- Title: Halloween (2018)
- IMDb: link
Retconning all the Halloween sequels that came before, 2018’s Halloween is a direct sequel to the original. Set 40 years later, the film’s set-up shares story elements with Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, catches up with Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her family decades after her encounter with Michael Meyers. Taking a page from Terminator 2: Judgement Day, this version of Laurie went into survivalist mode after her experience with Michael, leaving a broken family in her wake, always believing he would eventually return.
The method of Michael’s return involves a bus crash, a pair of true crime podcasters awaking something in the killer that has spent four decades in a mental institution, and Michael’s psychiatrist (Haluk Bilginer) who has far warmer feelings to his patient than Dr. Sam Loomis ever did.
Despite its similarities, this Halloween is far superior to Halloween H20: 20 Years Later. Director David Gordon Green knows how to frame Michael and the action, even if certain aspects of the movie’s plot (such as everything involving the podcasters and Laurie’s daughter, played by Judy Greer, ignoring the danger her family is in after Michael escapes) remain fairly ridiculous. The more kick-ass version of Laurie offers a nice change of pace as well, while allowing us to still see the scars left on the woman that are raw 40 years later.
Of course a Halloween film wouldn’t be complete without a group of teenagers making bad decisions. This time around that falls on Laurie’s thoughtful granddaughter (Andi Matichak) and her less thoughtful friends (Dylan Arnold, Miles Robbins, Drew Scheid, and Virginia Gardner), most of whom will meet gruesome ends at the hands of Michael on Halloween night.
While not as good as the original, the film is arguably the best of any of the Halloween sequels managing to both honor what has come before, there are plenty of callbacks her for fans, while still finding a way to add something new to the story. The film climaxes in an extended action sequence where Laurie lures Michael into her safehouse which turns out not so much a fortress to keep the killer out but to be a trap she has spent decades designing to kill Michael Meyers. While John Carpenter, who returns to the franchise as a producer, saw the film as a finale to Michael and Laure’s story, it turns out to be a new beginning leading into this month’s release of Halloween Kills and a third film planned for next Halloween.
