HALLOWEEN KILLS

The franchise that seemingly cannot be killed basically commits suicide with this entry: there are no scares, no plot, no characters to invest in and thus no reasons to ever watch this film.

I wasn't a huge fan of 2018's Halloween continuation, but at least the movie brought back Jamie Lee Curtis and took an interesting look at the lingering PTSD you'd expect after a close encounter with The Shape.

Halloween Kills picks up in the immediate aftermath of that movie and, unsurprisingly, before you know it Michael Myers has escaped the fiery trap we last saw him in and murders his way across Haddonfield. Once again writer-director David Gordon Green takes a novel approach to the story, with the entire town now joining the hunt and displaying some worrying mob mentality.

If the concept sounds great, the execution is anything but. Not only are the kills needlessly gruesome and the new characters about as interesting as the blank expression on the Meyers mask, Halloween Kills just isn't a scary film. Relying on an awfully loud and annoying soundtrack and gore over tension, the movie limps from one boring set-piece to the next.

And then there is that exposition-heavy final ten minutes reveal, which doesn't just kill the last grain of plausibility, it might just kill the franchise.

release: 2021

director: David Gordon Green

starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, Anthony Michael Hall