Director:Â David Gordon Green
Cast:Â Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Virginia Gardner, Nick Castle, Will Patton, Toby Huss
Rating: 18
Running time: 106 mins
Release date:Â 19/10/2018
HALLOWEEN (1978) –Â A Classic, an Icon, a Legend.
For 40 years, John Carpenter‘s revolutionary classic has been responsible for more adolescent nightmares – mine included from the time I first saw it as a dare thanks to my parents in the Spring of 1982 on late-night Friday television as part of a season of classic horror films – and imitations than any other contemporary horror film in it’s wake.
It’s hard to believe now, but the original HALLOWEEN was not a critical success originally and only began to build on the back end of a positive review in the Village Voice. After that, the film grew to become one of the most successful independent films of all time.
To those of you who have never seen any of the HALLOWEEN sequels, let alone the original film, rest assured you will not need to see any of them should you wish to see the brand-new David Gordon Green-directed, Carpenter co-executive produced HALLOWEEN. It effectively wipes the slate clean and gives the film a brand new take on the franchise.
Before we analyse the new film, a quick crash-course in early HALLOWEEN history for those of you unaware.
The original sequel, 1981’s HALLOWEEN II, directed by Rick Rosenthal, took place straight after the events of the first film and was plagued by production problems, solved by additional footage and scenes shot by Carpenter, allegedly after studio concerns over the original director’s cut.
HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH (1982), directed by Tommy Lee Wallace and originally a screenplay by QUATERMASS creator Nigel Kneale, took the series in a totally different direction, focusing on an unrelated story of killer masks and a mad toy maker, as by then co-writers Carpenter and the late Debra Hill, who produced the earlier films, felt there was no story to tell. Unfortunately, HALLOWEEN and Michael Myers, the masked killer of the series, was not in this version and the film failed. However, the third film has become a favourite of Carpenter fans because of it’s different take.
By the end of the 1980s, the late Donald Pleasance revived his role as Dr. Sam Loomis (a homage to a character in Hitchcock’s PSYCHO) pursuing Myers in HALLOWEEN IV: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS (1988).
After that, Miramax and Dimension Films, along with director Rob Zombie, kept the legacy alive with films like HALLOWEEN: H20, HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION and Zombie’s remake and sequel, HALLOWEEN and HALLOWEEN II, which featured Malcolm McDowell in the Pleasance role.
The new film has not been hyped up as much as some recent Marvel and STAR WARS films and that may well be a wise decision on the studio’s part to allow gradual awareness of what the film is. Indeed, this is actually going to play to it’s strengths and may well give the franchise it’s biggest return and success since the original film four decades ago.
HALLOWEEN (2018) opens pre-credits with two investigative journalists turning up at Smith’s Grove Penitentiary, Illinois, where Myers has been kept under tight security since the horrific events of Halloween 1978. Even the showing of his old mask (a William Shatner mask with the eyes cut out, designed by Tommy Lee Wallace, original Production Designer on the first film) doesn’t warrant a response.
Myers is being transferred to another facility, a fact not lost on the now-reclusive Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), a survivor of the original film, who is living in isolation and separation from her family, notably her grown-up daughter Kathy (Judy Greer), who has shielded her own daughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak), from her mother’s paranoia. However, Myers does escape and heads back to his old stamping ground of Haddonfield, where fate awaits…
For the older generation, HALLOWEEN plays like a ‘Greatest Hits’ compilation. Images that defined the classic are subverted and knowingly referred to in this film and it is a movie that will bring a smile to many a horror fans’ face, because it is HALLOWEEN as it should be. There is also a hint of TERMINATOR 2 in this when you reflect on the relationship between Curtis and Greer (and perhaps this will give a hint of what the new official follow-up to T2 – which James Cameron is lining up – will be)
Not only does Carpenter co-Exec Produce, but he provides the music score, co-written on this occasion with son Cody and Daniel Davies and right from when the main credits appear with that classic theme and the motif of the Jack-O-Lantern which defined the first three films, you know you are in familiar, uncomfortable territory.
Refreshingly, much of the seriousness returns, with some occasional moments of humour that mirror the relationship between Strode and one of the kids she babysits, Tommy, in the original.
Granted, there may be a twinge of disappointment to some after the film, but that is only to be expected given the anticipation of a sequel like this to such a well-known and well-loved horror classic, but mark my words, this is going to go down big with the horror fans – and perhaps a few others.
Nearly a classic, but a welcome back to ‘The Shape’.
 Review - The latest movie in the franchise is going to go down big with the horror fans - and perhaps a few others...){kind=link}