Shall we maybe anticipate David Gordon Green and Danny McBride's HALLOWEEN sequel/reboot?

Made with the complete blessing of John Carpenter and ignoring all the Halloweens but the first one (RIP Silver Shamrock, it's sad, you were a mask company).

Trailer is out today and it looks . . . maybe good?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek1ePFp-nBI

maybe the first david gorden green movie I've looked forward to since Snow Angels

i'm... cautiously enthusiastic

but i am doomed to see it no matter what tbh

what a weird career dgg had had so far

i actually didn't realize he'd made any other non danny mcbride blockbuster movies in recent years but apparently he has. Obv those big studio films pay well, and I'm sure he does them because he and McBride are good friends. but it's still weird, like if Terrence Malick decided to do a remake of Beverly Hills Cop

Great idea!

His first three movies - George Washington, Undertow, and All the Real Girls, left a huge impression on me as a young cinephile. And then...

Does McBride play Michael?

No, he doesn't appear to be in it. Nick Castle still plays Michael, with another actor credited, presumably handling the more physically demanding stuff.

err I should say "returns as Michael/The Shape". Look at that filmography!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Castle

premiere at Toronto fest, it seems

https://www.tiff.net/tiff/halloween/

Oh cool!

like if Terrence Malick decided to do a remake of Beverly Hills Cop

The internal monologues...

Terence malick would focus on leaves a lot and kill anything interesting about Beverly Hills cop

Walking through Bijan

This mohair...
This silk...
Who made it?
What goes in the sleeves?
The pocket?
The cut?
Of a man?
A cop?

Lol

this also reminds me that there was an episode of Love on netflix where they wound up at the house of the guy who originally played Mike Meyers. One of the funnier episodes.

discussion of Halloween Grandma

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/why-halloween-left-some-viewers-disappointed-credits-rolled-1154053

this is getting panned by everyone I trust

Seriously. I was tempted at first, but when I think AVClub guy said this is basically H20 redux but not as good I was all, eh. And everyone seems to hate the way the meta comedy undercuts the horror.

$76 million Pavlovian weekend

this definitely was underwhelming. it started well tho

Is that your review of the entire Halloween series?

hah yes!

I do agree this was better than all the sequels tho but it didn't exactly have a high bar to clear

it should have been called "Halloween: Competence"

I feel that my expectations are tempered/low enough re: the Halloween franchise that I might find something to enjoy in this.

there are many things to enjoy in it!

I was pretty underwhelmed as well. There isn't really any meta comedy though? Maybe one or two quips? Not interested in a debate of what constitutes meta comedy btw.

the cops in the car having a banal convo was one example

Plus the thing where every time a character says 'Halloween' they then turn to the camera and arch their eyebrows and go 'Eh? Eh? Get it?'

it wasn't winky winky tho definitely not one of those movies thankfully

Almost every review I've read, even the positive ones, mention lots of self aware comments characters make. A la "a lot of people say she's his sister, but that's just a stupid urban legend" or stuff like that.

that's more them playing w/ the lore I think, kind of their way of walking back Halloween 2, which first broke that twist

I had a great time at this, just lots of good choices in the storytelling and being aware of the tropes but not turning that awareness into a joke. Instead, it's more of a technical challenge of how to do scenes that audiences have seen a million times before and respecting the scare while keeping them fresh.

No spoilers here, but the kid who is babysat is a fantastic actor. The first scene where Myers walks alongside a house and under some rows of lights was just beautiful. A lot of the lighting throughout was good to take in on a big screen.

Weirdly, thought this would make a good double feature with Lady Bird.

i am prolly gonna see it again to see if I enjoy it more only cos, slasher films are a thing I miss.

I do agree this was better than all the sequels tho but it didn't exactly have a high bar to clear

― fuck the NRA (Neanderthal), Tuesday, October 23, 2018 5:16 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink'

bullshit, this doesn't touch the original halloween ii

or even the zombie halloween ii which i like a lot and has way more visual personality than this movie

it was very fun still

the editing was a fucking joke though

Almost every review I've read, even the positive ones, mention lots of self aware comments characters make. A la "a lot of people say she's his sister, but that's just a stupid urban legend" or stuff like that.

yeah she called him the shape in the movie which weirded me out, this is less a sequel to halloween than a sequel to a bunch of ideas that seemed to flow out of halloween

bullshit, this doesn't touch the original halloween ii

― princess of hell (BradNelson), Tuesday, October 23, 2018 11:32 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I do like the original Halloween II, admittedly, I was thinking more of the crap like 4, 5, 6, H20, Resurrection, the Zombies....

the only movie in that list i wouldn't defend is resurrection and maybe the first zombie

i like h20 wayyy more than this thing

Those comic-relief scenes (plus the kid/babysitter dialogue) sounded so much like Danny McBride to me, especially the banh mi sandwich banter.

I'm eternally disappointed that they haven't figured out a way to wedge Shatner into one of these late-period pomo Halloweens yet.

the new Dr Loomis d00d kinda sucked, he comes across like a guy who joined a Meisner acting class for a month, probably smugly walked around set all day 'in character', and had no idea how "community theatre" his performance came across.

H20 fails cos of Creed being used in the background

I hate Halloween 4-6, they r d00d00

actually I liked H20 at the time, but on rewatch, it didn't age well. other than the ending, which was of course nullified by Resurrection

4 has a great ending too but yeah I had a bad time with that whole trilogy

3 also has a great ending speaking of films that are not good

season of the witch is an awesome movie

3 has one of the all-time great endings in moviedom.

the one thing the new movie does right is not even bother to question what is motivating Michael to kill. the Cult of Thorn was soooooo zzzzZZzzZZzzzzzzz

weakened his character so much

i admire and understand that decision too

You admire and understand everything tho

It’s why we call you “admire-all nelson”

lol

regardless of my misgivings i in particular loved the very cathartic final twenty minutes of this film

Michael saying his favorite band was Wilco was kinda weird tho

yeah he always seemed like more of a uncle tupelo dude

i was kinda wondering how Michael managed that incredible upper body strength in his 60s despite not seeming very ripped

guess he has go muscles rather than show muscles

I have only seen the original (one of the very few Carpenter films I like) and have only wanted to see Season of the Witch subsequently; still haven't.

cool

i was kinda wondering how Michael managed that incredible upper body strength in his 60s despite not seeming very ripped

Same here, thought that seeing some "working on in the asylum" shots would have helped.

*working out

The original Halloween II is a worthy sequel, though retconned out now. Not enough of a historian to say if the '80s films were the first to franchise the killers, but I remember being happy as a kid with its conclusion, and not really needing more Michael or his story.

What are the other JC films you like, Dr. M? Escape from New York, The Fog, The Thing, Prince of Darkness, In the Mouth of Madness, Big Trouble in Little China (big love for this one) - curious which ones could be criticized for faults that Halloween didn't also share. I find them all vastly rewatchable.

Not holding out hope for the BTiLC remake with Dwayne Johnson. Think he's smart enough to understand and appreciate the original's subversion of the hero/sidekick roles, but can't imagine the producers would allow him to play a bumbling hero.

Original Halloween II is pretty forgettable aside from the Last Starfighter's uber-classic death scene.

there’s also the spa death! the hospital is so effectively creepy and people keep going for help and disappearing until there’s practically no one there and i love it

See now, that's up for debate. Lance Guest (?) slips on the bloody floor, falls back and smacks his head, but I don't recall Michael finishing the job. Always assumed he was unconscious in the room for the movie's duration. And yes, the spa death is great, but why are Michael's hands not also scalded? (little logic quibbles...). And totally agree on the empty hospital providing a great atmosphere. There's a great flick on Netflix called "The Last Shift" that uses a shuttered police station to similar effect.

lance guest bleeds out and dies in the car before he can start it and save himself and laurie

it’s an outstanding death scene

also i love that he dies bc he slipped on blood

alpaca, I like Starman... and most of Escape from New York and Dark Star (long ago)

i was hoping you'd say you liked the fog, i watched that for the first time the other day

they live is a documentary

I do need to get on They Live

Forgot about Starman - also a fun watch. And shoot, forgot about him getting into the car, but I assumed he passed out from a concussion. I had to google an answer and found an interview with Guest.

In your eyes did Jimmy live (like the TV cut) or possibly die (like the theatrical cut)?

In the original script, Jimmy lives, so I had always thought that was the story. When i saw it, and the end was cut, I still thought he lived, but that they wanted to give her the final moments of the film, since it’s really her story and not mine. So, in my mind, I lived. In later Halloween sequel ( H5, H20) Jamie’s character’s kids have the same last name as my characters’ – Lloyd. Which is weird, because Jamie’s ACTUAL kids have the same last name as mine.

i've never seen the tv cut of halloween ii but i'm v curious about it, the version that lives in the imaginations of a lot of ppl who love it is the tv cut

i just rewatched halloween 4, which is a creepy little hollowed-out movie imo, especially when michael cuts the power and everyone is illuminated faintly by generators. i think i like it even more than 2

saw it again. liked it a wee bit better, but the needle didn't move all that far.

also, was thinking, how many different Laurie Strode timelines are there now? since H20 ignored 4-6, and this one ignores 2, 4-6, I come up with....

1. Laurie Strode was Michael's sister, had a daughter named Jamie, died in a car accident, orphaning her daughter.
2. Laurie Strode was Michael's sister, faked her car accident death, apparently either didn't ever have a daughter named Jamie or did and abandoned her, and has a teenage son. Stabbed to death by Michael after she decapitated the wrong dude
3. Laurie Strode *wasn't* Michael's sister, didn't die or pretend to die in a car accident, had no daughter named Jamie or teenage son (but did have one named Karen, whom she lost custody of.)

Stabbed to death by Michael after she decapitated the wrong dude

hate the first twenty minutes of resurrection so much (the remainder is entertaining trash)

Just started watching this, and obv. Green knows how to direct a movie, and the acting seems fine, but the script ... just dumb or annoying stuff happening every few minutes, from the lazy (like hokey info-dump exposition, as if anyone needs to be caught up - "you mean Michael Myers, who murdered those people 40 years ago this very day?!") to general incoherence (if he killed five or so people one night decades ago, that neither makes him a serial killer nor really explains him being characterized as "pure evil" or whatever; you need the context of years of sequels for that) to just ridiculous (like the British journalist taunting him in the mental ward by yelling at him and waving his mask, or Michael waiting in the back of an empty car to kill the kid when he gets back rather than just ... driving away in the car before the kid even comes back). I dunno, there are some things it's getting right, but that just sort of makes the things it's getting wrong or weird more curious. This is just the first 20 minutes or so, though, so I'll give it more time, even if I assume the rest of the movie stays pretty much on the predictable track.

I liked this better on rewatching. B+

Like I said, just diving in now, but B+ because it does anything new, or B+ as a Halloween sequel?

Latter

Eh, I would give this movie a C. It wants to have it both ways but ends up backed into a corner: the only way Michael Myers could be a plausible epitome of pure eeee-vil, the way he is treated and talked about in this film, is in the context of all those sequels as an unstoppable supernatural killing machine, but this movie discounts all those sequels, which leaves him a guy who who randomly murdered some people on Halloween and then was caught and has spent decades in prison, which doesn't seem enough to justify Jamie Lee Curtis's Full Sarah Connor transformation. What makes him so enigmatic and fascinating? As that other knife-fodder kid says, is that it? There are far worse things these days. And for someone who spent their entire life preparing for the return of Michael, Laurie seems weirdly ill-prepared, right down to glass windows in the front door. Or did they mean the entire set-up, the whole house, was designed as a trap, to lure him in? That's wacky. Which leads us to the contrivance of how they (the filmmakers) get him there in the first place, which was absolutely ridiculous.

Lots of little but distracting lampshading lines elsewhere, and those British "journalists" were the wooooorst. And the McBride banter ... eh. Clearly these cops did not get the memo that they were dealing with the ultimate evil.

Updated score gets an A, though!

he was described as evil by loomis in the first one

i mean the sequels do help that land but the groundwork is there

agreed that turning laurie strode into sarah conner is an unearned stretch

Loomis did call him evil in the first one, but of course the first one succeeded in part because he was so mysterious and enigmatic. Why was he pure evil? Because Donald Pleasance convincingly described him as such. This one coasts on him being iconic, but that only came with all the sequels, imo.

For example, instead of the stupid stuff with the British podcasters, they could have had a hearing about what to do with him, about his pure evilness, about all the shit he has been up to and why he needs be locked away somewhere else (why they waited until now to transfer him after all those years is just another contrivance in this film). It's more of the lampshading, but even Laurie Strode tells those dummies "there's nothing to learn, there is no mystery" or something like that. If there's nothing to learn and there's no mystery then there's no reason for this film to exist except as a retread of the original, which makes it just another gormless sequel. Which might have been fine, because there is deeper stuff in this film, whether smart (the virtually unexplored except in broad terms relationship between Laurie and her daughter, let alone victim and victimizer and revenge generally) or utterly stupid (the twist), which is why I'm disappointed the otherwise capable filmmakers involved didn't find a way to pursue something more compelling/original/interesting with those ideas, like they were hamstrung by the need to make their unstoppable killer kill people. (Body count in this one, btw, was apparently 16! Five in the first one, not including his older sister when he was a kid.)

Hold up, does the major character boyfriend in this just vanish? I'm surprised they didn't find a way to kill him, too.

The trauma stuff is tantalizing, but the script doesn't trust the audience to find the subtext, so we get a lot expository dialogue, including a literal "Time's Up." Greene is emphatically not a director of suspense: the film isn't scary or well-paced, and for all of the callbacks to the original, Greene has forgotten (or doesn't care) that the original gained its power through atmosphere, editing, and scoring rather than gore. Basically, another shitty Halloween sequel.

Wow, I was looking up Green's CV, and 1) I just realized I haven't seen any of his films between Pineapple Express and this one and 2) between the 7 films he's made between then and Halloween, I don't even recognize the titles of four of them. Stronger? Prince Avalanche? Joe? Manglehorn? Some big actors in these, but I don't even remember their release.

Liked Prince Avalanche for what it was: two guys working a highway project in the middle of nowhere, talking, talking, talking. Paul Rudd, Emile Hirsch, recommended if you're a fan of theirs, or low-key films of guys working towards adulthood and responsibility.

Watching Halloween II (original).

I love how Ben Treamor gets flambeed and then they just leave him there still on fire and drive off

What's up with comedians/comic actors making horror movies?

Danny McBride
Jordan Peele
Chris Rock

I actually wish Myers hadn't worn that shitty mask in Halloween 4, a bandaged Michael killing people woulda ruled. as did his first three murders.

I will admit to not loving 4 but outside of the first three, 2018, and maybe H20, it's one of the few i'll watch.

they ruined the ending by revealing that Jamie didn't actually kill her foster mother at the end of 4 though. it's like what if in the original Halloween, Michael had only punctured his sister's lung

also what the fuck problem does he have with mom and pop restaurants and auto body stores is Michael anti-small business? is this what drives him? is he trying to make his stock go up a few points?

then he destroys Loomis's car. someone was making payments on that still!

every time I watch an 80s slasher I'm convinced that only 4 facial shapes existed in the 80s

also did Michael actually stop in a Halloween store to get his new mask

did he pay for it or did he just kill the owners like usual

lol i forgot they show him grabbing it. duh.

the image Jamie has of young Michael in his mask is actually very good

halloween 4 is dope especially when they cut the power, it’s not og halloween but what is. i prefer it to 2

something is unsettling about seeing houses in 80s slasher films. houses were so boring back then.

just realizing that if somehow Laurie dies in Halloween Kills or Halloween Ends, this will be the third fucking time she died in the series.

the reversal of jamie as killer in 5 is the worst thing about it, though 5 is also kind of like watching the mounting psychic damage of attempting to write and shoot a fifth halloween sequel, so i let it get away with a lot

i think the h20 continuity presses on the ambiguity of laurie having “died” in 4, as she basically assumed a completely different life

her only true death is in resurrection and it’s the worst 10 minutes of the entire franchise

let me have this third death plz

I have a weird fascination with horror franchsies, like, good or bad, if your series goes like 7 or 8 movies, I'll have an interest in watching them all.

except Saw. fuck Saw.

actually, i stand corrected, as laurie technically dies at the end of the director’s cut of rob zombie’s halloween 2

which i remembered but rob zombie’s halloween movies belong to like an alternate dimension version of this franchise and i have trouble associating them

holy fuck, she's like Groundkeeper Willie on that Treehouse of Horrors

Cops Do It By the Book

always amazed how people in movies can fucking HEAR news reports in a crowded bar.

Sometimes they tell everyone to shush and ask the bartender to turn it up, and everyone respectfully quiets down so they can focus on what's happening.

I only saw the first Saw but I was extremely shocked by how much I liked it

not enough to watch the sequels, mind you

first saw is a good movie. i haven’t watched any of the sequels either lol

First one has bad acting but a great twist and fresh premise. Sequels veer hard into torture porn and a pointlessly tangled mythology. Well, not pointless. The point is to prolong the franchise.

First Saw is good.

Second one is decent but eyerolly

Third one is hilarious

Not in a good way, mind

I've lost track of the number of stories and reviews that have cited the bodycount and brutality of this installment as a series high, but I find it really hard to believe this one is more "brutal" than the Zombie one(s).

some reviews make this movie sound like it's "what if Funny Games was a Halloween movie" which um, no thank you

It's very brutal but not like.... anything that will shock genre aficionados

Reviews on this are generally scathing

I just don't get it. I skimmed a couple of reviews and ... sigh. All they have to do is make it scary and not stupid and it will work. Like, the Freddy movies, after the first one or maybe two, they're just FX camp, so the focus is on that. Jason, they're just dumb and mechanical, so the focus is on that. The first Halloween perfected the moody, slow and steady wins the race template, which is what made it an iconic masterpiece. Who needs more bullshit larded on? This one sounds like its predecessor, with a bunch of half-assed psychology and pointlessly convoluted plot gymnastics. But when the fulcrum of your franchise is an unstoppable, unkillable, faceless murder-machine that doesn't even speak, that ultimate blank canvas shouldn't be license to fill every corner with bullshit. Michael Myers is enough! The first Halloween was like Jaws. The sequels have pretty much all been Jaws 4. "Oh shit, the shark has followed me down to the Caribbean from New England because it has a mythical vendetta against me and my family!" Or whatever. That doesn't make the shark scarier, that makes the movie silly.

Like the twist from the last one? That was such a groaner just to get to a point where for sure these clever filmmakers could have found some other way to get. How hard can it be to just make a scary movie about a scary man doing scary things?

BTW, how many times now has Anthony Michael Hall been brought in as a beefed up bully? "Edward Scissorhands," "Community," "Hysteria - The Def Leppard Story" ...

Fwiw I enjoyed it. It's messy and has a meandering attempt at social commentary that is pathetically on the nose and pointless, and it lasts 15 minutes. Some of the editing is also weird.

But it's also hella scuzzy like Halloween II (1981), which endeared it to me a bit. And lots of cool home invasions and practical gore.

As far as a Halloween sequel goes, I'll take it. It definitely feels like the second in a trilogy though.

Also the "personal vendetta" thing is kind of hacked apart in this one, Last Jedi style

Michael is a hologram force projection?

I forgot this was also on Peacock, which it looks like we have, so I started giving it a shot, and ... I don't know, the early scene with the firemen? That's some ridiculous shit, which indicates this movie could really go either way.

Some of the editing is also weird.

hated this about the previous one

I'm at the next set piece. Michael is definitely more Jason in this.

josh save it for a long spoiler tagged post when you’re done please and thank you

no prob! thank you for stopping me, because otherwise I might have just kept going.

he is a little more Jason, though he hasn't really done the 'quiet stalking, heavy breathing, strangling' thing since the OG. he 'peek a boos' a little, and gets bored and then just kills u and moves to next house.

(or at least that's what he did in Halloween II before he went to the hospital. fitting they called it Memorial Hospital ("remember when this was a hospital, and there were doctors and stuff?")

Spoilers, I guess.

I couldn't do it. I made it to the 40 minute mark. It was all so dull and poorly paced. I fast-forwarded a bit and it looked like it kept shifting from boring to stupid and back again. It was bad enough when he single-handedly took out the entire squad of firefighters. But then when he takes out the entire armed posse? Yeah, this is some lazy bullshit from people that should know better.

Cureently watching this and finding it awesome. Ok, just got to to the scene that people are presumably complaining about and yes, ugh, but I don't find it too prurient

it eventually leaves and then back to the butchery

the entire armed posse was kind of a bit like Gomer's Pyle, tbf

I loved the fireman scene. it was ridiculous trash, plus those firemen were idiots. and Michael actually does like hand to hand combat, blocking punches, it was hilarious

in other words this film is much trashier than the previous and I guess that's why I liked it? lean into the grime, I guess.

that won't work for the finale obv.

this film isn’t dumber than the previous imo

i actually really liked this lol go figure

i loved the adorable gay couple who lived in the myers house. i love that the myers house wasn’t abandoned, great choice

lol my man

oops sorry, that was a Freudian slip, my apologies :(

Big John and LIttle John were great

<3 u neanderthal

<3

I liked them, too.

The last movie, I felt like it was potential squandered. This one was just ... pointless boring trash. Just dull, and rubbed me the wrong way for it. What I watched at least lol.

And the reason I brought up Jason, there's unstoppable killing machine, and then there's agro creative killer. There's the shark, and then there's an all powerful supernatural malevolent monster. Which, sure, no dumber than most of them, but that doesn't make it better, imo.

the movie contends with his supernatural ability to not die btw, via exposition, but i loved it anyway, felt like what i wanted from the previous hallowgreen movie

I love how the town chases around a tiny Sam Kinison looking guy and thinks he's Michael. When he's very clearly not.

Also I love how the street gang fails colossally

Xpost motherfucker broke a car window with his *fingertips* in the first one

He clearly didn't get that strength from a fuckin Bally's

Lol at doctor forgetting his fake stethoscope... AGAIN

Well I drunk heavily yesterday then woke up today and as usual checked my phone to see what shit I'd been spouting whilst blacked out, turns out I raved about this film to multiple people (my sister , mi anomoratx, my PA fucksake), wow I even posted here, and... I don't really recall much, Imma rewatch right now to see what all my fuss was about

I'm glad Carpenter gets to cash a cheque for a "new" score again for rolling out of bed, stretching, making coffee then going to the other room and just playing the same old shit, genuinely he deserves it cos that same old shit remains awesome

Actually on further investigation I apparently turned this film off before the end so I could listen along during someone's first play of the TWIABPAIANLATD album, then proceeded to complain about what a difficult acronym that is to type when cold drinks have been taken.

tbh I've woke up drunk, that was still difficult to type, and this film is still awesome. Thank you for your patience.

Judy Greer is a wonderful actor who prolly doesn't get the credit she deserves for consistent awesomeness. When I'm dead I hope future generations will write books about her

This isn't trashy at all, it's just playing off horror tropes in a maybe slightly snarky definitely gleeful but mostly loving way

As things progress my view on this deepens, the camera pans and certain line deliveries yeah they know what they're doing but they are doing it wonderfully, this is way better than the previous film, which I thought was great but this is BETTER

Fucking Hell, now this is finished... this is surely the second best Halloween film ever? Leaving aside SOTW which is its own thing and yeah obviously Unimpeachable, there is not a single one that comes close. My appreciation of the last thing came with a bunch of caveats, like yeah the whole bisnes with them podcasters yeahyeah but it's still great... no caveats for this, not even slasherfilm caveats, not just a great slasher but a great film, best film of the year fight me, JLC and Will Patton what, underused? They oscarclippped it when they were onscreen, no complaints there. I'm seriously overwhelmed

OK if you want to "actually" my ABV as a caveat go ahead, but I think my typing proficiency speaks to my relative sobriety, and if we're going to rule out films on that basis I've seen zero films this year

A+ posts JHV

I do like that they're moving away from Michael targeting Laurie. That never made sense - the only reason he attempted to kill her in the first one is because she showed up at the Wallace house looking for her friends. He was pretty much nailed to that spot - everybody he killed, he killed at that house. He didn't have any intentions to show up at the Doyle house until he came upon Laurie and chased her across the street.

halloween 2 (zombie)
halloween 3: season of the witch
halloween (1978)
halloween h20
halloween (zombie)
halloween 4
halloween 5
halloween 2 (1981) (tv cut would be above 4)
halloween kills
halloween 6
halloween resurrection
halloween (2018)

honestly this is a great franchise :)

is this ranking completely different from the one i put on the friday thread? yes

kills will likely rise in my estimation on rewatch. i also watched 2018 before it and liked it better, though the line of dialogue where they diss the previous sequels still makes me mad

Neanderthal yes, then fact that they're all gathered at the hospital to BURN THE WITCH oh wait he's down at THE PLACE HE ALWAYS GOES slashing the fuck out of whoever happens to be there, this is surely commentary, meta shit, blahblahblah

H3SOTW if it even belongs here
HALLOWEEN like the actual motherfucken HALLOWEEN
This thing here, Halloween Kills, fucken masterpiece
Halloween II was cool
The first DGG one
I was gunna write H20 here but on rethinking it was trash. All of the rest are trash. I never actually watched the second Zombie sorry or Resurrection but I'm not going near the big trash fire I set of all this, oh was there something worthwhile in there? too bad, I already lit the fire

Brad, what do you think of the Freddy films? I haven't rewatched them in some time (ever?) but I seem to recall them having more going on than in these movies (from FX to a talkative villain to psychological stuff).

I used to watch Halloween II on TV all the time and always remembered it being pretty solid, a good, proper sequel with a bad reputation. But it's been a while.

BTW, I didn't mean this new one was "trash" in the rape-and-pillage Rob Zombie sense, I meant that it was trash in the sense that very little effort seemed to be put into it beyond the kills, and even those were kind of dumb. And it was boring; stuff the early scene with Hall and car in the parking lots just went on forever without generating any suspense. It felt almost like, well, a padded, draggy late-run sequel by a young director that ran out of time and money or ideas or something, not established, esteemed filmmakers.

Imo, of course. I'm glad y'all enjoyed it. I'm just at the stage where certain things in movies trigger me to turn it off. It's got to be the right/wrong kind of dumb at the right time, and this one tilted bad for me pretty quickly. I think I read something that more or less described Michael as its protagonist, and maybe tonally that was it? Because I just didn't care at all what he was doing or why, or about anyone else, really. And not in an anonymous slasher-fodder way, just that they made just enough effort to make me wish they made a bigger, better effort. Reviews (even the positive ones!) on places like Metacritic and RT seem to be pretty consistently meh or harshly negative, so I'm not alone.

Though I do love Judy Greer without reservation in just about everything.

h20 is not trash come on

its conception of laurie’s ptsd >>>>>> dgg’s

if you liked halloween kills for how freaking gross it was you should watch the second zombie movie. skip the first even tho i love it now, but ppl find it so alienating

to your point about everyone being at the hospital when myers is actually going home, i agree that was great.. a very cool reversal of halloween (1978) where loomis and brackett stake out the myers place all night while he’s enjoying his killing spree down the street

nightmare on elm street is my least fave of the big horror franchises and it’s mostly bc i don’t love 4 and i actually have no idea how i feel about 5 (the one with the baby). i love freddy’s dead though, that movie is so fun. everything else besides the remake is great ofc

i do love that they think Bilbo Baggins is an all-powerful murderer and chase him for 20 minutes

Gotta give the mob something to do.

Though it would have been funny if, while wind-up-demon Michael was out randomly stalking, the angry mob just kept accidentally killing innocent people again and again. That's what I loved about "Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil," how the college kids just kept finding imaginative ways to take themselves out while a perplexed Tucker and Dale watched on.

i do love that they think Bilbo Baggins is an all-powerful murderer and chase him for 20 minutes

― Gardyloominati (Neanderthal), Saturday, October 16, 2021 7:21 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

we should chase this guy who doesn’t look like michael myers at all and is way shorter than him (albeit iirc most of the ppl chasing him had not encountered michael directly yet)

after all those years of pent-up rage and fear, you could have probably put the mental institution jumpsuit on a donkey and the mob would have been chasing it

If I was the mental patient, I woulda said LOOK, IT'S THE DUDE FROM WEIRD SCIENCE and started a counter-stampede

thought this letterboxd review was excellent and really nailed why i liked this https://boxd.it/2danOV

Michael isn't Evil. Michael isn't anything. Michael is randomness, Michael is chance. Michael is the cold, uncaring universe, the worst possible outcome of anyone's fate. Michael is a metaphor, and when anyone fully engages with him as an idea, it destroys them.

I don't know, maybe in a different movie. The fireman scene, they give Michael a big iconic out of the fire intro, the sort of thing that I assume is supposed to earn cheers in theaters. Like, "oh shit, Michael's *mad*, and he's gonna get 'em!," this hulking guy with a pickaxe standing there on a burning porch while the firemen stare slack-jawed before revving their various implements of destructions (and, er, a firehose). But we, the audience, we know better. Because yeah, he's gonna get 'em! This isn't random. Random is scary, or at base, suspenseful. This is Michael (re)introduced not as an idea or metaphor, but as an angry, powerful, pissed off, out for blood sadistic monster that *wants* to take out these firemen. Which is to say, Jason. If he was a roving act of chaos I could get with that review. Face him, cross him and you're dead. Bad luck. Fate. But too often here he's the traditional slasher, (often literally) toying or playing with his victims. That's partly why I didn't think the film's psychology too well thought out or compelling. It's muddled and contradictory.

josh you watched 50 minutes of this and quit, stop

Let me put in a kind word for A Nightmare On Elm Street II.

I watched 40 minutes then fast forwarded a lot of the rest, to be more accurate. And then watched the mob climax. But I did brush up on the wiki plot summary!

I still like that Michael briefly does martial arts blocks when the first few firemen attack him

I actually thought of martial arts movies, too, when they attacked him one at a time.

The thing that has bothered me about 2018's Halloween.

The British female podcaster, at the gas station, says "I gotta do a number two" and heads to the ladies room.

She sits on the toilet. And at the time she has no idea Michael is coming. A decent amount of time passes.

Then he comes in and it's clear he's up to no good. She starts trying to escape under the bathroom stall, her pants are clearly up, and there's no sign she pulled them up as she rushed to duck under the stall with no hesitation.

Was she...

1) taking a dump with her pants ON

2) did she surreptitiously pull her pants up when we weren't looking?

3) was she secretly trying to get away from her husband

where’s the loo? … the bathroom?

i hate all of the funny dialogue in that movie

"I got peanut butter on my penis"

i also kind of hate the restaging of the classroom scene, at least until you see jlc through the window

i think the PREY BECOMES THE PREDATOR theme of that film is at least as dumb as the WE’RE THE MONSTERS NOW angry mob stuff in this

and tbh i liked the angry mob staircase scenes, they stressed me the hell out

Given the budget and talent potential, happy HK was a Peacock freebie. The entire "evil dies tonight" hospital crowd section with the DO YOU SEE?! "now he's turning us into monsters" line, every scene with Tommy Doyle over acted by intensely staring, jaw-clenching AMH* and his prop bat, every scene with the granddaughter (back with the jerk boyfriend, now she's a vigilante, etc.), JLC philosophizing = groan. On the plus side, the film looked great. Cool that the same Lindsey actress from the first Halloween returned to play her as an adult. And always good to see Judy Greer. Wish she was in the 3rd.. * To be fair, that's how he always looks.

y'know what really makes me mad about Halloween: Resurrection is if the dude on the hood of the car WASN'T Michael, and his throat was crushed so he couldn't talk, why the fuck was he acting maniacal like Michael while he was on top of the vehicle.

"One more day 'til Halloween (Ends), one more day 'til ... Silver Shamrock!"

Halloween Ends is now described as Laurie Strode's "journey". Maybe they're defining "journey" as "stuck in a runaway car in a '70s movie as the car plummets off a cliff"?

it’s completely unthought marketing speak BUT this one is set four years after the other two, and those suggest strongly that Green/McBride are intersted in showing character development for their Laurie

i'm excited.

I have seen twice now. I think I liked it, with reservations.

Ultimately, they opted not to go with the obvious tack, where Michael returns years later, formulaicly stabs his way through Haddonfield, and then final boss battle only he loses this time. this time, more examining the effects on tragedy on a community, and how it sometimes rips communities apart (think 9/11). How Myers has left everybody suspicious and paranoid and therefore the violence continues long after he disappears, but now it's civilian on civilian.

Lot of things underdeveloped, so it's not without flaws. It seems a wee bit hard to swallow that Laurie turns on Corey so abruptly, after initially being so sympathetic (that there's dialogue from Corey stating exactly this doesn't exactly make the flaw go away). But it is interesting, the examination of copycat killers, in that copycat killers don't kill for the reason their predecessors did. they are often chasing the glamour, or co-opting the image of the killer for their own purposes. Michael kills indiscriminately, Corey is going after his tormentors, anybody who fucked with him (or his girlfriend). Radio DJ receptionist really the only 'collateral damage'.

I think the sequences with Corey as killer were framed well and effective. I do think there was a missed opportunity to give the town's reaction to those slayings, mistaking them for Michael, and plunging into chaos. Likewise, Michael himself was more of a supporting character in his own franchise, but I get the idea - he's elder now and severely weakened from the beating he took four years ago, so now he's living in a cave and just opportunistically picking off passers-by, not going out and stalking anymore. I think he spares Corey as he looks into his eyes and sees some of himself in him, whereas Corey reinvigorates him enough to get him to go back into society for a few kills, as he gets his taste for it again. but his weakness is why Laurie overpowers him so easily.

as I said, it doesn't all land. there are a lot of leaps of logic (Allyson basically wanting to rip Corey's clothes off the moment she sees him for the first time being one). but Corey's nihilism is at least understandable - he was headed for big things in life, going to college for engineering, and instead he's working a low-paying job as a mechanic, living with his mother who treats him like he's 12, and not being able to venture into public because he's always recognized. and the people tormenting him are doing so for vanity (as the dad points out) rather than real concern for the kid he killed. wearing a mask lets him finally hide and become someone/something else.

fuck. welp. hope nobody enters fearing spoilers. sorry I fucked that up.

New John Carpenter hit quote just droppedhttps://t.co/nfMFAe7lGE pic.twitter.com/CnC9OZxNuE

— John Frankensteiner (@JFrankensteiner) October 12, 2022

lol

Really don’t hate this trilogy, the last one felt v unaware of how daft it was (in good & bad ways) this one was really going for it so it was easy to lean into the groaners. Honestly the best scenes tend to be vignettes completely unconnected to the main story & there are effective gruesome kills imo

There is some surprisingly bad filmmaking in all three

Sebadoh!

whoops, meant that as hidden text. thread now awash in spoilers.

Michael does not kill Sebadoh, fwiw

^didn't stay for the mid-credits tag!

ends was the best of the three imo, brought home the themes of kills and also had a grody dark corrupted vibe anytime they strayed near michael’s hole

i love michael’s hole

sorry forgot this wasn’t the gay thread

lmao

the kill sequences felt like an top tier 80s slasher flick

this one was really going for it so it was easy to lean into the groaners

that's part of why I liked this way more than the last one, though it still feels at times like Green isn't a weird enough director (anymore). like one of the Carrie-ish scenes with Corey and his mom, punctuated by his dad watching from the shadows and saying "I want you to find love" -- I merely appreciated the attempt.

loved however:

the opening scene, the horror of sensing what's about to happen combined with the horror of it happening. plus the way the kid says "ugly-ass boy" more like "ugly ass-boy" (in that kid way of slightly mishearing something and repeating it)

Laurie grinding Michael into paste and then just adding a paragraph to her book, instead of rethinking the whole thing. sort of a hack move, but felt appropriate.

uh, hidden text doesn't go across paragraphs? sorry all.

swear to god the mullet kid looked exactly like someone in my 4th grade class. talked the same too.

also why did so many people in Illinois have NY/Jersey accents.

I saw Halloween Ends last night on Amazon Prime and enjoyed it a lot, it's probably the best of the Green trilogy

extra points for all the menacing shots of empty kitchens and the way that motif is repurposed at the very end

the discussion of the franchise itt makes me want to see the few I've missed

its funny how many people outright hate this movie, and when I ask them to elucidate , they basically map out that they wanted the same shit that always happens in every Halloween movie. where's the fun in that.

doesn't mean this movie is inherently a success in trying something different (I liked it, but I can see arguments against parts of it), but kinda feel like this is the Last Jedi of teh Halloween series

It’s easily the best of these new ones

low bar

Seriously. The previous two, but particularly the second one, were so bad, I don't care whether the third is any good at all. Never going to see it.

So what is up with David Gordon Green? What a weird career path, to divide your time pretty evenly between prestige indie dramas, sophomoric comedies, lame horror reboots and oddball Danny McBride HBO projects.

he likes to make money and work with his friends, I assume.

Wayne Wang had a similarly eclectic “One for me” (a personal project) followed up by “one for them”(studio work), before eventually deciding to stick with the indie route.

Blumhouse must be shitting itself over Exorcist: Believer’s extremely poor opening weekend. They spent $400 MILLION on just the rights to the franchise. That doesn’t include the cost of this one film

I've had three friends see it and my brother and all of them were bored to tears.

I've heard nothing but bad things about the new Exorcist, funnily enough I actually liked the trailer I saw before Oppenheimer and was mildly curious until I heard all the feedback.

Possession horror generally sucks with a few exceptions