Filmic Frighteners - Halloween 2018 (18)

He killed my friends and now he's back to finish what he started, with me.

1978's Halloween is a stripped-down horror legend. Not only did it help establish an entire genre, it's a terrific film in its own right - a sustained exercise in tension of which Alfred Hitchcock would be proud. The 2018 movie, which goes by the same unembellished title, bypasses numerous (often really lame) sequels and connects directly to the original. It asks two simple but intriguing questions - how might Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis' survivor of the 1978 massacre) have coped longterm with the trauma she experienced, and how would she respond if her attacker, Michael Myers, came back? The answers it provides are pretty damn satisfying.

Forty years have passed since Myers' kill-spree on Halloween night in the rural town of Haddonfield, Illinois. He's spent the intervening time incarcerated in a high-security psychiatric facility, while Laurie has become mired in paranoia - training her family in self-defence and alienating them all in the process. Now living alone in a house she has turned into a fortress, she awaits what she sees as this Boogeyman's inevitable return. And when Michael is transferred to a different facility one day before Halloween (that's some hella ill-judged timing on the part of the prison authorities), he seizes his opportunity to break out. The old home town is unprepared for his onslaught, aside - that is - from his one-time victim. 

The new Halloween benefits hugely from its identity as a straight sequel, and from the involvement of original writer/director John Carpenter. On top of his advisory role he's written the soundtrack, revisiting the musical motifs that helped make the fall of 1978 so chilling. The DNA between the two movies is apparent elsewhere - like in the presence of an obsessive psychiatrist taking over from Donald Pleasance's frankly nutty Dr Loomis, and in a portrayal of an evil that borders on the supernatural. There's a weird symbiotic connection between Michael and Laurie; he's a blank and inscrutable kind of bad, driven to pick up where he left off, while she's equally defined by him - seeking a closure that can only come by ending him herself. It's a complex and twisted relationship emphasised by the subverting of several iconic Halloween shots, each of which will have fans grinning. 

That's not to overstate the movie as anything particularly meaningful. It's a big glossy thrill-ride, Michael wreaking a trail of gory devastation that contrasts with the original's visual restraint and slow-burn suspense. There are taut scenes and effective scares for sure - the opening prison sequence is gripping in its originality and Michael's quest for Laurie includes some truly jarring encounters. But whatever its connections with 1978 this is ultimately a film with a different vibe, one defined as much by vengeance as victimhood. 

In that regard Curtis walks off impressively with the film. Her ageing Laurie is a force of nature - damaged but defiant, and a fierce protector of those she loves. A strong family dynamic exists at the story's core, with Judy Greer and Andi Matichak as Laurie's daughter and grand-daughter respectively, both struggling with the reality of Michael's return. There's a stalk/slash element for sure, but this is more a lead-up to all out war. And while the psychopath is as single-minded as ever, the distinction between hunter and prey is not quite so clear as before.

Halloween isn't an unmitigated success; its plotting proves messy at points, with some threads being inadequately explored. Not can it sustain the original's unforgiving sense of dread. (Seriously, what can?) But it still manages to be true to the story's roots, while developing the hapless 'scream queen' into a contemporary heroine. And it provides lots of bloody good fun (the literal kind) along the way. With four decades of slasher teen movies having developed, poached from and parodied the first Halloween, kudos to this successor for advancing the story of Laurie and Michael on its own terms - and for giving it back its edge.

Gut Reaction: At its best it had me enthralled like the first one. And I was never less than fully entertained. 

Where Are the Women?: It's a matriarchal family affair. But how much 'Strode' do the younger generations of women have in them?

Ed's Verdict: 7/10. Finally a worthy sequel to the Carpenter classic. It only took forty years - but maybe temporal distance was required for a truly interesting Halloween follow-up.