SPOILER ALERT*
Although if you haven’t seen it by now, why are you even reading this blog?
If you know nothing else about me, you know I’m a huge Michael Myers fan. Halloween is, after all, the Perfect horror film, and it’s the first born of my favorite franchise to date. So it makes sense that my inbox has been flooded these past few days, (along side those Slashstreet Boys videos,) with people asking me if I’m going to be reviewing the new HALLOWEEN movie. If it’s just because you want to know my thoughts on it, I can skip to the punchline; I Fucking Loved It. I woke up early to see it, I had tears in my eyes the entire time, and I couldn’t talk for 15 minutes after it ended. It left me on a high that I fought to keep the whole day, but even Halloween Horror Nights couldn’t compare with the 104 minutes of pure joy I lived a few hours before. I’ve seen a few people say they liked the movie but didn’t love it, and a handful of people with feelings so negative toward it, I wonder if they were even watching the same movie as me. Here’s where I fall on that. Art is objective and will never evoke the same reaction in everyone. It’s not supposed to. When I create something, I remember to tell myself that as long as people have a strong reaction to it, I’m doing my job. Hate is not the opposite of love, after all; Indifference is. That being said, HALLOWEEN was everything it should have been. For those of us who truly love the original, this was a beautiful homage to it, as well as a long awaited showdown between Michael and Laurie that didn’t disappoint. (Dammit, I’m reviewing it. I swore I wouldn’t). The comedy, for me, didn’t take away from the film, like I feel so many writers get wrong. The natural banter and playfulness of the dialogue fell right into my sense of humor. However, if we are nitpicking, two of my only problems with the script were in character deliveries. Though it completely makes sense that people would start rumors, and it needed to be conveyed as such, the lines about Laurie’s relation to Michael being made up seemed to be spoon fed to us. Also, and I hate to say anything negative about the kid who stole the show, Julian needed to drop the sass and get serious after witnessing Michael actually stab his babysitter. If you’re not scared, how do you expect us to be? Overall, it delivered and I still give credit to Blumhouse for fully pulling it off. Honorable mention to Virginia Gardner, for creating a best friend character who wasn’t obnoxious. (Anyone else love the use of the ghost sheet?)
Alright, on to tonight’s regular scheduled blog point: that ending. Part of getting what you came for with a Michael Myers movie, is the promise that no matter how hard you try, he just won’t die. I mean, I don’t want him to at this point. I went into this movie with the awful possibility of having to see Laurie Strode get killed (again) but I was simultaneously dreading a final vanqish of my favorite silent killer. Don’t get me wrong though; My love for all of my favorite slashers comes from an appreciation for the art of the kill, and the “shit that’s cool” response I have to slasher films. I don’t want to be made to feel bad for the killer. Part of the reason Rob Zombie’s reboots fell flat with me, were not just the mystique of Michael being ruined by too much backstory and character analysis, but humanizing him to the point of pity. You make the audience pity the antagonist, you lose them sympathizing with the hero. But it’s ok RZ, keep your main focus on making white trash characters with unrelatable dialogue. Do your thing. (Do you feel my eyes rolling?).
So let’s dissect the ending. Laurie succeeds in “trapping” Michael, and chooses to kill him with fire, which we’ve seen before in Halloween 2. But there is no way he made it out alive again, right? Unless he wasn’t in the basement at all. We watched her behead him in H20 and and that was taken back, so perhaps there is a chance that they got the wrong guy. This theory came to me as we watched Laurie’s granddaughter, Allyson, wave over a truck, never showing us who was driving. It seemed a perfect time for a twist, and a pretty familiar one seemed right for this movie. My idea quickly plummeted when they all got in without hesitation, and I realized that the entire showdown with Laurie would have had to be someone else, and who had that kind of motivation? So that theory is dead. But is Michael?
Something else we have seen in this franchise, and something I worried they were about to shove onto us with “the new Loomis” is the evil in Michael being transferred to a new host. As the movie comes to a close, we see Allyson sitting in the back of the truck, still clutching the bloody butcher knife she used to stab MM. Are we about to meet a “new Jamie” in the sequel? And if so, does Michael need to live? I say yes. I don’t mind all of the different timelines and plot points that have lived in the Halloween universe, but at the end of the day, I want a Michael Myers movie. It’s just not the same without him.
But then again, the creative team knows this. If you stuck around after the credits, you heard the masked, heavy breathing that can only mean one thing. You can’t kill Michael Myers. The only question is, will we get to see him in a sequel? Only time will tell, but this horror freak will be watching the clock.
Till next time,
🔪Madame of Horror
Madame of Horror 
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