Halloween Ends - David Gordon Green - 2022

★★★-  Just going to get right into it. Great opening. Great ending though it’s cray. Not exactly what you’d call SOP. Everything else was trash. A huge swing, sure, but no where near to connecting. Michael Myers is barely in the movie and when he does pop up, he is a bitch.

Not a good sendoff for the character of The Shape. At one point I thought it was maybe the worst movie I’d ever seen but it got better from there. However, it was fun AF and I thought it was a crazy way to wrap it up. 

Gist is this kid Corey, whom we've never seen before, is canceled after he accidentally kills a kid. He ends up working at his dad’s junkyard instead of going off to college. Corey, this fucking guy, is bullied by the band kids (no way these token stereotypes would ever hang out in real life, by the by). He eventually finds and has a wrastlin' match with Michael Myers (who has been on loose, living in the sewers for years. The Myers mystique then starts rubbing off on him and things get cray. Needless to say, dude really should have got out of Haddonfield when he could have. The film is mostly his becoming a monster. 

Laurie Strode, remember her?, is even crazier somehow in this movie. She was a shut in when Michael Myers was locked away in an insane asylum for 40 years and now that he’s out of the lamb she’s living her best life and shit in fucking Haddonfield. Fucking insane. 

Also insane is the black sheriff in the cowboy hat who in Kills was the “law and fucking order” candidate. At the end of this movie when Laurie straps Michael Myers onto the top of her car to put him in a car crusher at the junkyard some cop is like “yeah, we don’t do that with dead bodies in an active murder investigation,“ and the sheriff is like, “tonight we do.“ Then Myers explodes in a car shipper. Spoiler. Wait, so that isn't standard operating procedure.

An extremely messy film. I feel like it shouldn’t have worked, but did to some extent. The ending, as insane as it was, was pretty satisfying. Had a great time (the picture of me and my buddy Levi was from opening night in New York at an Alamo Drafthouse, a phenomenal way to watch a movie. 

Overall, this is probably my fourth favorite Halloween movie. Maybe lower depending on the day. The original is a work of art. Season of the Witch is batshit fun. H2O, Halloween II, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, the Zombie films, and this movie are all on this next tier. Maybe a little flawed, but solid or at least a lot of fun and interesting. The rest range from really bad to fucking disastrous with Resurrection at the very, very bottom. 

Halloween (2018) is the greatest movie of all time

Halloween (2018). Yes. Not a masterpiece. In fact, one of the worst twists of all time. But almost certainly the best sequel (although I may make a case for Halloween II and Halloween III: Season of the Witch). Believe at least that part of the hype. But that is a low fucking bar. We will see if it holds up on the second viewing before I definitively rank the films in order. Sort of love/hate the franchise as a whole even when it goes off the rails. Maybe because it does. This is one of only a couple of them that are genuinely not terrible. If you haven't seen it, you probably shouldn't read this unless, like me, you don't give a shit about spoilers. I'm generally of the "oh man, I've got to see this shit!" when I get a spoiler. I will also read Wikipedia pages before I go see a movie to get the plot. So you get spoilers. Respect that, as Spike Lee would say. Anyway. Danny McBride surprising me again. This time with his writing abilities. He is a pretty underrated talent IMO because he is so goofy and iconic in his comedic work, namely as Kenny Powers in Eastbound and Down. Sort of like how you couldn't cast Ed O'Neill in anything without the audience LOLing because he is Al Bundy to everyone. So yeah, better than all the other sequels, probably, but it totally should be. Those others were generally written but just some random guy and directed by some cheap first-timer. This is David Gordon fucking Green and Danny mother fucking McBride. It should almost certainly be better but this is what we got and it is serviceable. So focus on the good. It is scary, funny (occasionally when it shouldn't be), and is a genuinely alright movie. Yeah, greatest film of all time.

Rotten Tomatoes Consensus: Halloween largely wipes the slate clean after decades of disappointing sequels, ignoring increasingly elaborate mythology in favor of basic - yet still effective - ingredients.

Pros: Doesn't fuck around. Gets into it and doesn't do a lot of exposition. The opening credits with the pumpkin. John Carpenter score is fucking sick. Child dancer is sweet. So are the kills. That long tracking shot is perfection. Actually, several really dope scenes. Same look as the original. It is legit scary at times. Lots of tension and he doesn't pop out a lot. Opening jack-o-lantern scene. Black watching Repo Man was a sweet little easter egg.

Cons: Tone is sort of off. Too much random comedy thrown out there. The podcasters are stupid. Not my favorite opening. Basically everything with Dr. Sartain is fucking unwatchable and takes you out of the experience. It almost ruined the movie. Also, although there a lot of solid scenes, they are kind of disjointed. Doesn't flow all that well. Black kid is funny but throws off the tone. You laugh when it should be scary and shit.

"Remember... THIS?!?" What could go wrong

The gist... Jamie Lee Curtis is back as Laurie Strode who squares off against Michael Myers, again. In this incarnation Myers killed a mechanic and three of her friends before getting captured on Halloween night in 1978. The hospital stuff in Halloween II didn't happen in this universe as it is a direct sequel to John Carpenter's original Halloween from 40 years ago. Here Laurie has some serious PTSD issues that cost her a relationship with her daughter Karen, played by Judy Greer from Arrested Development, and granddaughter Allyson, played by newcomer Andi Matichak. So we have three generations of Strode woman all affected by Myers, all traumatized, yet strong, in their own ways. Myers, for his part, aged incredibly well. I guess homicidal rage works for him.

A Blumhouse production directed by David Gordon Green who also did Pineapple Express and Prince Avalanche among other shit, and written by Jeff Fradley, Green, and McBride. This is the second retconning after Halloween H20: 20 Years Later did it back in 1998. Nick Castle, who played Michael Myers aka The Shape in the original, reprises the role was word on the street but all but one scene had out of work stuntman James Jude Courtney, who did a wonderful job, putting on the mask. Others in the film include Haluk Bilginer (never seen him) as Sartain, Toby Huss who will always be The Wiz from Seinfeld (he was also Felix in Carnivale and Artie in The Adventures of Pete & Pete) as Judy Greer's husband, Virginia Gardner as the pretty, blonde friend Vicky who dies horribly, Will Patton who is one of those whats-his-faces as Officer Hawkins, and Miles Robbins who plays Vicky's boyfriend who is a stoner nice guy and basically the same role he played in Blockers.

Couple of other characters of note are Cameron, the boyfriend of Allyson played by Dylan Arnold, and his buddy Oscar played by Drew Scheid. Cameron is possibly the biggest douche-bag in the entire 11 movie franchise. It's implied that he is cheating on Allyson with a chick who goes to the Halloween school dance as a sexy tiger and then acts incredulous when he gets caught blaming it on her being on her phone. He throws it in dip or pudding or whatever and she can no longer get calls. It's a plot device that movies employ that explains away lack of cellular telephone technology. You think he is going to die like most bad boyfriends but we never see him again. Spends the rest of the movie balls deep in the sexy tiger chick most likely. Anyway, so after Allyson storms off, Cameron's best bud Oscar starts to walk her home. This is the setup for one of the best scenes in the movie. It is a close second to the long tracking shot that I'll get to in a moment. Here, Oscar tells Allyson that she is the coolest and prettiest and nicest girl in the school. See where this is going. He tries to bang her. WTF, dude? She shuts it down and storms off. He doesn't get rapey, thank fuck, but he is an idiot and says as much. They are taking a shortcut to wherever and Allyson is gone by that point. He sort just lays there berating himself when Myers shows up. There is this motion light there that kicks on and off conveniently. Shit was dope by the way. He sees Myers and thinks it is Mr. Elrod (a reference to Halloween II, Mr. and Mrs. Elrod were the old couple he steals the knife from that are watching the original The Thing movie at the beginning of the movie). Myers creeps him out more and more as he gets closer and closer to him every time the light goes off and comes back on again. He eventually gets killed horribly.

Favorite line of the movie is from Hawkins, Will Patton's character. That line, which is some dope shit to say and true, is: "There's a reason we're supposed to be afraid of this night." Other than that nothing really stands out except for the funny ass shit the little black kid says.

References in this movie are more or less constant. They are retconning the movie because they think all of them are shit but then they pay constant homage to them which is weird but ultimately pretty cool. There are probably double-digit references to the original and II--the classroom scene where a teacher drones on with the main teen sitting in the back right corner looking out the window [also in Halloween H20], the three teens walking Laurie falling off the roof [roles reversed as it was Michael that fell in the first {this also happened in Halloween: Resurrection}], the ending with the fire was basically the same as II (also that they mention people thinking Laurie and Michael are brother and sister), the escape from Smiths Grove, the kill with the hammer, the woman that gets stabbed in the neck talking to Sally on the phone that lived next door to the Elrods, and I am sure several others--a lot of which have been referenced in other movies within the franchise. The main one we get for III were the masks that the kids were wearing were the Silver Shamrock masks from that film. From Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers we get a very similar brutal scene in a gas station/garage that looks more or less exactly the same. From Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers you get the comic relief cops, these legitimately funny unlike 5. From Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers you get the evil doctor, I guess. Bunch of stuff from H20, most notably the bathroom scene where Michael goes into the lady's room, which looks exactly the same, and confronts a lady taking a shit. From Resurrection we get the falling off a roof and the lady in the truck at the gas station that says "Resurrection" on the side of it. Not sure about the Rob Zombie movies as it has been a long while but I do recall a guy getting his head stomped which spoiler happens in this one and is probably the coolest kill.

Speaking of kills, lots of carnage in this flick. Off of memory, so I may be missing one or two, I can recall 17 kills, 16 by Myers. What can you say? Dude just wants to kill. He is pure evil. In this universe he doesn't necessarily need to kill Laurie but there she is so he might as well go for it. She is chasing him around and what not which is she is on his radar. If she didn't show up and try to stop him, then he would have just been out there rampaging and what have you. Most of these deaths are head smashings and neck breakings. But he sort of levels up as the movie goes along. When he first escapes from the bus as he is being transferred to another hospital, they say the one he is being transferred to is a real piece of shit compared to the one he is at which is truly disturbing considering what that one looks like, on the 40th anniversary of his murder spree, which is fucking bananas that they would do it then, he kills the first dude on the scene by breaking his neck. This guy is some hunter who is taking his little kid to go shoot defenseless animals in the face. The kid tells him he just wants to dance, which was endearing. That is when they come to the bus crash and Myers somewhere in the vicinity. The dad goes out and, as mentioned, his neck gets broke. After some time, the kid goes out and investigates. This kid is maybe 10. He finds a cop on the ground and is told to run. Instead he gets on the bus where Michael's doctor is chilling. He says not to shoot him but the kid must have thought he said to shoot him because that is what happens. The dancing boy goes ape shit and runs to the SUV and tries to peace the fuck out even though he, you know, probably can't drive because he is 10. But before he can figure out how to put that bitch in drive, Michael gives him the old reach around and chokes the shit out of him before snapping his neck. Yeah, they fucking go for it and straight up murder a child. Don't see a lot of child murders these days but this movie is all like fuck it. It was a seriously shocking death but I was on board with it.

Later it is implied that the doctor freed Myers which brings us to the shit. Basically everything with this doctor character is fucking stupid. The first we see of him is at the asylum where he lets those podcasters break out the mask which seems to have awakened something in Myers. Then he gets shot. Then we see him in the hospital where he makes the worst joke ever. The Will Patton sheriff character doesn't want to take the doctor along to help find Myers but this other black cowboy sheriff guy who is maybe in charge or something who might be a throwback to "The Man in Black" from Halloween 5 but disappears after the first half hour of the movie convinces him otherwise. Well while they are driving around at one point he says he wants to see Michael in his own element which is insane and dumb. Something like, "I want to know his pleasure." Think we know where this is going. Should have kicked the guy out of the car right then. But instead, after the Will Patton character picks up Allyson (which he is cool with her riding around with them for whatever reason), they roll up on Myers who is just walking around in the country. Patton is all, fuck this, and runs him over with his SUV which is a bold move. Thought it was going to be another Ben Tramer situation from Halloween II when they run over the wrong dude but it is not and is instead like Halloween 4 and H20 when they run his ass over which results in momentary loss of consciousness and slight irritation. But when they get out of the car, Sartain says that Patton killed him even though Myers is property of the state. Patton is going to finish the job and blow his head off when suddenly Sartain suddenly breaks out this weird knife thing and slits Patton's throat. What the fuck? What. In. The. Actual. Fuck. So let me get this straight. He goes to medical school, treats patients in Smiths Grove for however long, studying insane people and what not. And now he just starts killing cops so he can keep studying this guy that was getting transferred to another hospital anyway? What the shit is that? Yeah, this is the dumbest fucking thing I've maybe ever seen in my life. I almost fucking left the movie. This was surprisingly predictable considering how fucking stupid it was and the worst thing in the movie. That this movie easily breaks the top three dumbest things in the franchise is infuriating. It is very hard not to focus on this. It almost transformed the movie into the worst of all time. But when you take that out it isn't half bad. Try not to let it taint the movie which will be hard. He then puts on the mask and throws Myers in the back of the police cruiser with the girl. Watched this at the Starlite Drive-in here in Bloomington, Sammy Terry was there, it was dope, so watched it in the car with two other folk. We thought Sartain was going to be the killer now. "Oh, fuck," was the reaction in our car. All agreed this was fucking dumb.

But this brings us to the best kill. Again, 16ish from Myers. Most of them brutal. About half of them onscreen. Several of them on the periphery. But the most satisfying and most brutal is Sartain. So after Sartain makes his kill and throws Myers in the back with Allyson, she is all, "I need the fuck out of here, he is going to wake up and kill me." Sartain gist here is something like, "if only Michael would talk to me. He can talk but chooses not to. I know what he wants to say, I know the other side of murder." Uh, ok. So the girl is like, "oh, he said something to me when he was trying to kill me." Doctor is like, "do wha?" She tells him to let her out and he'll tell her which is all bull shit. But Michael wakes up and kicks his way out of squad car by breaking through the cage and pinning Sartain between the driver's seat and the steering wheel. He crashes or whatever, Allyson Scream 2's her way out of the cop car, and Sartain falls out of the car onto the street. Michael eventually gets out and stands over Sartain. Sartain, who threw his life/career away for this is all like, "say something, Michael." Michael looks down on him, says "something" (j/k, he doesn't really say that), and then stomps on his head so that his brain explodes out onto the street. It was fucking gnarly. 

Another solid couple of kills come right after that and are off screen. Two cops see the crash or whatever and go over to investigate. Basically there to pad his stats late in the game. They are endearing and funny. One of them is trying to turn the other onto banh mi sandwiches, which are to die for with the aoli, pickled veggies, mushrooms, and cilantro and what not, but the guy wants no part. Just wants his PB&J. Other guy thought he would say that, and explains that the term "banh mi" refers to the bread, not what is inside, and had them make him a banh mi PB&J. Don't find out if it is any good or not though as they have to go investigate this shit which leads them to good ole murdering Mikey Myers. Next time we see them the sandwich enthusiast's throat is slashed and the other cop, the sad one who lives off of trash and homemade brownies, his decapitated head is in the other guy's hands and all his shit is hollowed out and he has a flashlight shoved up his neck hole, making it look like he is a human jack-o-lantern. It's pretty sweet but would have taken so fucking long to execute. 

There is another group of dope kills early in the movie that is fucking sweet and ends up being, IMO the best scene of the movie. That scene comes not long after Myers escapes and gets his mask. It is early evening and trick-or-treaters are out in the town. It is about the only time we really get a sense of Haddonfield, when Myers is out there stalking the neighborhood. Again, he is a dude here, just some nut who kills. Never is that more apparent than in this scene where he is walking down the street and these kids bump into him, like the ones from the original that we learn did peyote with The Wiz back in high school. That sort of kicks it off. Its the long tracking shot where he goes from being out on the prowl to committing a bunch of silent rage kills that call back to the first two flicks. It was the one we get almost in its entirety in the second trailer. It is intense and cray. Hear a baby cry and you are sure Michael is going to kill it. The whole thing is nuts and it never gets better than that.

So... Who's the MVP of this film? Really tough decision between The Shape and JLC. Judy Greer would have definitely been in contention here but I feel she is underutilized. The ending though was super solid for her though when she acts all scared, saying"Mom, I can't do it," and cries and acts all weak and stuff even though she has been trained like John Conner from Terminator, I was sort of angry here thinking this was fucking dumb when Myers pops out and she is all, "Gotcha" and shoots him. It was an "oh shit" moment for sure. That shit was cool. The actor playing The Shape, one James Jude Courtney, whose acting credits include Biker #2, Man in Bar, Mafia Goon, Huge Goon, Thug, so forth, hasn't done shit since 2002. Not a fucking thing. Fucking nails it. I'd put him at third best among the various actors that put on the mask. Dick Warlock, not touching that performance from Halloween II, he basically defined the movements for the rest of the films. Nick Castle, the original, also can't fuck with that. To quote Sidney Prescott in Scream 4, this is from before I had a best quote section or this would have been it, "Don't fuck with the original." BTW, all that Nick Castle returning to the role of The Shape was fucking horseshit. One fucking scene was Castle on camera. When Laurie sees Myers in the mirror and takes a shot at him. That is it. Yeah, a who gives a fuck, bullshit second and a half of footage. Anyway, mostly basing Courtney's performance on a couple of scenes. The best scene of the movie where he is pretty much moving like a shark: deliberate, focused, with efficiency. Then the scene at the end when he gets shot and falls down the stairs. When he pops up. That shit was dope.

But ultimately, gotta give it to JLC. Overall she does a good job of selling her character as a bad ass that is severally traumatized. Most apparent when she goes to Smiths Grove to kill Myers when he is being transferred but doesn't and then goes to her granddaughter's National Honor's Society or whatever dinner that she isn't entirely welcome at. This dinner is nuts. She immediately grabs her daughter's wine glass, her daughter really didn't want her there, chugs it, and then freaks out which ultimately leads her to breaking down in tears and almost walking into traffic. In the ending she really shines as well where she actually goes on the offensive and hunts Myers throughout the house. There is a pretty cool scene, much like one in The Prowler and also Tourist Trap, where there are these manakins all over the place. She uses them as target practice in her backyard (there is an awful, stupid scene when Allyson is making her way there when and she sees all this and just screams in terror even though she probably knows they are there and that shit isn't scary anyway). You think Myers is hiding amongst them. This is indeed what happens but it is a pretty effective scare nonetheless, IMO. BTW, this whole ending, which we are getting into, is pretty polarizing. Laurie lives alone in the woods and has converted her basement into this bunker with an arsenal of weapons. To enter you have move this motorized island in the kitchen. Eventually Myers rips that shit off its tracks or whatever. That is when you get Greer's character shooting him and him falling down the stairs. He does pop up, as mentioned, and Laurie is there to help her daughter and granddaughter escape. But Michael grabs onto one of them. At that point Allyson stabs Myers in the hand with a butcher's knife which causes him to let go. Here Laurie hits some button and these spikes bars block the exit in the floor. It wasn't a hideout, as Akbar would say, "it's a trap", and they pump flammable gas down there and light that shit on fire. The floor is wood meaning they probably wouldn't be able to watch it burn and get out alive, which they do, "happy Halloween, Michael." The end. But we don't see Myers die and during the closing credits we hear him breathing. So they kill him but might be more. Of course there will be. That shit is already confirmed, son. But yeah. This was no Halloween. Probably no Hallow

Halloween: Resurrection is the worst movie of all time

Halloween: Resurrection. Trick or treat, mother fuckers! Direct sequel to Halloween H20. The stuff of myth. Was it as bad as everyone says? Yeah. It was. Probably not as legendarily awful as I was led to believe. It was in no way good but it was on occasionally entertaining and technically sound. I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be campy so some of it was sort of humorous but never what I'd call funny. When looking at where the franchise has gone, from one of the greatest horror movies of all time in the original Halloween to this POS, it is easy to see all the outrage. Looking at the franchise as a whole, which I'm going to officially do after the new Halloween comes out, I'd put this at the bottom with Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers. Maybe below it. It is trash and is the worst movie of all time...

This was actually my first viewing of the movie. When it came out my parents tried to get me to watch it but I was pretty good with the way they ended H20and wasn't interested. I assumed, wrongly, that Myers indeed was dead and this was his ghost or whatever coming to kill folk. Sort of a Michael Myers tulpa. But no. He managed to outsmart Laurie, we see that she actually killed an EMT that Myers choked out and changed clothes with. Fucking dumb. But here I am. Finishing up the franchise. No more Halloween until the new one. Thank fuck. Thinking I'll do the universally hated Rob Zombie remakes next year. Watched that by my lonesome in grad school. Snuck into it after 3:10 to Yuma, another remake. Little secrete for ya. Actually liked it. Though I thought the second one sucked.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: The only thing this tired slasher flick may resurrect is nostalgia for when the genre was still fresh and scary.

Pros: Slightly funner than I want to admit. Decent body count but the kills are generally terrible.  Myers looks cool. Like the mask and the way he moves. That's about it.

Cons: The way they kill off the iconic Laurie Strode is offensive. So many why-is-this-happening and no-one-would-ever-do that moments. The technology aspect is insane. People at a party stopping to watch a live stream of ghost hunters at the Myers's house. The dude calling 911 convinced, rightly, that it is real. Because he is right it doesn't seem that stupid but it totally is. What else. Many of the characters are irritating. Busta Rhymes's character is pretty awful. Tyra's is the worst.

The gist, if you will... Starting in an insane asylum, Michael Myers finally kills his sister, Laurie Strode played by Jamie Lee Curtis, before going back home where a documentary film crew has set up shop and plans on doing a reality show with teams trying to find (planted) clues and spend the night for cash while their exploits are broadcast live on the internet. He comes back to the house, which we see he has been living in in this secret tunnel for the last 23 years, and is all, WTF, and does him some stand your grounding, killing a bunch of old ass and irritating college kids as well as people working on the documentary including Tyra Banks who is like co-owner of "Dangertainment" along with Busta Rhymes.

This chick

Directed by Rick Rosenthal who also directed Halloween II but pretty much nothing else that anyone has seen. Besides the three aforementioned, the movie stars the following who play the various archetypes: Bianca Kajlich as survivor girl Sara, Luke Kirby as the dark artist dude Jim, Daisy McCrackin as the I guess sort of slutty chick Donna, Thomas Ian Nicholas who is the loser Kevin in the American Pie films as hornball Bill, Katee Sackhoff as irritating blonde Jen who is sort of the clown of the bunch, Sean Patrick Thomas from Save the Last Dance as black dude Rudy, and Brad Loree as Myers. Quick fact about McCrackin, the one who gets neked and plays redheaded Donna. She and buddy/actor Joseph Capone were kidnapped out of her home by three psychopaths in 2017. Capone seemed to have gotten the worst of it as he was pistol-whipped, stripped naked, and tied up and thrown in the bathtub for 30 hours while the assailants drove McCrackin around demanding she withdraw $10,000 for them to release her friend. She ended up writing them a check, eventually, and once they dropped her off at her home, she went to the police. Capone was saved and the kidnappers caught. Here are some of the details as told by Capone if you are interested. Most of the articles sort of imply that McCrackin might have been involved, which is fucked and shite journalism.

Fuck-a-Michael-Myers

Best line of the movie has to be "trick or treat, mother fucker" uttered by Busta Rhymes. The dialogue in this movie is pretty awful. Looking back over some of the memorable quotes, they are indeed garbage. Especially the shit that Busta Rhymes says. Three random examples include "Looking a little crispy over there, Mikey. Like some chicken-fried motherfucker. Well, may he never, ever rest in peace." after electrocuting Myers; and "Hey Mikey, happy fucking Halloween!"; and "Let the dangertainment begin up in this motherfucker!" That isn't even getting into the part where he berates Myers for like three minutes when he thinks he is his employee. Side note, I really wouldn't want to work for Busta Rhymes. Which brings me to the shit of which the berating is a part.

There is indeed a decent amount of shit in this movie. First, there is this unexplained freshmen in college duo that shows up at the beginning. They are going to a Halloween party later where one of them ends up posting up in someone's dad's office where he watches the live stream. He says his online girl friend is going to be on the show. Total catfish situation but she ends up being the survivor girl and he sends texts to her palm pilot telling her where Myers. Occasionally someone will walk into the room this kid is hunkered down in and will be like, "what the fuck are you doing?" He will say something like, "watching Dangertainment," and the person will be "cool" and then start watching said horseshit. When people start dying he is convinced it is real which is the dumbest fucking shit I have ever heard. This kid shouldn't be allowed to watch TV. There is also this infuriating scene where the camera guy is setting shit up in the Myers's House and Tyra is talking to him and what not. The camera is on and she can see everything that is going on. Except when Myers shows up and kills the guy she dances around her trailer making coffee. "What the fuck is happening?" is all I can say. Then there is the scene where Busta kung fus Myers and then shocks his balls in the final fight at the end. It was almost funny, and sort of is remembering it, but at the time I watched it, it was just infuriating.

This chick is cray

Best kill is the kid from American Pie. He was trying to get laid by the annoying crazy blonde girl who later gets decapitated in front of everyone when they think this is still a goof. She previously screamed in a crying wolf situation which is fucking cliche and fucking stupid to get everyone's attention I guess and pisses everyone off (though it doesn't come back to bite her in the end or anything) and then sort of acts like she is into American Pie dude and that she is going to show him some tit. She pulls her shirt up a little and then laughs like an idiot. American Pie dude goes to the bathroom to bitch in front of the mirror when out of nowhere Myers busts through, scaring the piss out of me, and stabbing dude. It is a legit scare.

Hot

MVP, god, IDK. Probably JLC. She is a fucking pro and all and does fine for the little she is in the movie and what she has to work with. She catches Myers in one of those snare traps that loops around your leg and hangs you upside down. So there he is swinging and what have you when she remembers that other guy she killed. She goes to rip his mask off to be sure when he grabs and stabs her. She kisses him and falls to her death. Ladies and gents, the death of Laurie Strode. The movie is a huge piece of shit but she is fine. Also, the guy that plays Myers, Brad Loree, does a pretty serviceable job. People that were not awesome include everyone else. Especially Tyra. Jesus fuck, man, is she worthless.

Overall, the movie is so bad that they had to reboot. I'd just ignore this film altogether. Even if you are a completist, you'll still better off leaving this out and treating H20 as the true ending of the film which this completely undoes, making the guy Laurie kills some dipshit EMT. And we are done with the Halloween francise until the new one comes out here in a couple of weeks and then next year when I rewatch the Rob Zombie movies.

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later is the greatest movie of all time

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later. Saw it in the theater with my old man and my bro back in 1998. Sophomore year of high school. Thought it was weird shit back then. Didn't know it was retconned and what have you. Confused the shit out of all of us at the time. They shitcan the whole Man in Black/Mark of Thorn bullshit from Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers and Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers which was obviously not working. Also, everything that happened in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. So all of the Jamie Lloyd stuff gets ignored. In Halloween 4 it is glossed over that Jamie Lee Curtis's character, Laurie Strode, died in a car accident. The movies that H20 follows are the original John Carpenter's Halloween and Halloween II. It is in that universe. I sort of picked up on this back then but during the opening credits we see a newspaper clipping with a headline that explains that she was indeed killed in a car accident. What the fuck? Later, when we see that she is alive, she explains that she faked her death. This shit pissed me off back then. Is it in this universe or isn't it? It obviously isn't if it ignores the Cult of Thorn shit and doesn't mention Jamie, but why make it more complicated? None of this was very clear back in the day. Now, however, knowing that whats what, I took the film as it is and other than taking a while to get going and some truly awful and grossly unnecessary CGI which is fucking mind blowing, they CGI the mask for god's sake, this one is pretty solid. Unbelievable. But solid. In fact, greatest movie of all time.

Michelle Williams... Attractive lady.

Also, I should mention that the upcoming Danny McBride written, David Gordon Green directed, Blumhouse produced Halloween movie, watch the trailers here and here, which looks okay but also sort of dumb, retcons the franchise as well. This one, however, ignores everything past the original. So basically another attempt at this movie only ignoring everything from the point when Myers disappears after getting shot six times in the original up to this new one. We'll see if it's a shit show or not in a couple of weeks. Early reports have it being pretty solid so I've got hope.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: Halloween: H2O is the best of the many sequels, yet still pales in comparison to the original Halloween.

WTF is this shit?

Pros: Opening is pretty dope. The ending is sort of amazing. Michelle Williams. Found her so attractive when I originally watched this. She holds up. Once it finally gets going, for that last 20 minutes or so, the movie is pretty great. This is basically when JLC goes back into the school with an ax to the very, very end.

Cons: LL Cool J's character is extremely irritating with his romance novelist ambitions for no reason. Takes too long to get going. After the opening scene kills, nothing really happens until the end. Unlike the original where it builds and Myers is lurking, it's more he just isn't there a lot. CGI mask.

Quick note on my Halloween watching/commentary. I have, since the last piece of shit Halloween movie I watched, discovered this dope podcast doing the same thing as yours truly. It's called Halloweenies and is part of the Consequence of Sound Podcast Network. Discovered it after being a semiregular listener of The Losers Club which is a Stephen King podcast. They are both great. Trying not to rip off any of their stuff from their humorous observations but I'm thinking there is a little bit of overlap. Like with our takes on the ending. But check out that shit if you are into any of those shits.

I owned that shit back in the day

Anyway... The gist of the thing goes thus... 20 years after Laurie Strode, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, was attacked by her homicidal brother, Michael Myers, she comes face to face with "The Shape" again who has tracked her down from Haddonfield, Illinois to a California boarding school where she is the head mistress after having faked her death to protect herself and her son, played by Josh Hartnett.

Also in flick are Adam Arkin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt (JGL), Adam Hann-Byrd, LL Cool J, Jodi Lyn O'Keefe, JLC's mother Janet Leigh from Pyscho has a couple nice little cameos, and Michelle Williams. Directed by Steve Miner, who started his career off hot with Friday the 13th Part 2 which is probably my favorite of the franchise and Friday the 13th Part III which is also super solid before doing the underrated film House about a writer whose child goes missing at his aunt's haunted home that he then inherits and moves into (I'm going to have to rewatch this soon), before what should have (and sort of did) killed his career with 1985's Soul Man about a Brett Kavanaugh type who dresses in blackface to pose as a black dude to achieve his dream of attending Harvard with a full scholarship. It didn't exactly age well. Anyway, Miner thought the previous three Halloween movies were trash, saying as much, and didn't watch them. So with his background he more or less decided to make a Jason Goes to Boarding School movie.

Jesus fuck, bro

There is some shit. Like how the movie takes for fucking ever to get going. There are the kills in the beginning and then it turns into a shitty slasher at a boarding school where no one dies and the killer is halfway across the country. He doesn't even get to the area until about the halfway mark. Then it still takes a while for him to get in and what not. Which brings me to some more shit. Every second LL is on screen, reading his old lady garbage from the romance novel he is writing instead of doing his job the top priority of which is protecting the kids from homicidal killers. And finally the movie riding out to the soundtrack of Creed is borderline offensive. Jesus fucking Christ. Wow, Creed sure does suck.

Young JGL

Now for some good shit. There are three really good contenders for best scene. For me, they totally made the movie worth watching. They were the opening, a scene where Michael goes into a restroom at an isolated rest area on the highway and reaches under a stall and steals a woman's purse to get her keys while her small child hums while she takes a shit or whatever, and the final 20 minutes of the movie which bleeds into my pick for MVP. The opening is a pretty solid attention grabber. Starts the way II ended, with "Mr. Sandman" playing over the credits. From there it reintroduces the pertinent characters from that flick that we need for the current film (basically Marion who was Loomis's nurse and Laurie Strode), and kills off one of the biggest stars in the movie in JGL who takes a hockey skate to the face, off screen, as well as Marion who gets her throat slit as Haddonfield's finest search the house next door, long story. It's in this opening scene that we get the best line of the movie. In that scene, one these two hockey punks, the one that is not JGL, asks Marion, "Hasn't anyone ever told you that second-hand smoke kills?" and Marion says, "Yeah, but they're all dead." That was pretty much how I felt when I was a smoker... But now that I'm not and am like many years removed from it... Yeah.

The next great scene, the aforementioned rest area one, is creepy as shit. Definitely the closest the movie gets to real horror. The woman and her daughter are in an isolated area. Women's restroom is locked so they go in the men's room. Light doesn't work. Open it by wedging it with a rock. That works for a minute and then the door slams shut. The little girl is nervous but the mom tells her to chill at which point a hand reaches under the stall and snatches her person. It happens out of nowhere and is a fucked up situation with some potentially sexual stuff that could go down which makes it even more terrifying. Fuck. Anyway. But the best scene is the ending which brings me to the MVP, obviously JLC.

MVP is hands down JLC. It was crazy that she was coming back. I remember being stoked and surprised by that. And she fucking rocks it in that last 20 minutes. Prior to that not so much, I feel she isn't the same character as she was in the first two movies like at all. Don't really think she's the same Laurie Strode at the end either but it's all pretty compelling nonetheless. (Little aside here, hoping this is the thing they really focus on for the new movie: having Laurie feel like the same battered victim that indeed has been through some shit). It's basically when the film turns from complete shit to a solid fucking sequel. It happens suddenly after Laurie has lost her boyfriend, played by Arkin, and has just saved her son and Michelle Williams. She sends them off and shuts the gate so that it is just her and Myers on the grounds. She then gets herself an ax and goes into the darkness, looking to settle this shit with her brother once and for all. It is a powerful scene and then they get it on. Everyone in the theater lost their shit here and at the very end when Myers is finally got, once and for all.

So, yeah, saved the best kill for the the end here as the conclusion of the film also features the best kill as it is Laurie killing Myers himself. How they kill him is fucking ridiculous. He is stabbed many times, thrown off a balcony, thrown through a windshield, rammed by a van, crushed between a tree and said van after it rolls down a cliff, and finally decapitated with an ax. Hell of a way to go. No coming back from that. But wait, he must as there is one more shitty sequel. Have never watched it as I always considered this the true ending of the franchise. Now is the time though which is exciting considering that this is called one of the worst horror sequels of all time. So look forward to that shit show.

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers is the worst movie of all time

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. Yeah. Not good. Sixth movie of the franchise. Fifth one to feature Michael Myers as the killer. If you remember Halloween III: Season of the Witch you know those aren't the same things. First, and only one, to star Paul Rudd. Would have been the third one to feature Danielle Harris but it wasn't meant to be because the Weinsteins are the worst. This is a long and depressing story though I mean probably a blessing in disguise because, yeah, this movie is trash. Mayhap more so than Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers. Going to revisit that eventually. I'll have to think about it. There is also a bootlegged producer's cut floating around out there--fuck it, right?--that I haven't gotten my hands on yet. It's supposed to be better and make a little more sense though I can't imagine it being great or anything. But, yeah, keep in mind, worst movie of all time, this one.

How they do 'em dirty at Miramax

Anyways, back to Harris getting shafted. By the by, gleaned all this info from this We Minored in Film article which has some other interesting factoids if you click on it. The short version is that Harris was buddies with producer Moustapha Akkad's kids. She would ask about when the next Halloween flick was going to get made a lot with Akkad keeping her informed and what not. But he partnered with Miramax who wanted to instead use a look-a-like who was over 18 because the Weinstein bros didn't want to fuck with child labor laws (all news to Harris). They ended up telling Harris that she'd have to emancipate herself from her parents to get the role. Once she did that, which apparently proved pretty costly, she got the script which pretty much sucked though it did have her make through most of the movie before getting killed off at the end as opposed to the version we get where she dies in the first 10 minutes. So the studio saw her as nonessential and offered her hardly anything which didn't cover the cost of emancipating herself. When she asked for more money, looking to at least cover the court fees and shit, the studio just offered the role to someone else, not even countering. This was supposedly all Miramax's doing with Akkad fighting for the young star. Though I'm not exactly sure "fighting" is really all that believable considering his track record.

Pros: Some decent kills. Hey, Paul Rudd. Attempts to make sense of what was going on before, though why?

Haters gonna hate

Cons: Stale AF. The nonsense metal version of the main theme that opens the film. Also the metal version of the "dun... dun dun... dun" theme. Donald Pleasance is clearly knocking on death's door, which is difficult to watch. The plot is confusing. Some uncomfortable domestic violence action. Creepy, dumb child which I hate 100% of the time. The whole Mark of Thorn underground cult thing is dumb. Lot of confusing bullshit. Do the Jamie character dirty (this was the Danielle Harris character in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and Halloween 5). The Weinstein bros apparently told the lead actress, the one who plays the Strode woman, one Marianne Hagan, that she wasn't very pretty, was too thin, and had a little chin that they didn't like and she'd never be a star. Just mentioning that they were huge POS way before the shit that they did sparked the whole #MeToo movement. Myers looks ridiculous. Hair and mask are stupid. Hair is clown-esque. Movement is off. So is body-type. Looks like he runs a little at some points too.

Some sad Weinstein shit with this one

Here's the gist... Jamie Lloyd, played by one J.C. Brandy in this film, niece of notorious serial murderer Michael Myers, now a young woman, gives birth to a baby boy which Michael is also the father. This is in some weird hospital run by this Cult of Thorn group that created Michael and are trying to create his replacement or something. It's not super clear since Myers also wants to kill the kid. I have no idea why the baby, basically. Jamie escapes and flees with her baby to the Haddonfield, IL area with excellent driver Myers in pursuit. Once she gets a bit of distance between them, Jamie calls a douche bag radio show host from a pay phone wanting Loomis, played by Pleasance, which gets him and the character Tommy Doyle who was the kid that Laurie Strode babysat in the original Halloween, this time played by Ant-Man himself Paul Rudd, on the lookout for Jamie, her baby, and Michael. Eventually she ditches the baby at a bus stop before Michael catches up to her and kills her gruesomely by impaling her on some farm equipment that he turns on, ripping her apart. Michael, now, is on the loose, headed back to his old crib to kill everyone there while also looking for his nephew/son and killing the Cult of Thorn folk because fuck it. There is also this side story with this Kara Strode woman, played by Hagan, who lives in the Myers house with her abusive father, abused mother, brother, and son that may be possessed or cursed or something. Sure, it's a common problem. She ends up getting swept up by all this shit as the Cult of Thorn kidnaps her and her son and the baby and Rudd and Loomis and what the fuck.

Alice in Chains Dirt girl and known Scientologist

Favorite line of the movie is more of an exchange. It's between Kara Strode's bro and his girl friend, Beth, who at times looks just like Jennifer Jason Leigh. It goes thus:

Beth: Your sister would kill us if she knew we did it in her bed.
Tim Strode: Hey, it was your idea.
Beth: I am bad, aren't I?
Tim Strode: Only when you wear crotchless panties and bark like a dog.
(Tim gets up)
Beth: Where are you going?
Tim Strode: I gotta take a shower. You know, to stay fresh.
Beth: Watch out for the bogeyman.

Fun facts about Mariah O'Brien, the actress who plays the girl friend. She was the model on the cover of the Alice in Chains album Dirt. She also went to jail for running a ponzi scheme where she ripped off fellow Scientologists. She is one of those and reached the level of "Clear" which is indeed some bullshit. She was married to Giovanni Ribisi, another more famous douche bag Scientologist, back in the day as well. Might be time to remind people that Scientology makes me irrationally angry.

Lot of halfway decent and generally satisfying kills in this piece of crap. Jamie's death was pretty gnarly. The nurse at the beginning, now a big Trump supporter, gets her head impaled on a spike. Myers goes on a rampage at the end, too. More on that later. But the one that really stuck out was the Strode dad. Not only is he an abusive asshole who beats his wife and daughter, he's also a liar that puts his family in jeopardy by moving them into the Myers house and not telling them which is just insane. He shouldn't be that surprised when Myers shows up to kill him but he is. Anyway, the way he gets it is that he first gets stabbed in the gut. Then he gets carried over to the electrical box. Then Myers stabs the box with Strode daddy still impaled. This electrocutes him. Unexpectedly, his head explodes which was unexpected, shocking, and super cool. Easily the best kill, maybe in the series.

Pleasance, picture of health

And now for some shit... Just a note, limiting it to three instances as I ain't got all night. When we first see Loomis he looks rough AF. Way older than his 75 years. Has a drink with his old friend from Smith's Grove Dr. Wynn. Should have a toast with a vitamin and a glass of water. The shit with this scene though is that he acts all like, "oh, if it isn't my old friend Dr. Wynn" like we are supposed to know who the fuck this guy is. Wynn, it turns out, was a doctor that Loomis was seen with briefly in the original. It's a pretty deep cut that no one would ever in a million years remember. Some more shit is every second that this radio host speaks or is on the screen. He is like a true crime shock jock or something. Whilst interviewing Beth and Tim he gets all worked up by Beth and acts disgusting, saying to Tim, "Does she get this riled up in bed? I bet she wears crotchless panties and barks like a dog." Beth lets it drop that Tim lives in the Myers house. He has no idea even though like everyone else in the town fucking knows. The radio guy is like, "everybody head to this guy's house!" but no one does. He goes to his van to move the party there but he calls Myers a pussy and dies like 5-seconds later even though Myers was just killing the dad, the dope head exploding kill, in the previous scene. A minute later we get this cringeworthy bit where this little girl under a tree has his blood dripping down on her. She says "Mommy, it's raining red" and then the dude falls from the tree. Ok. Why? Have to ask that a lot in this one. Lastly, what the fuck are they doing with this possessed child? Not the baby but this Kara chick's son. In the scene where Beth and Tim get murdered, Kara watches from Tommy's room, saying shit like, "oh my god," when all the sudden she sees her son crossing the street and going over to the murder house. WTF is this kid doing? They imply that he is possessed or something but they don't really go anywhere with any of this. When Kara goes over to retrieve him, he is just sitting there, staring off like an idiot. Kara is like, "whatcha doin?" and sends him off. There is a killer in the house who is chasing Kara and all. But she surprise attacks him, hitting him with a fire poker that sends him tumbling down the steps. He is just laying there and you think the kid is long gone but he comes back here at the most inopportune time and stands there right next to this maniac. What they are you doing? Most the other times he is on the screen he is yelling shit like "Mom. Mommy. Mom." So forth. God I hate children. 

Favorite scene is more or less the whole bit in the hospital at the end with everyone (Loomis, Kara, Rudd, the kid, the baby, so forth) stuck in this hospital with the Cult of Thorn and Myers and other insane people. First, there are a lot of satisfying kills in this sequence. Like when he goes into the Cult of Thorn ritual where they are god only knows what with the baby in the OR and just massacres everyone. Not sure how he got to the hospital or if they like wanted him there or what but it's a solid 30 seconds of pure chaos and like 15 kills, including Dr. Wynn. It seems at the beginning of the movie and here that they just let Myers roam around the hospital and kill patients whenever he gets the urge. Unclear what his day to day is like exactly. Also, it is implied that they were cloning Myers babies or something when we see a bunch of dead babies in vats and shit. Not sure what is happening there. Anywho, after he kills all the folks, then it is time to do whatever with the baby but Rudd, Loomis, Kara, the kid, and the baby are out of there. The chase is pretty great with Rudd and them locking a cell door behind them which gets a Cult of Thorn doctor killed when Myers grabs him and pushes his head through the bars until the door pops off the hinges. He eventually catches up to the fleeing group. The way I remembered the franchise was that Myers started teleporting around at some point in the series but I guess not. It's clearer here that he just knows every shortcut and is really good at using it. Screwed, Rudd seemingly gives Myers the baby. What is Myers planning to do with it exactly? Raise it as a single dad? We don't get to find out because it wasn't a baby, surprise to no one, but ends up being a bunch of syringes filled with green shit. Wait, what? Rudd stabs him with the needles and shoots him up with said green shit and eventually beats him to death with a pipe until the green shit comes out his eyes. Um, okay. That is how they end Myers in this one. But it's not over as Myers can't die. Ever. He is Akkad's money maker. So they leave. Loomis is all like "you kids go, I'll be alright." But he's not. Myers ain't fucking dead and we hear Loomis die over the end credits. And that was the best scene.

And finally, Paul Rudd is the obvious MVP of the film. Even though the movie is trash and his role isn't anything special, it's hard to take your eyes off that guy. I originally saw this after Clueless way back in the day so I knew his face. Maybe that was why but I swear that you can sort of tell that that dude was going to be a star. While this film isn't exactly something he was proud of, it is what got him started and he now looks back on it with some amusement. Here is what he had to say about in an interview that came out after he was an Avenger:

When I first saw Halloween 6, I remember thinking, Oh God, this movie’s not good, and I was really kind of bummed out. In fact when we first started making it, I remember thinking, Oh, this is the one that’s going to be different! [laughs] I enjoyed making it; I thought it was really, really fun. But then I thought, Oh God, are people going to think I’m a joke? Am I ever going to get work as an actor after this comes out? I have since changed my tune; I love it. I’m honored to be part of a franchise that has lasted that long, that has that many devotees, and I couldn’t be happier that I can say that my first movie is a Halloween movie. 

Regardless of how he feels now, you can totally see that he is totally swinging for fences and he connects more than he doesn't. Without his charm, I'd say the movie is more or less unwatchable. But damn is that dude charismatic. And that is Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers the worst movie of all time.

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers is the worst movie of all time

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers. Holy shit snacks. This movie is BAD and crazy. So much nonsense. Lowest box office totals of the Halloween franchise. I'm guessing this is generally what happens when you just wing the plot as you go along. With Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers ending so definitively with Myers getting his ass lit up and buried and his niece, little Jamie Lloyd, stabbing her foster mother and taking up the role of pure evil. While they don't totally ignore the ending of Halloween 4, they do dismiss it. Jamie has a psychic connection to Michael in Halloween 5 but she no longer has his evil inside her or whatever and they chalk up her trying to kill her foster mother as a fluke. Going in, the previous director and writer, one Dwight H. Little and Alan McElroy respectively, set the stage for a Loomis focused film where he would either try to stop this evil, killer child from or try to help her from turning completely evil or some shit. That was idea at least but they didn't want to do it as they thought they should probably exit on a high note which Halloween 4 was. But Moustapha Akkad, who owned the rights, disagreed and was all about him some Mikey Myers. So when the first screenwriter offered up a draft where Jamie inherited Michael's evil, Akkad fired him and hired an eccentric named  Dominique Othenin-Girard who just got weird with it. Worst movie ever.

Pros: The only Michael Myers film other than the original Halloween that actually feels like it takes place on Halloween. They really do up the festivities in this one. The chick who plays Tina, though annoying, is pretty attractive. While this movie is complete trash... it is sort of fun in the end.

Cons: The wheels really come off the bus plotwise. Kill off the best character from Halloween 4 almost immediately. The Man in Black stuff is just awful. As is the Mark of Thorn. More animal cruelty. The mask looks like shit. The performances on the whole are exceptionally bad. The Keystone Cops are just embarrassing.

And heeeerrrreee we go... With the events of Halloween 4 a year behind--these events include the entire police department getting butchered, the sheriff's daughter getting impaled with a shotgun, a kid getting shot to death by a roaming death squad, and the protagonist (Jamie Lloyd) trying to stab her foster moth to death with a pair of scissors--everyone except for Jamie and Dr. Loomis, Myer's former shrink, are ready to move on and forget the killer that they assume to be dead... But he's not. Not even close.

Tina, the brunette, and some other chick

The movie stars, once again, Donald Pleasence as Dr. Sam Loomis and Danielle Harris as Jamie Lloyd, both of whom were in Halloween 4. Only others returning, to my knowledge, were Ellie Cornell who briefly reprises the role of Rachel and Beau Starr returns as Sheriff Ben Meeker. Newcomers include Wendy Foxworth (as Wendy Kaplan) plays Tina who more or less completely replaces Rachel after that character is killed off early in the flick, Jonathan Chapin as Tina's raging dickbag boyfriend Mikey, Tamara Glynn as Samantha (the blonde friend of Tina), Jeffrey Landman as Jamie little annoying buddy Billy, and Matthew Walker as Spitz who is this way over the top blonde guy with a death wish who keeps dressing up like Michael Myers and pretends to stab people. Donald L. Shanks takes on the role of The Shape aka Michael Myers.

The film was directed by one Dominique Othenin-Girard who seems like a real piece of work and hasn't done anything you've seen since movie came out 30 years ago. As you can imagine, there is some real shit in this movie and it is more or less all attributable to Othenin-Girard. I'm limiting it as I don't have the energy to rage about everything. First, lets start with the most ridiculous opening scene of all time where in Myers slips out the back of a  mine after getting shot 50 times and crawls into a river as Illinois's finest toss a stick of dynamite down the shaft. The way he crawls... It is hard to convey how dumb this looks. From there he slipped into a river and floated down stream where some bum with a fishing shack pulls Myers out of the river and cares for him as he chills in a coma for a year until the next Halloween rolls around. What this entails--feeding him, changing him, so forth--is unclear. Once Myers comes to, he immediately repays this guy by murdering him... and then he's off.  

Also early in the film we learn Jamie's foster parents, Rachel's biologicals, decide to go out of town on vacation one year to the day that a masked maniac killed half the town, tried to kill both of the children in their care, and offed the family dog AND their foster daughter tried to stab one of them to death for which she is locked away in the children's clinic. Seems like a great time to get out of dodge, don't get me wrong, but maybe take the kids with you on that one. No time for a second honeymoon, I guess you can say. Anyway, Rachel, again, is not long for this movie. Way hotter than she was in the previous flick, we get a close call as we see Myers wandering around inside her home as she showers. Luckily, though, Jamie, now mute, is psychically connected to Myers or something and knows he's about to kill which she like pantomimes to Loomis choking out words like "dog" and "Rachel" and so forth. "What's that, girl? Timmy is stuck in the well!" "Dog" was in reference to the family's new dog after the previous one was killed the year before. We see late in the film that this dog is murdered too although when this happens is also unclear since the dog is tied up outside when Tina gets to the crib after Rachel has been murdered, but I digress. For now Myers just let the dog out and he is loose to roam the neighborhood. But these fucking awful Keystone Cops are out and about and find him. "Find dogs; rescue cats. It's our job and we love it," is something they actually say as goofy slide whistle music plays in the background. These two fucking suck. They go in and look around and shit but do a half-assed job and Rachel goes back in and gets murdered. No one really asks where she is or anything which is weird since they are all supposed to kick it together at this huge house party and her sister or whatever, Jamie, is constantly freaking out and what not.

Apparently the actress, Cornell, was super pissed about this shit, and rightfully so. In Halloween 4 she was a bad-ass and what not. Here she is in a scene where she looks and acts completely differently where she showers and then dies. It wasn't even a matter of her wanting more money like with all the "returning" characters that had similar fates in the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th movies as Cornell threatened to walk when she saw what happened to her character. Originally, all the same shit was supposed to go down but she was supposed to die more violently with scissors going in her mouth and down her throat. It sounds weird and Cornell called bullshit on that. So they ended up changing the death and throwing more money her way which sort of worked out for her but then again she still had to be in this POS. This was producer Moustapha Akkad big regret when it came to the film. At the time leaving basically all creative control up to Othenin-Girard who thought that if Rachel's character went early, then it meant "anything could happen next" which was cliched to shit by that point.

Oh Billy

More shit here, this kid Billy is fucking irritating. This kid makes me irrationally angry. I'm sure the child actor is serviceable or whatever but the shit they have him do. Like how he constantly fake stutters and is always whining and shit. He is sort of this constant presence in Jamie's life, sidling around and being annoying. At one point Loomis has had enough of him and acts disgusted. This, also early in the movie, is pretty subtle but totally noticeable. It's in the children's hospital (not trying to think too much about how hard that kid would have it to be in there with a kid that tried to kill her foster mother and what not) after Jamie just had one of her freak outs. Loomis sort of throws him out with this look of disgust on his face without saying a word. Also, Loomis should still think that Michael is dead and what not but is totally in the know that he is alive despite any evidence whatsoever. It's just a feel he has I guess but have no idea since it isn't at all explained or really hinted at in the movie.

The last bit of shit I'll get into is everything to do with "The Man in Black" (MIB), a guy we see take public trans, which is cool... The character is played by Shanks who was also Michael Myers. No one, including the director or writer, had any idea who the fuck the character was supposed to be or where the story line was going. The character ends up breaking Myers from prison after he is captured by Loomis who chains and tranqus him before beating him into submission with a wood plank and then having a heart attack on top of him. This fucking guy. Why the fuck? He was never part of the plan, which is obvious, and was added halfway through after Akkad started to freak out about the way the film was turning out with the various plot holes and what have you. So Akkad's suggestion was basically to make the movie more confusing and that they would hire someone else to clean it up in the next installment which is all insane nonsense. This is also where we start to get this "Mark of Thorn" bullshit, more on that in the next movie.

I could go on with more shit here like how the Myers's house is completely different than it was in the first flick or how this shithead Spitz runs out in a Myers mask wielding a knife at the cops which is a great way to die or any number of other things that don't make any sense and are just crazy that happen in this movie. But I ain't got all night. So yeah. Lots of shit. Little desire to spend any more time thinking about it. 

Anyyyywhoooo. Favorite quote of the flick comes at the end when Meeker or whoever explains what is going to happen with Myers now that they have caught him because, again, that happens. In it he says something like "from here it is to a federal super-max where Myers will stay until the day he dies." And Jamie, delivering the best line of the movie, solemnly says "he'll never die." True dat.

Best kill isn't anything special really. Just a weird three pronged hook tool thing to the head. But it is satisfying because it is Tina's dickhead boyfriend Mikey who gets it. He spends his minute and a half or so on screen just being an unbelievable asshole. Tells his friend he'll kill him for touching his car, treats Tina like absolute shit, peeling out when travelling less than 50 feet from one side of the liquor store to the other, and he even tries to fight Myers for scratching his car with said hook thing. Super satisfying when he gets his which leads to my favorite scene of the movie.

Favorite scene I chose based on unintentional hilarity. It's the one where Myers, having killed Tina's boyfriend Mikey, goes and picks her up for their date at country farm party which is all kinds of insane. I mean, don't get me wrong, I do enjoy seeing what Myers would be like as a boyfriend and all, and it turns out not much worse than her real boyfriend Mikey was. Myers picks her up at her house, honks impatiently for her to come out, drives like a maniac, and slams on the breaks going 60 when Tina nags him to stop and get cigarettes. He's had enough and plans on killing her when she gets back in the car from the convenience store. But Jamie has a vision of the convenience store logo that is a cookie woman with big cartoon cookie tits which Billy interprets for everyone and someone recognizes as said store. So all the cops show up and Myers discretely bounces which Tina thinks was Mikey being a prick. Absurd.

Going with Donald Pleasence for the MVP. More of a half-hearted, token MVP for this one. Sort of like when Steve McNair won the NFL MVP back in the early 2000s. He was a top five player for so long at that point, hey, he did alright, probably not truly the best, but he's old and has hung in there for let's give him the MVP situation. He does alright here and I'm really sure who else I'd give it to. Probably not Harris who also does fine. But Pleasence really goes for a couple of times here. There is the scene where he challenges Myers to come to his old house where he killed his sister back in the day. Then, once he gets him there and all the police leave based on Jamie's vision, which is more for the shit pile that I didn't get to, Loomis does some dumb shit so he can have his little showdown with Michael. How he catches him in the end involves a lot impossible planning that we don't see and couldn't have happened unless the cops were in on it but I digress, again. But the scene where he goes for is genuinely well performed but is just some more dumb shit. It's where Loomis starts trying to talk sense into Michael whom he has thought was pure evil for 25 years. Oh it's dumb and doesn't make sense but dude is impassioned, for sure.

Yeah, this movie is nuts, makes no sense, and is just bad. Don't watch it unless you are a Halloween completest as it doesn't even resemble John Carpenter's original in pretty much any way. Really looking forward to when H20 resets the goddamn universe back to after Halloween II. But of course, we still have Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers to get through before that sweet relief.