Halloween has come and gone, and we’re now entering the season of thankfulness—and then Christmas! But I figured I’d squeeze in one more movie review related to the holiday, as my girlfriend and I saw—perhaps, it’s better to say, “endured”—2021’s Halloween Kills.
Halloween Kills is the sequel to 2018’s Halloween, itself a sequel to 1978’s Halloween (here’s a handy chart of all twelve Halloween films, and a diagram showing the different continuities within the bloated series). Like Halloween II (1981), which starts immediately following the events of the original, Halloween Kills takes place on the same night as the events of Halloween (2018). Confused yet?
Well, none of that much matters, besides the characters repeatedly mentioning the Michael Myers murders “forty years ago.” Really, most of the movie is a sad attempt at making a statement about a mob mentality, itself muddled by the fact that the mob—which keeps chanting, “Evil dies tonight!”—is actually right about the necessity to annihilate Michael Myers once and for all.
Needless to say, it’s not a very good movie. The 2018 Halloween was a great follow-up to the original (even taking into account that horror movie sequels are almost never good, or justified), and explored the theme of complacency in the face of a real existential threat. Lori Strode’s character correctly understand that there is evil in the world, and Michael Myers is the relentless embodiment of it. She therefore wisely takes major precautions to protect herself against the inevitable return of the man in the mask.
The Portly Politico 