Movie Reaction: Halloween Ends

Formula: (Halloween (2018) * Halloween: Season of the Witch) / Halloween (1978)

 

Like most of the Halloween franchise, the legacy of David Gordon Green's Halloween trilogy is going to be mixed. That was unavoidable. One thing no one can deny though is that the trilogy was absolutely made by true fans of the franchise. From the reverence for Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode to the mirroring of the first 3 Halloween movies’ structure, this trilogy was carefully considered if not always wholly successful. The decision to mirror structures though has led to problems. Halloween Kills was hated by so many because, like Halloween II, it sidelines Laurie in a hospital for much of it and had Michael listlessly wandering. In Halloween II, that was because John Carpenter never intended to make a proper sequel to Halloween. So it's a little weird that they decided to use that as the inspiration for Kills.

 

Halloween Ends has an even weirder challenge. It is somewhat inspired by Halloween: Season of the Witch: the at the time reviled and now reclaimed spin-off movie that tried to follow Carpenter's original idea of Halloween as an anthology series. In addition to that, it's intended to be an end to a famously closure-averse franchise. While I wouldn't call the movie a resounding success, I was mostly impressed with how they followed through on their mission.

 

This movie addresses that 4 years have passed in real life since Halloween (2018) and jumps ahead a few years. With Michael Myers on the loose, the town of Haddonfield has gotten a little paranoid. They have a hair trigger for any violent event that happens in the town. The film actually begins with a gruesome accident that makes a young man, Corey (Rohan Campbell), a town pariah. Meanwhile Laurie and her granddaughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak) have attempted to find some normalcy by moving into a non-booby-trapped house in the middle of town. Shortly before Halloween, Allyson begins dating Corey, seeing him as a kindred spirit: neither of them can walk into a bar in this town without the whole room staring and whispering. The only difference is that they see Allyson as a victim and Corey as a monster. After a rumble and a tumble, Corey eventually stumbles onto Michael Myers' hiding spot in town and is somehow overtaken by his presence. He either becomes Michael's apprentice or Michael unlocks something in him. It's never made super clear. There are definite echoes to the power of the masks in Season of the Witch though. Anyway, Corey and Michael start killing people around town. You know the drill.

 

I appreciate a lot of the ways Ends kind of undoes choices of Kills. I didn't care for the supernatural explanation of Michael at the end of Kills and it didn't make sense that a guy in his 60s would be so unstoppable. Ends very much confirms that Michael is just a man. And having him employ some help makes it easier to swallow how good his is at killing. Granted, if I'm coming to Halloween for realism, I'm the one in the wrong. The addition of Corey feels like a betrayal of the series, much like the existence of Season of the Witch was. Michael is supposed to be the villain, not Corey. But I kind of liked it. Corey feels like such a throwback 80s invention - major Arnie from Christine vibes - and an ode to that era of horror, not just Halloween. We've seen from all the Halloween sequels and even from just Kills that the Halloween (1978) formula can't be repeated every time. The Corey spin in Ends is something I think will age really well with the franchise.

 

The film finds a happy balance with Laurie. She's not the unassuming final girl of Halloween (1978) yet she's calmed down from Linda Hamilton in T2 from Halloween (2018). It's more Allyson and Corey's movie, but Laurie shows up when needed. It does right by her. They insist on a silly love story between her and Will Patton's Deputy Frank. It's cheesy, but it is nice to see what life after Michael could look like for her. Andi Matichak still doesn't jump out as the next great final girl. She works well in this movie, although it's not shocking to me that her filmography is still pretty thin despite Halloween (2018) being such a hit. I'll be curious to see what her legacy in the franchise ends up being. Rohan Campbell is given a tough role. I think his greatest strength is that Corey feels plucked right out of an 80s movie. I spent most of the movie trying to figure out what 80's celebrity is his parent. It turns out: none. He just looks like the 80s.

 

The most interesting thing about the movie to me was how the audience in the theater laughed at it. Halloween is fun scary, not "ruin your week" scary, so that means there will be laughter from the audience. Either laughter because a jump scare worked on you or laughter at the audacity of a kill. What was interesting about Halloween Ends that I don't remember in Halloween (2018) was that different parts of the audience would laugh at different times. There weren't many communal laughs. Rather, it's like everyone had pressure valves that had to be released at different times. I liked that. Halloween Ends doesn’t have many jokes. Rather, it's made with an ethos of "we know this is fundamentally silly, but we're going to play this seriously as best we can". It's another reason why I think this will age pretty well. Even the ending is funny in the extreme lengths it goes to make this an end.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Orphan: First Kill

Premise: How did Esther end up in Orphan?

This movie...This fucking movie. I am fascinated by this movie.

 

On paper, it's a horrible idea. It's a prequel to a movie about a character who doesn't age past looking 12, made 13 years after the original movie, starring the same actress, not using CGI effects for de-aging. This movie brings back Isabelle Fuhrman to play 12 using forced perspective, body doubles, and tricky camera work. This is the movie Clifford but played as a non-comedy horror movie. That is an unsellable, even desperate pitch. And by god, they found a way to pull it off.

 

It mostly comes down to one of the notes I took while watching the movie:

"This movie knows the audience is calling bullshit, so the movie does too."

 

The first half of the movie, I'm sitting there unconvinced. No matter what they do, they aren't getting me to forget that Fuhrman is clearly a grown woman. Suspension of disbelief only gets me so far. The movie is still fun up to that point. Fuhrman is having a good time and it's a sloppy slasher of sorts.

 

Then comes the twist. It turns out, Esther isn't fooling as many people as we thought. Her new mom (Julia Stiles) and her new brother (some actor I'm not looking up), know she isn't the real Esther. The real Esther was accidentally killed by her brother and Stiles covered it up. Only Esther's new father thinks she's real. So, all the attitude from the brother earlier in the movie isn't a teen being petulant; it's a young man who knows better. Julia Stiles' distance isn't a maternal disconnect from being separated for years. It's her waiting to expose the imposter. After Stiles and the son reveal that they know in spectacular fashion, the movie turns into an incredibly fun match of wits.

 

There's something wonderful about a good mid-movie twist. The kind where there's enough time to settle into the new normal. It's what I love about Gone Girl. That’s an effective mystery movie that shifts into a dark comedy. I don't love From Dusk Till Dawn, but the vampire twist midway through is one of my favorite "what the fuck is happening" moments watching a movie. I don't love Orphan: First Kill. No matter how much it is in on the joke, it can't make me forget that I'm supposed to see Isabelle Fuhrman as 12. The writing has one great twist but nothing else at that level. As a one-time watch though, I can't deny that First Kill is a ton of fun. If only all horror sequels were this willing to break formula and try something risky.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Orphan

Premise: A couple adopt a 12-year-old girl who turns out to be much more than they bargained for.

Luckily, this movie completely escaped my orbit when it first came out. I recognize the distinct poster, but I heard nothing about the movie. In fact, most of what I've ever heard about it has been occasional IMDB galleries highlighting what the Orphan girl looks like now. So I got to go into this movie completely unspoiled.

 

Look, it's a fun twist, finding out that Esther is actually 33. It's not mind-blowing. I mean, this is a horror movie. I was looking for something like she's a demon, or possessed, or the spawn of Satan anyway. "She's actually an adult" was in my rolodex of predictions. Honestly, the most revolutionary idea would be to go The Good Son and just make her a 12-year-old girl who really sucks. It's entertaining as is though.

 

Isabelle Fuhrman is really good in this. In hindsight, I’m dumbfounded that this didn't lead to a lot more roles. Like, how is she not in a Diary of a Wimpy Kid or Dolphin Tale at the very least? Often horror movies come down to being generic except for one thing that stands out. In Orphan, that is true, and Fuhrman is the thing that stands out. She gives this real menace that not many child actors can pull off.

 

I do also appreciate that the movie is willing to be brutal. Esther has a body count, including Peter Sarsgaard. She actually does hurt the son. A lot of horror movies are willing to threaten but not to kill. Orphan actually kills.

 

Otherwise, there isn't much to the movie. I tend to find stories about one person turning everyone else against another person tedious. Even when it's well done, I find it tedious. Vera Farmiga does what she can with it though. And if the whole movie was just built around her saying "I'm not your fucking Mommy" at the end, it was kind of worth it.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Movie Reaction: Amsterdam

Formula: The Nice Guys ^ The Great Gatsby

I guess I don't like David O. Russell. Or I don't get him. It's hard for me to say, because, more than anything, I don't remember his movies. I heard people rave about Three Kings. I didn't get the appeal. Can't remember a thing about it now. I know people adore I Heart Huckabees. I saw it and thought I missed something. Hearing people talk about it now, it sounds like a great movie. No memory of it. I know I saw The Fighter, but other than something about Christian Bale jumping out of a window, I retain nothing. My only lingering memories about Silver Linings Playbook are leaving the theater wondering how old that movie thought Jennifer Lawrence was and assuming the movie was a bomb when it opened so poorly. American Hustle I at least recall the performances: Bale's hair mechanics, Lawrence going to 11, and Amy Adams being Oscar-caliber. Joy...well, we all agree that was a misstep. So yeah. Even I would think that I'm a David O. Russell hater, but it's really more about him making little impact on me. I can't watch one of his movies and tell you the David O. Russell things he brought to it. I bring that up specifically, because when I talk about Amsterdam in a moment, I may be commenting on Russell trademarks without even realizing it.

 

I was rooting for Amsterdam. I really was. A buddy mystery starring a somewhat bumbling Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, and John David Washington is something I should really enjoy. Beyond them there's Andrea Riseborough, Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Rock, Michael Shannon, Mike Myers, Taylor Swift, Timothy Olyphant, Zoe Saldana, Rami Malek, and Robert De Niro. That collection of talent is incredible. I love the 1930s period setting. It's a consciously sloppy movie about three friends accidentally thrown into the middle of historical events. There's nothing in this paragraph that would suggest anything but a good time.

 

I didn't care for Amsterdam though. The best way I can describe why is that it felt like I was watching a lot of very talented people making a movie very sloppily. Throughout the entire movie, it felt like actors were reading lines they'd just been given and only shot the scenes once. It's a lot of bad and/or awkward line readings from people who I know are better than that. It didn't feel like a lot of people were in the same movie either. Christian Bale adds every conceivable quirk to his performance while John David Washington stepped off the set of Tenet much of the time. Robbie a tragic manic pixie dream girl for most of the movie. Chris Rock is Chris Rock in the 1930s. Robert De Niro: let's just say his performance kept reminding me of his 30 Rock episode, which wasn't a high point for him. In fact, a lot of this movie reminded me of 30 Rock bits, and not in the good way. Whenever Bale, Washington, and Robbie were on screen together, I kept thinking of the "Best Friends Gang" with Kelsey Grammer.

 

If there was ever a David O. Russell movie that could've been my David O. Russell movie, Amsterdam should've been it. Unfortunately, the shagginess felt less like flavor and more like sloppiness. A huge and game cast didn't come together right. This is based lightly on a true story. The film opens by saying something like "Some of this really happened" and I wish they hadn't included it. Something can be inspired by actual events but go in whatever the direction needs. Law & Order does it every week. Even indirectly tying it to actual events tethers the story to a reality that may do the film no favors. In this case, I think that's very true. But, when it all comes down to it, my issue with the movie is pretty simple: it just didn't do it for me. I could see a 5% shifted version of this that I could've loved. The calibration just wasn't set to my taste, I guess.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: The Forever Purge

Premise: The Purge...keeps going.

I've mentioned before that I have a mental block where I can only go so far believing in the Purge premise. As a source of cool and wicked images, the Purge movies deliver. The less they try to convince me that a Purge could really happen, the better. I just don't buy it as a controllable event. People aren't just going to hold all grievances from one Purge until the next. Sure, reasonable people will plot revenge for the dudes who killed their family, but...I mean, there's a reason we have 1st AND 2nd degree murder. 1st degree is impulse. You can't stop impulse with a 12-hr. window once a year.

 

Anyway, that's why in a lot of ways, The Forever Purge is the easiest of these movies for me to swallow. It makes perfect sense that if you let people Purge, they'll keep Purging. Of course, the filmmakers can't help themselves from making it implausible. It makes sense that a Purge could go out of control. It makes less sense that there's a nation-wide coordinated effort to overthrow the government and keep the Purge going that no one other than those involved know about. So, that much is stupid. But whatever. The Purge is stupid.

 

I like the shift to moving this away from a big city. Even if they are all ultimately incongruous, I enjoy seeing the different depictions of the Purge in different communities.

 

There's a "Dad Jokiness" energy to this franchise at times. Dad Jokes are bad and super obvious, but you have to respect them for how transparent they are. That's the Purge too. It's never subtle. So, when I realized they were going to use this to make a point about immigration by having Americans trying to get across the Mexican border, I damn near stood up and cheered. I may not ever like The Purge franchise, but I do appreciate that they bring the same energy to these as someone earnestly trying to tell a professional wrestling fan that wrestling isn't real, like the fan doesn't already know that.

 

I guess I'll keep watching though. It's the kind of franchise that could accidentally make a great movie one day if the right person got a hold of it. Kind of like how Ouija: Origin of Evil is much better than Ouija.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Quick Reaction: Hellbound: Hellraiser 2

I’m really digging the Hellraiser franchise. I was stupid to put it off for so long. I was quite impressed with how this sequel expands on the idea of the first movie. It's funny how quickly it rushes through a repeat of the events of the first movie so it can go bigger. I like that people actually believe Ashley Laurence's Kristy pretty early. I wish I had more to say about the movie, but that's sort of the problem with these horror franchises: You have to watch a bunch of the movies then invest in them before they really start to feel that different.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Stake Land

Premise: Basically, The Walking Dead except vampires instead of zombies.

I’ve often lamented about how hard it is to find good horror. Preferences in the genre vary wildly. For that reason, RottenTomatoes is useless. Many of my favorite horror movies are barely Fresh if not Rotten. I can’t research films too much because that can spoil the fun of watching them. Low budget is a selling point more than other genres, so just because I don’t recognize anyone on or behind camera doesn’t mean much. So it’s a wide-open field with little guidance.

 

One method I’ve tried for finding hidden gems is that I went IMDB for two of my favorite horror anthologies (V/H/S and V/H/S/2), pulled up the filmographies of every writer, director, and producer attached, and added any horror movie I found that they worked on to the list. In practice, this has had a low hit rate; especially with the producers. While some of those producers were vital to putting those anthologies together and brought the same ethos to other projects, other producers just knew a filmmaker with a good idea and helped them out, financially or otherwise.

 

Stake Land is one of those movies from a producer of V/H/S, and I think it’s safe to say he isn’t one of the producers who doubles as a taste-maker. Stake Land isn’t bad. It’s just not very good either. At least, not what I was looking for. It’s more of a brutal post-apocalyptic movie than straight horror. The vampire creatures are decently scary looking. Some effort went into building the world of the movie. It didn’t do much for me though.

 

The narration was a big negative. I get that this movie needs some exposition. It’s a plotty movie and there are a lot of chapters that need some connection. It becomes a crutch though, and this movie is way more tell than show. The narration wasn’t all that interesting either. I would’ve enjoyed the version of this with a lot fewer words better. If nothing else, the lack of explanation would’ve created more tension.

 

Anyway, you don’t need to bother with this one.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don’t Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Teeth

Premise: A teenage girl realizes that she has teeth in her vagina.

This is a good example of a movie that’s hurt by its reputation. I definitely expected Teeth to be a much worse movie than it was. I mean, it’s the vagina teeth movie. Horror is lousy with movies where a filmmaker had one interesting idea and no idea how to fill out a movie around it. That’s what I expected from Teeth: a B-movie with a good pitch. I won’t pretend that Teeth is a masterpiece, but it is better than that expectation.

 

The biggest warning sign for me going in is that it’s labelled as a Horror Comedy. With that premise, I was very scared of the jokes that would lead to. Much to my delight, the comedy is in how straight they play the movie. It’s a silly premise with exaggerated characters – that’s what makes it funny – but the story is taken seriously. It’s really just the end when the film fully embraces the fun.

 

The challenge with this movie is, to put it bluntly, in order for Jess Weixler’s Dawn to get retribution, she must first get penetrated. It’s a premise that almost demands sexual assault. I don’t trust a lot of low budget horror filmmakers to handle that challenge with grace. For the most part, Teeth shows restraint though. Except for hinting at it early on, it waits a long time for the first bite. That is set up as an assault to get there, but the movie relishes in the bite, not the assault leading up to it. She bites the creepy gynecologist before he could do anything really bad. By the time she bites the classmate who turned out to sleep with her as a bet, she has control of the situation. And the climactic bite has her as the aggressor.

 

The movie is still bad in a lot of ways. Intentional or not, a lot of the acting is pretty broad. It’s not surprising that I recognize exactly one actor from something else I’ve seen. The cinematography had me thinking about The Room repeatedly. The filmmaker has leveled up in his productions since then and he hasn’t quite returned to this kind of movie. That’s probably for the best. Teeth does feel like a happy accident.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Quick Reaction: May the Devil Take You

This is a good example of horror that I don’t really understand the plot, but I liked it because it looked cool. I get the basics: the father made a deal with the devil for riches, betrays the satanic priestess, and curses his family. My main takeaway from the movie though is that the supernatural forces look gnarly and the voodoo stuff looks cool. From the little international horror I’ve seen, the films tend to fall into two camps: the original ideas that Hollywood takes and normally messes up and the really common horror idea that gets some local flair. May the Devil Take You is in that latter category. That’s less interesting in the scheme of things, but I’ll take well-made horror however I can get it.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Movie Reaction: Bros

Formula: Fire Island * Forgetting Sarah Marshall

A lot of effort went into the ad campaign for Bros to point out the ways that it is groundbreaking. I think it settled on “the first gay RomCom made by a major studio” or “the first gay RomCom that received a wide theatrical release”. I’m not a fan of that. Not because I think that the more qualifiers you add, the less remarkable the accomplishment is. It’s because that builds the movie up as some kind of standard-bearer, when really Bros is to look at as another film in the bunch. If you strip it of any firsts, Bros is an Apatow-produced film from a fist time leading man and a capable but not starry supporting cast. It was released in a time when comedies in general and RomComs more specifically struggle to get theatrical releases and struggle even more to really break out. Given all those factors, it’s hard to look at Bros as anything but a reasonable success.

 

The story itself is standard RomCom fare. Bobby (Billy Eichner) is a 40-something man who has never been in a relationship before. He meets Aaron (Luke Macfarlane) who prefers to be similarly unattached. They fall into a relationship and have to work through their assorted hang-ups in order to be together. And it hits all those RomCom beats successfully enough that I wondered yet again, why this genre has been dying the last decade or two.

 

Of course, being about a gay couple, there are a lot of details here that add specificity. That’s what I really appreciated about the movie. The nature of Bobby and Aaron’s relationship is just different than the boy/girl RomCom. The dating scene is different. The emotional hurdles are different. The personal journeys are different. It’s a little tricky recommending this movie because in many ways “It’s just like any other RomCom”, however I also like it for how it’s different from the normal RomCom.

 

I’m on the fence about Billy Eichner as the lead of this. I’ve come to like him a lot in general after I was introduced to him in Parks & Rec as “the loud guy”. He’s good in this in a similar way to how Pete Davidson is good in The King of Staten Island. It’s a film co-written by Eichner with a character that plays to all of Eichner’s strengths. He’s pretty good in this, but it’s not a revelation that makes me wonder what else he has in him. But he definitely works in this movie. Luke Macfarlane is definitely in the film for the Rom more than the Com. I can already tell he’s going to end up in my “Sam Worthington Face Blindness” category of actor. Again, he’s good in Bros, but I have no real need to see him in anything else.

 

Honestly, Bros felt a lot like any other Nicholas Stoller movie. That’s not a negative in any way. I love Neighbors. I like Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I at least enjoyed everything of his I’ve seen. Bros has a lot of the same DNA. It meanders a bit in the middle. The sincere moments sometimes feel like they are battling with the funny moments. Like, Eichner gives a really touching speech at one point outlining his origin story that is also a momentum killer. The movie has an improvisational feel which leads to some really funny jokes but a sometimes clunky story. It’s the tradeoff I expected going in, and I was happy that the film embraced it.

 

Bros. Not perfect, but likely the best RomCom I’ll see in theaters this year. I do wish it had more competition for that title though.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend