Halloween Kills—One Of The Worst Movies I’ve Ever Seen—Is Headed To A $50M+ Opening Weekend
Halloween Kills is going to make over $50 million this weekend, and because I was bored/dumb enough to watch it last night (and because 1978’s Halloween is one of my favorite movies of all time, while other movies in the franchise have also been quite good), I’ve written a brief review below. Major spoilers are included, not that it really matters.
With nonsensical subplots, pointless flashbacks (the CGI Dr. Loomis was as insulting as it was horribly made—the fake hologram version looked 20 years younger than he did in 1978!), and a cast of MAGA-esque characters so detestable, they actually made Michael Myers the good guy (and eventually, the Final Girl), Halloween Kills is easily the worst movie in the franchise. I’ve felt less shame wasting $5 (the cost of the now canceled Peacock subscription) on a straight guy’s OnlyFans.
To be fair, I did laugh when this guy jumped out the window.
The only inadvertently successful aspect of this movie is that because every single character truly deserves to die a horrid death, one might find temporary satisfaction each time Michael slashes someone’s throat or impales them with a light bulb. From the QAnon horde inexplicably storming the hospital (a run on Ivermectin, perhaps?), the bratty teens arguing with the Housewives actress (Lindsey’s bag of bricks gave a more nuanced performance than Kyle Richards), and the stoned faggots (sassy enough to be annoying, but not quite fruity enough to be caricatures—well done!) who Extreme Makeover’d the Myers house, I couldn’t wait for everyone to fucking die die die. And thankfully, they all did!
#WWG1WGA
Sadly, because Jamie Lee Curtis’s Laurie Strode is left injured in the hospital for the whole movie so she can flirt with a random cop (all this character revisionism—we’re supposed to care about Lonnie Elam?—and the one guy who wasn’t brought back as a romantic interest for Laurie was Ben Tramer!), she isn’t granted the dignity of death or even one second of screentime with Michael. Laurie’s five-minute appearance and death in Halloween: Resurrection was more clever and logical than her schlock of a storyline in this bomb.
The dumbfounded sheriff has this look on his face in every scene he’s in, not unlike the looks on the faces of every single person watching this movie.
It was always suspect to me that someone could be presumptuous enough to retcon almost an entire story and series of films the way hack director/writer David Gordon Green (and co-screenwriter Danny McBride) did with Halloween 2, Halloween 4, Halloween 5, and Halloween 6 (all of which are superior to the new movies), and the thing is, if you’re going to try and pull off such a stunt, you better be 100% certain that your new iteration is better, smarter, and more entertaining than what you’re erasing. 2018’s Halloween and now Halloween Kills failed in every one of those regards.
The hero we deserve.
How anyone at Universal or Blumhouse could look David Gordon Green and Jamie Lee Curtis in the face without laughing is insane, but that speaks to the state of Hollywood today—an industry desperate for quick cash grabs that’s basically completely dependent on bottom-of-the-barrel reboots and brain dead sequels. Of course, they got my $5, so the joke’s probably on me.
