Michael Myers is back to terrify Haddonfield in Halloween Kills, the follow up to the Halloween (2018) reboot. As the middle chapter in the announced trilogy of films that will conclude next year with Halloween Ends, it has the unenviable task of continuing the story while leaving enough on the bone for what is sure to be an even bigger conclusion.
Believing Michael Myers to be dead, Laurie Strode and her family believe they have freed Haddonfield of the man that has haunted them for decades. But having freed himself from the trap they set, another night of terror is far from over. Director David Gordon Green assembles a cast of returning stars and new faces, lead, of course, by Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode.
Any hope of a franchises' revival crumbles within the first five minutes of Halloween Kills, a middle chapter which not only ruins what we have seen before but actively destroys a path to a successful future for a series that could have recalibrated the horror-slasher sub-genre. Green, Scott Teemy and Danny McBride slap together a screenplay that seeks to play out like a fanboy's wet dream, but becomes a cringe-inducing riff on an Avengers team-up that grows progressively louder and damaging to one theme the film had going for it: mob mentality and the influence of "the bad apple" corrupting a society is such fruitful ground to explore, but in the shouting and chanting and irremediably bad serving of humour is reduced to a lost opportunity.
Cranking up the violence that felt lacking in the recent reboot, Green pushes it too far the other way, with chaotically graphic and unrelenting kills that operate to the detriment of the franchises most important player: Michael Myers is turned into a charade, an invisible, seemingly indestructible force stripped of the very essence that makes him so terrifying. A man in a mask targeting and tormenting the residents of a traumatised town is so much more effective than a slicing, dicing killing machine with a ruthlessness and carelessness that makes him not particularly scary anymore.
Jamie Lee Curtis is wasted in a thankless role that limits her opportunities massively and the film suffers because of it. Restricted, essentially, to a hospital bed, while recognisable faces from the series' heyday seek to save the day, she is left only to watch as the franchise she has carried on her back skewers itself. Judy Greer does not possess quite the same ferocity and with the revolving door of faces given only brief moments, no one can rise to save Halloween Kills from itself.
While Halloween (2018) felt incredibly pointless and disappointingly stale, it at least installed hope that a sequel could evolve the series in a promising direction, rather than just steal what worked before. Unfortunately, Halloween Kills straight-up murders any shred of potential and goodwill remaining for both casual viewers and dieheart supporters, with its terrible finale and parting message all but chucking the rulebook out of the window to franchise-destroying effect. Halloween 2.2 kills any and all hope for a successful 21st-century retooling of bygone slasher favourites - at least when it's white mask-clad and in a blue boiler suit.