Airon Armstrong – Movies of the Soul

Vampire Owl: So we are having Halloween two times again.

Vampire Bat: We have the movie as much as we have the festival.

Vampire Owl: I don’t even remember much about the earlier movies.

Vampire Bat: Well, that was indeed too long ago for anyone to remember.

Vampire Owl: Well, we vampires remember things from hundreds of years ago.

Vampire Bat: That won’t include things like these.

Vampire Owl: These are all parts of life too.

Vampire Bat: World within movies don’t count as part of life.

Vampire Owl: What about the realistic ones which stay close to life?

Vampire Bat: Maybe we can say so about a few vampire movies.

[Gets a strawberry cake and three cups of orange tea].

What is the movie about? :: Deputy Frank Hawkins (Will Patton and Thomas Mann) is left for the dead, but is found by Cameron Elam (Dylan Arnold) who seems to be coming right out of a break-up. Forty years earlier, he had accidentally shot his partner dead while trying to save him from the psycho serial killer, Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney and Nick Castle). Even though he was against the execution earlier, this time he hopes to finish him off. Meanwhile, the survivors are celebrating the fortieth anniversary of Michael being caught, and all of them surviving against all odds. As he seems to be spotted in a car again, Tommy Doyl (Anthony Michael Hall) with the other survivors, supported by the people of the town, comes together to try and hunt him. Allyson Nelson (Andi Matichak) and Karen Nelson (Judy Greer), along with the heavily injured Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) are left in the hospital, and seems to be an easy target for Michael, but the town tries to rely on the strength in numbers to find and kill the killer.

So, what happens with the events here as we just keep looking? :: It seems that Michael is going towards his childhood home, but on the way, he leaves a trail of bodies including those who had started hunting for him. The bodies keep coming to the hospital where Frank and Laurie are admitted, and they also come to know that Michael is on the hunt again. The people of the hospital also promises to come together and end the legend of Michael Myers for the last time despite the police officers telling them that they got this under control. At the same time, Michael murders the present owners of his house who were expecting children for the Halloween night. Meanwhile, people misunderstands another person who escaped with Michael as the killer and goes on a rampage against him. But Laurie and Karen are sure that this person is not him – nobody can stop Tommy though, who is determined to stop what he calls ultimate evil. Are any of these people good enough to stop the danger that lurks in the shadows with a white mask?

The defence of Halloween Kills :: Even though the full essence of a slasher movie is not here with Halloween Kills, there is enough of kills to give some justice to the genre – the elements of old style horror has been mostly lost with the new generation horror, and so that is not something new for our eyes. Having a killer for Halloween never gets old, and after all, Michael Myers is a serial killer of legendary status along with Jason Voorhees of Friday the 13th, Freddy Krueger of A Nightmare of Elm Street, Ghostface of Scream, Jesse Cromeans of Chrome Skull, Ben Willis of I Know What You did Last Summer, Rusty Nail of Joy Ride and Leatherface of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. All these killers belong to a league of their own, and we enjoy watching them do what they do the best. The background music is effective, and there are some fine creepy scenes which lift the movie. The setting of night and the atmosphere are well created too, and the elements of nostalgia will work very well for the older fans.

The claws of flaw :: It is disappointing to see that this movie depends too much on nostalgia – getting old people to fight the seemingly invincible antagonist is a dumb idea; bringing the old woman back for Terminator: Dark Fate was as foolish as we know it; brining Arnold Schwarzenegger was okay as he was at least a machine from the future and not a human. Now, if this movie is going to have Jamie Lee Curtis kill the murderer in a sequel, that is going to be as foolish as Linda Hamilton – Sarah Connor nonsense. The movie could learn something from My Bloody Valentine which used its modern makeover with its scream queens Jaime King and Betsy Rue so effectively, leaving some iconic scenes which could rise above even that original film from 1981. Halloween franchise actually have had so many earlier movies to learn from and bring innovation, but has none of these done, not even close to getting as much as Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street could do with the sequels and reboots. You cannot live with a well-known killer alone. There’s Someone Inside Your House, Malignant and Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight made it clear.

The performers of the soul :: Andi Matichak and Judy Greer who plays daughter and mother steals the show here. The former seems to have a fine path ahead of her to become a scream queen of high quality, as she seems to have been enrolled into the slasher world effectively through this franchise. She would shine in an action and adventure movie with the same effectiveness, seeing her determination and attraction towards action. Judy is not far behind in that case, and as an actress whom we have been seeing for long, gets into the genre well too. Jamie Lee Curtis remains useless as the character who remains in the hospital all the time, and the makers should stop putting old people like her and Linda Hamilton in front of serial killers just because they were featured in earlier horror movies of the same franchise – the antagonist Michael Myers is ageless, but these people are not, and nobody is going to believe that the senior citizens are the only ones who can stop of a nearly supernatural serial killer who can kill as many people whenever he likes. Will Patton’s role is also limited into the hospital soon enough.

How it finishes :: The movie manages to manage as another pretty good slasher with its antagonist, kills, use of darkness and some nice music in the background. But the movie that one would be worried about might be Halloween Ends, which will be the final film of the franchise as it seems. From the description, it seems to bring a senior citizen against the seemingly unstoppable serial killer – if you ask me, it is something which is really cruel, unless she somehow defeats the killer, which calls for that much of a willing suspension of disbelief as in the mass masala movies. It is also disappointing to see that a grand serial killer like Michael Myers is not given the story that he deserves. It makes me wonder if this is the worst film of the whole slasher series. The reboots can learn some thing from the new Wrong Turn. Yet, we have this one becoming a natural serial killer journey with lots of murders and bodies piling up everywhere. If that is all which we need, there is no need to look further. We can watch the terror which started a long time ago unleashing again.

Release date: 15th October 2021
Running time: 105 minutes
Directed by: David Gordon Green
Starring: Andi Matichak, Judy Greer, Jamie Lee Curtis, Will Patton, Thomas Mann, Anthony Michael Hall, Kyle Richards, Dylan Arnold, Charles Cyphers, Nancy Stephens, James Jude Courtney, Nick Castle, Airon Armstrong, Christian Michael, Carmela McNeal, Michael Smallwood