Halloween gets all dressed up as the original but has nowhere to go

Movie review: Halloween

David Gordon Green’s ambitious reset of the Halloween franchise showcases a badass Jamie Lee Curtis as trauma survivor Laurie Strode, but for some stupid reason, fails to exploit the post-menopausal character with an axe to grind and a villain to kill.

Halloween

3/5

Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Will Patton, Haluk Bilgener, Andi Matichak

Directed by: David Gordon Green

Running time:1 hr 46 mins

Rating: Restricted

Opening October 19, 2018

By Katherine Monk

It’s not a finale. It’s a series “reset.” So forget the past four decades of reboots and Zombie sequels. Also try to forget Laurie Strode was pushed off a roof, and died, in 2002’s Halloween Resurrection.

Erase everything you’ve seen since the 1978 original, when Jamie Lee Curtis’s Laurie Strode managed to fend off the rampaging monster named Michael Myers with a knitting needle, and John Carpenter’s eerie piano theme made a generation of teens pee their pants.

This new Halloween picks up forty years later, seeking to restore the primal energy drained by so many reanimations of the pale-faced villain by stalking the same central character: Laurie Strode. The role defined Jamie Lee Curtis early in her career and made her a teen icon as the pretty babysitter who got away. Now she’s back as Laurie, a post-menopausal matron suffering from PTSD.

It’s a great premise, and one that sneaks up on the Zeitgeist by looking at the long-term effects of trauma. Laurie may have escaped that one Halloween night, but the terror of it stains every thought. She can’t assume a normal life. She’s become fixated on Michael Myers, and as we learn from the relatively long prelude, her paranoid behaviour has destroyed her family.

This new Halloween picks up forty years later, seeking to restore the primal energy drained by so many reanimations of the pale-faced villain by stalking the same central character: Laurie Strode. The role defined Jamie Lee Curtis early in her career and made her a teen icon as the pretty babysitter who got away. Now she’s back as Laurie, a post-menopausal matron suffering from PTSD.

She and her adult daughter Karen (Judy Greer) are still trying to reconcile after a scarred childhood that saw her removed from the home and put in foster care as a result of her obsessive need to barricade every door. Her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) has great affection for Laurie, but recognizes she’s not entirely balanced, and feels conflicted when it comes to taking sides.

Laurie is always crying “Wolf!” But if there’s one thing that’s truly rewarding about the horror genre, it’s the way it validates the lone voice in the wilderness by not only proving all the nay-sayers wrong, but literally disembowels them and rips out their tongues.

So when Laurie finds out Michael Myers is about to be transferred to a new facility — on Halloween eve — she’s expecting the worst. She tries to warn everyone, but that only serves to introduce us to the soon-to-be victims, who litter the floor of every scene once the film gets rolling and the heads start to roll.

It takes a while. Perhaps, too long, given the laborious set-up showing Michael Myers in captivity, a journalist with a desire to understand him, and the psychiatrist who loves him like a lab rat contributes practically nothing to the back story.

Laurie and Michael are the dramatic velcro. They’re stuck together and only a violent tug will tear them apart. We want to feel all the hooks and needles, hear the emotional wrench of every rip, but director David Gordon Green seems a little distracted by style.

Laurie and Michael are the dramatic velcro. They’re stuck together and only a violent tug will tear them apart. We want to feel all the hooks and needles, hear the emotional wrench of every rip, but director David Gordon Green seems a little distracted by style.

Eager to capture the retro, low-budget mood with his muted palette and dim lighting, he casts a haze of nostalgia over every frame. At times, it’s as pleasing as an incandescent lamp, but it also feels a little indulgent and affected.

Jamie Lee Curtis is the one who brings it all back into focus with her stark portrayal of Laurie, a woman chiselled to the sinews by stress. Laurie embraces her inner crone, rising the from the ashes of the ingenue and finding new power in a post-sexual state, becoming the ultimate foe to the villain — and the genre itself.

Slasher movies, and Halloween being one of the seminal effort in the genre, typically kill pretty young women, and good-looking young men, who engage in steamy sexual activity. There are plenty of academic papers about moral punishment and male resentment fantasies, but this Halloween pokes a hole in the pedantic pumpkin by making grey-haired Laurie so potent.

Jamie Lee Curtis is the one who brings it all back into focus with her stark portrayal of Laurie, a woman chiselled to the sinews by stress. Laurie embraces her inner crone, rising the from the ashes of the ingenue and finding new power in a post-sexual state, becoming the ultimate foe to the villain — and the genre itself.

The director needed to really ride that new edge, but he goes for the expected beats instead. The script, penned by in part by David Gordon Green and comedian Danny McBride, has some funny moments that lighten the grim tone, but they, too, feel a little over-contrived.

It’s as if Halloween decided to dress up as Halloween, the original. It reproduced the right look and the right accessories, but it’s too self-conscious in the costume.

@katherinemonk

THE EX-PRESS, October 19, 2018

-30-

Review: Halloween

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David Gordon Green’s ambitious reset of the Halloween franchise showcases a badass Jamie Lee Curtis as trauma survivor Laurie Strode, but for some stupid reason, fails to exploit the post-menopausal character with an axe to grind and a villain to kill.  -- Katherine Monk

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