Well, I haven’t written one of these since my review for Infinity War. Although I’m not always the most gung-ho on the Marvel bandwagon I have to say most movies I’ve seen since then paled in contrast. Nevertheless, it’s time to get out of the funk and write a pizza-themed movie review!

Before I get to it, I’m planning on writing more reviews on not just movies, but also more ministry-related books in the future. If you are a minister and particularly a youth minister stay tuned for my upcoming review of the book “Growing Young” by Powell, Mulder, and Griffin.

HALLOWEEN

(SPOILERS AHEAD!)

I’m a newcomer to the some of the slasher classics and I’ve really come to appreciate the Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Halloween movies. There are few truly scary moments, save the occasional cheap jump scare, but I love these movies that try to straddle the line (at least somewhat) between a killer grounded in reality and a supernatural force of evil. None of these characters seem to get it quite as well as the Michael Meyers movies in my opinion. If you want full on gritty realism I suppose Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a better way to go but I like the hint of something beyond, the unexplainably uncanny ability for Michael to keep being driven to kill and somehow not be killed himself.

I’ve only seen the original Halloween (1978) movie fully but I’ve seen bits and pieces of the cascading sequels and reboots. While I am a fan I don’t hail Halloween (1978) as some kind of classic film although I’d be quick to defend its status as a classic Halloween season film. Some will claim Halloween (1978) shaped the slasher genre but I’m content to let it be a fun popcorn scare flick of the late 70’s.

Halloween (2018) features Michael Meyers being found after 40 years from his murdering rampage in an insane asylum where he is for some reason depicted being chained to a giant chess board. I was hoping this was some kind of foreshadowing for the rest of the film but it seemingly used just for a stylistic shot. Michael is visited by 2 podcasters who are unbearably pretentious and out-of-touch and serve as little more than expendable characters for Michael to kill on his “search” for Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis’ character from the 1978 original who survived his attacks). I say “search” because the rest of the movie seems to be a random occurrence of Michael running into people, killing them, and somehow very conveniently eventually getting to Laurie Strode’s house to kill her.

The Laurie Strode character is written well as someone whose life has been stained by the killings from 40 years ago and who can’t seemingly overcome the effect it has had on her. She’s prepped and trained for the moment she meets Michael Meyers again and her family thinks her mentally ill.

There were many other characters in this film, none fleshed out quite as much as Laurie and Michael and some were laughably thin as to their relevance to the plot. Characters such as Laurie’s grandaughters boyfriend or the cop who “was there too” 40 years ago all make dumb decisions and serve the plot very poorly.

That being said, there were multiple callbacks and homages to the original Halloween movie that made me smile. The Halloween theme song was used and it sounded just like it does in the original. The character of Michael Meyers was true to the original in the way that he’s enigmatically one part serial killer and one part force of evil. The end of the third act played a nice twist on the original as Michael pushes Laurie out of a window to see her supposedly unconscious body on the ground, he gets distracted by a noise from downstairs and when he looks back she is gone. After that point, Michael experiences what being hunted feels like as he struggles to find Laurie’s character and she pops up on him from behind. Loved that 3rd act.

Overall the movie was fun, had some issues keeping a consistent tone as it was too funny at some points, but a nice homage to the original 1978 Halloween movie. Definitely nothing groundbreaking but a good time at the movies.

I give Halloween 6.5 slashed slices out of 10 with ghost peppers.