Halloween Kills: A Shapeless, Purposeless Waste

Do you know how, in my review for 2018's Halloween, I said that subsequent sequels might ruin the pleasant surprise that particular film turned out to be? Well, I can't necessarily confirm that they completely ruined what came before, but what I can confirm is that the 2021 follow-up, Halloween Kills, is an absolute stinker of a movie. So much so that, at points, I found myself asking why it had even been made, not necessarily because of the quality of the film, although that was definitely a prevalent consideration, but more because of how little plot there is to this movie. In a weird way, it's almost impressive how empty and how aimless this movie is, and how many of its sequences just kind of exist without really doing anything meaningful to push the story forward. Now, though they are few and far between, this film does have a couple of specific moments that are of significantly higher quality than I had been conditioned to expect by all the meaninglessness that had come before, but even with some surprises, this review is going to be a negative one and a very negative one at that. From the very first sequence, I really kind of hated this movie, and in a lot of ways, I'm kicking myself for committing to watch this entire trilogy right now. But such is life. We all make mistakes.

Halloween Kills, Blumhouse's 2021 sequel to its 2018 reboot of the mega-hit horror franchise, picks up right where the last film left off, as Michael Myers unsurprisingly survives the trap that Laurie set for him and returns to butcher more citizens of Haddonfield, Illinois. But this time, the citizens of the town have had enough and rise up against him, committing themselves to putting an end to Michael's reign of terror.

From the very beginning of this movie, I got a bad feeling about it. The opening sequence was stylistic enough and had some good color grading that denoted a different time effectively, but unfortunately, from a narrative point of view, it was really aimless and rambled around without really accomplishing anything. My bad feeling turned out to be correct, and the first scene did indeed set a bad precedent that the rest of the film adhered to. That said, the hook of Halloween Kills is aesthetically relatively effective, but all it really accomplishes is getting our attention so that the lackluster sequences that arrive not long after can lose it. Also, can I say that this movie doesn't really know what it wants to be? Looking at the timeline it operates on, it's not really a sequel, nor does it function like a proper "part two." This film has an identity crisis on top of everything else that's wrong with it, and that fact didn't escape me. It's a lot more of the same thing that we saw in 2018's Halloween, just without that feeling of inevitability and purpose that made its predecessor an effective horror flick, and as for not being able to fulfill the role that a sequel is supposed to, Halloween Kills just simply doesn't develop the situation that arose in the first film enough to justify its existence. On top of that, the pacing in this movie is just absolutely horrendous and never settles into a groove where it settles down and works towards goals of any kind. At times, this movie seriously drags, and then always backlashes and rushes through plot points before it goes back to dragging. If I had to pick the lesser of the two evils pacing-wise, I would have to go with rushing, because when this film drags, you feel it. I noted that the film had an insanely strange sense of stagnation to it, so much so that I haven't really seen this effect replicated elsewhere, and at least when the film started to rush at points, it felt like it was getting somewhere. All of this just added up to make a really shapeless final product and kept the movie from ever developing any sort of identity when it came to the story it was trying to tell. Halloween Kills is more of the same things that it was trying to do in the last film, except now, it's forgotten how to do any of those things for some reason.

Now, not all is terrible trash in the land of Haddonfield, Illinois. There are a few sequences throughout that are exciting, frightening, amusing, and even fleetingly touching, and I found myself wishing that the movie had doubled down on them in some way, any way at all. But no. For reasons I cannot fathom, the film didn't even decide to push its strong aspects to center stage. Instead, it insisted on running with it's weakest aspects, and I could not get behind this anti-strategy for the life of me. Those of you who read this blog may know that I'm not too keen on letting deeper themes get in the way of fundamental writing when it comes to determining the quality of a film, but I found myself hoping that, if nothing else, Halloween Kills could mine a meaningful theme from all of this meaninglessness. Spoiler alert, it couldn't. I was not a fan of the idea that the fear, anger, and terror of Haddonfield's civilians could turn them into the very thing they were trying to destroy. On paper, that looks good, but when you consider that none of the characters going through this arc have depth of any kind to them, it just kind of falls apart. At one point, I joked in my notes that this theme sounded a lot like saying "Maybe the real Michael Myers was the friends we made along the way." I'm proud of that quip, and I can't think of any more effective way to convey what I'm trying to say here. The film couldn't even pull off its climax, and the end of the movie ended up being useless shock value that didn't do anything except insert pointless, almost narratively damaging surprises to further lessen the quality of a film that already isn't exactly competing for an Oscar.

Everything considered, Halloween Kills is an absolutely massive step down in quality from Blumhouse's first film. It's one of the worst films I've had the displeasure of watching this year, and while there are a couple of great scares to be had as well as some kills that will certainly satisfy horror diehards, the plot and characters on display here are so poorly done that the few good things in this film just get drowned out by an endless deluge of poor-quality tropes and abysmal storytelling techniques. As far as a parent's guide goes, although as a critic, I would recommend that you and the kiddos run as far away from this low-quality film as you can for your own sake, be aware that there's some very heavy blood and gore, some pretty heavy profanity, but not really much to write home about in the sexuality section, except for one flamboyant, exaggerated same-sex couple that never do anything intimate.

Halloween certainly Kills a lot of people throughout, but it also kills its plot, its meaning, and ultimately, its purpose. I don't think that any amount of Halloween candy is going to be enough to sweeten the bitter taste this one left in my mouth,

Halloween Kills - 3/10

Proverbs 29:8