An Average Movie-Goer’s Review
Spoilers! If you don’t want spoilers – check out the Spoiler-Free post
I love horror movies and if I’m going to watch them anyway, why not write an entertaining/funny review from the POV of an average movie-goer and not a professional critic.
Today we’re looking at 2018’s Halloween.
Ignoring all the other sequels, this film is the sequel to the original Halloween from 1978. 40 years after Michael Myers terrorized Haddonfield and Laurie Strode, he returns to finish what he started but this time Laurie is prepared for The Shape.
Related Article: Halloween (1978) Explained
Related Article: Halloween Kills (2021) Explained
Related Article: Halloween Ends (2022) Explained
Quick Review:
If candy corn is bad Halloween candy but Sour Patch Kids are the best then this movie is like a handful of different candy that include M&M’s, Skittles, and Snickers.
Is Halloween (2018) Scary?
Halloween can get pretty suspenseful but they’re in quick short bursts and this means it’s only really scary if you care about the characters. Unlike the original that leaves you feeling like someone is watching you, this one has quick bursts of suspense, fear, and gore. If I lived in a small town like Haddonfield I would be looking behind me all the time.
Detailed Plot:
We open with investigative journalists/podcasters Dana and Aaron (played by Rhian Rees and Jefferson Hall respectively) at the Smith Grove Rehabilitation Facility waiting to speak with Dr. Ranbir Sartain (played by Haluk Bilginer).
He tells them about his obsession with Michael Myer’s case including requesting to become his primary doctor years earlier and listening to all the tapes left by Doctor Loomis. Anyone seeing those red flags?
The podcasters are allowed to approach Michael during, I guess, “fresh air” time when all the patients are chained to the ground several feet apart. Boxed yellow lines are also placed on the ground to let people know the minimum safe distance.
Apparently, Michael Myers hasn’t spoken a word since the murders 40 years ago and these podcasters think they could get him to speak. They approach the yellow line and pull out Michael’s old mask hoping it will cause a reaction and it sort of does, except it’s from the other patients who begin to flip out. Why? I don’t know because we then cut to the title screen.
In the next scene, we’re now with the podcasters driving towards Laurie Strode’s (played by Jamie Lee Curtis) house on private property. Through an intercom, they ask to come in but she doesn’t respond until the smart one, Dana, offers 3 grand.
Laurie buzzes them through the gate, then unlocks (I counted) 3 locks on her front door, removes one large metal bar, and finally unlocks another metal-fenced door to allow them in.
Inside they tell her they want to interview her about the case, feeling like there’s a lot to learn which she quickly shuts down. They then try to manipulate her by reminding her of her failed marriages, and her rocky relationship with her daughter and granddaughter.
They point out how social services removed her daughter from her when she was 12 and say that she could use that anger to tell Michael how she feels. I know this was the movie’s way of giving us some exposition but, it’s the dumbest thing the podcasters could have said to someone who is clearly still traumatized and has made no signs of wanting to talk to Michael.
She tells them to leave but not before telling them she wants the money.
We cut to Laurie’s daughter’s home, Karen (played by Judy Greer) where she’s having a sort of breakfast with her husband Ray and daughter Allyson (played by Andi Matichak) They briefly talk about a special dinner they’re having that night to celebrate Allyson’s accomplishment of entering the honor society.
Allyson asks her mom if she invited Laurie to the dinner and Karen clearly lies saying she did but Laurie said she couldn’t make it. She then adds that Laurie is agoraphobic and needs therapy.
We cut to Allyson walking with her two friends, Vicky; and her boyfriend Dave, revealing she knows her mother lied to her since she called and invited Laurie herself. This scene really just serves to make it clear you should ignore every Halloween sequel and establish this is a direct sequel to Halloween 1978. In a meta way by calling them rumors, Allyson debunks plot points of Halloween 2 and reiterates the story of Halloween 1978.
Next, Allyson is at school when her boyfriend, Cameron, sneaks up behind her to scare her, we’re told the dinner that night will also be used to introduce him to the family. It’s also made clear the following day is Halloween and there’s a party where they are planning to dress as Bonnie and Clyde with a twist.
Allyson heads to class where she sees Laurie outside of the window harking back to that scene from the original where Michael did the same.
Laurie gives Allyson the money she got from the podcasters and tells her to use it to have fun. Allyson tells Laurie she needs to learn to let go of what happened because it cost her a relationship with Karen. Laurie tells her if prepping them for the evils of this world made her lose a relationship then it was worth it.
We then see the prep she was talking about when we cut to a scene from Terminator, wait no, we cut to Laurie doing some shooting practice at home.
We next see several scenes intercut together of the podcasters listening to the Loomis tapes, a bus being packed up with the patients from Smith Grove including Michael Myers and Dr. Sartain, and finally, Laurie in her car with a gun waiting outside the facility. As the bus pulls out Laurie begins to have an anxiety attack as she downs a small bottle of alcohol.
Before we’re shown what happens we cut to the dinner where Laurie has yet to show up and it seems to be going really well. Ray is an over-sharer telling Cameron how he used to trip balls with his father in the woods when they were younger. Allyson asks Karen if she talked to Laurie that day and Karen once again lies saying Laurie said she can’t make it.
At that moment Laurie arrives and downs half a glass of wine. She sits down and breaks down crying, apologizing to the group, and tells them she saw Michael and wanted to kill him. She then leaves the table and Karen tells Allyson “I told you so.” in an example of one of the worst “I told you so’s” in film. Allyson leaves the table and finds Laurie outside to console her.
A little while later as Laurie drives off, Karen tells Allyson she was raised to learn to use guns, fight, and prep traps. This is revealed to be the reason why social services took her from Laurie.
We cut to a father and son driving along the road heading to a hunting trip. They then stop when they spot the crashed bus from Smith Grove and patients wandering the street.
The father leaves the car to make sure no one is hurt while the kid calls the police and then, in a very stupid decision, leaves the car before the police get there. He also takes a gun with him so that’s smart. He finds a guard on the ground, bloodied, seemingly dead but when the kid pokes him, the guard jumps up and tells him to run.
Does the kid run? No, he instead heads into the bus looking for his dad. As he steps onto the bus Dr. Sartain jumps out of fucking nowhere yelling out “don’t shoot” and promptly gets shot in the chest by the kid. This is what happens when you jump-scare someone, especially a kid, with a gun.
The kid runs back to the car and attempts to start it but Michael is now in the backseat. Michael grabs the kid by the neck and kills him, with no hesitation. In case you were wondering just how evil Michael is.
We cut to Deputy Frank Hawkins, (played by Will Patton) playing pinball in a 7-11 type convenience store when he receives a call from his radio telling him of the crashed bus. Deputy Frank is important since in this timeline, he was one of the deputies who arrested Michael back in 1978.
Deputy Frank arrives at the scene and quickly finds the dead father from earlier and a still-alive Dr. Sartain who asks if “he” escaped.
Cut to an October 31st card
We start this day with the podcasters and a groundskeeper at a cemetery. The groundskeeper leads them to Judith Myer’s grave as they narrate some flashbacks of 6-year-old Michael killing his older sister, Judith, in detail. While they’re distracted by that, the groundskeeper looks over and sees a man watching them just beyond a tree but does she say anything? Nah.
At the hospital, Deputy Frank meets with Sheriff Barker and they go over the missing patient list from the facility. Deputy Frank points out that one of the patients missing is Michael Myers who committed the Babysitter Murders of ‘78, 40 years ago on that date.
The Sheriff states with all the patients and Michael Myers loose they’re going to have a circus but he also makes it a point to mockingly say “what are we going to do? Cancel Halloween?” and then laughs as he leaves.
And here’s the thing, how about, I don’t know, at least consider the option? Multiple mental patients loose including one serial killer in a small town might be one of the qualifications to consider canceling Halloween for one year.
We cut back to the podcasters at a gas station. Dana heads to the bathroom which is already brave in itself.
Inside, Aaron tries to pay for the gas but discovers the attendant dead on the counter, jaw almost ripped off, and missing teeth. It’s pretty gruesome. He then finds the mechanic, now missing his coveralls, laying on the ground bludgeoned to death with a mallet.
While Dana is in one of the stalls Michael enters, approaches her stall, reaches one hand over the door, and drops a bunch of bloody teeth. Why? Because it’ll make you say “what the fuck” before thinking “wait, but why would he do that?”
Dana understandably flips the fuck out and tries to escape by crawling under the stalls.
She’s able to get to the first stall and locks the door when Aaron comes running in attacking Michael with a crowbar. Michael barely flinches, grabs Aaron, and after bashing his head on the wall a few times, uses it to break the stall door open where Dana is hiding. He then tosses Aaron and kills Dana by strangling her while Aaron dies in the corner possibly from being used as a battering ram.
Michael heads out to their car and takes his mask which they had in their trunk.
We see a quick scene of Laurie at home finding out Michael’s bus crashed causing her to prepare for his arrival. We’re shown she has a secret basement hidden under her kitchen island table.
Back at Karen’s house, Karen senses something is off and we’re treated to two jump scares. Ray pops out from the back door wondering why Karen is on edge and then Laurie pops out from the stairs after having broken into the home.
Karen and Ray flip out at the sight of Laurie having just broken in with a gun and shouting about Michael. Karen kicks Laurie out and doesn’t take the gun Laurie offers. It’s like she doesn’t know she’s in a horror movie.
That night Michael is walking along the streets and grabs a hammer from someone’s backyard. He quickly goes through the house killing a woman but leaves a baby alive because there are some lines even Michael won’t cross. That line is about 11 years old.
Michael enters another house and kills another by driving a knife through her neck.
At the Halloween party Cameron and Allyson who are dressed as Bonnie and Clyde respectively, are dancing when Clyde-Allyson gets a phone call from Vicky who is babysitting the best minor character in the movie, Julian.
Why is he the best? Because he takes no shit from Vicky in a hilarious scene where they tease each other about how much they could get each other in trouble.
Back at the party, Clyde-Allyson witnesses a girl planting a kiss on Bonnie-Cameron and she leaves crying. Re-watching the scene it looks like he definitely doesn’t initiate the kiss and even pulls back when she does but I’m not trying to be a Cameron apologist here because he becomes a real dick character in a few minutes.
Cameron, clearly drunk, chases after Allyson and doesn’t even apologize, instead, he tries to gaslight her telling her she didn’t see what she thinks she saw. Allyson’s phone rings and Cameron grabs it and tosses it into a bowl of cheese. Allyson breaks up with him and leaves.
Back with Vicky, she’s cleaning up when she is scared by Dave. The two then do their part to fill in the stereotypes of babysitters by making out on the couch while the kid is upstairs sleeping. They stop when Vicky hears a sound and sends Dave to go check it out.
He then gets jumped scared by Julian who tells them he saw someone outside his room with a “fucked up face” watching him. Of course, they don’t believe him and Vicky briefly checks his room in order to calm him down. It’s very important to note she did not check the closet.
I reiterate, she did not check the closet.
A short time later, while Dave is outside smoking, Vicky tucks Julian in when he asks her to close his closet door. When she does….
Michael slices her arm and she breaks a chair over him in return. Julian yells “oh shit” and jets out of the room. Vicky attempts to follow but slips on the ground. Michael easily grabs her, pulling her back into the room as Dave, having heard her screams, runs into the house while Julian runs out warning him not to go upstairs.
Dave grabs a knife as we see Michael killing Vicky and tossing her in a closet.
Before we can see what happens to Dave we cut to deputy Frank getting a call on the radio to the house. Presumably Julian reached a neighbor who called the cops. We also see Laurie patrolling the streets in her car listening to a police scanner and hearing the same call.
Deputy Frank arrives at the home, enters it, and finds the dead Vicky under a blanket. Outside Laurie sees Michael from a window in the house and shoots at him but this is revealed to be a reflection in a mirror. Michael easily escapes avoiding Deputy Frank who attempts to shoot him as well but misses. We also learn what happened to Dave.
Back outside, Laurie sees Michael and is actually able to land a shot going through his shoulder but by the time she catches up, he’s gone. Deputy Frank then finds Laurie and, after she accidentally hits him in the face, they team up.
More police arrive along with the Sheriff who has brought along Doctor Sartain. The doc tells them Michael only knows two things, to kill and to keep going. The only way to stop him is to capture him. He also displays a bit of that creepy obsessive side of him when he sees Laurie.
We see Allyson walking home along an empty street with Oscar, the best friend of Cameron. Oscar has been in the movie earlier and has provided some comedic relief but his character hasn’t been important till now.
He appears to be trying to smooth things over between Allyson and Cameron and has an idea to cut through the backyard of some homes.
Oscar helps Allyson climb over some gates and afterward, attempts to kiss her. She rejects him and leaves him, choosing to go on without him. Wallowing in his own self-guilt, Oscar notices Michael behind him but thinks he’s the owner of the house and apologizes for trespassing.
Michael then approaches him and kills him, propping him up on the gate just in time for Allyson to see his body and Michael.
Meanwhile Doctor Sartain, Deputy Frank, and Laurie arrive at Karen’s house to say “I told you so” but in a nice way. Karen attempts to call Allyson who can’t pick up seeing how her phone is still in a cheese bowl.
Allyson runs from the house to house looking for help when someone finally lets her in and they call the police. Deputy Frank with Doctor Sartain arrive and pick her up to take her to Laurie’s home where the others are gathering weapons and prepping to face off with Michael.
While driving Deputy Frank spots Michael and hits him with the car. Doctor Sartain checks Michael’s body saying he’s dead but Deputy Frank wants to double-tap to make sure he is dead and pulls out his gun.
Sartain then stabs Deputy Frank with a hidden x-acto knife seemingly killing him. Allyson watches trapped in the back seat of the police car and starts to lose her shit, yelling for help.
Sartain goes all psycho and puts on Michael’s mask, dragging Michael’s body to the police car, and tossing him next to Allyson. He tells her he thinks this is a great opportunity to observe his patient and eludes to being the one who caused the bus crash.
He believes Michael only exists to hunt down Laurie Strode and he plans on making that happen by driving them to her home.
Like every villain, he continues monologuing telling Allyson he’s never experienced Michael in an uncontrolled environment and has never even heard him speak. Allyson takes this opportunity to lie and say Michael spoke to her when he killed Oscar. She tells the Doc she’ll tell him what Michael said if he pulls over.
Seeing as how he’s obsessed, Doctor Sartain immediately pulls over but down the road two other officers in a car see them pull over in the middle of the road and decide to investigate. Before they can get there, Michael wakes up and breaks the barrier between the backseat and front seat allowing him to open the door.
He drags Doctor Sartain out of the car which gives Allyson enough time to run out and into the fields. Laying on the ground Sartain begs Michael to say something, instead, Michael stomps on his head, exploding it like a pumpkin.
The two cops arrive in time to see the dead body but a missing Michael. We then see Michael standing next to their car. We cut to Laurie’s home where the police car arrives and Ray goes out to find out if they have heard any new information.
Unfortunately for him, it was a trap set up by Michael who somehow had enough time to drive the car up and place the dead body of one of the officers in the front seat despite Ray going outside almost immediately.
Michael grabs Ray from behind and kills him but not before Ray is able to shoot his gun once, alerting the others that Michael has arrived.
Laurie grabs her weapons, bars the door, and instructs Karen to head downstairs. In a stupid decision, Laurie gets too close to the front door and Michael easily breaks his arms through the glass, grabbing her.
Luckily she’s able to maneuver her tactical shotgun around and blow off several of Michael’s fingers. She then goes down to the basement to turn on the floodlights preventing Michael from hiding outside.
Michael enters the home and Laurie heads back up to face him.
She goes through each room, clearing them one by one, revealing she has metal gates that close off each room once cleared, yet she doesn’t turn on the lights. In a room upstairs, the two fight with Michael able to stab Laurie and toss her from the window seeing her body land below.
The front door then opens with Allyson finally having arrived. Michael is distracted for a moment and in a scene reminiscent of the first film, Laurie is gone when Michael looks down again. Everybody moves so fast in this movie.
Karen brings Allyson into the basement while Michael searches for them in the home. He breaks the kitchen island revealing the entrance to the basement.
In the most badass non-Laurie moment of the movie, Karen readies her weapon but fakes being too scared to shoot. This makes Michael reveal himself at the entrance and Karen quickly shifts her pose and demeanor saying “gotcha” shooting Michael in the cheek.
Laurie appears from behind and stabs Michael. They struggle for a bit but she’s able to knock him back and down the stairs into the basement. Allyson and Karen attempt to run up but Michael grabs Karen’s leg. Thinking quickly, Allyson grabs a knife and cuts Michael’s hand until he lets go.
Laurie runs to turn on the gas in the house and Karen pulls a lever causing metal spikes to shoot out and cover the entrance of the basement. She then tells Allyson the basement was never a cage, it was a trap.
Michael stares at them from below and no one has the idea to shoot him in the head. Instead, Laurie tosses a flare down through the spike grate causing the basement to ignite in flames. They exit the house as the rest of it goes up with Michael still in the basement. The film ends with the three in the back of a passing car as the rest of the house goes up in flames.
Overall Review
Halloween (2018) is a great follow-up to the original Halloween (1978) and the best thing is the movie is written in a way where you don’t need to watch the first movie, although you should. Halloween also has great short scenes of comedy that don’t detract from the film except for one around three-quarters in with two cops. Other than that the dialogue flows naturally.
Michael Myers definitely feels like an uncontrollable killing machine and at some points even moves robotically which sort of adds to the terror he instills.
The only downside to the movie is it doesn’t build suspense like the first, instead, it relies on the suspense based on caring about its characters which it doesn’t succeed with all the time, some characters that are clearly just fodder.
Related Article: Halloween (1978) Explained
Cast IMBD