I wasn’t the biggest fan of Halloween Kills when I first saw it last year but the more time removed from it the more it was growing me and I really like what Michael Myers is being turned into here; something evil that turns the people of Haddonfield against itself – when he’s not there, they need something that represents Myers and in this case, the public fallout extends to a young babysitter Corey, in the wrong place at the wrong time, who ends up accidentally killing his ward, a young child after a misunderstanding during hide and seek. It’s a chilling prologue that sets the tone for the whole film – Corey is not the same since, and dragging him into the world of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode is set to change him, forever.
It’s a fascinating film that borrows liberally from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me – there are moments where Corey and Andi Matichak’s Allyson are driving along the road in a beaten-up motorbike that recalls Lost Highway too, David Gordon Green is a director well aware of the genre – Laurie’s writing room echoes Scream and a shower scene that we all feel is coming calls to mind Psycho before the film finds a way to subvert our expectations; instead allowing Corey to have the relationship with his mother be a focal point for a Hitchcockian influence. Yet enough new life is given to this film that prevents it from feeling like a re-tread and it succeeds in doing so by looking at the legacy of Michael on the townspeople who are left behind – and how they all adopted Laurie’s bogeyman as their own. The idea of a collective traumatic response being used to process what happened to the town every Halloween is a fascinating way to take the concluding chapter of this trilogy – and it works, admirably!
A real romantic movie too, who’d have though it? There are a lot of crazy, wild swings that you only really need to get when you’ve been a part of a franchise since the 80s and Halloween really finds a way to give us its wackiest entry since Season of the Witch; which given it’s a favourite of mine that’s only a good thing – the tonal shifts feel closer to a Friday the 13th sequel and limiting the Laurie/Michael showdown really works here to one climatic finale – anything more would’ve lead to diminishing returns and I do think this has an effective ending for the both of them. At least – until they make one more. Arguably the Near Dark that everyone thought Bones and All was; a lot rawer, less polished and more chaotic but the better film for it.