'Halloween Kills' film review: Follow-up to re-energized 2018 reboot ... is an ordinary, if bloody, slasher
The latest Michael Myers killing spree 'Halloween Kills' (in theaters and streaming on Peacock starting Oct. 15) is an alleged horror thriller that is neither scary nor thrilling.
In short: Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her family believe they have finally killed Michael Myers - only for him to survive and continue kiling ... except this time Haddonfield community takes the fight to Myers. Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, Will Patton and Anthony Michael Hall also star.
The ads hype 'Kills' as picking up just moments after the 2018 reboot/sequel ... but nearly 20 minutes pass before 'Kills' actually makes good on this promise. Instead, this sequel backs into the plot with a drawn-out flashback that reaches all the way back to events of the 1978 original movie before eventually moseying back to 2018. And even here, when 'Kills' should just jump right back into the action, the sequel makes another pit stop at some random bar, introducing towns folk remembering the first Michael Myers killing spree. This 20-minute preamble doesn't much value and just saps the sequel's momentum right out of the gate.
The idea of the hunter becoming the hunted is the sequel's hook, but the movie's most interesting idea is the mere rumor of that finally gets pointed at the evil that has loomed over Haddonfield for decades. Unfortunately, 'Kills' only flirts with this idea - mostly in one sequence in the middle of the movie when emotions boil over and the ravenous mob is out for blood. At least the 2018 retcon found the conflict between Laurie's deeply ingrained PTSD and her family's wish to move on with their lives. There's so much unrealized potential really exploring what it means to kill the soul of a community and bring them down to the level of Michael Myers. But once the angry mob makes a terrible mistake .. the film just moves right along, quickly forgetting the moral cost of their mistake and abandoning any attempt to make any meaningful statement.
But perhaps most disappointing of all: 'Halloween Kills' is simply not scary in the slightest. The movie always tips its hand, loudly signaling 'uh oh, better look out - Michael Myers is about to pop out and kill someone.' It's impossible to be scared or even on edge when the movie just signals its intention at every turn. No death is surprising. And it's hard to care about any of the dead characters because 'Kills' somehow manages to give them just enough screen time to make them familiar to the audience, but not long enough to make the audience care about any of them. Several survivors of the 1978 massacre show up in the opening scenes, but 'Kills' never fleshes them out. They might as well not have names - and just been called Survivor #1, Survivor #2 and etc.
And if it's seems surprising how very little of this review focuses on Laurie Stode, it's because 'Kills' firmly sidelines the three main characters from the 2018 film. Laurie was badly injured in the previous film, and her daughter and granddaughter aren't really active characters. To be honest, Michael Myers might be the only active character - and he just calmly walks through Haddonfield, shoving knives into canon fodder residents. The closest 'Kills' has to an active protagonist is Tommy (Anthony Michael Hall), a 1978 massacre survivor leading the angry vigilante mob. The absence of a true hero to root for and an unnaturally powerful killing machine who's somehow not scary at all leave 'Halloween Kills' a flat bridge between a refreshing reboot and the trilogy's conclusion next year.
Final verdict: 'Kills' squanders the 2018 reboot's potential with a threadbare sequel that has fleeting inspired moments but relies a body count to pad the runtime, rendering it merely a standard slasher and a disappointing follow-up.
Score: 2/5
'Halloween Kills' opens in theaters and streaming on Peacock starting Oct. 15. This horror slasher has a runtime of 106 minutes is rated R for strong bloody violence throughout, grisly images, language and some drug use.
