Even while I successfully avoided all trailers (to be surprised by everything), admittedly, I had average to low expectations for this one. I find the more often I lower my expectations, the more happy I am with the product. We all have our way of doing things. Turns out, doing both those things, made for an absolute treat when seeing Halloween on opening night.
Director/writer David Gordon Green's often brutal representation of The Shape is a direct sequel to Carpenter's 1978 horror classic, picking up the tale 40 years after what went down on that cold Halloween night in 1978.
So, as far as Halloween II and Halloween III: Season of the Witch, etc - forget them, the slate has been wiped clean.
Now four decades since the masked Shape, referred to as Michael Myers, murdered several people in Haddonfield, Illinois, on the night of October 31st, lone survivor Laurie Strode is now strung out, and ready for war. Laurie, knowing evil doesn't die easy, now waits, convinced Michael will one day escape, find her, and put her in the ground.
Laurie lives in the middle of nowhere, with a house rigged in a way that would make Kevin McCallister proud. Security cameras, floodlights, a Jodi Foster panic room, Home Alone traps aplenty. Laurie's past has ruined two marriages, one of which resulted in losing custody of her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) when Karen was just 12 years old. Karen herself, after an upbringing similar to being born/living your adolescents on a battlefield, has distanced herself from her mother and the paranoia of a resurrection of Michael Myers.
In typical Halloween fashion, some idiot with a pocket protector decides it'd be a swell idea to take Michael out of the facility that locked him up and threw away the key 40 years ago. Better yet, put him on a bus with a bunch of other mentally unstable prisoners. On Halloween night of all nights!
Blink and The Shape is on the loose again. Killing people in more creative ways than I had anticipated. But before that, he gains possession of his mask. Which as a B-storyline was a genius detour McBride and Green took us on.
Haluk Bilginer is the unnerving Dr. Sartain, who, obviously, is in charge of Michael and is driven by the fascination of why Michael is the way he is. The line, "so you're the new Loomis," was perfect.
Judy Greer I would argue is the anchor of the film. And, definitely "got me" in the film.
James Jude Courtney was eerie as The Shape. And is unquestionably phenomenal. Which is saying something considering we can only base this on movement.
And Jamie Lee Curtis nails her revamping of Laurie Strode. Strong. Cold. Calculated. Haunted by her past but ready to kick it's teeth down it's throat.
David Gordon Green and Danny McBride deliver a sequel that chose not embellish the myth of Michael Myers but rather stripped away a lot of the cultish mystique and just made him a serial killer driven by pure evil.
