Everyone Loses

Halloween Kills (2021, David Gordon Green) is something powerful. Somewhere around the early ‘10s I’d noticed David Gordon Green had a fondness for casting oddities, weirdos, and what I referred to as “grotesques.” Some of these people have an authenticity one doesn’t usually encounter in Hollywood movies. Some are amputees. Some are from the streets. Some have a mental illness. But Green cares for them. And this is part of what makes him original and begins to encapsulate a description of his style of filmmaking.

     MICHAEL MYERS is the ultimate David Gordon Green grotesque. The motif Kills establishes wherein Myers is discovered to have spent most of his life looking out the window of his bedroom not at Haddonfield, but at his own reflection is profound. This image system adds so much depth to Myers’ character because in answer to the fundamental question the franchise is built on: “Is there anything staring back at us behind those empty eyes?,” it suggests the possibility that maybe as a child Myers wondered the same thing. And one could even go further and ask, how much of the violence and hate inflicted on Myers made him less a person and more THE SHAPE?

     To make a broad sweeping generalization about David Gordon Green, his movies typically fall into two distinct categories: R-rated comedies with heart, and bleak rural arthouse depression. What makes Halloween Kills indelible is how depressing it is. The original (cut) ending David shot for Halloween (2018, Green) had The Shape getting attacked and shot by a crossbow through his shoulder, finally wandering away to sit, exhausted, defeated, and remove his mask as the camera irises out. That’s the kind of depressing tone David does so well. And even though it was replaced by a more traditionally satisfying ending, I felt the same impact in another scene in Halloween Kills. It’s when SHERIFF BARKER, played by Omar Dorsey, finally gives up trying to uphold the law when the mob rushes out of the hospital; sitting down in a stairwell, exhausted, defeated, and removes his cowboy hat.

     Yet even more depressing is the scene where the escapee from Smith’s Grove makes the plummet. Fuck. That shit is emotionally atrocious. Because right when KAREN takes his hand and offers him kindness, he’s done for. That’s where the pathos sparks. But that aftermath from Christopher Nelson is one of the most gruesome, shocking, amazing deaths in a horror movie. And then the mob, well...

 

I wasn’t prepared for how much I loved all the 1978 timeline, and how well it matches its period look. Halloween Kills pays a lot of attention to building on Haddonfield as a world, and again trenching up so many potent aspects of already established franchise lore. Like the way it picks up on the same night just like Halloween II (1981, Rick Rosenthal). Also the way Halloween Kills all takes place on the same night as the film that precedes it has this quality where it’s in many ways bigger, and faster paced, and has more action, but still contained and claustrophobic—something Carpenter built into its style long ago.

     And as I wind down I’ll close with some minutiae. In Halloween (2018), the shot where the smartphone gets thrown in the nacho cheese read to me like the movie was alluding to some deliberate wink about how modern tech devices and crap like that don’t belong in the movie. So I had a similar hunch in Halloween Kills during the scene with the drone; not saying much here other than could be poking fun at modern technology/annoying products? Also the bartender at the talent show is played by an actor named Brian Mays, who I think owns Sam’s BBQ in Austin, that casting director John Williams suggested. I do know David loves casting Brian Mays, and the dude is great in a way that proves the joys of seeing someone give non-professional actors a shot. 

     The scenes with the little kid razor blade trick r treaters is the funniest. Just those kids whole attitude is fun. And it kind of goes with the comments from the doctor about JULIEN, when he calls him like “that little asshole kid.” Halloween Kills rules because it’s bleak, sad, way depressing, yet with a dash of funny hijinks. Everyone loses. And for a horror movie, why not? Halloween Kills is brutal in many ways, but especially in that it doesn't give us any silver linings for once. Brilliant.

 

10/14/2021 AMC Madison Yards 8

Atlanta, GA

DCP