Halloween's Sequel Addiction

Kitchen equipment was weird in the seventies

Note: This was originally published on the Ginger Nuts of Horror website in November 2022. Since then, I have seen Halloween Ends, and it was indeed a dog turd. I've decided to present it as it was originally written, with some extra editing.

As of writing this, Halloween Ends opened on Friday. I had been planning on doing something about how awful Halloween Kills was as a follow-up to the write-up to my disappointing second viewing of Halloween (2018) for my personal blog. Then I started thinking — in fairness it’s been a thought that’s been rattling around for a while — that perhaps there shouldn’t be thirteen films with Michael Myers in them.

I’ll start by saying I haven’t seen Halloween Ends. I have gone ahead and waded into all kinds of spoilers, so I know what’s going on in with it. I will eventually watch it — since I’ve insanely committed myself to finishing this particular cycle of the films. I’m not hopeful about this one at all. Not that I’ll reveal any spoilers here, I just felt I needed to say this in a spirit of full disclosure. There will be spoilers for previous films, so watch out for that.

Why do I think that there shouldn’t have been so many films concerned with the Shatner mask-wearing knife enthusiast?

A question that has a cathartically long answer.

We’ll start by talking about the 1978 original. It’s a film I have seen many times since I was a kid and as such has been a major shaper in my tastes. I’m not alone in considering it a classic. From the mood, the pacing, music, and characters it’s as close to perfect as you can get. Even those little imperfections and movie-logic things add to the charm of the piece. Yes, I heart Halloween (1978).

What is it that makes Halloween such an effective horror film? That pacing is a big part of it. Even though it is a lean ninety-minute film it has a deliberateness that some might wish two hours to cultivate. The appearances of Michael Myers around Haddonfield after his escape from the mental hospital, set a brooding atmosphere. Once he’s in full murderful swing, Myers’s implacable pursuit and inhuman cunning, make him a particularly intimidating antagonist.

I'm going to say this Only Fans isn't going well.

The most fundamental thing about the events in Halloween was the fact that there was no neat explanation for Myers’s actions. It just happens, a bunch of kids are doing mundane stuff on Halloween and then they are murdered for no reason. The notion that the horror comes from his senselessness and the destruction of the idea of suburban safety isn’t a new one. I’m not bringing anything novel to the table by saying this, it is worth repeating, though.

You can’t discount the purposeful lack of background for the big bad in the mix. Michael Myers is a blank slate, in the years between his attack on his older sister and his spree murder there is nothing. He sits in his room and simply stares at the wall. Even writing that sentence gives a chill. The idea that he was on standby mode for fifteen years is terrifying. His sheer inscrutability builds on this: mute and wearing a neutral expression mask. He lurks in the shadows, and sometimes not-quite-so-shadows, waiting for his opportunity to attack. We don’t know what his motivations are, and we don’t know what his ultimate goal is. All we get is a hulking dude in a boiler suit and a mask, who is extremely keen on making people dead.

What backstory there is doesn’t offer anything, either. He comes from a happy, loving home (if it’s not the Rob Zombie take, at least — another one I haven’t seen and refuse to on account of how terrible I find Rob Zombie films), in a good, unremarkable neighbourhood. There’s nothing overtly supernatural, no years of animal abuse, or suggestion he was bullied, just a normal kid who decides to kill his big sister one day. I mean, being a little brother myself, I kind of understand that, but c’mon man, a bit of restraint.

This is why I think even one sequel was too many. John Carpenter has stated that he said everything he wanted to say with the original Halloween, and given how stripped-down the story is, I can believe it. It’s the reason he didn’t direct Halloween II (1981). However, Halloween II was made after all and then the rest — and ‘the rest’ is a lot. I still quite enjoy Halloween II, but it doesn’t work nearly as well as the original. Michael Myers just walking through a glass door like a Terminator is still hilarious, mind you, but I don’t think that’s what anyone involved in the production was going for.

To stretch out the story for another ninety minutes John Carpenter and Debra Hill, who were drawn back for writing duties, had to start expanding things. The idea of Samhain was the genesis of the original and never mentioned in it, but they had to make it explicit here and just this little bit of extra lore bloated this world and destroyed The Shape’s mystique. As soon as we were given even a vague motivation it imparted a sense of disappointment, after the initial moment of understanding.

"Oh no! Someone switched off night mode!"

The bloat didn’t stop there, with the further revelation that Laurie Strode was adopted and was in fact Michael’s sister. This connection was dropped for the 2018 Halloween, which was a good decision. The clunky familial tie dilutes the nihilistic meaninglessness of Michael Myers’s actions even more. This is something that was crammed into the US television cut of the original, with the clumsy expedience of the word ‘sister’ being scrawled in Michael’s abandoned cell. Not the most elegant solution and given his refusal to communicate, completely out of character — such as it was.

And I’d like to go on a tangent here about the level of gore in Halloween II in comparison with Halloween. The first film is almost bloodless, with literally only a few splashes here and there. My understanding is that for Halloween II, John Carpenter, having seen the much gorier Friday the 13^th insisted on having the blood spray more liberally. Because of this the Halloween films have the reputation of being grue-fests. While I’ve always been something of a gorehound, I think this does a major disservice to the restraint of the original. It also means that instead of an atmosphere of dread in the 2018 Halloween there was a heavy emphasis on brutality and gore, despite the statements by David Gordon-Green and Danny McBride saying they wanted something closer to the original.

The Cult of Thorn trilogy is the ultimate expression of story bloat and ties together Halloween IV-VI. Gone was the ambiguity of whether Michael Myers was supernatural, and in came a series of ever more ridiculous twists to keep the franchise alive, which included just a wee bit of incest, because everyone loves that. The franchise thankfully went dormant for a few years after this series of films.

Even though the most recent trilogy of films has stripped back most of the baggage of lore with respect to Michael Myers, they come with their own in the form of overblown character developments for the survivors. In some ways this is almost as damaging to the mystique of Myers; everyone even tangentially involved with the original has become obsessed with Michael Myers, distorting and destroying lives. I see what they are doing here, and how it fits the makers’ thesis on the nature of evil, but it feels forced and as clumsy as Laurie Strode and Michael Myers being siblings.

Michael Myers should always have been an enigmatic one-shot creation. His bizarre disappearance at the end of Halloween had power because we didn’t know where he was or if he was alive. The struggles and diminishing returns of the baker’s dozen of films reinforces my belief. I used to want Halloween sequels, but now I feel like that was a juvenile want, something to soothe the unease of Michael Myers stalking somewhere, ready to strike. That uneasiness was the original film’s greatest triumph, a culmination of beautifully combined elements, that has been eroded more and more in the forty-four years since it was released.

Halloween Ends won’t be the final outing for Michael Myers. No doubt in a few years’ time someone will think they can handle the material, a reboot or a different continuation of Myers’s mysterious quest. My hope is that this doesn’t happen, and that anyone who might want to tackle it takes a long consider and just puts it back on the shelf with a nice wistful pat. My preference would be that we had eleven original films in the intervening decades since 1978, but that’s an unfulfillable wish, and letting the old codger who is way too into sticking sharp metal things into squishy pink squealy things retire is a more achievable outcome.

Late to the Party Again!

 

'Have you considered changing your energy supplier?'

I am a fan of the original 1978 Halloween. Ever since I saw that flickering jack-o’-lantern and heard John Carpenter’s minimalist synth theme when I was way too young and was told to turn the television off, it has been part of my psyche. I haven’t seen every entry in the franchise: I didn’t get to see the final straight-to-video one with Paul Rudd or the 2002 effort Halloween: Resurrection, and I refuse to watch the Rob Zombie ones, because frankly, while I enjoy his music, he should not be allowed in a film director’s chair.

So, with that in mind, I was very interested in the 2018 effort directed by David Gordon Green he co-wrote with Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley. Due to a few factors, mostly money, I didn’t get to see it in the cinema, so I had to wait an entire year before getting to see it.

My first viewing was an enjoyable experience. It moved at a fair clip, once all the set-up was out of the way. It’s not the same as the original, there is a different feeling to it, not quite as lean, but that pace kept my interest until the finale.

So, this is a good place to point out that what follows has a plethora of spoilers. If you haven’t seen this film, want to and don’t want to have the whole thing given away, I’ll give you a chance to zip off and perhaps come back to compare notes. That would be cool, right? Beyond the giant ‘spoilers ahead’, there will be spoilers. Ready?

SPOILERS AHEAD.

Everybody settled in who is ready to take this journey with me? Good.

My first viewing of Halloween (2018) was a decent experience, with that in mind, this year, a few days after Halloween, I decided to go over it again. I was kind of inspired by the trailer for Halloween Kills dropping.

Let’s go over the plot, shall we? Just to get into the exercise.

This film takes place forty years after John Carpenter’s original and tosses out everything after that film, including Halloween II (1981). All the straight-video-sequels and H20 (which made vague allusions to all those iffy early nineties sequels) and, it goes without saying, the Rob Zombie films don’t even factor in.  The Laurie Strode is Michael Myers’s younger sister thread is thrown away as a rumour.

As such, the conceit is that after being shot six times and falling out of a first-floor window, despite the disappearing act, Michael Myers was apprehended. We find him at the start of this film in a psychiatric hospital on the eve of being transferred to a more secure facility. He is being visited by a couple of English true-crime podcasters who wave the Shatner mask at him that somehow upsets the other patients. This came under criticism at the time, and while it does have a bit of hokeyness, I can forgive it for cinematic casualty. It's atmosphere, man.

Myers’s attending doctor, Doctor Ranbir Sartain, is sympathetic towards Myers and he’s unhappy with the upcoming transfer. This will come up later, remember it.

He can't possibly have another agenda, right?

On the same day, the podcasters go to visit Laurie Strode, who has become a paranoid, possibly alcoholic, crank. They anger her by waffling some cod-psychiatric stuff at her about her connection to Myers and she tells them to leave.

We are introduced to Laurie’s daughter Karen Nelson, her husband Ted and her daughter Allyson. It is established that Karen’s and Laurie’s relationship is almost non-existent because of Laurie’s all-consuming obsession with Myers. An obsession that ruined Karen’s childhood, so she tries to protect Allyson from Laurie. There is a lot of stuff about Allyson inviting Laurie to her graduation, Karen lying about inviting Laurie and Ted being a bit of mild comic relief. Laurie is triggered after watching the bus take Myers to the new facility and she goes to Allyson’s graduation meal where there is a confrontation.

As is to be expected Myers escapes. The bus turns over in mysterious circumstances. Dr. Sartain is injured, but survives.  Myers murders a man and his son to steal their truck.

It’s at this point we are introduced to Deputy Frank Hawkins who helped apprehend Myers before.

Myers racks up more kills as he goes through the employees of a garage, in broad daylight and catches up with the podcasters. It’s here that he acquires the boiler suit and gets his mask back. The pace picks up too.

Allyson has a fight with her boyfriend at a Halloween party and leaves. There’s no point in mentioning him, as his entire purpose is to force Allyson to leave the party. He doesn't factor again and doesn't even warrant a killing.

Myers murders a couple of randos, getting himself a carving knife, and also kills two of Allyson’s friends who were babysitting. This is when Laurie has her first confrontation with Myers in forty years, but he escapes under her and Hawkins’s noses.

You've got this, Laurie...or maybe not.

Laurie persuades Karen and Ted to go to with her to her isolated house in the woods, while the police look for Myers and Allyson. Allyson can’t be contacted because her boyfriend threw away her phone.

Sartain joins Hawkins in the search for Allyson, which happens pretty quickly after Myers kills another one of Allyson’s friends after they have an argument.

Now we get the payoff to Sartain’s sympathies as Myers is spotted by Allyson, and Hawkins runs him over. Before Hawkins can finish Myers off, Sartain reveals he has either a bespoke murder pen or a tactical pen. Whatever, he stabs Hawkins to death and shoves Myers in the back of the cruiser with Allyson. The ‘mysterious circumstances’ from earlier were Dr. MadBastard stabbing enough people to allow Myers to escape and he would have got away with it if it weren’t for a literal pesky kid. He wants to ally himself with Myers, but Myers being a consummate lone wolf murders all of the shit out of him, while incidentally allowing Allyson to escape.

Two more police are killed, along with Ted. Ted, of course, having about as much impact on the whole thing as the two anonymous police officers.

This is where my problems started with the film. Going through the plot again, there are some curious things, but again, there’s leeway for the medium, you know?

Before I get to the main reason for me writing this, I’ll go over some of the ways in which the film does good work, but most of these points have caveats. I was amused by Allyson’s and her boyfriend’s gender-swapped Bonnie and Clyde costumes. It does feel a bit like a novelty inclusion, though.

There are two characters here, I promise.

Sartain could be seen as a representation of the dangers of centrism. His ‘both the victim and victimiser are damaged by the acts’ is as bonkers as the current political media thoughts on both sides having a right to airing their views, no matter how abhorrent. Just like in real life, this kind of extreme fence-sitting only helps the party causing the damage. Is that me reading too much into it? Dunno, could be.

The feminist thread is a lot more obvious. Most of the male characters are ineffectual or outright harmful and it’s left to the Strode women to take care of things. There is a serious caveat here that I’ll get to later.

Those nice shots that recreate the 1978 version are nice though. Like Allyson sitting in the same classroom, even the same position Laurie did, looking out the window to see, not Myers, but Laurie.

Here we come to the inspiration for this post. I’ll throw in a spoiler of my own here, the end severely ruined my re-watch of this film. There was a hint or two earlier that it was going to drop into a mire of stupidity, but I didn’t expect it to drop so far, even after my first watch.

Perhaps my expectations were raised after watching Crawl (2019) a few days before. This is another lean film with a couple of capable characters in a fucking awful situation and being thwarted by circumstance.

Myers is now at Laurie’s house which we would expect to be a damned fortress. We’ve seen that she has a hidden cellar full of weapons. You would imagine that the front door with the heavy metal bar would also be reinforced. Especially those glass panels. Nope. Laurie looks out at Myers after he’s just broken poor old ‘I know Brazilian jiu-jitsu’ Ted’s neck and hides behind the door. Only to be almost throttled when Myers easily punches through those not-at-all-reinforced glass panels.

We’ve already established Laurie is an obsessed crank. She ruined Karen’s childhood in a wrong-headed effort to protect her from this trauma that almost claimed her life (oh, look a theme that I missed, the cycle of trauma), going to such lengths as creating a hidden bunker brimming over with weapons under her kitchen. She knows that Myers is an implacable murder-force, who is improbably strong and has a minor waving acquaintance with the idea of dying, but decided she just had to have those decorative panels instead of toughened glass, or even a sliding panel she could safely poke a gun out of. It seems like a bit of an oversight for someone who we’ve been told has been preparing for this confrontation FOR FORTY YEARS!

'I stand by my choice in door aesthetics!'

As you all know, she escapes by blasting off a couple of Myers’s digits with her shotgun. Okay, okay. Then she just runs away.  She’s fired a single shot.  Remember, lumbering kill-golem, Laurie?  The dude you’ve been having nightmares about for five decades? Why you not empty the shotgun into that Shatner mask? Why you run away? Even if not blasting face, pulping his knees with the shotgun would do. He obviously can’t magically regenerate, as we see from the glimpse of his damaged eye where she stabbed him with a coat hanger.

I get it, there had to be tension. There had to be the possibility that Laurie might die but getting a dose of The Stupids should never be it. Stupidity is one of the biggest reasons horror films stand or fall. A few dumb character actions can be forgiven and even move things along, when it’s the only driver of the plot, the driver at a critical moment or the actions of a character we've been shown should be more than capable, we have problems.

The stupidity continues when Myers disappears somewhere in the house. Laurie has set up shutters at the door to each of the rooms, clever, in case she missed a corner, or he slinks in through a window, he can’t sneak up on her. However, she has one room, a single room, she’s decided to designate her target practice mannequin room, which is also The Balcony Room. Instead of saying, ‘fuck it, I’ll just roll down the shutter’ she goes in with a rifle and searches. Weirdly this does not go well, and we get a flipped situation from the 1978 film where Myers looks out to see Laurie lying on the ground, but when he looks again, she’s gone(!).

It’s almost the end game. Myers discovers the bunker where Karen and Allyson have been hiding.  Karen lures him out to shoot him. When he falls into the bunker she and Allyson run out and we discover it’s been a trap all along! The whole house is set up to burn, with Myers stuck in the inferno.  Except, not really. Cue, the bizarre trilogy idea.

'Fire?  More like splire, amirite?'

This whole sorry mess undermines the women-getting-it-done narrative. There are so many questions and idiotic decisions that lead to the confrontation and it’s by sheer luck it doesn’t just end up with three generations of women strewn all over the house and Myers tottering off for his next scheduled massacre. I mean I’m not sure the entire house needed to be burned down – have a heavy door that seals the basement, the superheated air would burn out his lungs, Myers needs those lungs for his heavy breathing antics.

As far as I can see the whole narrative turns into a fucking stew of dumb about the time Sartain kills Hawkins. I feel like once he’d done that, he could have taken Myers and Allyson somewhere to lure Laurie into the confrontation he thought should happen. It would also have set up her house as the final-final confrontation in the upcoming Halloween Ends. The set up for Halloween Kills is improbable even by Halloween standards.

I’ve seen the Halloween films as a whole be described as lazy, but I’m not entirely on board with that. The original still stands up, because it’s not trying to do anything fancy. The 2018 iteration was doing well until the climax, the set up for the two follow-ups is just a lethargic cherry on top of an already sloppily finished desert.

I’m sad that the re-watch only served to show up the horrible weaknesses in this film. It won’t be a film I’ll watch again, at least not by design. However, I will watch the rest of this trilogy to see how many tedious knots the writers tie themselves in to stretch it out. I know, I’m being part of the problem, pity me.

Okay, I might give this another whirl after thirty-some years.