Halloween Kills Review

After a year delay due to the pandemic, today we finally get to see the sequel to 2018's Halloween (itself a sequel to the original Halloween from 1978), Halloween Kills. Yeah... I know, it's confusing. Especially when this series has six different timelines of canon.

Halloween Kills picks up right where Halloween 2018 left off. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), along with her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) ride away from her house she left in flames. The house she designed as a cage to trap her longtime foe Michael Meyers and truly finish him this time. So she thinks. Unfortunately for Laurie, a sequel needs to happen so Michael will somehow escape yet again with his life and go on yet another killing spree. This time, Laurie spends much of her screentime away from the action, recovering in the hospital from her wounds, while a mob of angry townspeople decide to take matters into their own hands and hunt Michael down on their own.

Halloween Kills, unfortunately, does not live up to the highs of its predecessor, a film that felt like a nice refreshing return to form for the series. Instead, it's kind of a hot mess with quite a few head-scratching moments (I'm looking at you subplot with the other mental patient in the hospital...) While I get the defense that this film is just a slasher film, and what slasher film is exactly high brow, I still just can't help but wish this movie was better. Yeah there are fun kills, but with Laurie stuck in the hospital and the spotlight off her (and on weird townspeople to boot...) there's just no one to root for here. Also knowing that it's the middle part in a trilogy totally removes the stakes, and what good is a horror movie when there's no tension?

RATING: 5/10