Halloween Ends (2022)

I suppose I should weigh in on this movie. I did watch it during my October marathon but wanted to let it settle in and give it a second watching before going on the record. The movie starts off with us seeing a guy named Corey being hired to babysit a kid named Jeremy. This kid is a little shit that had me rooting for Michael Myers to show up and murder his ass! Oh yeah this is taking place in Haddonfield, which I suppose is important to point out, and they talk about the killings. So Jeremy messes with Corey and locks him in the attic, which freaks the dude out. The parents arrive home just as he kicks the door open sending Jeremy falling three stories to his death in the foyer of their fancy house. Roll credits.

After that we hear Laurie narrating a book that she is writing. She talks about Michael terrorizing the town and how evil lurks even though he has been missing since he killed her daughter. Laurie lives with her granddaughter, which is important later. Laurie crosses paths with the now released Corey, who spent time in an institution after the death of Jeremy. Both being pariahs in town (they blame Laurie for taunting Michael causing his murder spree) she feels a kindred spirit. This leads her to introducing him to her granddaughter and the pair hit it off right away. The problem is Michael is still alive and uses Corey to bring victims to the sewer he has been hiding in. They try to explain away his unstoppable nature by hinting that the evil in him heals his wounds when he kills, thus making him stronger.

Some stuff happens as Corey loses his mind and takes the mask away from Michael. I suppose it is time for him to finish off Laurie accomplishing what his predecessor could never do. Though I won’t spoil the big twist other than to say that Michael is apparently sneakier than we ever knew. In the end it does seem as if they put the whole Laurie vs. Michael storyline to bed… hopefully this time forever.

This movie has issues, the first of which was obvious when I saw in the opening credits that four people were credited with the screenplay. Normally that means either a troubled production or far too many chefs in the kitchen. Here I think it is the latter as they try and squeeze too much into Halloween Ends for my liking. When Jamie Lee Curtis is on screen the movie is far more interesting as I have over forty years invested in her character of Laurie Strode. Seeing her living a normal life and being kind to Corey is sort of sweet. They also do a good job with the script showing that every time she starts to feel happy something is there to drag her back to the past.

The grocery store sequence is a prime example of that when she is twirling her hair and flirting like a teenager. We know she never had that chance given what happened, but that hope is shattered when she leaves the store and is yelled at by a woman whose sister is in a wheelchair and lost her family to Michael. Again, they blame Laurie for taunting him and bringing him back to town. There is some excellent stuff like this in the movie that kick you right in the feelings.

But I get the distinct vibe that the filmmakers or maybe the company wanted to use this movie to setup what they are wanting to do next. This might be the end of the story for Michael and Laurie, but this franchise is too profitable to let go completely. So, we get the story of Corey, who I initially thought was going to pickup the Shatner mask and carry on, though it doesn’t work out that way. Both from her initial monologue and the one that plays over the end scenes Laurie talks about the evil that exists. Basically, Michael is a symptom, but not the cause of the horrible things that happened. They establish this with the Corey character’s transformation from innocent kid who had a horrible accident to stone cold killer recruited by Myers. The only reason I can see to spend the forty or so minutes with new characters, specifically Corey and those tormenting him, is to establish that they can and likely will move on with a new killer and final girl. A more accurate title would have been Halloween Ends to Start Again.

The fact that fans hated the new characters and wanted the movie to focus on what they where expecting which was the finale of Laurie and Michael makes a ton of sense to me. And I also agree that when they aren’t on screen the movie suffers and isn’t nearly as interesting or engaging. But I also understand the reality of them wanting to continue, though I’m checking out and not at all onboard from here on out. I basically just ignored and “got thru” the Corey crap so I could get to the good stuff. Is that ideal? Not at all and it made for an uneven story which goes back to my too many cooks in the kitchen comment when mentioning the four credited screenwriters. But at least Jamie Lee Curtis got one more badass moment, which I won’t spoil.

There are a solid fourteen kills in the movie, some of which are generic but others a lot of fun. The best of them is a blowtorch to the face, a nurse gets stabbed/pinned to the wall in a callback to the original, and a Radio DJ gets his jaw smashed and loses his tongue. There is also a decent head stomping and a spike to the eye, so you can see they didn’t skimp on the gore. This is brought to screen with a nice combination of practical effects as well as some digital assists. The kills helped get me thru the parts where I thought things were slow and ramp up as the movie closes in on the big finale. All in all, I was happy with the kills/gore.

My final word on Halloween Ends would be manage expectations. There is a good movie in here, one that our favorite characters deserve. Sadly, they also chose to setup the franchise for the future and that takes away from what this probably should have been. But if you can look past those flaws, and this is a flawed movie for sure, they at least didn’t screw up the characters. So instead of running off to sign some internet petition demanding they redo this (I mean honestly guys… what the hell?) maybe appreciate what we got and move on. I for one am happy with what I got, flaws and all.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Halloween Kills (2021)

This movie picks up right at the end of Halloween 2018 with Laurie and her family in the back of the pickup truck headed to the hospital. As they go they see the fire trucks headed to put the fire out at her house. If you remember they had trapped Michael in the basement to let him burn. Well, he gets out and after slaughtering the firemen he heads off to town to start tearing thru the locals. 

While this happens, we also get to see some recurring characters like Sheriff Brackett, Tommy Doyle, Lindsey, and even Loomis’ nurse. When everyone realizes that Michael is back, they form a mob and go after him. Though it doesn’t end well as when they finally catch up to him, he is a lot harder to kill then they realize. We also get call backs to characters from the 2018 movie with the asshole boyfriend and his dad. If that isn’t enough for you, we also get some worldbuilding as they fill in the gaps as to what happened that night. Remember we must ignore all the sequels between the original and the beginning of this trilogy. 

I liked this movie. Not as much as the one that preceded it, but Halloween Kills is decent. The story picks up smoothly from the last movie and is evenly paced from start to finish. The call backs to characters from the original Halloween is cool as we get to see some familiar faces reprise their roles. Seeing Charles Ciphers as Brackett and Kyle Richards as Lindsey was very cool. Also, Anthony Michael Hall taking over as Tommy Doyle was a good bit of casting. The writers do a good job of showing how traumatized Haddonfield has become from the murders forty years ago as well as Michael returning to town. All in all, I was satisfied with what I got. 

Though that doesn’t mean I don’t have some issues. My biggest problem with Halloween Kills is that we don’t get enough Jamie Lee Curtis. She spends most of the movie in the hospital recovering from her wounds along with Hawkins, who survived being stabbed and run over! She never shares a scene with Michael and that angry grandma vibe from the previous movie is totally lost. That was one of my favorite things about that movie and I feel like she was wasted in this movie. There are also a couple “what the hell” moments in the movie, with the most egregious one being Michael showing up at the end to kill off a character while we hear Curtis do a monologue over it. I’m chalking that up to this being the middle movie of the trilogy and they must be setting something up for next year. 

Michael has had a rough night

The kills in this movie are plentiful with many being on screen. We get a face destroyed with a metal tool, fluorescent bulb to a neck, a knife to an eye, eyes gouged out, a nasty neck snapping, hands are slashed, and a head hits the pavement exploding like a smashed pumpkin. We also get to see Lindsey go to town on Michael with a bag of bricks, which was sort of fun. Some old favorite characters die on screen, and they are all decent sendoffs. If you like gore and creative kills, then I think that Halloween Kills is going to be a good time for you. 

I saved this movie for Halloween, and I know that a lot of fans are tearing this one up. It seems that you either like it or hate it. Here is my final take on the movie. While not as good as the previous flick this one has a lot going for it. Yes, as I’ve stated there are some problems, but I’m cutting them some slack due to them needing to setup the next flick. This is a very common thing to happen when you have a planned trilogy. I have hope that when we see the final movie that Halloween Kills is going to have aged well. Obviously, I’m recommending this one.

© Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

Halloween (2018)

Since the Rob Zombie remakes the Halloween franchise had been dead to me. When this came out, I avoided it but went to see another movie towards the end of its run and decided afterwards to watch it. I can’t remember the last time I saw a real Halloween movie in the theaters. I’m glad that I took the chance to do so. 

This movie ignores all the sequels to the original and picks up as if nothing has happened for forty years. Michael Myers has spent all that time locked up in an insane asylum and Laurie has become a paranoid grandma prepper. Though I suppose it isn’t paranoia if you really have a psychotic killer coming for you! 

Some podcasters show up to interview the catatonic Michael going as far as showing him the mask from his killings four decades earlier. Nothing gets a reaction out of him. They wanted to see him before he was transferred to a maximum-security facility, which is important because when next we see Michael, he has crashed the bus and made his escape. The same podcasters are at the cemetery checking out Judith’s grave and are see by Michael. He follows them and gets his mask back after some homicidal mayhem.

This action is cut back and forth with Laurie’s strained relationship with her daughter and granddaughter. Though once the bodies start to show up, they quickly realize that she was right, and the family holds up at her house. The house appears to be a fortress with bars on the windows and all sorts of gates, lights, and other tricks. After taking care of a few annoying people Michael goes after the women in the house. He is able to get in rather easily, which seems weird. Until they turn the tables on him, and you realize that it was all a trap. The place is torched with him in it. The end… though there are two more sequels coming so not really. 

I love this movie. This feels more like the original then any of the other sequels and I’m a big fan of the original Halloween II. The story is solid and feels like a legitimate sequel to the first film. The characters are well developed, and Jamie Lee Curtis is excellent in the role. She plays both the strength of the survivor as well as the vulnerability of a woman who has lost her family over her need to protect and prepare them. There is a scene in a restaurant where she loses her composure that is heartbreaking. Absolutely brilliant bit of acting and writing. 

But don’t worry that they missed the point of a slasher flick because the filmmakers also know that we want to see some kills as well as a few scares. There are a respectable fourteen kills in the movie, some are seen after the fact, but many cool gags are right front and center. There are snapped necks, jaws almost ripped off, an iron fence thru a chin, and another with the skin ripped off a skull for an impromptu human jack-o-lantern. Though my favorite kills are tied between a brutal head being smashed on every surface of a dirty lady’s room and a neat gag with a knife coming thru a throat. There is a lot of kills and some good gore here. Oh, and I totally forgot the head getting stomped into a pile of goo!

Fans of the franchise should also be happy with the use of the music as it fits with the original perfectly. This includes the musical stingers and stalking music. There are also some familiar masks in a blink and you will miss it cameo on some trick-or-treaters. We even get a fun bit where Laurie gets launched off a second-floor balcony and when Michael checks on the “body” it is missing! I thought that was a cool switch. They even have a precocious kid that instead of running and crying drops one of the best lines of the movie to the boyfriend running up to save his girlfriend. “Don’t go up there! You’re gonna get killed, Dave.”

This was so much better than I expected. Since I saw it in the theaters, I’ve watched it a few more times and it holds up on repeated viewings. I’m excited to check out Halloween Kills, which as of the writing of this review I’ve not seen yet. I highly recommend checking this one out if you haven’t done so yet. 

© Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

Halloween: Resurrection (2002)

The movie opens with some narration from Laurie aka. Jamie Lee Curtis talking about a tunnel that we all end up going down. One that may lead to hell. Then the action shifts to some nurses who are there for some exposition. Thru them we find out that it wasn’t Michael that Laurie killed at the end of the last movie, but an ambulance driver who he switched clothes with. Since she killed an innocent man, she has been locked up in the looney bin in a comatose state. Of course, that is nonsense because we immediately see that she is faking it. She has been waiting for her brother to come for her again and he does. This time he finally kills her. Seriously this was supposed to be her last time in the role, and they finally kill Laurie off!

The action then moves to an entirely new group of victims. Some college kids have signed up for a spooky night investigating the old Myers house for an online show. What they don’t know is that Michael has been living in the sewers underneath the house and can come and go as he pleases thru the dungeon where his parents used to lock him up. Wait… what the hell? He kills a bunch of kids as he stalks them thru the small house because no one can see him moving around or hears a sound in the small house. Finally, there is a final girl who he is about to kill but then Busta Rhymes does some Kung Fu and saves the day. God damn it.

Resurrection is by far the worst of the non-Rob Zombie Halloween movies (which I utterly detest and will not be covering since they are remakes). The story is an absolute mess with too many characters, a plot that grinds to a halt after a decent opening with the stalking killing of Laurie in the first ten or so minutes. The “kids” in the movie are completely generic and I wasn’t at all interested in them. This isn’t helped by them not getting any backstory at all. I’m not even sure their motivations. Our final girl, Sara, is only memorable for her being able to scream loud enough when scared to shatter glass. Cool that must somehow be important later right? Especially when they take the time to establish earlier that Michael has issues with loud noises. Nope it is never mentioned again. That is the kind of awful writing we are dealing with here.

Kung Fu Fighting

The kills are okay but not great. We get a head in a clothes dryer (someone watched My Bloody Valentine!), a throat getting cut, another getting a tripod jammed thru it, a head gets squeezed, and someone gets ruth thru a metal spike. The most memorable kill is a head getting chopped off. Though it stuck with me not because it was good but because the effect looks so silly. We also get zero tension as you always know where Michael is and any jump scares are poorly executed and telegraphed.

This is just a bad movie that wastes some early performances from up and comers Katee Sackhoff, Thomas Ian Nicholas, and Sean Patrick Thomas. I’ve seen all of them in much better movies and know that they can act. Sadly, after Jamie Lee Curtis leaves the screen early on there is nothing worth watching. This is a bad movie that could have been a franchise killer. In fact, it was so bad that sixteen years later we would get another soft reboot of the franchise. Again, I’m ignoring those Zombie made abominations. Skip Halloween Resurrection as it is not worth your time.

 

© Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)

I think that the creative team behind the Halloween movies realized that they had painted themselves into a corner with the attempts to create some sort of mythology for Michael in parts four, five, and six. What do you do when that happens? Well as we will see again in this very franchise you just reset things. This movie pretends that the events after Halloween II never happened. Though I don’t think that was supposed to be the case originally as they apparently shot stuff to reference the other movies, but it was cut. For the purposes of this review we are just going to assume they meant to ignore them.

Laurie, Jamie Lee Curtis’ character, is now running an exclusive private school under an assumed name. I guess she does this because she wants to forget the past. If you remember both Michael and Loomis were apparently killed at the end of part II. Though it does seem that Loomis must have survived as they reference him. Oh, and this is also the first movie in the franchise which doesn’t star Donald Pleasence who had passed away. But Michael isn’t dead, and he goes to Loomis’ nurses house to get the information on Laurie so he can track her down. Along the way killing some folks.

Eventually Michael reaches campus, which is conveniently empty due to a field trip, and starts hacking his way thru anyone left. But why did he wait twenty years to come back? They do explain that he came after Laurie when she was seventeen and that is exactly how old her son is. So, I guess it is a family thing… if that is you wanted to murder them. Thanksgivings must have been hell growing up in the Myers house because Michael certainly does want to prune his family tree.

I like this movie more than I used to. That might be due to having recently watched four thru six. Seriously I hate those movies as they miss the point of the shape as a killer. Here Michael is back to being a mysterious killer who destroys anyone unlucky enough to get in his way as he pursues his sister. And yes, she is still his sister in this movie. The movie is rather short at under ninety minutes and no time is wasted as we get to some killing right away. There is a bit of a lull in the middle, but it picks up again when Laurie decides to go back into the school after seeing the kids off safely. She is done with Michael, and it is time to settle things once and for all! I liked that, though it would be done better later in the franchise. Though at the time it was cool to see the character shift from victim to aggressor in dealing with her homicidal brother. 

Okay so the mask is a little goofy

The cast is great, and I was so happy to see Curtis return to the franchise and to horror movies in general. She is very good in the movie. It was also neat to see her mom Janet Leigh show up in a small role. Though she is onscreen long enough for an awesomely subtle Psycho easter egg. Familiar faces Adam Arkin and L.L. Cool J have supporting roles. But what is crazy are all the young actors that pop up in smaller roles. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Josh Harnett, and Michelle Williams all appear. Then again it was Miramax and they seemed to be working with all the up and comers in the nineties.

I do have issues with Halloween H20. The kills aren’t very good. We do get a decent throat cut and a gnarly busted leg but most everything else is offscreen or after the fact. The skate to the face is a neat look, but you couldn’t show it to us? There is a call back to Halloween II as one character is stabbed and lifted in a very familiar way. But overall, it wasn’t awesome. I also know that some fans have issues with the mask, which is a couple masks and some CGI because they apparently couldn’t make up their minds while filming. To be honest I couldn’t really tell, but then I wasn’t staring at the mask every time it appeared on the screen. Finally, this is a bit nitpicky but there was I guess some issues with pulling audio from Halloween so they had another actor do a voiceover of Loomis’ famous monologue about trying to keep him locked up. I wish that they could have used the original audio because this annoyed me. It would have also been a nice way to acknowledge the actor that helped keep the franchise rolling when Curtis was off doing other stuff.

This is much better than the three that preceded it, though not great. Still if you are a Halloween fan or new to the franchise this is worth at least one watch. I don’t feel the need to go back to it as often as other installments but for the nineties its not too bad. Consider that a tepid recommendation from me.

 

© Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)

This franchise continues to go further off the rails with this entry, the sixth in the series. Set six years after the events of Halloween 5 it opens with a grown-up Jamie giving birth. She makes a break for it with Michael in pursuit. It seems that he or the accomplices working with him have plans for the child. Yeah, I said accomplices. If you remember the previous movie a mysterious figure in cowboy boots broke him out of jail. Both he and Jamie have been missing since then. Who are these people and why Michael? There is some attempt to tie the story into the having to kill all the members of one bloodline to save the “village”. This is called the curse of Thorn. Totally forgot to mention that Michael now has a signature that he leaves at his murders… Screw this movie.

There is another plot line with Paul Rudd starring as now adult Tommy that was being babysat by Laurie in the first flick. He lives across the street from another batch of Strodes that are now living in the old Myers place. Why move your family into the house of the killer that terrorized your relatives? Because the dad is a jerk. Seriously, that is the reason. Toss in some stupid twists with a now retired Loomis and the new doctor taking care of Michael to thoroughly confuse things as the cherry on the top of this dog crap mess of a movie.

Clearly, I’m not a fan of The Curse of Michael Myers. This is a prime example of a movie that has no idea of the story it is trying to tell. As you can see above there are many different storylines that never seem to fit together. This makes for an uneven narrative that jumps around so much that it leaves the audience confused. There are many questions left unanswered. Why if it is Michael’s mission to end the bloodline and save the village does he allow Jamie to live all of those years? And when he was in the room right after the baby was born why didn’t he just kill them then rather than wait for the escape to go looking?

Loomis' last ride. Sucks it had to be in this.

Okay so maybe then he didn’t want the baby to die and instead needed Jamie to have it. Must have been some big deal with the cult that was helping and protecting him. Maybe they are going to harness evil or some other nonsense like that. But then why does he seemingly at random decide to kill the shit out of all of them? He slaughters all the people that were helping him before they finished whatever they were working on. I guess he just wanted to kill the bloodline… oh wait he had many chances to do that and didn’t!

There are more unanswered questions that I could go on with, but it is pointless. This movie feels like they had a lot of unfinished ideas that they tossed together without caring if it made any sense. Of all the sequels I’ve covered so far, this one is the most frustrating yet. It isn’t just bad it is ineptly made. For a franchise that had such a pedigree over the first couple flicks that is completely unacceptable. Being a horror flick I normally talk about the kills and gore. Not going to bother with The Curse of Michael Myers. It could have the best kills ever, executed with the skills of Tom Savini at his peak (it has neither) and it wouldn’t save this movie from being garbage. Shame on the producers and filmmakers involved in this disaster.

 

Ó Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)

When last we saw Michael, he was being shot multiple times and falling into a mine or well. This movie shows us that he managed to roll out into a creek and float downstream until being helped out by an old man with a parrot who lived in a cabin. We are led to believe that he then proceeds to lie there in a coma for a year waiting for his next chance to go after his niece Jamie. The old man apparently just lets him lie there until he wakes up. Also, the police never go looking for the body I suppose, because it doesn’t seem like he would be that hard to find. Lots of unanswered questions.

But hey at least we know that Jamie stabbed her adoptive mother and is now possessed by the killer spirit that plagues the family. Only not really. In this movie she has spent the last year in a hospital being treated for being traumatized by her attempted murder. She can’t speak and starts having bad dreams after Michael wakes up. Her adoptive sister from the first movie is back, but just long enough to introduce another batch of teenagers to get murdered before she too is dispatched by Michael. The idea of her being the next killer is totally dropped as he tries to kill her yet again, all the while building up a body count.

I could keep trying to explain the plot, but it isn’t worth the effort. This movie is a complete mess that clearly didn’t know what the hell it was supposed to be. The tone shifts continually from the murderous rage of Michael, to the teenagers being irresponsible, and finally we get some comic relief in the local cops. They even get their own silly theme song and bungle their way along until they are brutally murdered… God Damn it movie what the Hell are you doing? Best of all is a mysterious guy in black boots that gets off a bus and sneaks around Haddonfield. He isn’t that important until we see him lay siege to the jail and breaks Myers out after Loomis had finally captured him. What is that all about? You have to wait for the next movie to find out. The Jamie character, which had been setup as central to the story is left abandoned in the middle of the police station as the writers decide to wander off in another direction with the jail break.

I normally don't notice... but this mask sucks!

This movie has a lot of ideas, none of which are developed. This makes for an uneven, illogical, and difficult to follow story that wears out its welcome quickly. There are more examples than I’ve listed above but why bother? I can’t think of a franchise that kept switching gears and rebooting itself like Halloween. With part four they tried the Jamie character and added some psychic connection to Michael. They began developing it more here and then bailed to start something else that was then followed up on in the next movie. I had some hope that the kills would be decent since I saw KNB was credited for the special effects work. We get one fun kill with a rake to the face that is on screen and fun, but the rest are either offscreen or tame. There is nothing here for fans of gore.

How could the people in charge run the Halloween franchise so far into the ground that this was the best idea they could come up with? It doesn’t even feel like a finished product and has that tossing things at the wall to see what sticks vibe to it. Don’t bother wasting your time on Halloween 5. I can’t believe that I have so many more to watch before I’m done with this series.

 

Ó Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

 

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

Six years passed between the release of this movie and the unpopular Halloween III Season of the Witch. After the backlash from fans the producers decided to bring Michael Myers back for more killing, but he and Loomis were the only ones destined to return… this time. And if I’m to be honest it is here that the franchise begins to take a horrible turn.

Ten years have passed since the events of first two Halloween movies. During that time Laurie Strode has had time to fall in love, marry, have a daughter, and die in a car accident. Clearly Jamie Lee Curtis’ career was doing well enough she had no desire to come anywhere near this one. It is Halloween and Jamie, the daughter, has been adopted and is getting ready to go trick or treating. See what they did there with the name? Well that is about as clever as they are going to get with this one. Michael Myers wakes up as he is being transferred and comes after her. 

Wait a minute didn’t he and Loomis die? Nope they both survived the explosion so when Michael heads back to Haddonfield his is followed by Loomis. Along the way Michael takes out the phone lines and Loomis’ car. This is a very different Michael Myers from the early films. Here he has strategy and sets up his victims. By the time Loomis arrives in town the killings have already started. Jamie and her adopted older sister Rachel are the last survivors and flee town in a pickup truck full of well-armed locals. That isn’t as safe as it sounds. 

I could keep going on with the plot synopsis, but I won’t. This movie is where the Halloween franchise starts going off the rails. In the earlier movies Myers was scary because he was the shape. He was a killing machine without any clear motivation. Just a screwed up human being that could take some punishment and clearly had the ability to ignore pain. He was the boogeyman. With the start of this movie they decided to make him something else. After ten years in a coma he sits up and has all of his strength. He knows right where Jamie is and how to get back to Haddonfield. Bullets don’t stop him, getting hit by a car doesn’t slow him down. He has become an unstoppable killing machine with supernatural powers. 

Why do this? They were clearly watching the other big franchises like Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street, both of which featured a killer that you couldn’t destroy and that had supernatural powers. This copied it and in doing that tossed everything that made this franchise special. If that weren’t bad enough, they didn’t even do a good job at that. The script is awful and filled with plot holes and mistakes. First Michael appears to be able to be in a lot of different places at once. He has the time to kill everyone at the police station (again because he is now bullet proof…until he isn’t) and get to the power station to turn the lights off. All so he can almost immediately appear at the house where he knows that Jamie and her sister are at. 

Come on movie you have to at least make some sense. They double down with him suddenly hanging onto the back long after they should have left him back in town. Of course, they had to do this to get the big ending where suddenly shooting Michael hurts him and knocks him down a mine shaft or whatever the hell that was. Then of course we get the big shock ending when it appears that Jamie has become the killer now. Considering they made the point of putting her in the same damn costume that Michael wore as a child when he killed his sister was it really a surprise? I did enjoy Loomis trying to shoot her… Donald Pleasence is awesome but doesn’t get enough screen time. 

I should also mention that I found the kills to be disappointing. You get a finger to the forehead and a throat torn out, but everything else is just off screen or happens when the camera isn’t looking. If you are going to try and be one of the other big franchises, then at least give me some gore. I know that many horror flicks were getting neutered, but this is tame even by comparison to what the MPAA was letting slide. 

This is a bad movie that I have managed to avoid watching for years. I had hoped that it might have aged well, but it didn’t. The only good thing that I can say is that Halloween 4 is better than the horrors that followed. 

© Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

Halloween III (1982)

The dive into the Halloween franchise continues with the most controversial of them. It was decided that the Michael Myers story was over, but that there were many more spooky tales to be told. Not only did the movie not have the killer we all knew and loved, but it wasn’t even that kind of story! This is well before the days of the internet where everything was spoiled months before a movie came out. Opening weekend people showed up for some more Michael Myers and got something very different, which made many of them very mad. Before I get too much further let me explain the plot. 

The action kicks off with an old man running from someone. He eventually ends up in a hospital under the care of Dr. Challis, played by Tom Atkins. The man is killed, and the killer blows himself up in the parking lot after committing the murder. When the murdered man’s daughter, Ellie, starts asking questions the pair of them head off to figure out what the hell her father was up to before he died. This leads them to the Silver Shamrock novelty factory that is in the midst of a busy season making Halloween masks for the kids. Okay clearly something isn’t right about the town and the factory, especially the strange men in suits that seem to be everywhere. They turn out to be automatons, mechanical creatures that are controlled by the man in charge of Silver Shamrock to guard his plant and his plans. 

Some creepy stuff happens, people are killed, and a huge conspiracy is revealed. The owner of the factory turns out to be a devotee to the “old” ways. Using magic and the power of Stonehenge he plans on using the masks to kill the children who then sprout out insects and snakes that kill their parents! It all is triggered by a television commercial that is advertised as the big giveaway. Can they stop this evil plan in time to prevent the sacrifice of millions of innocent children? I’m not sure and don’t want to spoil the movie, but I can say that Tom Atkins has an awesome mustache. 

So, no masked killer… unless you want to count the masks that are used to kill people. More importantly there was no killer stalking his victims while they drank and got up to other naughty hijinks. I can totally understand why this movie flopped with audiences when it was first released. But Halloween III is a decent movie that was an experiment that I wish had succeeded, especially given the track record of the sequels that followed and ignored this movie. The cast is solid with Atkins in the lead role. I don’t totally buy him as a doctor, especially when he dumps the kids on his ex-wife to go play detective armed only with a six pack of beer! But he has enough charisma that I ended up not caring how silly that was. The villain of the movie is played by Dan O’Herlihy, who is great. He is always charming, even when he is about to murder some innocent people. 

There are some decent bits of gore in Halloween III. The best might be when a hand is jammed thru the eyes of a victim, who then has his skull fractured from the inside. There are also melted heads, an exploded face, multiple yellow gooey bits from automatons used by the villain as his guards, and a head gets twisted right off a body! Not all of it is right in your face, but there is still enough to have some fun with. 

The one thing that has always bugged me about the movie is the twist at the end with Ellie. Spoilers are coming. Well, you were warned so here it is. She was either one of the automatons from the start or was replaced at some point during the trip to the factory. After fighting it out with fake Ellie the good doctor makes it to a phone where he is somehow able to convince the networks to not air the commercial… How did that work? This was a weird way to end movie. 

Clearly there are issues with the plot, but overall Halloween III is a good time. Atkins is a charismatic leading man and there is enough to the story to be creepy and at times gory. The movie is hurt by the ending as it just doesn’t seem to fit. It feels like the filmmakers weren’t sure of what to do with it and just winged it. But the movie doesn’t deserve all the hate that it initially got and is worth a watch. I recommend it. 

© Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

Halloween II (1981)

Horror movies have spawned many sequels over the years. Of all of them I think this might be the best or at least the cleverest. This movie takes place immediately after the end of the original Halloween. Michael has picked himself up off the yard where he landed at the end of the movie and is wandering the neighborhood, injured but still ready to grab another kitchen knife and continue his work. 

While this is going on Loomis is still looking for him and the girl that got away, Laurie Strode, has been taken to the hospital. Remember she was pretty beat up after her encounter with Michael. Eventually he finds out where she is and heads off to finish the job, which isn’t a good thing for the staff. As he makes his way thru them, collecting quite a body count, Loomis is grabbed and removed from Haddonfield. Seems that the state officials want to distance themselves from accidentally releasing a mass murderer. Though Loomis does make his way to the hospital for a final showdown with Michael. 

I really like this movie and think that having it pick right up at the end of the first was a genius idea. They basically continue right along with the same night of terror. Laurie is still traumatized, and Jamie Lee Curtis is great again in her role. Pleasence is also awesome reprising his role as Loomis. He manages to play right on the edge of overacting without crossing the line. He also gets more screen time as Curtis spends a lot of the movie in a hospital bed. Much like the first movie we get a great stalking/chasing sequence to finish up things. Only this time it is in a creepy hospital. 

In my review of Halloween, I mentioned that I don’t consider it a slasher movie because the kills aren’t as in your face. In this one they are more like what you would expect from a slasher flick. A security guard takes a hammer to the face, needles are driven into eyes and temples, another person is cooked alive in a whirlpool, and we even get someone drained of all their blood. That last one makes quite the mess and provides a bit of slapstick. There are a lot more kills and many of them are on screen. Carpenter didn’t direct this so his less is more attitude from the original isn’t carried over. 

I have two big complaints about Halloween II. First is without Carpenter at the helm the stalking scenes where Michael is pursuing Laurie aren’t nearly as good. The setting of the hospital has a lot of potential but there isn’t much tension built up. The other big thing that was a huge mistake is giving Michael a backstory and motivation. It is in this movie that we find out Laurie is his sister and that he wants to kill her much like their older sister and the beginning of the first movie. I liked it better when he was the shape. No reason, no motivation, just a force of nature that wanted to kill. Pure evil plays much better. 

In the end we have the same great actors, Curtis and Pleasence, given a good script that continues the story. There are more kills, and they are executed nicely on screen. While not nearly as good as the original I still give Halloween II credit for doing its own thing. If you haven’t seen this one it is a worthy sequel. Now onto Halloween III.

© Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

Halloween (1978)

This is another of those movies that I feel a bit silly reviewing. Even the most casual of fans has to know about the original John Carpenter classic that launched the franchise. But since I’m doing a retrospective on the series, I figured it was necessary to preach to the choir just a bit.

The movie kicks off twenty years in the past where we see a teenage girl getting frisky with her boyfriend. He leaves afterwards, and someone sneaks up on her stabbing her do death with a kitchen knife. We quickly discover that it was her younger brother Michael, basically just a kid. Then the action shifts to the “present” or twenty years later. Dr. Loomis is getting ready to transport the now adult Michael for an evaluation to see if he can be released. Not much chance of that since according to the good doctor he has been starring at the walls for the last couple of decades. But when the car arrives to pick him up the patients are wandering around in the dark and Michael soon steals the car and takes off. Where is he headed? Home of course.

The rest of the movie is Michael stalking some random high school girls that happen to be babysitting kids on Halloween night, targeting one in particular. Her name is Laurie Strode and she had the misfortune of dropping the keys off at the old Myer’s house while Michael was hiding out. He literally went home you see. Loomis arrives in town and with the sheriff starts hunting Michael aka. the Boogeyman. After some deaths he finally starts chasing Laurie, but before he can get her Loomis shows up and Michael ends up dead… or does he?

Before anyone fires off an angry email about Laurie being Michael’s sister and that it wasn’t all random please stop. Remember that was added in Halloween part II so here it is all random and unexplained. I’ve always preferred that because Michael is much scarier when he doesn’t have a backstory. In this movie he is just the shape, an evil killing machine that doesn’t need motivation or reason. If you have the misfortune of meeting up with him, you die. That is way scarier so when I watch this one, I try and forget about the attempts later in the series to explain the character. Hell, the more they try and explain him the worse the movies get.

The lighting, camera work, music, and setting all work together to make Halloween as scary as any movie you will ever watch. Many of the fans have seen this one so much that they have become calloused to how great it is. There are scenes where Michael is in the background and we the audience can see him, but the characters can’t. Other times the characters do see him and then just as quickly he is gone. But my favorite bit is where he steps out of the shadows behind the Laurie Strode character with only the white of his mask being visible at first. These aren’t simple jump scares, but instead are creepy and set the tone for the action.

Many cite this and Black Christmas as the first slasher movies. I’ve never felt like the original Halloween was a slasher movie. It doesn’t have the in your face kills and gores that those movies feature. Instead the kills here aren’t as over the top and you don’t see knives or blood splashing everywhere. You get one simple stabbing and a couple strangulations. They are slightly disturbing when you realize this is likely how a serial killer would get rid of his victims, but it certainly isn’t the bloodbath that we would see in the slasher craze of the eighties. Halloween instead focuses more on the characters, especially Laurie and Dr. Loomis. Jamie Lee Curtis is great as Laurie and pulls of the horror of seeing all of her friends killed very well. But it is Donald Pleasance as Dr. Loomis that is most memorable. He basically steals every scene that he is in and has all of the best lines, both serious with his monologues as well as some funny one liners.

There is a reason that Halloween spawned a franchise. It’s a classic that caught everyone by surprise and became part of the culture. And while I don’t consider this a slasher movie it also helped spawn that phenomenon that dominated the nineteen eighties and beyond. This is a must see if you consider yourself a horror movie fan.

 

Ó Copyright 2021 John Shatzer