Halloween Kills is best described, not as a balancing act, but as a game of tug ‘o war. The film occupies a precarious position, pulled between Halloween (2018), and the impending conclusion to the trilogy Halloween Ends (2022), at one end of the rope, and John Carpenter’s legacy and long-term franchise fans on the other. The result of the battle is that Halloween Kills walks backwards into the future, looking over its shoulder to the franchise’s past as it resolutely progresses forward to its end.
The return of Halloween franchise alumni cast members (Jamie Lee Curtis, Nick Castle, Kyle Richards, Nancy Stephens, Charles Cyphers) and characters (Tommy Doyle, Lonnie Elam) harkens back to the Haddonfield of 1978, bridging the gap between it and the Haddonfield of 2021. These older characters allow for the exploration of community trauma – a theme which is seated at the heart of Halloween Kills – and serves as a natural expansion of the intergenerational trauma felt throughout Halloween (2018). In this, Halloween Kills succeeds.
While the film might occasionally falter in its pacing and stumble over itself (in the process of pandering, not due to the size of the shoes it is walking in), Halloween Kills is ultimately about David Gordon Green gradually revealing to the audience his identity as a director in the franchise. Tactfully and masterfully – in a way that does not expose him to the same anti-auteurist complaints that targeted franchise predecessor Rob Zombie – Green gently pries himself out from underneath the influence of John Carpenter in such a way that fans of the franchise will not feel as though Carpenter is being suddenly ripped from their fingertips.
Just as with Halloween (2018), the sound of Carpenter rings across Halloween Kills through his score, composed this time in conjunction with his son, Cody Carpenter – an audio reinforcement of the multi-generational nature of the Halloween franchise, and a reminder to the audience that although Green might create a film that is unmistakably his, Carpenter is never far.
Green presents masterful scenes of intimate melodrama and action that show that Green still has the capacity to be the filmmaker who was once heralded by the late Roger Ebert as a “poet of cinema.” Truly, Michael Myers has never looked so good. His kills are cinematically brutal yet balanced; Green never quite falls over into the realm of extremity where Rob Zombie’s hyper-violent Myers lurks, but pushes at the limitations of acceptable violence in a mainstream horror release.
Green might have a particular genius for the form of reboot cinema, able to capture the voices of all who came before him in the franchise while managing not to lose himself in the process. I look forward to not only Halloween Ends – where I believe we are likely to see the most of Green from Green, himself – but also to his upcoming Exorcist, where we shall see whether Green’s directorial vision is still able to shine when it is placed alongside Hollywood Renaissance master William Friedkin’s multi-Academy Award-winning vision.
Visit Blumhouse’s YouTube channel or Facebook page for a recording of the (spoiler-free) post-screening Beyond Fest/BlumFest Q&A with David Gordon Green and Halloween Kills producer Jason Blum.
Green and Blum will make a special guest appearance on Shudder TV’s stream of Joe Bob’s Halloween Hoedown on October 8th at 9PM ET to talk about Halloween Kills and other horror film favourites. Halloween Kills will be released same-day in theatres and streaming on Peacock Premium and Premium Plus on October 15th.
