It's entertaining bloody business . . . again.
Halloween (2018)
Grade: B
Director: David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express)
Screenplay: Green, Danny McBride (Your Highness), Jeff Fradley
Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis (Halloween), Will Patton Halloween)
Rating: R
Runtime: 1 hr 46 min
By: John DeSando
“Evil is real.” Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis)
Forget 1978’s John Carpenter Classic Halloween and update 40 years later to a solid B horror movie that will scare the bejesus out of you and make you fondly reminisce about that original. Michael Myers (Nick Castle and James Courtney) is back to murder; Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) is back to murder him. It’s a bloody good reunion.
To refresh your memory: “We're here to investigate a patient that killed three innocent teenagers on Halloween, 1978. He was shot by his own psychiatrist and taken into custody that night, and has spent the last forty years in captivity.” Martin (Will Patton)
Before lamenting the lack of psychoanalysis for Mike’s mayhem, then and now, it should be said that his indiscriminate murders seem to be related now to a revenge on Laurie, and then, well, you’ll have to go back 40 years and explore for yourself. As his prison psychologist, Dr. Sartain (Haluk Bilgner) opines, some who fear being prey become predators.
Then, not being sure, as with Hannibal Lecter, we might guess that these serial murderers do it because they enjoy it. No telling except for the occasional smile.
Have no fear, so to speak, the horror tropes have not been lost over the decades: vulnerable and nubile young high schoolers, making out, outrageous jump scares, ax murders, running to the woods at night, etc. The recurrence of these staples confirms the resilience and duration of evil, which, from Hitler to Charles Manson, never seems in short supply, especially in cheesy horror films.
A word about Jamie Lee Curtis’s return. Her grandma is buff and commando ready for Mike’s return, kick ass in modern parlance. In #MeToo terms, it’s the revenge for male dominance writ large. Most of all, it’s a confirmation that evil is real and needs to be beaten, even if it takes 4O years to prepare for it.
“Happy Halloween, Michael.” Laurie
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
