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| Scene from Halloween (2018) |
For horror fans, there's few title sequences that capture the excitement quite like the one in John Carpenter's original Halloween. Released in 1978, it was a sight of a glowing pumpkin which felt even eerie when paired with Carpenter's unnerving score. 40 years and umpteen reboots later, the sequence opens with something a bit cheekier. The song is the same, but the pumpkin first appears flat, as if the life has been sucked out of it. Over the course of the credits, it grows, inflating with purpose that ends with a close-up on the jack-o-lantern's eye, which looks eerily like antagonist and serial killer icon Michael Meyers. It's a subtle clue to the film's desire to resuscitate a mocked franchise, and it works better than it has any right to. This is a Halloween sequel that puts aside silliness in favor of genuine horror, and it works at creating one of the most interesting slasher movies of the year. It isn't just about kills. This time, it's also personal.
The weight of the Halloween franchise is ubiquitous with horror, serving as one of the most successful films in the genre. It also helped to launch Jamie Lee Curtis's Laurie Strode as a scream queen hero. But why is that? Why has a film about a masked man murdering strangers so recklessly considered essential? As much grief as the slasher knock-offs (notably Friday the 13th) get for cheap exploitation, it does feel like Carpenter's vision of evil entering the suburbs always had something more going on. In fact, the 1978 is almost docile compared to Jason Vorhees. It's scarier to see Michael linger in the shadows or in a fragment of the frame. He feels real. In some respects, his presence has never left pop culture over the course of 10 movies and several Universal Studios' Halloween Horror Nights. He's always there.
It's generally what director David Gordon Green has tapped into with the latest adaptation, confusingly also named Halloween. By ripping off the connections to all sequels in the franchise, it focuses on the aftermath of that night. What happened when Michael escaped after dealing with Laurie? The answer isn't merely a clear cut revenge fantasy - though that's a giant piece of the puzzle. It has been 40 years and Laurie's life has changed significantly. She's a grandmother, albeit one who's paranoid to the point that she has hidden bunkers in her off-grid house and a shooting range where she practices for that moment. She knows that Michael is coming back, but at what point? The audience knows, in part because that's how these films work. Halloween is supposed to have murder and mayhem. However, it also has one of the more complex takes of a slasher movie in quite awhile.
As much as this is a tale of murder, it's also secretly a drama about Laurie dealing with the trauma through two generations, including a daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak). As cool as it is to see Laurie shooting guns and practically telling the entire neighborhood to go into hiding, there's a tragic undertone to it. Karen is insecure because of these practices, even resenting her mother to an extent. Laurie is seen as paranoid and isn't often welcome to family gatherings. Before Michael ever breaks out of prison, there's already a sadness; a sense of disconnection that Laurie has because of Michael: a man that she's obsessed about like how Captain Ahab obsessed over that whale in "Moby Dick." She needs to kill that threat that has consumed her life, and it stops her from often seeing the good in her life.
This film has the added benefit of having Green as director, who has become a bit of a genre adventurer in recent outings, but started his career with powerful character dramas like Snow Angels and George Washington that reflected his potential to be something greater. It's a side that he clearly brings here, even if it's buried underneath the stereotypes of stupid high school kids who drink, smoke, and get those throbbing biological urges. At its core, Halloween is an excuse to watch clever kills and serve up a new addition to the annual horror movie canon. It's definitely there, as Green pays homage to the Carpenter original visually often and even elevates the style with lingering dread of Michael not as a caricature, but of someone who will quietly murder you. There's a tracking shot that establishes his return to the neighborhood that is downright creepy. It's in part because Green adds way too much efficiency to the shot, but also because it's the moment that the slow build has been hinting at. The themes are more dominant in the first half, and the second becomes more visually symbolic.
It's for the best, as Green creates a vision of this world that is palpable because of how realistic it still feels. There's a community here and a knowledge of the Michael Meyers legacy. Old cops talk about him like a nuisance while teenagers - unknowingly walking down the street of the original - talk about him as mythic. As much as Laurie is consumed by the trauma that Michael bestowed upon her, this is a story about society's obsession with Halloween as a franchise. It's a morbid fascination, and one that informs why we keep turning to him time and time again. Even when the audience is denied seeing his face, his body is an imposing threat that lingers in the distance, waiting to strike. It's a blend of obsession and harsh reality all presented with varying degrees of gore. Some sequences play out almost off screen in PG-13 fashion while others are almost directly to the camera. The variance helps the film to provide the audience enough suggestion of the dread not seen, only adding to the obsession and mythology of this serial killer.
As much as it helps to have technical proficiency, it's also great to have to have a cast that knows how to bring this story to life. Curtis is pretty much married to Laurie Strode at this point, and she gives her that haggard bitterness that pays off beautifully in the third act. There's an intensity to watching her finally break free of helplessness and become a figure who is no longer scared of Michael. It's a story of a person overcoming trauma as well as doing so because of family support. While this sequel annexes the sibling connections between Michael and Laurie, their ties in life have felt personal in ways that make the finale cathartic. It also helps that Green, with help of co-writers Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley, give the film a sense of humor but not to a satirical degree. The tension feels real, but there's still time for brilliant comedic bits, such as a child (Jibrail Nantambu) reflecting us all when he runs away from Michael while still freaking out. Again, it's natural while still being over the top enough for the panic to land. It also helps that Carpenter has returned with a rebuffed score, which manages to build on the original and create a sonic field of horror that turns a dark street into a nightmare. If anything, this feels more genuine than most slasher movies because it's not about the kills, it's about the dread of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Halloween (2018) is in a lot of ways just another example of the franchise producing a slasher movie. It has the tropes by now of dumb teens and Laurie is continually paranoid, unable to escape this nightmare. However, it also has a bit more ambitions for a film that is quintessentially about how awesome Michael can kill people (and there's quite a few here). It has the subtext of being about Halloween as a franchise and why people obsess over misery that drives others insane. It's about overcoming a trauma by taking agency in one's life, and understanding the value of family. True a lot of it doesn't get the chance to be as poetic or deep as Green's more complex early dramas, but it still helps it to be more than a shameless shill. Much like the pumpkin over the opening credits, it inflates the franchise back to life with a new sense of purpose. As much as it's about coming to terms with the past, it at least proves why the future is bright for Halloween and its reputation.
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