Chad

jacob_b

I thought it had some good stuff in it. Honestly, the first part was good. That kid was evil and Corey, not so much. He was just a strange teenager. Didn't mind the love story either. But the whole Michael and Corey teaming up, that was strange. There was nothing evil about Corey from the jump. He didn't even try to do anything to his bullies until Laurie showed up. At first I thought they did some supernatural BS that Michael's soul got into Corey's. At least they didn't do that. Middle part really needed to be worked on. Also, when Laurie took out Corey, she KNEW Alison was coming, why pick up the knife? Why not get to the door? That bugged me.

The ending, it was enjoyable to me. Part of me was hoping Laurie and Alison (by the way, WHERE did Alison's mom go???) would cut up Michael like a fish to make sure he was dead. Smart idea to slice him up though. And perfect idea to make sure his body was torn to pieces in the trash. The first part of the trilogy, when I first watched, I really enjoyed. Second part was just awful (I even forgot if Tommy died or didn't and if he didn't where was he?). This one, didn't hate it. Gave a decent ending. The whole team up thing, though, could have gone a much different route.

numbercrunch

A halloween film that focuses on character development is a rare bird in the series, but we have it here. THe first hour plays out like a drama with only one Michael Myers scene. I did like how the later kills were all set up by the first hour. The movie is confusing in how its handling Michael at least for me. I also think the two hour run time could have been cut down, particularly the first hour. All in all an unusual film in the franchise, but I appreciate what the makers were trying to do even if its unsuccessful. I was most put off by how they handled MM. One scene he is wounded and weak and pushed around by essentially a kid and next minute he is at full strength - which is it? Most will not like this I predict.
6/10

Spiderbite

Thought Halloween Kills was dumb? Guess what, they outdid themselves with this one. Just plain out insufferable.

I don't even know where to start there is so much dumb shit in this movie. How did this even get made for the script that was delivered?

Crazy amount of time spent with a character you give zero shits about that Michael somehow transfers evil magically through his eye. Yes...by looking at this kid, evil gets transferred. Okay.

Michael lives In a sewer for four years in his mask. He fights weakling teenager, get his ass kicked and loses his mask. Cop goes into sewer without a gun while stalking said teenager. Michael trains a protégé! Yah!

Killer kid tells girlfriend he just met that he killed someone. She is good with it because she thinks he is cool...or something.

Laurie calls in a suicide to the cops. There is enough time for protégé to attack her, her kill him, girlfriend to come home, girlfriend to leave and drive away, Michael and Laurie to fight, girlfriend to come back, they get to fight Michael, shit still happens...the cops show up! No wonder everyone dies in Haddonfield...the police response is terrible..

I am not even touching the hem of the garment with this movie. So fucking stupid. The whole movie. Don't even get me started with the amnesia to the last movie. I could tear into this deeper but it isn't really worth my time.

The music was good. A couple of humorous kills. Jamie Lee Curtis does well with what she is given. That's about all the positives that I have. This movie is watchable...but barely.

The last two Halloween movies make Rob Zombie look like a genius. Seriously.

My rating: ** out of *****

clckworang

I knew a little bit what to expect from this one. I knew there was some kind of apprentice and that the movie was receiving a less than enthusiastic reception, but I still tried to go in with an open mind. For the first third or so, I actually wasn't minding things and was feeling it was a step up from Halloween Kills, but then it increasingly went off the rails. It mainly started with Corey's over the top erratic behavior. Considering how short a time they knew each other, it was hard to understand why Allyson was sticking around. It just didn't seem plausible based on what we had already seen of the character.

I know I'll probably be going over territory already covered, but here's my rant since I'm just home from the drive-in. In a way, it made sense that the babysitter killer would hook up with the killer babysitter, but I really don't get what they were going for here. It seemed to me like it was a Jason Goes to Hell scenario or at least similar, but then things would seem to contradict. So, was this inner Michael always there and he really did kill that kid or was it all just an accident? Part of me considers it a success that I'm not sure, and another part thinks it was a storytelling flaw. But all the talk about him having Michael's eyes seemed to indicate something more was going on there, but it ended up basically being nothing. At least I guess. I don't know.

Speaking of not knowing, I didn't get why Corey felt he had to go get Michael's mask before leaving town. Just why? Are we back to the supernatural connection or part of Michael inside of him or something? Is that why he was able to overpower Michael? But then why was he later just normal? And why target Laurie anyway? The granddaughter already seemed willing to go. It just doesn't make much sense to me. If you tell me it's because a part of Michael is inside him, then there are other things that don't make sense to me, and if you tell me there isn't a part of Michael in him, then I again say that I really don't get it.

And while I get the destroy the body thing, I thought the procession with the body was way too much. It reminded me of Prohibition era stuff with people standing in line to see the body of Dillinger and the like, but there was also a strangely religious thing with the townspeople touching the body, all the more evident since we just earlier saw Michael crucified. If they bring Michael back again, is he going to be portrayed as a savior? I think the best part of the movie was the final confrontation between Michael and Laurie, but much of its effectiveness was undercut to me with the religious tones I was picking up. It was all just weird.

But I think the weirdest thing by far is if this was the trilogy that this team originally set out to make: this is going to be what movie one will be, this will be the focus of movie 2, and then the vision will come together with this Corey thing in movie 3. Really? As it turns out, I'm really not entirely sure what the point of the second movie was. Aside from a couple of story beats, it was basically unnecessary. If this was the grand plan, they should have built up Corey, maybe even introduce him in a small way in the first movie. They spent way too much time trying to make the town a character that they forgot the only core characters we really cared about were Michael and Laurie. But yes, have Corey as a character in the first but without any of his backstory yet, maybe someone has to drop the car with the mechanic. A little bit of Kills could go into the first movie, but most of it could be cut out entirely. Cut the events of the second movie to about 10 or 15 minutes and build up this Corey and Michael thing instead along with his bond with Allyson. Then it would have some meaning in the third movie. I'm not saying the Corey thing was the way to go, but if this is what they wanted to do, I think it could have been done much better.

I know I've written a lot, probably too much, about this movie, but I think it's because I can't think of a trilogy that has left me more baffled. I know many would disagree, but I thought this trilogy started strong. I have been a fan of much of David Gordon Green's work. I've liked the projects where Danny McBride has worked as a writer, mainly TV work. I really thought they would be able to pull something satisfactory together. I just wonder what happened. Did they kind of lose interest after the first?

I think she ultimately wound up in a cemetery after Michael killed her. Nowhere else to go after that.

Toddarino

The first thing i said as the credits rolled was what the fuck?
I hated this movie in the hours and days after seeing it. I thought the first one of this trilogy was decent, Kills while utterly ridiculous, wasn’t horrible but this was awful. The funeral procession, was way worse than the evil dies tonight shit and that’s saying something.
Its still better than the Rob Zombie atrocities, but Busta Rhymes climbed up a spot.

Undeadcow

The wtf brutal cold open of the kid being killed in an accident is great because it's so unexpected and complicated - but its the start ti what ultimately ends up feeling like a series of disconnected vignettes with a few cool moments.

Aside from the corny talking through a book she is writing voiceover narration (suicide or cherry blossoms?) Laurie had surprisngly few lines to the point she is set dressing rather than a character for so much of the film. There are too many tangents; like the belabored lose muffler subplot.

I love the idea of Myers being an shape and ever more abstract presence than an individual to the point he is a psychological specter rather than a single killer. Some of the Meyers sympathetic town folk add a lot more dept to the story and are great parallels to our 'two sides' modern times when everything is misrepresented as subjective. ...Then the film just betrays itself by bringing Meyers in seemingly randomly to be murdered.

I was not a fan of the 'just a man' aspect because it refused to build off any of the mythology instead bringing him back against incredible odd then making Meyers magically fallable. He was not a shapeless evil because the film refused to let him live up to their setup to stage a cheap discontinuous fanservice ending.

Spiderbite

This is the suggestion I gave for the future of this franchise in the Movie Talk thread. But at this point, who knows where it will go? At this point, I guess we need a Michael Myers in space movie.

I like the character and idea of Michael Myers but they really need to just go back to square one with the character at this point. Dump Laurie Strode. Dump Haddonfield. Dump Loomis. Dump everything that is acting as an anchor to this series at this time. Start from scratch. Disturbed boy with issues grows up to be a disturbed killer with a blank looking mask that kills babysitters on Halloween night. Take away all the "history" and just make a scary tale.

jholmes

I pretty much concur. It wasn't that I didn't like the Corey thing, they just didn't really sell it sufficiently. Yeah, Corey was picked on and put into a very bad situation and he had reason to hate the town. But to suddenly want to become Michael Meyers? I didn't buy it. And then nothing they have ever set up with Michael Meyers indicated he would adopt an apprentice.

Other than that, I thought there was some good stuff in this. Jamie Lee Curtis was great, as always. There were some kills. It was good to see the doctor/nurse get theirs and the four bully kids. The ending was good. I guess I have heard so many bad reviews that my expectations were low, and that helped.

wishbone

A lot was tonally off for me: Corey as Michael's protege; the sudden romance; Micheal is superhuman and then he's not, particularly in the fight with Laurie; the reverential passing of Michael's body along to the shredder. Ugh. I did like the conversation that Laurie had with Corey but then it ended with Laurie holding the bloody knife just when Allyson walked in.

In another era Laurie and Michael would end up at the junkyard for the final fight. Laurie would throw Michael's mask toward the shredder and Michael desperate to get his mask back grabs it but starts to get pulled in. Laurie is not quite victorious as Michael grabs her hand and she is about to get pulled in as well. A moment of suspense and Michael's arm is severed freeing Laurie at the last moment. Laurie struggles to free her hand afterward -- even in death Michael's grasp is still strong.