Halloween Kills: Can This Please Be The Last One?
Halloween Kills (2021)
Directed by David Gordon Green
Starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer and Andi Matichak
It takes courage to restart a franchise. So many things can go wrong. When David Gordon Green restarted Halloween in 2018 (nice rhyme), many things did.
Now in a huge retcon, the only Halloween films that “count” are the groundbreaking original from 1978 and a trilogy that should put this franchise to rest. In fact, they should’ve stopped after the original.
But Hollywood needs money, and Halloween (2018) showed promise. We got our protagonist back, the first and best “final girl,” Laurie Strode. We also got a slick new style of directing. Unfortunately, we also got an excessive amount of extreme on-screen violence, something the 1978 original didn’t need. Gone also was any backstory that shed light on why Mr. Meyers is the way he is. Audiences would have to remember these details from Rob Zombie’s entries, which explored young Michael’s early years. (But don’t forget that Rob’s films actually aren’t canon because of the recent retcon.)
That brings us to 2021’s Halloween Kills, which is one of the least entertaining, most poorly written horror films I have had the extreme displeasure of viewing in quite some time. I would claim this must be a satire, but satire requires skill.
In Green’s latest entry to the franchise, gone is any concern for Laurie Strode, her daughter or her granddaughter. Now, all we wish for is a 1.5x time option as we suffer through ludicrous dialogue like “Enough is enough! Evil dies tonight!” Each and every person who dies does so because of their own stupidity, and, though this may be funny for some, it is a travesty for me.
It’s a shame this film shares its name with the near perfect 1978 original, which had characters we cared about. We felt their fear and we were devastated as they died, even though their deaths occurred off screen. Halloween Kills feels like the writers of Final Destination got back together for a few bucks and cheap laughs.
David Gordon Green needs to stop directing films. And not just this franchise. He’s been announced as director of a sequel to The Exorcist! Last I heard, both William Friedkin and John Carpenter are still alive. Can we not convince them to be the ones that possibly ruin the legacies they created? Then maybe Green can go back to doing what he does best: directing hilarious episodes of Eastbound & Down.
If the original Halloween (1978) is an A, and Rob Zombie’s Halloween (2007) was a D, then Halloween Kills was an F….for failure.