Halloween (2018) Review: Jamie Lee Curtis Shines in Disappointing Sequel

You don’t like that title, do you? I assure you, I feel the same way.

Much like last Fall (or close enough to it), my excitement for a big horror release has been in overdrive. Last year because of Andy Muschietti’s big-screen adaptation of It, and now because of Halloween. Like all of you, I’m a hardcore fan of John Carpenter’s original film and I grew up loving the sequels that followed, however lackluster some of the installments may be. Despite glaring flaws, there are likable qualities in *almost* every entry of the series, and David Gordon Green’s new sequel is no exception. With that being said, Halloween 2018 is an underwhelming experience that fails to capitalize on its brilliant central idea.

It’s been 40 years since Michael Myers terrorized babysitters in the town of Haddonfield. Because of the trauma she’s been forced to endure, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) has come face to face with personal demons and devastating losses since surviving Halloween night all those years ago. She’s gone through two marriages, lost her daughter to Child Protective Services, and kept to herself in an isolated, heavily-protected home. Her only daughter (Judy Greer) resents her, which has created complications between herself and her teenage granddaughter (Andi Matichak). She’s prayed every night since Michael Myers was captured that he would escape confinement so she can kill him, and while Michael is being transferred the night before Halloween, her wish comes true. The Shape escapes the bus and once again terrorizes Haddonfield, Illinois on the titular holiday, leaving Laurie and local law enforcement to hunt him down and put an end to the decades-long nightmare.

The new entry ignores every sequel to its 1978 counterpart, and since the Halloween franchise is unabashedly inconsistent with its continuity, asking fans to temporarily forget that those films exist is completely fair. The issue with that, though, is that Green and his co-writers, Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley, remind us of those sequels constantly. Fan service was to be expected of course, but much of Halloween 2018 plays like a greatest hits collection of sequels that were retconned. Choosing to ignore those films was an unspoken promise to deliver something different, but, in large part, Green and company have given us more of the same.

The central story had the potential for greatness, especially since Jamie Lee Curtis graces the film with a phenomenal, career-best performance as the flawed-yet-totally-badass heroine, but there are so many moving pieces around it that the execution feels unfocused. Much of the sequel, actually, plays like a straightforward slasher flick while Michael roams Haddonfield, killing multiple people at random. Many of those kills are off-screen, but there are flashes of brutality in the moments we are shown. Some of it works, but a lot of it doesn’t. Green moves from kill to kill without building much atmosphere or tension, and even though he wraps it in a pretty package with tracking shots and moments of visual flair, there is seldom a moment when he forces the viewer to feel what’s happening.

With rare exceptions, the humor of this entry tends to get in the way of any glimpses of tension. It’s surprisingly funny at times (a young character named Julian is legitimately hilarious), but that humor should have taken a back seat during the moments that we’re supposed to be afraid. Characters say and do things that are played for laughs during these otherwise intense scenes, and I found it disappointing that my entire theater was cracking up in a time that they should have been on the edge of their seat.

Aside from Laurie and the slightest bit of attachment to her family, the new characters here, especially the teens, are horrendous and annoying. They exist inside of your standard slasher stereotypes, and their sole purpose is to be murdered (which you’ll likely be begging for), but most of them die off-screen, and one of them wrongs Laurie’s granddaughter and is just never seen again. But I swear on everything- including the characters in Halloween: Resurrection and the other mostly-bad entries, this sequel features the absolute worst: Dr. Sartain. I am baffled as to how his character and the arc it culminates in made it into the final cut of the movie. There’s a late moment involving Sartain that made me shake my head and cuss under my breath. I looked at the exit, I can't lie. It’s awful.

It’s hardly a surprise that Halloween 2018 builds toward a crowd-pleasing finale, but by the time it reached these moments, I had already grown cold towards the annoyances. That’s not to say that the finale is bad in any way, just that it cannot save this sequel from mediocrity. Even the tremendous revamped score by John Carpenter, his son Cody, and Daniel Davies is utilized poorly. I’m genuinely glad that Michael Myers is back. I’m happy for Jamie Lee Curtis that she got to portray Laurie Strode in a way that truly adds to the legacy of that character. I’m even stoked that many fans seem to love this entry. It’s being labeled as the best sequel to Carpenter’s original, and for you, it may be.

As for me? It’s not even close.