Post by wvengineer on Oct 23, 2018 21:07:50 GMT
I saw Halloween (2018) over the weekend.
First off, this film is a direct sequel to the original 1978 film. It ignores everything from Halloween 2 (1981) though Halloween 2 (2009). Of course if that sentence doesn't make sense to you, then you are not alone at not following all the messed up lines of this franchise. It ignores Halloween 2 though Halloween Resurrection and the less said about the Rob Zombie films, the better. If you go in thinking that is going with the film series, you may very confused. If you ignore the rest and go with it, it works.
So, this takes up 40 years after the original film's murders in 1978. Micheal Meyers is now a 66 year old, mortal man that managed to survive the 7 shots to the chest, 1 knitting needle in the arm, and 1 coat hanger to the neck that he suffered in the first movie. Lorie Strode suffers severe PTSD from the original attack and has lived in fear of Michael returning for 4 decades. She has descended into the roll of the crazy, paranoid, drunk, prepper grandma which her family trying to deal with.
Michael escapes during a prisoner transfer. (Shocker right?) This fulfills Lorie's desire and the two go staking each other.
This film is very much a love letter to the whole series. There are tons of references to all of the movies scattered throughout this one. This both helps and hurt the film. Most of the references are subtle and you can easily miss in the background or if you are not familiar with the series. Those are fun to look for. You could almost do a drinking game with all the references. Others are more in your face. Some work, but some not only do not work, but actually work against the movie.
The 2nd act of the movie after Micheal's escape is the worst part of the movie. On the whole, it is little more than fan service and only service to pad the movie out instead of move the story along. Don't get me wrong, there are good moments and some good scares, but a lot of it is out of place both in pacing and the characters as established in this film.
Once we get into the 3rd act, on the whole the movie is much better and gets things moving again. There is, however, one plot twist that is the worst offender of the fan service. That is one that if they had pursued it, could have really taken the film in a new, different and very interesting direction, but they got lazy and ended it before they could do anything with it. As is, it's a lame moment of pointless fan service. I think it would have been better off without that subplot or it needed handled entirely different.
Music has always been a factor in this series. The Halloween theme is iconic. They do as much call basks with it as they do on screen stuff. This is a mixed bag. Some stuff works, and the original score is great. However some of the cues from the original movie just felt out of place here.
Overall, it's enjoyable. Much better than some (most) of the entries in this franchise, but it's not up there with the original. If this is the last Micheal Meyers movie, this will be a satisfying conclusion to the story line. Here's hoping they don't pull a Halloween Resurrection.
I will go though and review more of the movies in this series over the next few days.
First off, this film is a direct sequel to the original 1978 film. It ignores everything from Halloween 2 (1981) though Halloween 2 (2009). Of course if that sentence doesn't make sense to you, then you are not alone at not following all the messed up lines of this franchise. It ignores Halloween 2 though Halloween Resurrection and the less said about the Rob Zombie films, the better. If you go in thinking that is going with the film series, you may very confused. If you ignore the rest and go with it, it works.
So, this takes up 40 years after the original film's murders in 1978. Micheal Meyers is now a 66 year old, mortal man that managed to survive the 7 shots to the chest, 1 knitting needle in the arm, and 1 coat hanger to the neck that he suffered in the first movie. Lorie Strode suffers severe PTSD from the original attack and has lived in fear of Michael returning for 4 decades. She has descended into the roll of the crazy, paranoid, drunk, prepper grandma which her family trying to deal with.
Michael escapes during a prisoner transfer. (Shocker right?) This fulfills Lorie's desire and the two go staking each other.
This film is very much a love letter to the whole series. There are tons of references to all of the movies scattered throughout this one. This both helps and hurt the film. Most of the references are subtle and you can easily miss in the background or if you are not familiar with the series. Those are fun to look for. You could almost do a drinking game with all the references. Others are more in your face. Some work, but some not only do not work, but actually work against the movie.
The 2nd act of the movie after Micheal's escape is the worst part of the movie. On the whole, it is little more than fan service and only service to pad the movie out instead of move the story along. Don't get me wrong, there are good moments and some good scares, but a lot of it is out of place both in pacing and the characters as established in this film.
Once we get into the 3rd act, on the whole the movie is much better and gets things moving again. There is, however, one plot twist that is the worst offender of the fan service. That is one that if they had pursued it, could have really taken the film in a new, different and very interesting direction, but they got lazy and ended it before they could do anything with it. As is, it's a lame moment of pointless fan service. I think it would have been better off without that subplot or it needed handled entirely different.
Music has always been a factor in this series. The Halloween theme is iconic. They do as much call basks with it as they do on screen stuff. This is a mixed bag. Some stuff works, and the original score is great. However some of the cues from the original movie just felt out of place here.
Overall, it's enjoyable. Much better than some (most) of the entries in this franchise, but it's not up there with the original. If this is the last Micheal Meyers movie, this will be a satisfying conclusion to the story line. Here's hoping they don't pull a Halloween Resurrection.
I will go though and review more of the movies in this series over the next few days.
