30 in 30: A MONTH OF HORROR. HALLOWEEN (2018)
DAY 30
HALLOWEEN (2018)
What a better way to close this retrospect on horror than with the sequel/reboot of HALLOWEEN, also called HALLOWEEN, on HALLOWEEN. Perfect, I know.
For those of you who don’t know, HALLOWEEN (2018) is a direct sequel to the 1978 film. But wait, isn’t there another sequel? You are right, there is. But the filmmakers decided that for the 11th entry on the franchise they were going to do away with everything except the original. Clean slate.
This film follows the events of the night of Halloween 40 years after the original “babysitter murders.” Laurie Strode is now a grandma whose life has been destroyed in the aftermath of the murders. She’s paranoid and reclusive, while she readies herself for the day Micheal comes back. And now, four decades after their first encounter… Myers escapes his psychiatric institution.
Director David Gordon Green expands on some of the filmmaking ideas explored in the original, most notably the use of background and foreground. Just getting glimpses of something dangerous moving in the background or foreground is one of the essential tools in the horror director toolbox.
Where Carpenter used his film’s background to intimidate the audience with the presence of Micheal Myers standing or merely walking, Green concocts situations where some character is doing something in the foreground, while Myers is actively murdering someone else in the background. This tension created between what we see and what the characters don’t know is called “dramatic tension,” which the filmmaker uses flawlessly in the sequence where Myers comes back to town. It’s completely chilling.
Whereas the previous HALLOWEEN films explored perceived security and danger, this one explores the consequences of trauma. The crimes are deep in the past, but some wounds are still to heal. Myers, who in the original film was the originator of Laurie’s pain, in this film is the conduit through which the family heals.
It’s by clashing against the monster that the traumatised Laurie Strode can be fully developed. She rejects the title of the victim by going on the hunt. She’s been waiting for Micheal her whole life. She wants to even the score.
There’s a strange paradox in this film because it’s darker than the original in execution but brighter in the message. Myers Mask is dirtier and weathered, the fantastic soundtrack feels heavier and tougher, and even Micheal himself looks more menacing than ever. On the other hand, the underlying message of the film is brighter; it’s about coming together through trauma, not about falling apart because of it.
HALLOWEEN (1978) was about how you’re never really out of harm’s way, not even in the most secluded and perfect neighbourhood. HALLOWEEN (2018) is about how the world is a dangerous place, but you don’t have to be defenceless against it.
This film proves to me that slasher horror isn’t dead, just sleeping. I bet we’re going to get a whole lot slasher flicks in the coming years. It’s going to be great.
Thank you for joining us on this super creepy, at times genuinely horrifying, but always fun ride.
Happy Halloween!
