You ever feel like you've seen a completely different movie than everyone else? Halloween is one of those movies for me. I missed it in theaters and, although I heard great things about it, I was a bit hesitant. After all, the Halloween series isn't exactly stellar filmmaker. Besides the original film, most of the entries in the series are incredibly flawed or silly, so I didn't have much hope for this one. Little did I know that this would probably end up being one of the worst entries in an already fairly bizarre franchise.
The concept of wiping out all of the sequels is a brave and wonderful choice. After all, none of them were that great anyway, but one would think that, if a filmmaker was going to do this, they'd have something more in store than a bland, suspense-free greatest hits collection of the discarded sequels. Unfortunately, that's what this new Halloween feels like most of the time.
Director David Gordon Green possesses very little style nor a sense of how to build suspense or deliver a scare. In fact, the only scene in the film that even slightly builds suspense is destroyed by unnecessary humor that kills any of the tension.
Jamie Lee Curtis has returned, but gets nothing to do except play a fearless action hero, which make her Laurie Strode a strangely uninteresting character this go around. Curtis and the franchise have been here before in Halloween: H20 and, quite frankly, as flawed as that film was, Curtis and the Laurie Strode character were given much more interesting material to play with than they are here.
To make matters worse, Curtis' Laurie is pushed into the background a bit too much and we're stuck with a group of all new characters who are either poorly drawn, boring, unlikable, or a mix of all three. Having such a pathetic group of characters for Michael Myers to go after also deprives the film of a lot of suspense as well. How can we root for characters we don't like, don't know, or who don't even register as humans.
If there's any saving grace for this film, it's that Michael Myers finally looks and moves like Michael Myers SHOULD look and move. The sequels kept changing the mask, the build of Michael's body, and the way he moved and it's nice to finally see a Michael who seems like the same Michael from the original film. John Carpenter's score also steals the show with a nice mix of familiar themes and editing new material.
Unfortunately, Halloween is a bummer of a movie. With all that potential, one would have hoped the filmmakers would have come up with something more interesting.
The concept of wiping out all of the sequels is a brave and wonderful choice. After all, none of them were that great anyway, but one would think that, if a filmmaker was going to do this, they'd have something more in store than a bland, suspense-free greatest hits collection of the discarded sequels. Unfortunately, that's what this new Halloween feels like most of the time.
Director David Gordon Green possesses very little style nor a sense of how to build suspense or deliver a scare. In fact, the only scene in the film that even slightly builds suspense is destroyed by unnecessary humor that kills any of the tension.
Jamie Lee Curtis has returned, but gets nothing to do except play a fearless action hero, which make her Laurie Strode a strangely uninteresting character this go around. Curtis and the franchise have been here before in Halloween: H20 and, quite frankly, as flawed as that film was, Curtis and the Laurie Strode character were given much more interesting material to play with than they are here.
To make matters worse, Curtis' Laurie is pushed into the background a bit too much and we're stuck with a group of all new characters who are either poorly drawn, boring, unlikable, or a mix of all three. Having such a pathetic group of characters for Michael Myers to go after also deprives the film of a lot of suspense as well. How can we root for characters we don't like, don't know, or who don't even register as humans.
If there's any saving grace for this film, it's that Michael Myers finally looks and moves like Michael Myers SHOULD look and move. The sequels kept changing the mask, the build of Michael's body, and the way he moved and it's nice to finally see a Michael who seems like the same Michael from the original film. John Carpenter's score also steals the show with a nice mix of familiar themes and editing new material.
Unfortunately, Halloween is a bummer of a movie. With all that potential, one would have hoped the filmmakers would have come up with something more interesting.