding it to your annual scary movie rotation.
Listen to the review on Reel Discovery:
