Halloween Diary - Halloween Kills...in the theater (3/5)

Including screen grabs thanks to Peacock.

 

So watching Halloween Kills (2021) in the theater still reiterates the positives and negatives of my experience watching it on Peacock. Almost everything out of Tommy's (Anthony Michael Hall) mouth and how he acts was still cringe. I don't fault Michael Hall. I think he especially tries upon his introduction when up on a stage in the Haddonfield bar telling the patrons dressed in disguises and taking beer swigs about Michael Myers and what he was responsible for in 1978. This is prior to learning of the carnage in his wake when everyone receives phone calls and watch a news broadcast. Then Marion (once a nurse), played by Nancy Stephens (once again stabbed multiple times by Michael in a different alternate universe) starts with the evil dies tonight that permeates ad nauseum throughout the rest of the film. There is this brief moment in the bar that I totally appreciated that might go unnoticed I thought was a nice visual touch regarding the news broadcast. When the two mental patients still missing from the bus crash are shown on the TV in the bar, the first of the two is later revealed to have been in hiding in Vanessa's car, urging Tommy to grab the bat of a bar owner's father hanging on the wall and move towards it, believing Michael Myers is inside. The second is Michael Myers, but David Gordon Green makes sure his camera pulls the focus off the screen in order for James Jude Courtney's face to be blurred...it is a little touch that makes sure we don't see Michael's face in order for him to remain The Shape. And when Michael gives Karen chase when she takes his mask and runs down an alley, David Gordon Green follows behind him, not letting us see Courtney's face. So each and every shot of Michael is done to avoid any clear shot of his face. We even see part of his damaged eye from the 1978 film, but it is but a flash and that's it.

Now my daughter and wife went with me to the theater to see it on the second Friday showing of the film, the second weekend. There was a scattering of folks on their best behavior, but the sound inside the Malco theater was so thunderous and loud, I couldn't hear them anyway. That is what set this experience apart from when I watched it Midnight Friday when the film was released on Peacock and theater simultaneously. When Michael smashed heads into walls, his knifes puncture bodies, pickaxes break into firemen helmet visors, the fire's fierce devastation of Laurie's compound, necks being snapped, gunshots through car windows and roof, etc. the sound inside the theater was booming.

The bright blood on Karen's hands as she washes them under a faucet and sees her wedding ring, her taking a moment to weep for her husband, and hugging her daughter...it was good to acknowledge Ray is dead. And Lonnie talking about Ray and peyote in the SUV as Allyson has to further absorb her loss is a touch I liked. So a father and husband is killed by Michael Myers and that impact is shown as felt. Laurie does mention that she brought them into Michael's orbit and because of that they were inadvertently involved when he never was honed in on them actually. Deputy Hawkins says as much to her when narrowly surviving Dr. Sartain's violence towards him and moved into the room with Laurie. It wasn't because of you Michael was at her compound. Dr. Sartain was the instigator of that. I think, as others do, Laurie needs to accept that. When Karen is found dead at Michael's house, Laurie needs to reconcile with herself that they were pulled into this because of Dr. Sartain, and she was only opposing him because of that. Michael's a killing machine, period. He cuts a swath of savagery from the compound to his home because that is what he does...kill and look out his home window.

My favorite two scenes are Lindsey hiding from Michael behind a tree as you hear his heavy breathing and in 1978, Lonnie, as a kid, falls down on the sidewalk, looks up, and sees Michael approaching him. Lindsey trying not to breathe too loud and keeping herself from having a panic attack as Michael listens intently for her, later crossing a bridge not far from where she is hiding...that is my jam. This is shot so well, and how they build suspense from this is why I'm a Halloween fan. It isn't even about Michael just stabbing a body, displayed on a counter with multiple knifes in the back or breaking off a light into a throat...it is The Shape not too far away, in the dark, moving like a silent predator that can strike at any given moment. Lindsey can only hope he doesn't hear her. And in the flashback, in the theater, this was such a thrill to see come alive in front of me. The score in the film in the theater was so much more present and an active participant than watching it at home. It can't even compare, really. In 1978, just how they are able to timewarp us, really making the film feel totally in that particular era, with the music and that look of Michael...man, was I just enthralled. And Loomis appearing even landed better with me.

So the negatives were still very much there...the hospital mob scene as folks pursue the mental patient was even worse to me on second viewing as it felt just so heavy-handed. Just really laid on thick, all the politics of it just turned me off. But the body on the asphalt, as if he exploded, just so destroyed, was gruesome and impressive. And I think Greer, in this scene as her Karen tries and fails to keep him under protection, really is very good. Greer comes off much better in this film...I really appreciated her performance. 

The ending, my wife told me she felt it was just weird. She didn't understand it. But both my wife and daughter did look over at me after the film was over and praised the violence, definitely feeling the film lived up to the hype. My daughter, in particular, really thought the film was fun. As did I still. That hasn't changed, I still like the film. But I can't shrug off its issues. They are glaring. I found my head in my hands almost every time Tommy and Brackett are on screen or speaking. They were so sure evil would die. But with Laurie's transcendent talk, the filmmakers made sure that would not be the case.