Halloween 2018

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Halloween 2018

Postby A Combustible Lemon » Tue Jun 12, 2018 9:51 pm



This trailer starts out pretty terrible with the mental institute horror straight out of a parody, but the high concept of remaking Terminator 2 for the newest reboot of the Halloween Franchise seems pretty interesting.
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WE ARE ALL FLOATING IN THE WINDS OF TIME. BUT YOUR CANDLE WILL FLICKER FOR SOME TIME BEFORE IT GOES OUT -- A LITTLE REWARD FOR A LIFE WELL LIVED. FOR I CAN SEE THE BALANCE AND YOU HAVE LEFT THE WORLD MUCH BETTER THAN YOU FOUND IT, AND IF YOU ASK ME, said Death, NOBODY COULD DO ANY BETTER THAN THAT...
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Re: Halloween 2018

Postby KleinerKiller » Tue Jun 12, 2018 10:46 pm

Trailer kicks ass, and I kind of love how ludicrously over-the-top the mental institution sequence is. With anyone else I'd be extremely skeptical of this whole production, but it's John Carpenter, so unless he's lost a lot of his mojo over the years I'm thoroughly hyped.

With that said -- this kind of movie pretty much needs to end with Laurie perma-killing Michael (ala Halloween H20... which was almost the exact same premise, now that I think about it), but its very existence necessitates a new line of sequels, because otherwise it would never get greenlit in the first place. This places it in a very rough spot that the series has blown its ass out trying to juggle thrice before, but I'll try to maintain my optimism.
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Re: Halloween 2018

Postby A Combustible Lemon » Tue Jun 12, 2018 11:43 pm

It's the trailer drums that get me. There's really no way of getting out of that buildup without completely ruining the moment. Hopefully these are just trailer things, not actually in the movie.

Also, this video and the other one about Jason are great, for anyone who wants to catch up on the halloween series. Freddie one I don't like because apparently he didn't change at all.
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WE ARE ALL FLOATING IN THE WINDS OF TIME. BUT YOUR CANDLE WILL FLICKER FOR SOME TIME BEFORE IT GOES OUT -- A LITTLE REWARD FOR A LIFE WELL LIVED. FOR I CAN SEE THE BALANCE AND YOU HAVE LEFT THE WORLD MUCH BETTER THAN YOU FOUND IT, AND IF YOU ASK ME, said Death, NOBODY COULD DO ANY BETTER THAN THAT...
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Re: Halloween 2018

Postby Australia » Tue Oct 30, 2018 4:15 pm

Aw, man, I have peanut butter on my penis.

By which I mean, good movie. The first Halloween 2 is still my favourite in the whole franchise, which is why I kind of think this movie loses something in not making Laurie a Myers, particularly considering the theme is family and the choice of Michael's victims, which I guess just makes them coincidences? And while they say the first Halloween is the only one they're counting as canon, they keep things like Michael's regenerative abilities, though that was clear from 1, but also there's kids dressing up in the costumes from Halloween 3 and there's a character that seems right out of Curse of Michael Myers. (I marathoned them all at the start of the year, okay, I'm not remembering all this from the 90s). Anyway, it's enjoyable, there's some cool kills, solid humour, particularly from a kid at around the halfway mark, Laurie is basically Sarah Connor in T2 and I'd put this in the top 5, maybe even top 3, but I like the dumb movies in this franchise as much as the clever ones so my opinion might not be the best to go off of.

Not the best horror movie of the year but it's a lot of fun and even tense when it wants to be. It's way more entertaining than the boring reboots and as for the last 'burn it all to the ground and pick up in a random spot', I'd say H20 had more creative kills and maybe a more satisfying ending but overall, this is the better movie. I still would have wanted to see a movie that embraced its dodgy past because the fact that a prison was able to hold Michael for decades makes him far less menacing right off the bat. Don't worry, that feeling goes away after the action starts, but say he's been in prison since his last spree and just retcon a couple of deaths and you have a more interesting movie.
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Re: Halloween 2018

Postby KleinerKiller » Wed Nov 14, 2018 10:55 pm

What better time to watch a Halloween movie than mid-November?

Things Wot I Liked
For the first time since the original film, I actually felt scared of Michael Myers. He is exactly as he should be: unstoppable and unreadable, but definitely not a mindless killer. You don't need to turn him into an immortal demon or a sad, abused redneck giant to keep him terrifying; the fact that he's utterly relentless, fiendishly intelligent, and really likes to play with his food is still enough after all of these decades of imitators. I don't even mind that he has such a wild bodycount compared to the first movie, since every death at his hands feels like a momentous occasion even to some desensitized to slasher deaths.

Laurie Strode is the best horror movie lead in recent memory, and I'm so glad she survived when it would have been easy to kill her off for the sake of "passing the torch to the new generation" moment. She's headstrong and badass, but those traits are offset by deep flaws that have clearly done a lot of harm to her family. I feel like I was able to see Terminator 2's Sarah Connor in theaters again, but just different enough that she doesn't feel like a rehash of that. If there is indeed a sequel, I really hope she participates again, even though her arc should be over.

The sibling twist being explicitly non-canon, and the "one who got away" relationship that replaces it. I, for one, have always been in the camp that Laurie and Michael being brother and sister was dumb and completely devalued the point of Michael's character (ie "only Michael knows why he does it, and Michael's not talking").

I have no idea what my favorite scene of the film was, between the brutalizing of the podcasters and employees at the gas station, the astounding one-take tracking shot of Michael rampaging back in Haddonfield, Michael toying with Oscar through the motion sensor lights, and the whole climax with all of the Strode women kicking Michael's shit in. It's not often that I have so many great options to choose from in a blockbuster horror flick.

I almost wanted to applaud when Laurie pulled the same disappearing trick Michael pulled at the end of the original. Despite making no noise and never taking off his mask, I could feel the "oh, shit" radiating off Michael.

Even though the music was mostly remixes of the classic theme, I enjoyed all of it and most of the variations are going to get a lot of mileage in my playlist. And the original track that played when Michael walked up to the fence to face Laurie's daughter is a bone-chilling standout.


Things Wot I Did Not Liked
The plot twist with Dr. Not Loomis was... weird? I was legitimately shocked, but more because came out of nowhere and then went nowhere almost as fast. I guess the implication is that he caused Michael's escape after going insane trying to get into his head, but the story doesn't really gain anything by its inclusion except a slightly longer runtime, a decently disturbing setpiece, and Michael getting hit by a car in an applause-worthy moment without having to die before the climax. Dude didn't make much sense to me.

The climactic battle was amazing, but I could've done without the protracted lead-up of Laurie silently hunting Michael and blocking various rooms for what felt like 10 minutes. Suspense building is wonderful, but the lack of variance in what was actually going on meant it outstayed its welcome enough that I was really annoyed by it. By the time she was doing the second dramatic closet check, I almost started rooting for a stupid jump scare just so things would move on already. Also, the lack of reaction to Laurie's son-in-law getting violently strangled in the front yard with his wife and daughter in the house was a bit weird.

I understand that they just had to leave an opening for a sequel, but Michael not explicitly burning to death at the end hurt the entire film in hindsight for me. Laurie's entire character arc was centered on finally getting closure by putting The Shape in the ground for good, and after all of that effort and the awesome finale, the payoff ought to have been the sight of Michael fully engulfed by the flames. His blank stare from beneath the trap was damn great on its own, but I wish it had gone further. Not to mention it stretches plausibility even within a slasher movie universe to have him somehow escape an enclosed panic room that's basically been designed to be a gas oven with no exits.


Regardless of my few complaints, this is without a doubt my second-favorite of the series, and I'm perfectly happy to consider this and the original the "canon" timeline.
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"Your mind is software. Program it. Your body is a shell. Change it. Death is a disease. Cure it." - Eclipse Phase

NEW REVIEW! Judgment / Judge Eyes (2019)
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