Forty years after the 1978 Haddonfield murders, true-crime podcasters Aaron Korey and Dana Haines travel to Smith’s Grove Sanitarium to interview Michael Myers. Aaron approaches Michael and talks to him but fails to get him to speak, even after showing him his mask and mentioning Laurie Strode, the sole survivor of the 1978 murders. They then go to interview Laurie, who has spent the last 40 years dealing with PTSD and preparing for Michael’s return. Her feelings have resulted in two failed marriages and losing custody of her daughter Karen at a young age, who would later have her own daughter, Allyson. Aaron and Dana tell Laurie their interest is finding out why Michael committed the murders and ask her to meet with him in a final attempt to get him to speak before he is transferred to a maximum security prison. She declines. As patients are loaded onto a bus transport, Dr. Sartain insists on accompanying Michael. Later, the bus crashes in a ditch, the security guards are killed, and the inmates are looming freely on the road, allowing Michael to escape. The following morning, on Halloween, Michael recovers his mask from Aaron and returns to Haddonfield. Laurie learns about the crash and breaks into Karen’s house to demonstrate her lack of security, causing an argument. That night, Michael wanders around Haddonfield and begins to kill innocent victims.
Let’s get the positives out of the way first. Every remade story element from the original movie they did in this movie, it worked so well. It’s also very suspensful again and I gotta say that I was very impressed with the kills in this movie. The music, again was excellent. Michael Myers is also a lot scarier in this movie. He’s taller, he’s more violent and his mask is way scarier than in the first movie. Laurie Strode? She’s a lot better in this movie than in the first one. What bothered me about the movie, though is all the new characters that were introduced in this movie, all the new ideas, this pointless long side plot that just won’t go away and a plot twist that they thankfully threw away immediately. The movie also tries to have some jokes but none of them work at all…
I don’t mind this movie. I have a lot more flaws with this movie than with the first one, but I still enjoyed it a lot. After four decades, “Halloween” finally got the sequel it deserves, providing a scary good time for slasher horror fans by following its formula from the original. This 11th movie asks us to forget the previous 9 movies that came after the original and pretend like they never happened. I’m giving it 6/10*, but don’t let that grade keep you from watching this movie.
Director: David Gordon Green
Written by: John Carpenter, Debra Hill, Jeff Fradley, Danny McBride, David Gordon Green
Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, Nick Castle, James Jude Courtney
Runtime: 106 minutes
