Halloween brings quite the fright
By Chris Jones/The Oshawa Express
Hopefully everyone is having a better Halloween than Laurie Strode and her family, because they experienced quite the fright.
Halloween, which takes place approximately four decades after Laurie’s first encounter with the murderer Michael Myers, makes the slasher genre relevant again by not only providing a terrifying villain, but making the characters relatable and human, which is something that has been sorely lacking in previous installments for the genre.
The film starts off with two journalists attempting to interview Michael, only for him to not say anything and stand menacingly, intimidating the audience and characters alike.
Michael then escapes while being transferred to another psychiatric hospital, and the fight to stop him from repeating the events of 40 years ago begins.
The movie then follows Laurie, her daughter Karen, and granddaughter Allyson as they try to fight off Michael and survive his latest killing spree, while also enjoying the holiday for which the film is named.
The film stars Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie, Judy Greer as her daughter, Karen, and Andi Matichak as her granddaughter and modern day Laurie Strode, Allyson.
The film maintained the fear of Michael and the mystery surrounding him that had been established in the previous films, showing him as a vicious killer, but also one who will not kill a baby.
While the movie is a direct sequel to the original, as opposed to the many films that have come since, it is arguably the best in the series.
Halloween doesn’t take itself too seriously and always remembers its roots. Whenever it uses a slasher trope, which the original is often credited with creating, it feels fresh and does not feel forced.
While the violence was suitably gruesome, it did not make the gore front and centre, which has often been the case with modern slasher films. Instead it focuses on the mysticism of evil found in Michael, and making Jamie Lee Curtis into an action star.
The story itself reflects the original in many ways, with Allyson going through much of what her grandmother went through in the original as her friends are murdered one by one, as well as Laurie’s obsession with killing Michael, which reflects his own fixation on her.
Many shots in the film were also homages to the original, with one notable shot being when Laurie is thrown off the roof of her home and can be seen lying on the ground, for her to then disappear in the blink of an eye, much like Michael did in the original.
While many of the characters fit the typical slasher tropes, such as the bad influence boyfriend, characters such as Curtis’ Laurie were a breath of fresh air. Greer’s character, Karen, was a surprise as well.
Halloween also managed to touch on a raw nerve by invoking the #MeToo movement with the Strode women fighting against a man who specifically targets and hurts women. As Michael fought to get Laurie and her family, he seemed to only kill men as a means to get to them, never specifically targeting them.
Overall Halloween is a fun film that pays homage to its source material, and takes the slasher genre into the modern era. Directed by David Gordon Green and starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Halloween is in theatres now.