{"id":23645,"date":"2021-10-14T19:35:02","date_gmt":"2021-10-15T02:35:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/?p=23645"},"modified":"2021-10-14T19:35:02","modified_gmt":"2021-10-15T02:35:02","slug":"halloween-kills-isnt-the-best-in-the-series-but-provides-a-few-memorable-moments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/?p=23645","title":{"rendered":"HALLOWEEN KILLS Isn\u2019t the Best in the Series, But Provides a Few Memorable Moments"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Universal Pictures will release this film at cinemas on October 15th<\/sup>. It will also stream on paid tiers of Peacock for the next 60 days. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the longest-running franchises in horror history is\nthe Halloween<\/em> series, which follows the exploits of a masked psychopath\nnamed Michael Myers. In 43 years, there have been numerous sequels to the first\nfilm, a spin-off set during the same holiday season and a reboot featuring two\nstandalone titles. Halloween Kills <\/em>is the newest chapter. It follows a\nsuccessful and entertaining 2018 effort that was a direct follow-up to the 1978\noriginal, reuniting the maniac with the franchise\u2019s greatest heroine. The latest\neffort has its share of tonal issues, but is still an extremely well-shot and\nacted effort that will still amuse genre fans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The story begins with the original survivor of the killer\u2019s 1978\nmurder spree, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curits), once again having successfully\nfought off an attack from Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney). After arriving\nat the hospital with daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and granddaughter Allyson (Andi\nMatichak), some of the family members discover that Myers is still alive and hasn\u2019t\nfinished slicing and dicing his way through their hometown. Word soon spreads everywhere\nthat the maniac is still on the rampage. One of the children whom Laurie\nbabysat in 1978, Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall), decides that the justice\nsystem isn\u2019t doing enough to stop the threat. He recruits townspeople to catch and\npunish Myers themselves, but the group devolves into a violent and out-of-control\nmob. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Despite being a slasher pic, there\u2019s a lot going on in this\nsequel. As expected, the movie does detail Myers moving in the shadows and\nmurdering persons in incredibly violent and grotesque ways. These sequences are\ntense and well-shot, often climaxing with wince-inducing deaths. Some of the\nmost effectively nasty bits involve horrific damage being delivered to faces\nand eyeballs. These scenes aren\u2019t pretty to watch, but they are effective at\nmaking the threatening villain even more of a superhuman force as he leaves\nbody after body in his wake. Curtis is also excellent as always, lending\ngravitas to her long-surviving character and offering a new take on how this\nunstoppable evil force operates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The supporting performers are solid too, even down to the\nbit parts. There\u2019s a streak of dark humor running throughout the feature,\nallowing victims to get a funny comment or two in and make a likable impression\nbefore they meet their gruesome ends. Additionally, one admires the attempts to\nstrive for a deeper meaning by adding a vengeful mob into the proceedings. Most\nhorror films include angry villagers chasing monsters around, but this group\nend up being depicting in an interesting way, becoming just as horrible and\ncruel as the figure they are pursuing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Yet, somehow these intriguing elements don\u2019t always come together quite as smoothly as hoped for. Curtis herself ends up being sidelined for a lengthy portion of the story and discrepancies in tone do take their toll over the course of the running time. We cut between some jokey exchanges between characters to extremely exaggerated murders. That\u2019s difficult enough to pull off, but adding in a serious subplot about normal people being transformed into killers via a mob is a major contrast with the movie\u2019s over-the-top genre elements. All of these elements may have played together more seamlessly if either the humor and gore been toned down, or the vigilante aspect had been more grimly satirical and less serious than it ends up being. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Despite these issues, one appreciates the attempts to add subtext to a slasher film and there are enough jolts here to entertain. In fact, it\u2019s still better than many of the original\u2019s sequels released over the past four decades. And even those who are disappointed with some aspects on display should be pleased to learn that one last film is coming and that it promises to properly wrap things up (admittedly, this also occurred in the now disregarded 1998 effort, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later<\/em>, so take that claim with a grain of salt). In the end, Halloween Kills<\/em> is not a franchise highlight, but enough of it works to keep audiences engaged in the moment and excited for a big finale in the future. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Universal Pictures will release this film at cinemas on October 15th. It will also stream on paid tiers of Peacock for the next 60 days.  One of the longest-running franchises in horror history is the Halloween series, which follows the exploits of a masked psychopath named Michael Myers. In 43 years, there have been numerous sequels to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":23665,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[206,1353,1589,7810,8811,8812,8813,8814,8815,9319,10236,10275,11119,13813,18035,18515],"class_list":["post-23645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-206","tag-andi-matichak","tag-anthony-michael-hall","tag-franchise","tag-halloween","tag-halloween-kills","tag-halloween-kills-film-review","tag-halloween-kills-movie-review","tag-halloween-kills-review","tag-horror","tag-james-jude-courtney","tag-jamie-lee-curtis","tag-judy-greer","tag-michael-myers","tag-sequel","tag-slasher"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23645\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}