Fear Not, the 'Halloween' Sequel Is Actually Really Good
Halloween isn’t just a holiday-it’s our entire October mood. So celebrate the best time of year with a month’s worth of stories that will keep you up all night long. (Binge-watching and eating candy, probably. Same, tbh.) Cheers, witches!
Halloween is the horror movie stan’s horror movie. This isn’t some so-highbrow-it’s-actually-impossible-to-watch-because-it’s-so-disturbing-even-though-damn-it’s-good sort of movie. (Looking at you, Hereditary.)
Yes, Halloween is packed with jump scares, tense moments that cause you to cover your entire face with greasy popcorn-buttered fingers, and gore (not too much gore, just a couple crushed skulls, some bloody teeth, a body on a hook-NBD). But it’s also self-aware, delightfully predictable, and funny. So funny!
Seriously, it’s a good time. Just ask the hero sitting near the theater’s front row, at the early screening I attended last week, who started beep-boop-beep-boop-ing John Carpenter’s classic Michael Myers theme song when the lights dimmed. The dark room soon filled with applause and nervous giggles as the title card appeared across the screen. This is that kind of movie.
If you’re thinking, Ugh, another one?!, here’s the thing: Halloween is actually a direct sequel to Halloween, which means it not only takes place in real-time, 40 years after the original, it also ignores all of the WTF sequels and spinoffs in the film’s long-standing franchise.
The film opens with a pair of pushy true crime podcasters who are, what else, producing a series, probably sponsored by ZipRecruiter, on Myers and the crimes he committed in 1978-ICYMI: he casually killed a couple babysitters-and visit him at the institution he’s been holed up in ever since. They’re arrogant, they take themselves too seriously, they have British accents-you know they’re going to get it. And, spoiler alert (I mean, not really, it’s in the trailer), they do. Because Myers escapes during a prison transfer. On Halloween eve. Of course.
Meanwhile, Laurie Strode (played by Jamie Lee Curtis at her ass-kicking, vodka-chugging, c’mon wig!-ing best) has been coping with the side effects of trauma, and the resulting damage to her psyche, family, and social life, from that other Halloween her entire adult life.
She’s holed up in a big booby-trapped house in the woods of Haddonfield, Illinois that would make even the most Alex Jones-y of doomsday preppers weep. She’s estranged from her daughter Karen (the always charming Judy Greer) who spent her childhood training for the apocalypse return of Myers, though Strode still shares a special relationship with her granddaughter Allyson (played by charismatic newcomer Andi Matichak who easily earns her spot on the Scream Queens Hall of Fame).
Anyway, Strode finds out Myers has escaped custody-in a surprise to no one, he’s celebrating Halloween by indulging in a relentless murderous rampage while wearing a stolen mechanic’s suit and creepy mask, sound familiar?-and it’s Game. On. Strode wants him dead, Myers wants everyone dead (but especially Strode and her family because he’s nothing if not a completist), and you’ll want to watch all over again as soon as it’s over.
Side note: how the hell is this big, clunky dude so good at hiding and quietly sneaking up on people?!
If you’re a fan of the O.G. film, there are enough Easter eggs that nod to the original (a personal favorite: when JLC disappears after Myers’ turns his back on her seemingly knocked-out form for just a split-second) to satisfy you.
If you’ve never seen the original (or don’t care), the screenplay co-written by Danny McBride with director David Gordon Green will make you laugh (shout-out to the little kid Allyson’s BFF is babysitting) as much as it’ll terrify you with scares that feel familiar enough to make you nostalgic nonetheless.
As the Officer Hawkins-played by Will Patton, he was there in 1978 and actually prevented Myers from getting killed the first time around, oops!-says, “There’s a reason we’re supposed to be afraid of this night.” Happy Halloween, Halloween!
Halloween opens in theaters Friday, October 19.
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