Review: “Halloween Kills” Needs More Time
★★★
Time is something that is on my mind a lot these days. I can’t seem to help thinking about it as I near closer and closer to my forties; the time I’ve lost, the time I can’t seem to find, what has changed, what hasn’t changed, the “where’d it go” of it all. Even now I struggle to find time to write this review. Like a masked maniac wielding a big bloody kitchen knife, time can be merciless and unforgiving. But when it comes to movies, horror movies especially, time can be beneficial.
Directed by David Gordon Green, “Halloween Kills” picks up directly where 2018’s “Halloween” left off and is being billed as (and hopefully will still be, given the negative fan response and all) the middle film in a trilogy, meaning there is really no definitive ending per se, something that may disappoint audiences as they are left hanging until the next film comes out. But I digress. This time, final girl Laurie Strode takes a back seat (much like 1981’s “Halloween II”, she spends much of her time confined to a hospital bed, a Jamie Lee Curtis “Halloween” tradition I suppose) as the story becomes something of an ensemble piece focusing on the many Haddonfield residents we’ve come to know over the years, with key players from both Carpenter’s original and Green’s previous film taking center stage. Well, for as long as they last at least; aptly named, “Halloween Kills” has quite the body count and comes loaded with one exceptionally gnarly kill after another, which is quite something alright for someone who remembers when the MPAA wouldn’t let Jason Voorhees slam a (covered) body against a tree more than once. Much of the plot consists of returning character Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall filling in for Brian Andrews) influencing the citizens of Michael’s old slaying grounds to pick up their baseball bats and literal pitchforks to seek out and kill the menace that’s haunted their quaint Illinois town since the fateful night Michael Myers killed his sister in 1963; but it also doesn’t take a master’s degree to figure out Tommy is conveniently lining these people for a quick and easy slaughterhouse.
Although there are a few instances of cringeworthy dialogue (including a cheesy reprisal of a famous line from the original), for the most part “Halloween Kills” is a competently made movie in terms of plot, cinematography, direction and, though this sometimes comes burdened by an asterisk regarding bad dialogue, performances too. The film is indeed well-shot and deliciously moody, particularly in its flashback sequences which are most certainly the highlight of the film; is easily just as scary as it is brutally inventive (there is a particularly unsettling moment where Michael keeps killing a guy well after he’s dead); and the musical score by John Carpenter and his collaborators, Cody Carpenter and Daniel A. Davies, is another banger in my books (as is the Ghost song that runs during the end credits).
The film also offers some minor but intriguing revelations regarding Michael Myer’s behavioral patterns and routines with some insightful but rather fanatical speculation from numerous characters that often reflects more on them and their obsession with Michael than it does the actual killer. (In my opinion, the most accurate insight is the most simple and comes not from Laurie but Robert Longstreet’s Lonnie Elam: “He creeps, he kills, he goes home.”) And with that comes the kicker, the film goes to great lengths to dissect not just the Haddonfield slasher but also the would-be “heroes” trying to stop him, even going as far as to depict them as dangerous and scary as the unstoppable monster they wish to kill as they influence the angry townspeople to form a violent mob and reap calamity on a hospital, only then to blame their actions on the monster. So in that regard, I see “Halloween Kills” as an exploration of two very different kinds of evil: one is the mythic and near phantasmic “boogeyman” that presents itself in the shape of a human, and the other hits much closer to home, the very real and tangible sort of evil that can only manifest from a human. Naturally as a result, your mileage on the film may vary based on two different but very key reasons: how you react to your favorite characters being depicted as far less than heroic and, perhaps more importantly, how one particular sequence makes you feel in light of recent events. I do feel it is worth mentioning that the film seems to do more to condemn the violent mob rather than glorify it (and certainly more so than “Halloween 4” , which offers a more passive and shruggy “whatever, let’s move on” response to a militia of trigger-happy bar patrons gunning down an innocent man they mistook for Michael Myers), but still I could hardly blame you if that sequence makes your stomach quease. However, I found that nausea did more to help me engage with the story than to turn me off.
Other highlights from the film include: an expansion of one returning character and his relationship to Laurie; some strong moments with Judy Greer as Karen, who really gets to shine in the second half; newcomers Robert Longstreet as Lonnie Elam, and Scott MacArthur and MadTV’s Michael McDonald as Big John and Little John, a couple who live in the old Myers house and steal every scene they’re in; and of course, Michael Myers, who still frightens me after all these years and somehow more so now than ever. I’m not quite sure what it is but this is the first incarnation of the character to give me nightmares as an adult. Perhaps it is because, for some inexplicable reason, he seems to give even less of a fuck now than he did back then; he is fiercer, meaner and more brutal. As if for all those years he was locked up he spent stockpiling his wrath for the day he eventually gets out; the longer the time he waited, the more rage that grew inside him.
Where “Halloween Kills” does fall short is its pacing. It seems to suffer a little from a case of over-editing where by fear of boring audiences and overstaying its welcome the editor instead hurries the audience through the film and out the theater as quickly as possible. If that was indeed the goal, then succeeded the filmmakers did; the film ends much faster than it started. This has jarring results in some parts of the film as a few dialogue-heavy scenes that really should be slower and more personal have been stripped of introductory and reactionary shots, the little beats between dialogue, and even small instances of vital context and connective tissue, all the little things that make a scene more than just a scene bypassed for no better reason than to get audiences through them faster. (The film could also due for a few scene rearrangements but that is a demon of a smaller sort.)
I find myself puzzled as to why the film was paced at such a breakneck speed. “Halloween Kills” only runs at a modest 105 minutes (including end credits); it’s not like another five, or even ten would have killed it. By comparison, Carpenter’s film is only about 90 minutes but feels longer than the new film in a more satisfying way, and why is that? Well, it all comes down to what I like to call “air”, the quiet pauses that allow you to take a breath and time to process the story and whatever wild mouse left turns it takes while also giving room to build up a sense of both atmosphere and tension, elements that are no doubt useful for creating an effectively scary horror experience. To give you an idea, 1978’s “Halloween” is overflowing with “air” while 2021’s “Halloween Kills” has very little of it. Granted, Carpenter’s film is a much simpler bone-chiller with less characters, less kills and less jumping around locations and therefore is allowed more room to let the scenes breathe and the suspense build. By comparison, “Halloween Kills” is a far more complex film with a lot of characters, a lot of kills and a lot of jumping around, which only increases its needs further for more breathing room in order to balance out the pace and let the audience fully immerse themselves in the story rather than racing them through it like some wild and unstoppable speeding train that desperately needs to slow down or risk derailment. Sometimes it really is better when the train goes a little slower. Sometimes, movies do need to be longer.
Pacing woes aside, I still find myself enjoying “Halloween Kills” as a whole. Some of the reactions regarding the film would have you believe it is a “zero out of four star” travesty, maybe even the worst in the series, and you know what, who am I to say they’re wrong? Still, respectfully, that is not my reading of the film whatsoever. No, in my eyes, “Halloween Kills” is “just fine.” Maybe even a little more than “just fine?” Further viewings will decide. Yes, the “Halloween” franchise has offered better, but it has also offered far worse.
I will probably grow to like it even more in the coming years I suspect and so too will many others. How do I know this? Once again, because of time. I have been a “Halloween” fan since my cousin first showed me the original film (as well as the sixth film, “Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers”, in the same week) back in the summer of ’97. I was 11 at the time and throughout the rest of my youth and teen years, I spent a lot of time on fan sites and message boards, and by way of, oh, the “what hasn’t changed” of it all, have witnessed similar polarizing responses and heated arguments regarding many other films in the series, namely “Halloween III: Season of the Witch”, “Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later”, the Rob Zombie films and yes, the aforementioned sixth film. This, as it seems, is the true curse of Michael Myers.
But time can also be forgiving, and with curses also comes blessings and more than once have I seen the distinguished boogeyman, Mr. Michael Myers, be the receiver of many blessings in the form of reassessment and revaluations. “The Shape”-less “Season of the Witch” is now regarded as a fan-favorite and highly requested every time Joe Bob Briggs delivers one of his “Last Drive-In” specials; some crowds are vocal in comparing “Halloween H20” favorably to the thematically-similar “Halloween (2018)”; and more and more people are championing Zombie’s films these days, including myself who wasn’t a fan initially. Time only seems to do no less than bless once-bemoaned horror films and so too, I predict, will it bless “Halloween Kills”. I don’t think even time can kill the boogeyman.
