Halloween, American movie (2018)

We have a new kind of trend that has been going around in Hollywood for the past few years. It seems that a lof of older actors are going back to the past to revisit some of the roles that made them famous. We have Arnold Schwarzenegger once again creeping into the role of the “ It absolutely will not stop….ever…until you are dead” Terminator. Sly Stallone is playing Rocky Balboa in Creed 2, and after that he will play his other iconic character John “ my war is over” Rambo. And of course we had Harrison Ford reprising his role as Han Solo in Star Wars Episode 7 as well as Rick Deckard in Bladerunner 2049. I have seen online arguments where people were asking the question if this is a good thing. If these actors are just not simply past their prime and should stop acting. I for one am not one of them. I loved Creed for instance and Stallone did an amazing job in reprising his role which even gave him an Oscar nomination. Blade Runner 2049 ended up becoming my favorite movie of last year. So no, as long as they keep making movies that are as good as these, they can keep making them in my opinion.

The mask apparently hasn’t aged well either…..

Jamie Lee Curtis was 19 years old when she played the role of Laurie Strode in the classic John Carpenter movie Halloween. It immediately made her famous, and the movie itself was of course a huge succes. Now exactly 40 years later, Jamie again plays the role of Laurie and as such she is also going down the road of the aforementioned trend. Now Halloween has been a franchise that has had it’s ups and downs. A lot of the sequels that were made weren’t very good (although there were a few that I did like like Halloween H20 for instance), and this new version just pretty much resets the timeline. Meaning it dismisses all the events from the previous installments, and just acts as the true sequel to the original movie. After the events from Halloween it appears that Michael Myers has been living out his life in a rehabilitation hospital for the last forty years. Laurie herself has not been doing well. She has had two failed marriages, a daughter that she hardly speaks to, and she has become kind of a recluse preparing for the potential day that Michael returns. Her daughter Karen ridicules her for that, and tries to keep her own family away from her mother as much as she can.

Fight night!

However when Michael is about to be transferred to a new facility the proverbial crap hits the fan. The bus he was being transferred on crashes, and the serial killer escapes heading for Haddonfield. The unsuspecting town has no idea what’s coming. Because on Halloween night, Michael comes home. But this time, Michael himself might also not really know what’s coming for him…..I was quite excited for this movie, especially since the film so far has been gathering mostly positive reviews. But at the same time, there is always this small warning voice in my head that tells me to not get too excited. And guess what, the voice was right. While I would not call this one a bad movie, that would really be taking it too far, I also don’t quite understand why there are so many positive reviews for this film. In keeping with the positive things first, I like the fact that there are quite a few nods to the original. Some of them are very subtle, and easy to miss if you have are not very familiar with the original. But for fans, it’s definitely fun to see those.

This gives a whole new meaning to the term walk in closet.

Another positive is Jamie Lee Curtis herself. She pulled a, what I would like to call Ellen Ripley in this movie. Meaning that she was just being a very tough bad ass chick, just like Sigourney Weaver was in Aliens. First being dismissed as a bit of a loon by most people (and something that I honestly don’t really blame them for) when the threat of Michael becomes real, she is the one that people turn to. Despite the fact that Laurie appears not to have all her marbles in working order, she definitely knows what she is doing. Jamie really seems like she has been having a lot of fun playing this part, and it’s definitely the one thing that keeps this movie just on the side of a positive score. What this movie really lacks though is the nailbiting tension. Except for maybe one scene, this film just never really got thrilling. And with a horrormovie that is always a bad thing in my opinion. We see Michael killing people but it never gets tense. Because we can see the kill coming from a mile away, and most of the people getting killed are just very stupid.

Hard to tell when you look at this picture who is the crazy one.

Which is another thing that is not done well in this film: the people. Except for Laurie herself, most of the characters in this film just lack any real substance. Even Laurie’s daughter and grand daughter hardly have any background to them, and just aren’t really persons that you can form any attachment too. You just don’t care about them, like at all.  Which is also important in a movie like this. You want to be able to feel something for them, anything, when Michael is doing his hunting. It just never happened. Halloween felt like an empty movie to me. While not everything in it was bad, without Jamie Lee Curtis this film definitely would have gotten a negative grade from me. I have to say that I honestly liked Halloween H20 a whole lot more. Made 20 years after the original, it also featured Jamie Lee, but that one really had some good tense scenes, and very fun characters as well. As always though, don’t take my word for this. For the most part Halloween has so far been received very positively, and you know that means we will undoubtedly get yet another sequel. Probably won’t even have to wait another 40 years for it either.

I give Halloween a 6 out of 10 score.