Movie Debate #94: Halloween

[JamesRobot | 5,788]

OG Halloween is a 10.  And I'm in love with PJ Soles.

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,056]

Im curious what’s everyones issues with the Rob Zombie one. I never saw anything wrong with it

[fox | 1,665]

Halloween (1978) *****

The introduction of Micheal Myers cemented The Shape as a horror icon and lead to a series of sequels and remakes. I plan to tackle the entire bloody saga and review, rank, and rate each entry.

The original Halloween is the one that put slashers on the map. You know the story, an escaped killer stalks a group of teenage babysitters. Everything plays out almost in real time with a series of rather grounded events that make sense. I know that doesn't sound like a compliment, but the internal logic of the film so just how much thought and tight film-making is on display here. It plays everything straight and doesn't get into campy territory.

Some nice cinematography and naturalistic dialog make this hold up a lot better than many other slashers of the era. Great performances by Donald Pleasence and Jamie Lee Curtis. Plus a pulse pounding syth score. No denying the original is still a classic.

Halloween II (1982) ****

A direct follow-up to the first film, happening again on Halloween, the same night, only a few mins later. This time the action has switched to a rather creepy mostly empty hospital and the baby sitters are replaced by the hospital staff.

This ties into the first film rather well. It explores the paranoia created by Micheal Myers and ups the gore with some creative and explosive deaths. There is a lot to like here.

Sadly Jamie Lee Curtis is spends 2/3 of the film in a hospital bed in a baffling decision to bench the main protagonist. It puts the plot in a weird spot where the cool reveal that she is the sister of the killer is just tossed in so ham-fisted and willy nilly. Like they couldn't think of anything for Laurie to do to be more involved in the plot and the uncovering of this mystery?

Halloween III **

No Jamie Lee Curtis. No Donald Pleasence. No Michael Myers. What the sam hain is going on here?

Apparently Carpenter and crew originally wanted Halloween to be an anthology series with unconnected stories, but when you connect the first two films together and then have this story of stonehenge and microchip masks, it kinda comes out of left field.

The special effect and gore on display are nice, and that silver shamrock jingle is infectious, but this story of robots and Celtic rituals is just never gels.

Halloween 4 ***

Michael Myers returns to haunt Laurie's daughter Jamie, while being chased by an increasingly erratic Loomis. This one gets back on track after the detour of Halloween III.

It is a bit disappointing Myers doesn't use his iconic knife to stab, instead choking and tossing victims around instead. The kills in general are a bit of a let down with many taking place off screen or quick cutaways. Feels like a bit of a cop out after some great effects and gore in II and III.

Danielle Harris brings a lot to the role of Jamie, as does Pleasence with his wild shouting. The ending is insane, likely the best of any Halloween movie, and setup of a scenario with Jamie taking on the mantle of heir apparent killer that the series never quite capitalized on after.

Halloween 5 **

A direct follow-up to Halloween 4 as Micheal Myers survives the climax of the last film to stalk his niece Jamie again. Immediately they seem to drop the whole Jamie is the new killer again in addition to killing off the surviving step sister from the last film. This one is quite the head scratcher.

I'd be ok with all this changes if the film had some new interesting story, but it really doesn't. The focus is on Jamie's step-sister's friend and her friends as they attend a halloween party. Talk about tangent characters. Also Jamie gets a young boyfriend kinda in another plot line that goes nowhere. It is almost like they just cooked up these new characters just to pad out the runtime. The only good stuff this has is rehashed from 4.

That said Jamie is still good and The Shape chasing after a kid is effective especially in the finale with the laundry chute. Loomis using a young kid as bait is pretty messed up, I love how more and more unhinged he gets in these sequels.

We also get the baffling additions of the man in black and thorn symbol. I get that Myers having some unseen assistance kinda helps some plot holes, but it also undermines just how smart he really is. We know he planned out these murders for years and we have seen how he is able to trap and psychological manipulate and terrorize his victims, he doesn't need a cowboy sidekick as cool as that is. Whatever, we will explore that more in part 6.

Curse of Michael Myers *

This film has the unfortunate task of following up the bizarre ending of part 5 and having to explain The Man in Black and Thorn symbol. They bring back Tommy Doyle from the first film, and I want to say the crazy cult and runic stuff is a reference to part III, so I can almost admire the crazy amount of desperate ideas and references thrown into the mix in hopes that something sticks. Well...none of it does.

So Jamie, the heroine of the last two films is killed off, but not before giving birth to a baby after being captured and impregnated by a cult. So now it is up to Tommy Doyle, the child from the first film to save her baby. He is helped by the daughter of the brother of one of the Strodes, who are living in the Myers house now, and has a child who has a psychic link to Michael Myers much like Tommy does. So now Michael Myers needs to kill the baby to end the bloodline, or the cult that the Man in Black was apart of and that are controlling/helping Michael Myers are going to use the baby to create a new runic killer.

At least I think that is what is going on. The plot is a confounding mess. At one point the cult manage to corner and drug our heroes, only to let them go instead of killing them or capturing them, then try to recruit the heroes to join the cult in the next scene. Wait...what?

At least that exploding head was cool.

H20 ****

Jamie Lee Curtis is back and that is all you need to need to know.

Wisely this film puts the focus back on Laurie Strode as she tries to balance a career as an educator with her personal life (her relationship with her son and her relationship with her new boyfriend.) All that while suffering from PTSD, as a ghost from her past reemerges. It is good stuff, and a bit cathartic to see her finally confront The Shape. I was cheering her on.

The jump scares are a bit much. Does this film hold the record for most jump scares? There are like 10 in the first 30 mins alone.

Resurrection *

Ironically the entry called "Resurrection", killed the Halloween franchise.

I don't know the behind the scenes story but I imagine this was some unrelated script that they slapped the Halloween title onto and Jamie Lee Curtis only agreed to a cameo for contract reasons/money.

After a 15 min epilogue to H20, they write out Jamie Lee Curtis and focus on some web based reality show with annoying co-eds visiting the Myers house and The Shape showing up for reasons, I guess.

A total Blair Witch knock-off coming out several years too late. For all its attempts to stay hip and relevant with technology, it doesn't have anything at all insightful to say with its internet/reality era meta narrative. The endless grainy, poorly lit, shakey cam pov shots are nauseous. And the regular shots aren't much better, still being grainy and poorly lit.

Myers is taken down, not once but twice by a kung fu fighting Busta Rhymes. I can't abide by that.

Halloween (2007) ***

After Resurrection pretty much killed the franchise, there was nowhere else for it to go. Hot off of the success of Devil's Rejects, musician turned director Rob Zombie stepped up to the plate. This is really a tale of two half films, the first a fleshed out Myers backstory, followed by a more brutal remake of the Carpenter origin Halloween.

In the first half, the film goes to great lengths and re-envision Mikey Myers path to donning the mask, by showing his childhood growing up. An abusive step-dad, a stripper mom, a slutty sister, bullies from school, so pretty much the worst home life ever. It is almost comical, like the flashback sitcom sequence from Natural Born Killers minus the laugh track. What works better is Myer's time being institutionalized in a mental hospital, with Malcolm McDowell giving it his all as the new Dr. Loomis.

In the second half, the film switches gears and becomes an almost like a punk rock cover of Halloween, played faster and heavier. It is well done for the most part, with a whose who cast of horror actors in small and large roles. There a few too many fake out endings and I swear they spend 25 mins crawling around the ruins of the Myers house.

The two halves don't always gel together, but they each have their merits.

Halloween II (2009) **

So Rob Zombie's Halloween remake was kind of a success, but the follow-up just goes straight off the rails. This tries to ret-con some of the previous film with this whole white horse concept.

So Judith Myers give her son a white horse toy and now he sees her in dreams as this all-white angel of Halloween or something leading an actual white horse. But sometimes it is his giant adult form and sometimes his childhood form, are they two different characters? Ok so maybe this is like Id, Ego, and Super Ego and the dream of his mother is the reason for the killings, even though none of this was established in the previous film. Oh but wait Laurie can see them too, so are they ghosts or is something supernatural going on?

It is a shame because there are a lot of elements I really like: the whole nightmare hospital sequence is tense, Brad Dourif gives a gut wrenching performance, and an amazing actual Halloween Party that could only be thrown by Rob Zombie. Maybe in Zombie's mind everything makes sense, but the viewer is left baffled.

Halloween (2018) ****

So it is Halloween again. 40 years have passed, and the shape stands silent, and the girl who survived stands armed to the teeth locked inside a trap filled fort.

This film ignores all the previous sequels meaning only the original and this one now count. Though oddly enough we get elements from the original Halloween II, H20, and Curse as part of the plot. We also get some shout outs and nods to other films in the series. This film series has such a weird dis-continuity.

It takes a bit too long to get things moving with too many out of focus characters, but it really picks up in the second half and the final showdown might be the best yet for the series. Overall a solid sequel, doesn't do really much new or different to blow you away, but you can only expect so much from Halloween 11.

Halloween Kills **

So this is the middle chapter in the new era trilogy, and boy does it feel like it.  It largely follows the past survivors of Myers in present day.  We just aren't as invested in them as the Strode family.  Speaking of which, boy for them wanting to distance themselves from the original Halloween II, they practically remade it here with the mishandled manhunt for Myers and Jamie Lee Curtis spending nearly the entire movie in a hospital bed.

The mob goer looking into the mirror, going "gee maybe we are the monsters" is totally goofy and unearned.  They are not chasing rumors or an invisible boogeyman, there is an actual established boogeyman in the film.

Of course there is the obligatory dumping on the Rob Zombie movie.  That movie really gets overly ragged on, c'mon.

It does live up to the Halloween Kills, since are some great kills and this might have the biggest body count in the series yet.  The film does pick up in the last 20 mins, but overall this feels more like a filler episode for the Halloween tv series.

Series Ranking:
1. Halloween
2. Halloween II
3. Halloween H20
4. Halloween (2018)
5. Zombieween
6. Halloween 4
7. Halloween 5
8. Halloween III
9. Halloween Kills
10. Zombieween II
11. Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers
12. Halloween: Resurrection