Halloween

Uh... No. What was this? So damn boring I fell asleep.

We have yet another movie where it is getting high praise for reasons of politics...and possibly because Jamie Lee Curtis is back...but mainly for politics. But it was really nice seeing Jamie Lee Curtis back, and nice in the "it doesn't really feel like a Halloween movie without her in it" kind of way. Unfortunately that isn't enough to save the film, nor is the added over-the-top blood and gore that didn't really need a place in the first two movies. But...the blood and gore seemed to replace real scares (though there were a couple) as if to say, yeah, they understand that they aren't making this horror movie frightening, so they might as well make it bloodier and hope that it's a decent trade off for actual scares. The main issue, however, is that it is spread thin. It's like it was written in committee where everyone that there little plot be added to the film despite how difficult that would make actual story telling. The results are so many tiny little subplots that you end up not even caring about the main plot as they try to cram them all into the same hole. You end up just not caring at all about any of it. And then the characters shoved into the movie to accommodate the extra plot lines are just as thin and under-developed that it's really hard to care about what happens to them as well. In the end there is so much going on that it never really focuses enough on anything to keep the audience emotionally invested and really you end up only caring about Jamie because she won you over in the first two good films and that kind of holds you just enough to actually finish a film. If she weren't cast in it, even her character would be hard to relate to in any way. It makes you want to take the director by the collar and yell "focus!" with the hopes that it would drop all the unnecessary story lines and just deal with what matters. But, you know, there are the political signaling, and for a lot of people that matters more than story telling. For everyone else, there is about 15 minutes, maybe, of actual focused plot and the rest is all tangential.

2018's 'Halloween' is... good! It is hard to keep up with all the continuity (or the lack thereof) of this franchise at this point, though this apparently a direct sequel to the 1978 original as it practically nullifies every other sequel that preceded it. Not a big fan of that, I never am (I much prefer the 'Fast & Furious' method of utilising every entry of the series, no matter how well receieved), but I guess in this messy franchise it made sense to do so. Michael Myers still doesn't set the world alight for me as an antagonist, he is perfectly serviceable and does the job but personally I like my villains to have more about them. As in Myers doesn't have any great lines, any varying expressions, a dull look and a repetitive MO... he just doesn't do anything for me. In terms of onscreen performances away from that guy, Jamie Lee Curtis is a cut above any of her co-stars here. I wouldn't say she is at her best in comparison with her prior showings in the series, though I'd still put this one near the top in that particular regard. Elsewhere, Haluk Bilginer is decent.