storyteller
Veteran
Gave myself some time to digest Halloween and talk to some friends about it. I rate it as the best modern Halloween (surpassing H20 which was only great for campy reasons to me) and the one with the most moments that capture the best bits of the old ones...but I still got the original trilogy (skipping Season of the Witch) as the Halloween movies I'm most likely to go back to when I want to see Michael Myers as his best. The thing is, that's not meant to be a dig at all. This is the first Halloween in decades that actually gets the tension game right for multiple scenes but it hits on those inconsistently. I'd say you have around 50% of a vintage Michael Myers horror, 25% plot building that's a mixed bag and then a final 25% where the wheels fall off over more modern horror conventions being shoe-horned in (unnecessary plot twists that cause characters to stop using common sense and action movie pacing that completely wrecks the tension building). It's that last bit that's REALLY disappointing though. For about 3 quarters of the movie you have a strong mix of scenes with some standout kills and forgivable mistakes (a little too much comedy relief and exposition can be forgiven when it's followed by vintage boogie man tension). Then you get this stretch of everyone making dumb decisions just to accelerate things toward an ending that is more Sara Conner vs the Terminator from T2 on then it is Ripley vs the Alien in that classic. Basically, this movie is at its best when it follows the classic formulas.
- The audience knows more than the victim
- The victim comes to the slow realization that they're in danger
- By that time it's too late to save themselves and they're cornered with the only options being to hide or try to fight an overpowering presence
If you make moves to have characters downplaying the threat of Michael Myers or actively putting themselves right in front of him to take out, the tension that we feel is gone regardless of how gory things get or how much faster Michael Myers gets to pump up his body count. They writers also went a little too heavy on the offscreen kills. It's effective early on, but by the end game there's no surprise or sympathy for the victims.
Spoiler bits
Not tryna be overly negative either, I really liked it. I'll watch it again, prolly with my nieces and nephews because family tradition is the aunts and uncles pass on horror movie love to the youngsters. But it feels like they were MADD close to completely nailing it and instead they got to the red zone and turned it over. So it's just good where it could have been really great.
Edit: I gotta give yall a run down on Await Further Instructions later, I got that one in this weekend too.
- The audience knows more than the victim
- The victim comes to the slow realization that they're in danger
- By that time it's too late to save themselves and they're cornered with the only options being to hide or try to fight an overpowering presence
If you make moves to have characters downplaying the threat of Michael Myers or actively putting themselves right in front of him to take out, the tension that we feel is gone regardless of how gory things get or how much faster Michael Myers gets to pump up his body count. They writers also went a little too heavy on the offscreen kills. It's effective early on, but by the end game there's no surprise or sympathy for the victims.
Spoiler bits
I think the bathroom scene might be too on the nose for some fans but I thought it was a really good way to put us back in the Halloween universe. Coupling the bathroom stall trapped bit with discovering bodies in the gas station was a great bit. The other thing is it felt cathartic, like the writers sending us a message. The podcasters are trying to fill in Michael's backstory and look for deeper meaning (aka subvert the original formula) and everyone with firsthand experience keeps looking at them like "stop overthinking it, it's not that complicated, he's evil." So having those two characters relive modern version of a classic kill was on some "we're silencing all of that introspection and playing it straight for you guys." For a horror overthinker like me that ish was meta as hell. Unfrotunately, the writers got away from that "we get it" acknowledgement all throughout the final act.
The closet scene is another great one that they kinda screwed up because they used it in teaser trailers, but I really liked how they set it up. Even though we're horror fans who know what's coming, they do a couple of things I like. First they make all the characters in that bit likeable and second they take their time getting to the pay off. I can't stress it enough that everyone knows what they're getting in a Halloween movie but sometimes rather than subverting the expectation, leaning into it so that we're holding our breaths waiting for Mike to step out can be better execution. The other thing is I actually liked the way they did the offscreen death for the BF here.
Then the backyard with the motion light followed by the running through the streets...not perfect but good enough to suspend disbelief and buy into the way the characters end up playing it. Again though...this is classic formula rather than some of the other rushed joints.
Then some standout bad ones...the Loomis stand-in doing nothing to restrain a psychotic killing force by his own admission and acting like their gonna be buddies. The idea of this dude's curiosity passing up his empathy is it's own cliche so the twist is only surprising in so much as I was expecting better from the writers. The father running out to an unresponsive cop car and approaching all the way up to it is flat out dumb and the payoff isn't a chase or anything. It's a creative dead body layout and instakill. Lauri finding the father's body in the closet is on some "yo Mike is a master of using decoys huh?" I wonder how many elaborate kill scenes he's laid out only to have the family pet knock a bunch of crap over and ruin the surprise.
The basement trap was lame and ended up an excuse for Laurie to shoot the hands with Michael in a way that makes him less intimidating and overpowering. First off, Laurie coulda just done what her daughter did and waited at the bottom of the stairs with the shotgun ready (not like Mike has ever smoked someone out...he comes straight at you and his only strategy has been the body decoy thing). If they wanted an excuse to get Laurie out of the basement for a final confrontation, the granddaughter arriving and looking around without knowing 1) that her family is right below her in safety; 2) that Michael is somewhere inside still would have been WAAAAAY better for tension top to bottom. That keeps Laurie from having to make a dumb decision; creates a way better chance to misdirect the audience; and then allows for Laurie to survive the confrontation because her family helps rather than because he didn't take opportunities to snap her neck like he did every other character he got his hands on.
The closet scene is another great one that they kinda screwed up because they used it in teaser trailers, but I really liked how they set it up. Even though we're horror fans who know what's coming, they do a couple of things I like. First they make all the characters in that bit likeable and second they take their time getting to the pay off. I can't stress it enough that everyone knows what they're getting in a Halloween movie but sometimes rather than subverting the expectation, leaning into it so that we're holding our breaths waiting for Mike to step out can be better execution. The other thing is I actually liked the way they did the offscreen death for the BF here.
Then the backyard with the motion light followed by the running through the streets...not perfect but good enough to suspend disbelief and buy into the way the characters end up playing it. Again though...this is classic formula rather than some of the other rushed joints.
Then some standout bad ones...the Loomis stand-in doing nothing to restrain a psychotic killing force by his own admission and acting like their gonna be buddies. The idea of this dude's curiosity passing up his empathy is it's own cliche so the twist is only surprising in so much as I was expecting better from the writers. The father running out to an unresponsive cop car and approaching all the way up to it is flat out dumb and the payoff isn't a chase or anything. It's a creative dead body layout and instakill. Lauri finding the father's body in the closet is on some "yo Mike is a master of using decoys huh?" I wonder how many elaborate kill scenes he's laid out only to have the family pet knock a bunch of crap over and ruin the surprise.
The basement trap was lame and ended up an excuse for Laurie to shoot the hands with Michael in a way that makes him less intimidating and overpowering. First off, Laurie coulda just done what her daughter did and waited at the bottom of the stairs with the shotgun ready (not like Mike has ever smoked someone out...he comes straight at you and his only strategy has been the body decoy thing). If they wanted an excuse to get Laurie out of the basement for a final confrontation, the granddaughter arriving and looking around without knowing 1) that her family is right below her in safety; 2) that Michael is somewhere inside still would have been WAAAAAY better for tension top to bottom. That keeps Laurie from having to make a dumb decision; creates a way better chance to misdirect the audience; and then allows for Laurie to survive the confrontation because her family helps rather than because he didn't take opportunities to snap her neck like he did every other character he got his hands on.
Not tryna be overly negative either, I really liked it. I'll watch it again, prolly with my nieces and nephews because family tradition is the aunts and uncles pass on horror movie love to the youngsters. But it feels like they were MADD close to completely nailing it and instead they got to the red zone and turned it over. So it's just good where it could have been really great.
Edit: I gotta give yall a run down on Await Further Instructions later, I got that one in this weekend too.
so I’m no good for that advice
