Review: Halloween

Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.

David Gordon Green's direct sequel to John Carpenter's 1978 masterpiece is the 10th film in the series since the original - and the good news is that it's the best since the first film, which didn't quite give birth to the slasher genre, but certainly gave it the boost it needed. The director and co-screenwriter Danny McBride have used this sequel to Carpenter's classic to make a tense thriller with a timely female empowerment theme that makes the film well worth a watch.

That being said, this film - much like all of the other "Halloween" sequels and countless other movies about masked men stalking teenagers - doesn't hold a candle to the 1978 film, which was terrifying due to the inscrutability of its villain, a murderer with seemingly no purpose other than "pure evil." Carpenter's landmark horror movie was taut, tight and relentlessly frightening. It also featured an unsettling mood that few horror movies have been unable to replicate.

Gordon Green's sequel - which includes some in-jokes regarding the numerous sequels between 1978 and the present, such as a refutation to a previous sequel's revelation that Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) was Michael's sister - suggests that Strode and Myers' relationship is a symbiotic one - he is the predator who needs to fulfill his goal of killing Strode, while she spends her life planning for him to be released, so that she may kill him.

Laurie's relationship with her adult daughter, Karen (Judy Greer), is strained. Karen was taken from Laurie by child protective services at a young age after her mother attempted to raise her in a survivalist-style upbringing. Now, Laurie has limited access to her teenage granddaughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak), who brings her new boyfriend to meet the family at the film's beginning and has an evening of festivities planned for Halloween with her babysitting pals - one of whom, I must note, is stuck babysitting a particularly funny kid whose few scenes steal the show.

Meanwhile, a pair of British journalists have come to the maximum security facility where Myers is being kept to make a documentary about him and Laurie. Neither subject has much to say. We also meet Sartain (Haluk Bilginer), Michael's doctor, who is a far cry from Donald Pleasance's Dr. Loomis. One of the film's flimsier aspects involves the details of Michael's escape during a routine transfer to another facility. And a silly plot thread involving Sartain's intentions regarding Michael nearly derails the proceedings, but it is thankfully wrapped up quickly.

As Michael goes on a killing spree - and a much more brutal one than in Carpenter's original - the story ultimately becomes a horror movie for the #MeToo moment as three generations of women team up to fight the male predator who has, in one form or another, victimized them for much of their lives. The final confrontation between Michael and the three women takes place in Laurie's locked-down home - which the filmmakers make a point of juxtaposing with the maximum security prison where Michael is kept early in the film to show how both characters have been captives for decades - is a high point for the picture.

Curtis' early work was primarily horror movies - from "Halloween" and "Terror Train" to "Prom Night" - and, as a result, she earned the title of "scream queen." In the years since, she became associated more with films in which her sense of comic timing was well utilized, from the fabulous "A Fish Called Wanda" to "True Lies." But in her return to the screen as Laurie Strode, Curtis gives a powerful and intense performance that delves deeper than your typical portrayal in a mainstream horror movie. In other words, she still has the goods. And Michael Myers' - long known to horror fans as The Shape - still retains the capacity to terrify audiences, even during an age that is pretty terrifying itself.