445: Halloween Kills

[00:00:00] Alright, let's get to Halloween Kills, which came out in 2021, directed by David Gordon Green once again, also co-written by Danny McBride, which is pretty interesting. Cool credit for him. Stars mostly the same cast really, so I won't really go into that.

[00:00:18] And the synopsis is, surviving victims of Michael Myers form a vigilante mob and vow to end his reign of terror. Kicking things off, this is my favorite of the trilogy, and probably my second favorite of the whole franchise.

[00:00:34] I know some people really crap on this movie, I don't understand why. I know John Carpenter said that this was his favorite of the three, which again, I fully agree with. To me, it's the good middle ground in terms of these slasher films where this is picking

[00:00:50] up right where the 2018 film left off. And it has a good middle chapter sort of feel where there's not a huge setup, there's not a huge ending, it's just Michael Myers is on the loose and then the vigilante mob picks up arms and tries to go after him.

[00:01:06] So it's a good sort of, in a way almost like a war movie, you know, like the townspeople versus Michael Myers and I love that idea. And that does go back again into the overall concept of these reboots giving the power back to the victims.

[00:01:23] Oh and quick thing, in all three, the opening credits are awesome. Love the look of the pumpkins, the flaming one in this one is great. I think probably my favorite is the third one where the pumpkin is splitting in half and

[00:01:36] there's those gluey strands pulling apart as you're moving through it. I love that. But putting that aside, this one by far is just the most entertaining. I think as the first one dealt with the trauma more so of Laurie's abuse and the trauma of

[00:01:52] trying to convince people of what's going on, what happened to her, this one is dealing more so with what I got is people being so blinded by revenge and justice and violence that other people get in the way.

[00:02:09] So for example, there's the other mental patient who escaped with Michael Myers just by chance I think, unless I'm missing something I would think it was just by chance. And then he ends up getting blamed because he's unstable and then he's around the mob

[00:02:23] when they're going crazy and then he of course gets trapped in the hospital and then jumps off because he's so scared and confused, doesn't know what's going on and so he's like, alright well screw it I'm gonna jump off.

[00:02:34] Because they are saying that's Michael, that's Michael, we gotta kill him and obviously it's not and they realize that after the fact. So basically someone died for nothing, someone who needed help. So I think there's that interesting commentary on people who need someone to blame so they

[00:02:52] oftentimes don't care who it is even if it's not the actual right person. It's like well close enough let's take them down and we'll feel better about ourselves. So that's an interesting part of the movie. The kills by far are the best.

[00:03:08] The playground or park sequence is excellent where they attack the car with the surviving victims of the original attacks. That's really well done. The opening is probably my favorite action sequence so to speak of the whole movie where

[00:03:25] there's the burning house and the firefighters go in and Michael Myers is still alive of course and he drags them in and then comes out and slaughters all of them with their own weapons and tools.

[00:03:37] I think that's an awesome start to the movie and right before that where you see the fire trucks racing past Lori's truck where they're driving to the hospital and she's like no let it burn, let it burn and you're like well we know what's going to happen there.

[00:03:52] But very well done sequence. One other good moment, there's a lot of them in this movie to me. The opening part I think it's towards the beginning where he breaks into the older couple's

[00:04:05] house and there's the drone and he throws back the drone and then the wife gets the broken light fixture stabbed into her and then she watches her husband be pinned to the table with knives essentially.

[00:04:21] That's an insane visual but really creative and definitely one of the most effective kills and crazy kills in the whole trilogy so love that sequence. It's just a great movie. Sorry if that's a hot take but I love it.

[00:04:35] The final part jumping towards the very end for a bit where the townspeople seem to get a leg up on Michael Myers and they surround him and then they start stabbing him and shooting

[00:04:45] him and beating him and then you're like wow they actually took him down, good job. And then of course he still survives, he gets up and he slaughters all of them. That's quite well done.

[00:04:57] The death of Judy Greer which is Laurie Strode's daughter where she's in the house and then Michael Myers shows up behind her is good. So there's a lot of really memorable parts of this movie where I feel like the first

[00:05:08] one is more so the sum of its parts. This one has a lot more standout moments to me which maybe some people feel the opposite in terms of what they like more, what they give more credit to but I feel like I remember

[00:05:19] way more about this movie than the other two. One of my favorite parts adding on to that, the Big John Little John Michael Myers house sequence is great where the kids show up and they trick him into thinking one of the kids

[00:05:34] ate a razor blade by accident and then the kids are just trying to scare him and then they go back into the house and Michael Myers is there and there's the cat and mouse sequence

[00:05:43] through that location and the performances are very fun and the writing is very good. This is probably the most well written of the three. Besides that, the death of the son of one of the survivors, that's effective in the

[00:05:58] house so there's a lot of really pretty wild kills and it's creative, the most creative out of all the kills in the three movies. So this one does reign supreme for me.

[00:06:10] Not a perfect movie, not of course as good as the original but of all the movies that have come out so far this one would be the second best as I mentioned. If other people have different opinions let me know, I'm curious as to why some people

[00:06:23] really drag on this movie. I have seen it four or five times now at this point and every single time I'm really really entertained, never bored, it's not overly long, none of them are overly long.

[00:06:36] The commentary is there, the kills and violence are there, plenty of great Michael Myers iconic moments and just his silhouette is so effective in all of these movies but David Gordon Green shoots Michael Myers really really well.

[00:06:51] And the use of shadows and lighting and foreground, middle ground, background, it's very well done, nothing incredible or brilliant but in terms of recent horror, modern horror, I think it's quite well directed, well edited, well written, just the overall production value is quite solid.

[00:07:10] So definitely do check it out if you haven't seen it, give it a rewatch, might grow on you, I don't know, maybe not but really really enjoy this movie. So that is a four and a half out of five.