Review: Halloween

The original Halloween invented the slasher genre: so long as knife-wielding murder maniacs are profitable, Michael Myers will never really die. So the hook with this particular version of Halloween – one of close to a dozen sequels to John Carpenter’s still chilling original – is that it’s swung a sharp blade real hard and cleared away all the crud. All the other films never happened: this film is the one true sequel. 

Trouble is, this is the second time the Halloween series has pulled that trick (anyone remember Halloween: H20?). And while sweeping away all the other films and everything that came with them (seems Laurie wasn't Michael's sister after all) should in theory set the scene for a whole new round of terror, in this case what that really means is that director David Gordon Green is just doing the first film all over again. 

Once again Michael Myers / The Shape breaks out of a mental hospital; once again he goes on a murder spree; once again he ends up focusing on a member of the Strode family. The big twist here is that Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), sole survivor of the first film, has grown up to be a Sarah Conner-style survivalist (ironically, as Myers is basically a supernatural Terminator) who ruined the life of her daughter (Judy Greer who gets one good moment here and it's a great one) with her paranoia. Her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) is (relatively) angst-free – but when Myers busts out of a prison bus and comes a-killing, she’s the one that he ends up stalking. 

Sure, it's a retread. But it's been a very long time since originality was something anyone wanted from a Halloween film. Despite an occasionally slightly jokier tone - which is maybe not that surprising as Danny McBride co-wrote the screenplay - that defuses the tension (which is not really required: aside from a handful of sequences, this just isn't all that tense) this focuses on the basics of slasher films and largely gets them right, with a series of decent scares and a couple splashes of serious gore. Nothing here is particularly terrifying, but an authentically creepy opening scene firmly establishes the evil power of what is basically just a man with a knife, while the blank-faced mask Myers wears remains one of the classic creep-inducers of modern film.

The one area where this does equal the original is also the one area where original director Carpenter still has a part to play, as one of the composers of the film's extremely effective score. Moody and jarring when needed, the synth-heavy heightened, unearthly tones are enough to push Green's occasionally uninspired visuals into the realm of nightmare. And that's where Michael Myers does his best work.

- Anthony Morris