Movies HALLOWEEN: The Official Thread of Michael Myers

[Adamant]

It only makes a pretty minor cameo in the movie and nothing bad happened in it but Laurie Strode's house is up for sale:

https://collider.com/halloween-house-for-sale-laurie-strode/

It looks really dated inside but it's pretty big and in a nice area. The Strode's most have been pretty well off for 5,000+ square footage.

I'm gonna be in LA in a couple of weeks and if it's still up for sale I'm gonna try and get a tour.

That's awesome! Did you paint that? The name kinda looks like yours.

 

[TKing]

They really gotta start fresh. Even if its an already masked up Myers chasing people around in a random town like the Halloween Returns script and we get flashback nuggets of info.

Cut ties with the Laurie Strode character on this next run as it always leaves that door open for the never ending crutch of JLC.

 

[RollSonnenRoll]

They really gotta start fresh. Even if its an already masked up Myers chasing people around in a random town like the Halloween Returns script and we get flashback nuggets of info.

Cut ties with the Laurie Strode character on this next run as it always leaves that door open for the never ending crutch of JLC.

Damn, I just finishing reading that script. That was the shit! We needed that movie instead of the last trilogy.

 

[triptych]

I'm gonna be in LA in a couple of weeks and if it's still up for sale I'm gonna try and get a tour.



That's awesome! Did you paint that? The name kinda looks like yours.

Ehm, no it's not my work, it's by a dear FB friend of mine who simply adores everything fall & Halloween .....I wish I could've painted it myself

 

[TKing]

I would like to see a bit longer of a break at the very least a couple more years and in the meantime lend the character as a guest in video games and other media and then revisit Halloween 3 and eventually Myers.

 

[Adamant]

I would like to see a bit longer of a break at the very least a couple more years and in the meantime lend the character as a guest in video games and other media and then revisit Halloween 3 and eventually Myers.

No, no, no. lol. I am firmly against another huge wait. You don't know how hard it was waiting between H20 and HR. And that was only 4 years. Then between HR and RZH. That was another 4 years. Then the mega nut kick..... RZH2 and H'18. Almost 10 years! (Even worse that nothing after H20 amounted to anything good) As Loomis would say, I can't go through that hell again.

I'm sure H50 (2028) is a safe bet. But if they can get one out by 2025 or 2026, I'm all for it.

They really gotta start fresh. Even if its an already masked up Myers chasing people around in a random town like the Halloween Returns script and we get flashback nuggets of info.

Cut ties with the Laurie Strode character on this next run as it always leaves that door open for the never ending crutch of JLC.

That's the way to go, I agree.

As for Halloween Returns, there's a lot about that script I didn't like. I feel like there were too many moments of Michael feeling out of character.

I say do something like Halloween 4, but minus any familial connection. That type of spooky mood and atmosphere. Some babysitting and kids wanting to go trick or treating. And the whole time The Shape is lurking in the background before starting to pick the people off one by one. It's the classic forumla but you can build an all new story around it with all new characters.

And please, make this Shape badass again. Not the "normal man" bullshit that David Gordon Green and Rob Zombie wanted. I'm talking make Michael semi-supernatural again. The one who CLEARLY has something else going on. The one who will tank practically anything and won't hardly even slow down.

 

[RollSonnenRoll]

No, no, no. lol. I am firmly against another huge wait. You don't know how hard it was waiting between H20 and HR. And that was only 4 years. Then between HR and RZH. That was another 4 years. Then the mega nut kick..... RZH2 and H'18. Almost 10 years! (Even worse that nothing after H20 amounted to anything good) As Loomis would say, I can't go through that hell again.

I'm sure H50 (2028) is a safe bet. But if they can get one out by 2025 or 2026, I'm all for it.


That's the way to go, I agree.

As for Halloween Returns, there's a lot about that script I didn't like. I feel like there were too many moments of Michael feeling out of character.

I say do something like Halloween 4, but minus any familial connection. That type of spooky mood and atmosphere. Some babysitting and kids wanting to go trick or treating. And the whole time The Shape is lurking in the background before starting to pick the people off one by one. It's the classic forumla but you can build an all new story around it with all new characters.

And please, make this Shape badass again. Not the "normal man" bullshit that David Gordon Green and Rob Zombie wanted. I'm talking make Michael semi-supernatural again. The one who CLEARLY has something else going on. The one who will tank practically anything and won't hardly even slow down.

Taking the time to write "THIS TOWN WILL NEVER BE SAFE AGAIN" on the wall in blood did really stick out to me. Michael doesn't care about the town, the people in it or whether they feel safe. He just does things. While he does enjoy the cat and mouse theatrics, that was a bit much. There was also two beats of him scaring kids. He slams his hand against the door when one kid is trying to look in the house he's in and then he throws a severed head at kids who are eyeing the car he's in. Again, that's a bit too much theatrics for him. If anything, he would just stare at them and that would be scary enough.

Overall though, the savagery of the character was spot on. He felt like a monster again and something to be feared. The tone was great.

 

[Adamant]

Taking the time to write "THIS TOWN WILL NEVER BE SAFE AGAIN" on the wall in blood did really stick out to me. Michael doesn't care about the town, the people in it or whether they feel safe. He just does things. While he does enjoy the cat and mouse theatrics, that was a bit much. There was also two beats of him scaring kids. He slams his hand against the door when one kid is trying to look in the house he's in and then he throws a severed head at kids who are eyeing the car he's in. Again, that's a bit too much theatrics for him. If anything, he would just stare at them and that would be scary enough.

Overall though, the savagery of the character was spot on. He felt like a monster again and something to be feared. The tone was great.

I read it so long ago I don't remember too many details. I just remember how I felt reading it and there was a lot of me being like "WTF is this? Michael wouldn't do that."

Speaking of scripts that were written but didn't get made.... I actually liked Halloween 3D. As a sequel to RZH2, I actually thought it was pretty good. It probably could have used a final polish but if they had made that as the third film in that timeline, with Tyler Mane as Michael and Scout Taylor Compton as Laurie, I feel like I would have been into it. I actually enjoyed a lot from that script and it actually felt like a legit continuation of what we saw in RZH/2.

 

[TKing]

I liked the random nature of Halloween Returns as far as random town new set of victims, alot of the specific set pieces seemed interesting like the maze and all that but as far as the Myers characteristics it was a bit too planned. He set up an escape from prison, his escape at the end of the script, they fleshed out those too much instead of leaving things ambiguous.

As for my wait comment, it's mainly so they don't rush, find a good company and get some original ideas to bring back the spooky eerie Myers who could be lurking anywhere. I just don't want a cash grab rushed production redo of the original again for a quick buck to pay off the investment.

 

[RollSonnenRoll]

I read it so long ago I don't remember too many details. I just remember how I felt reading it and there was a lot of me being like "WTF is this? Michael wouldn't do that."

Speaking of scripts that were written but didn't get made.... I actually liked Halloween 3D. As a sequel to RZH2, I actually thought it was pretty good. It probably could have used a final polish but if they had made that as the third film in that timeline, with Tyler Mane as Michael and Scout Taylor Compton as Laurie, I feel like I would have been into it. I actually enjoyed a lot from that script and it actually felt like a legit continuation of what we saw in RZH/2.

I enjoyed the Asylum script as well

 

[RollSonnenRoll]

I liked the random nature of Halloween Returns as far as random town new set of victims, alot of the specific set pieces seemed interesting like the maze and all that but as far as the Myers characteristics it was a bit too planned. He set up an escape from prison, his escape at the end of the script, they fleshed out those too much instead of leaving things ambiguous.

As for my wait comment, it's mainly so they don't rush, find a good company and get some original ideas to bring back the spooky eerie Myers who could be lurking anywhere. I just don't want a cash grab rushed production redo of the original again for a quick buck to pay off the investment.

Yeah, using the doctor as a decoy for the police so he can get away was an elaborate little scheme that felt a little weird. The homage ending of showing all the set pieces throughout the movie and the described fear of the main girl as she knows Michael is now out there and could be anywhere was fantastic.

 

[Adamant]

I enjoyed the Asylum script as well

Which Asylum script? There are two.

 

[Adamant]

I also heard that Paramount is leading the bids for theatrical movies.

 

[Plissken]

Watched Halloween Ends for the first time at home a few nights ago (the UHD), so the second time seeing it. It was a bit of a different experience given you can process things a bit better.

Getting everything out of my brain from that experience at least for myself even if no one else cares...

-The look wasn't as dingy as in theaters, probably because there's a real lack of good projectionists after going fully digital. The movie still looks flat and boring though, but it's not that what they shot (as in the environments and lighting) were necessarily bad, it's just that the look of the film is so flat and two dimensional and it feels like it focuses on the foreground (which also looks flat), while the environments are barely there. I'll say this, despite all three films having the same cinematographer they all look different which is neat, but H'18 (which i think also looks boring) and especially Kills (which looks pretty good, one of the few things going for it) didn't look this flat.

-It starts off odd with that closeup of the mother of the kid that Corey is babysitting, felt like a comedy shot or something from one of those hyper early to mid 90's kids commercials.

-The kid falling looked so damn goofy, it was actually funny. It reminded me of the scene from the Martin Short/Charles Grodin movie Clifford near the beginning of the film where a dummy of Ben Savage falls on top of Martin Short.

-Jamie Lee Curtis' voiceover after the opening segment sounds pretty close to Orlando Jones' salesman character in Office Space pitching magazines to the main characters, it was that dull and lifeless. She won an Oscar for a movie from that same year....

-It was a bit too on the nose how they had Corey working as a mechanic and so gave him an excuse to have the coveralls (like Michael). I wouldn't doubt if in the early scripting stages they gave him the job for that reason and then snowballed from there with the job being a way to get close to Allyson (or her to him as it turned out) and then giving them the ending with dumping Michael's body into the grinding machine.

-The bully gang being two marching band girls (one fat), a skinny trailer park looking kid and another kid closer to a classic jock bully but a head shorter than Corey is still ridiculous. They should have at the very least cut out the two girls for two guys, but this feels like one of those postmodern subversion of expectations bits that fails.

-Laurie all of a sudden having a filthy mouth seems way out of character, just makes her feel even less like the girl from the original Halloween.

-A butcher with a Georgia accent in central or southern Illinois, at least try to hide shooting the movie in Georgia.

-Corey's parents look nothing like him and his mom comes across as a Jewish lady from Queens. She's almost comically annoying as well, straddles that line as being close to Lin Shaye in the Farrelly brothers movies (Kingpin and There's Something About Mary).

-Allyson falling for Corey on first sight like she did just comes across as absurd. They gave things no time to develop into her falling for him, it was a bit cartoonish.

-A lot of the movie switches from trying to be a more serious character study to these absurd moments that reminds me of a less fun version of Friday the 13th part V (which it has surprisingly a lot in common with).

-Michael can easily drag Corey (say he's 160-170 pounds) into the sewer like nothing but then comes across frail and weak. Later in the movie he easily lifts up and pins that redhead girl to a wall close to the time he loses a struggle for his mask to Corey.

-Likewise later in the movie he's able to easily snap Corey's neck, but struggles with a 60 something year old woman he's 8" taller than.

-And what's up with Allyson easily snapping Michael's arm like it was a dried up corn stalk? They even used a foley sound that sounded like they were snapping celery.

-On that same front where did Corey get the strength to stomp smash the fat girl's head like it was a melon? In the theatrical movie it took one stomp in the deleted scenes it was three, both are absurd (I mean Michael did an even more impressive one stomper in H'18, but you'd expect that from him).

-The movie showed bits of potential until about 44 minutes in, then it just went way off the rails. Up until that point it was at least interesting at points though still having a bunch of comical and absurd moments.

-The whole dance scene in the club was a bit too goofy, they had a ridiculous music video looking dance scene at the high school in H'18 and this one wasn't as stylized and visually out of place but equally ridiculous nonetheless.

-For all David Gordon Green did with denying anything supernatural with Ends (and Kills before it), they sure did everything in their power to make it seem like Michael transferred some sort of evil essence to Corey. From the actual visuals when he looked into Michael's eyes to his very sudden character change after that to Laurie's writing and talks about evil as a force, to Laurie suddenly seeing evil in Corey's eyes (she says like Michael, but we only ever know of one time she even saw Michael's face/eyes and that was in the '78 movie and it was a brief moment where he was trying to get his mask back on after she pulled it off. They did the same sort of thing with Kills, denied anything supernatural while portraying things as being supernatural..

-Corey just stabbing the hobo and then doubling that (so it wasn't just self defense) and killing him seemed out of place and they had no real character development around it, it felt like he went from 0-60, they gave him no moments thinking about it no peering into his psyche or development, it was just like "he's a killer now, that's it".

-Corey going after the doctor and nurse, I get why they did that what with Allyson not getting the promotion but Corey going after them himself just seemed out of left field with no build up. So much of the film was missing character development despite it being a few minutes shy of 2 hours long.

-Allyson's change and the Corey and Allyson romance plot was another thing that felt like it went from 0-60 and they legit made parts of the film like some sort of Romeo and Juliet type of romance film in the middle of your weird/bullied kid becomes a killer type of film (like Christine, Martin, 976 Evil, Trick or Treat, Friday the 13th part V, May, Carrie, etc.). Christine was obviously an inspiration yet they took none of the lessons they should have from it.

-The UHD had a handful of deleted scenes (one being the super ridiculous over the top death of Corey's mom), but I know there were a bunch of re-shoots so I wonder if the movie feels so disjointed at times due to things cut out due to reshoots and not just the ineptness of the writing and directing team (though there is precedent there).

-The luring and killing of the cop was another thing that felt like it went from 0-60. There were what two interactions with the cop and Corey, and the confrontation in the second one had more to do with Corey than the cop. It was like hey you were inviting my girl and I over for cake and paying a bit of extra attention to her (your ex) so commence to killing.

-What's with the cop seemingly being in his late 30's to mid 40's too, the man looked to be Sheriff Brackett's age that he was in the original Halloween. Seems a bit odd given Allyson was 20-21 or so.

-As has been noted previously the black lady that was stabbed through the neck with the tube lighting surviving was pretty absurd.

-On that note it seems like every time there was an interesting moment in the film there was some annoying loudmouth that popped in and screwed up the scene like the above lady's sister or Corey's mom.

-Shit I'm getting lost now so I'll end it while I'm still remembering what I can. Ok well Michael just did not seem like Michael whatsoever even less so than H:20 Michael so when his death scene came it didn't even feel like the character died. H:20 Michael felt off and the ending with him reaching out to Laurie was absurd but the total depiction wasn't so out out there to make you feel as emotionally vacant as the one in Ends did.

-Oh damn, forgot about the whole almost orgasmic shaking Michael had after killing the cop was another out there absurd moment. Shoot we didn't see him kill the mechanic in the original Halloween, but after similarly long or longer bouts sans killing we see his first kills in Halloween IV (not in this continuity but there's some precedent there) after 10 years without killing and more importantly in H'18 after 40 years without killing and there was no such reaction. It looked cartoonish. Then after that stabbing he suddenly regains his strength so that's another "hey we're depicting something supernatural-esque even though we're saying there's nothing supernatural in this movie". I mean it's not blatantly supernatural but it felt like they were depicting it like a weak and frail vampire finally draining someone.

-I laughed out loud at the whole "funeral procession" ending. My first viewing I was just pissed at this waste of a Halloween film, but this was Halloween: Resurrection levels of goofy. The film had several unintentionally goofy moments like that but this felt like the height of it.

I think overall the film (like Kills) is just disappointing because there was potential there in concept and bits and pieces of the film showed some of that. H'18 to me was less uneven and absurd than Kills or Ends, but overall less interesting because it fulfilled most of its' potential (though there is a LOT I'd change, it's not about that and more so about a less bumpy ride), there were less flashes of "hey this could turn out to be something" even though the end result after those moments in Kills and Ends usually ended up ridiculous. So I didn't hate Ends as much in this viewing so much as I pitied it as it could have been so much better.

 

[SalvadorCollie]

2 will forever hold a special place in my heart.

the hot tub murder scene has stuck with me since grade school. Forever a mandatory October film.

 

[cws80us]

Watched Halloween Ends for the first time at home a few nights ago (the UHD), so the second time seeing it. It was a bit of a different experience given you can process things a bit better.

Getting everything out of my brain from that experience at least for myself even if no one else cares...

-The look wasn't as dingy as in theaters, probably because there's a real lack of good projectionists after going fully digital. The movie still looks flat and boring though, but it's not that what they shot (as in the environments and lighting) were necessarily bad, it's just that the look of the film is so flat and two dimensional and it feels like it focuses on the foreground (which also looks flat), while the environments are barely there. I'll say this, despite all three films having the same cinematographer they all look different which is neat, but H'18 (which i think also looks boring) and especially Kills (which looks pretty good, one of the few things going for it) didn't look this flat.

-It starts off odd with that closeup of the mother of the kid that Corey is babysitting, felt like a comedy shot or something from one of those hyper early to mid 90's kids commercials.

-The kid falling looked so damn goofy, it was actually funny. It reminded me of the scene from the Martin Short/Charles Grodin movie Clifford near the beginning of the film where a dummy of Ben Savage falls on top of Martin Short.

-Jamie Lee Curtis' voiceover after the opening segment sounds pretty close to Orlando Jones' salesman character in Office Space pitching magazines to the main characters, it was that dull and lifeless. She won an Oscar for a movie from that same year....

-It was a bit too on the nose how they had Corey working as a mechanic and so gave him an excuse to have the coveralls (like Michael). I wouldn't doubt if in the early scripting stages they gave him the job for that reason and then snowballed from there with the job being a way to get close to Allyson (or her to him as it turned out) and then giving them the ending with dumping Michael's body into the grinding machine.

-The bully gang being two marching band girls (one fat), a skinny trailer park looking kid and another kid closer to a classic jock bully but a head shorter than Corey is still ridiculous. They should have at the very least cut out the two girls for two guys, but this feels like one of those postmodern subversion of expectations bits that fails.

-Laurie all of a sudden having a filthy mouth seems way out of character, just makes her feel even less like the girl from the original Halloween.

-A butcher with a Georgia accent in central or southern Illinois, at least try to hide shooting the movie in Georgia.

-Corey's parents look nothing like him and his mom comes across as a Jewish lady from Queens. She's almost comically annoying as well, straddles that line as being close to Lin Shaye in the Farrelly brothers movies (Kingpin and There's Something About Mary).

-Allyson falling for Corey on first sight like she did just comes across as absurd. They gave things no time to develop into her falling for him, it was a bit cartoonish.

-A lot of the movie switches from trying to be a more serious character study to these absurd moments that reminds me of a less fun version of Friday the 13th part V (which it has surprisingly a lot in common with).

-Michael can easily drag Corey (say he's 160-170 pounds) into the sewer like nothing but then comes across frail and weak. Later in the movie he easily lifts up and pins that redhead girl to a wall close to the time he loses a struggle for his mask to Corey.

-Likewise later in the movie he's able to easily snap Corey's neck, but struggles with a 60 something year old woman he's 8" taller than.

-And what's up with Allyson easily snapping Michael's arm like it was a dried up corn stalk? They even used a foley sound that sounded like they were snapping celery.

-On that same front where did Corey get the strength to stomp smash the fat girl's head like it was a melon? In the theatrical movie it took one stomp in the deleted scenes it was three, both are absurd (I mean Michael did an even more impressive one stomper in H'18, but you'd expect that from him).

-The movie showed bits of potential until about 44 minutes in, then it just went way off the rails. Up until that point it was at least interesting at points though still having a bunch of comical and absurd moments.

-The whole dance scene in the club was a bit too goofy, they had a ridiculous music video looking dance scene at the high school in H'18 and this one wasn't as stylized and visually out of place but equally ridiculous nonetheless.

-For all David Gordon Green did with denying anything supernatural with Ends (and Kills before it), they sure did everything in their power to make it seem like Michael transferred some sort of evil essence to Corey. From the actual visuals when he looked into Michael's eyes to his very sudden character change after that to Laurie's writing and talks about evil as a force, to Laurie suddenly seeing evil in Corey's eyes (she says like Michael, but we only ever know of one time she even saw Michael's face/eyes and that was in the '78 movie and it was a brief moment where he was trying to get his mask back on after she pulled it off. They did the same sort of thing with Kills, denied anything supernatural while portraying things as being supernatural..

-Corey just stabbing the hobo and then doubling that (so it wasn't just self defense) and killing him seemed out of place and they had no real character development around it, it felt like he went from 0-60, they gave him no moments thinking about it no peering into his psyche or development, it was just like "he's a killer now, that's it".

-Corey going after the doctor and nurse, I get why they did that what with Allyson not getting the promotion but Corey going after them himself just seemed out of left field with no build up. So much of the film was missing character development despite it being a few minutes shy of 2 hours long.

-Allyson's change and the Corey and Allyson romance plot was another thing that felt like it went from 0-60 and they legit made parts of the film like some sort of Romeo and Juliet type of romance film in the middle of your weird/bullied kid becomes a killer type of film (like Christine, Martin, 976 Evil, Trick or Treat, Friday the 13th part V, May, Carrie, etc.). Christine was obviously an inspiration yet they took none of the lessons they should have from it.

-The UHD had a handful of deleted scenes (one being the super ridiculous over the top death of Corey's mom), but I know there were a bunch of re-shoots so I wonder if the movie feels so disjointed at times due to things cut out due to reshoots and not just the ineptness of the writing and directing team (though there is precedent there).

-The luring and killing of the cop was another thing that felt like it went from 0-60. There were what two interactions with the cop and Corey, and the confrontation in the second one had more to do with Corey than the cop. It was like hey you were inviting my girl and I over for cake and paying a bit of extra attention to her (your ex) so commence to killing.

-What's with the cop seemingly being in his late 30's to mid 40's too, the man looked to be Sheriff Brackett's age that he was in the original Halloween. Seems a bit odd given Allyson was 20-21 or so.

-As has been noted previously the black lady that was stabbed through the neck with the tube lighting surviving was pretty absurd.

-On that note it seems like every time there was an interesting moment in the film there was some annoying loudmouth that popped in and screwed up the scene like the above lady's sister or Corey's mom.

-Shit I'm getting lost now so I'll end it while I'm still remembering what I can. Ok well Michael just did not seem like Michael whatsoever even less so than H:20 Michael so when his death scene came it didn't even feel like the character died. H:20 Michael felt off and the ending with him reaching out to Laurie was absurd but the total depiction wasn't so out out there to make you feel as emotionally vacant as the one in Ends did.

-Oh damn, forgot about the whole almost orgasmic shaking Michael had after killing the cop was another out there absurd moment. Shoot we didn't see him kill the mechanic in the original Halloween, but after similarly long or longer bouts sans killing we see his first kills in Halloween IV (not in this continuity but there's some precedent there) after 10 years without killing and more importantly in H'18 after 40 years without killing and there was no such reaction. It looked cartoonish. Then after that stabbing he suddenly regains his strength so that's another "hey we're depicting something supernatural-esque even though we're saying there's nothing supernatural in this movie". I mean it's not blatantly supernatural but it felt like they were depicting it like a weak and frail vampire finally draining someone.

-I laughed out loud at the whole "funeral procession" ending. My first viewing I was just pissed at this waste of a Halloween film, but this was Halloween: Resurrection levels of goofy. The film had several unintentionally goofy moments like that but this felt like the height of it.

I think overall the film (like Kills) is just disappointing because there was potential there in concept and bits and pieces of the film showed some of that. H'18 to me was less uneven and absurd than Kills or Ends, but overall less interesting because it fulfilled most of its' potential (though there is a LOT I'd change, it's not about that and more so about a less bumpy ride), there were less flashes of "hey this could turn out to be something" even though the end result after those moments in Kills and Ends usually ended up ridiculous. So I didn't hate Ends as much in this viewing so much as I pitied it as it could have been so much better.

Terribly long and tedious analysis lol. Basically, the film just made no sense in the context of the Blumhouse trilogy as a whole. The first two films connected nicely, but this one just went completely off the rails taking the focus off of Michael who was barely in it, and putting it on the new character Corey, who was just dweeb that was picked on and became evil or whatever. They whole thing made no sense as a finale.

 

[RandyCouture>U]

Not quite sure what original storyline they can do but I'm down for it. H18 was decent, kills was meh and ends was so bad and lame that we deserve something else to erase that.


I can almost guarantee that if they do an installment without jlc and it's successful she will magically find herself open to coming back.

 

[TKing]

Jealous but happy for my cousin that made it to the convention. He said it's killing his wallet as he's trying to cram in as many meets but hes having alot of fun, alot of chatter about new halloween content across the board apparently.

He got to meet alot of the big og names, he even got to chat with Akkad for a moment. He said RZ Halloween and Ends cast were by far the friendliest. Which is funny because he hated both, he said Rohan Campbell aka Corey was the most interactive as that was his first major con and he was doing alot of extra pictures and signings. I was very much trying to go but I got promoted at my job which killed that dream. He's been sending alot of pictures and video but still bummed as this is one of those rare ones and alot of the older names are getting up there in age.

 

[ufcfan4]

Watched Halloween Ends for the first time at home a few nights ago (the UHD), so the second time seeing it. It was a bit of a different experience given you can process things a bit better.

Getting everything out of my brain from that experience at least for myself even if no one else cares...

-The look wasn't as dingy as in theaters, probably because there's a real lack of good projectionists after going fully digital. The movie still looks flat and boring though, but it's not that what they shot (as in the environments and lighting) were necessarily bad, it's just that the look of the film is so flat and two dimensional and it feels like it focuses on the foreground (which also looks flat), while the environments are barely there. I'll say this, despite all three films having the same cinematographer they all look different which is neat, but H'18 (which i think also looks boring) and especially Kills (which looks pretty good, one of the few things going for it) didn't look this flat.

-It starts off odd with that closeup of the mother of the kid that Corey is babysitting, felt like a comedy shot or something from one of those hyper early to mid 90's kids commercials.

-The kid falling looked so damn goofy, it was actually funny. It reminded me of the scene from the Martin Short/Charles Grodin movie Clifford near the beginning of the film where a dummy of Ben Savage falls on top of Martin Short.

-Jamie Lee Curtis' voiceover after the opening segment sounds pretty close to Orlando Jones' salesman character in Office Space pitching magazines to the main characters, it was that dull and lifeless. She won an Oscar for a movie from that same year....

-It was a bit too on the nose how they had Corey working as a mechanic and so gave him an excuse to have the coveralls (like Michael). I wouldn't doubt if in the early scripting stages they gave him the job for that reason and then snowballed from there with the job being a way to get close to Allyson (or her to him as it turned out) and then giving them the ending with dumping Michael's body into the grinding machine.

-The bully gang being two marching band girls (one fat), a skinny trailer park looking kid and another kid closer to a classic jock bully but a head shorter than Corey is still ridiculous. They should have at the very least cut out the two girls for two guys, but this feels like one of those postmodern subversion of expectations bits that fails.

-Laurie all of a sudden having a filthy mouth seems way out of character, just makes her feel even less like the girl from the original Halloween.

-A butcher with a Georgia accent in central or southern Illinois, at least try to hide shooting the movie in Georgia.

-Corey's parents look nothing like him and his mom comes across as a Jewish lady from Queens. She's almost comically annoying as well, straddles that line as being close to Lin Shaye in the Farrelly brothers movies (Kingpin and There's Something About Mary).

-Allyson falling for Corey on first sight like she did just comes across as absurd. They gave things no time to develop into her falling for him, it was a bit cartoonish.

-A lot of the movie switches from trying to be a more serious character study to these absurd moments that reminds me of a less fun version of Friday the 13th part V (which it has surprisingly a lot in common with).

-Michael can easily drag Corey (say he's 160-170 pounds) into the sewer like nothing but then comes across frail and weak. Later in the movie he easily lifts up and pins that redhead girl to a wall close to the time he loses a struggle for his mask to Corey.

-Likewise later in the movie he's able to easily snap Corey's neck, but struggles with a 60 something year old woman he's 8" taller than.

-And what's up with Allyson easily snapping Michael's arm like it was a dried up corn stalk? They even used a foley sound that sounded like they were snapping celery.

-On that same front where did Corey get the strength to stomp smash the fat girl's head like it was a melon? In the theatrical movie it took one stomp in the deleted scenes it was three, both are absurd (I mean Michael did an even more impressive one stomper in H'18, but you'd expect that from him).

-The movie showed bits of potential until about 44 minutes in, then it just went way off the rails. Up until that point it was at least interesting at points though still having a bunch of comical and absurd moments.

-The whole dance scene in the club was a bit too goofy, they had a ridiculous music video looking dance scene at the high school in H'18 and this one wasn't as stylized and visually out of place but equally ridiculous nonetheless.

-For all David Gordon Green did with denying anything supernatural with Ends (and Kills before it), they sure did everything in their power to make it seem like Michael transferred some sort of evil essence to Corey. From the actual visuals when he looked into Michael's eyes to his very sudden character change after that to Laurie's writing and talks about evil as a force, to Laurie suddenly seeing evil in Corey's eyes (she says like Michael, but we only ever know of one time she even saw Michael's face/eyes and that was in the '78 movie and it was a brief moment where he was trying to get his mask back on after she pulled it off. They did the same sort of thing with Kills, denied anything supernatural while portraying things as being supernatural..

-Corey just stabbing the hobo and then doubling that (so it wasn't just self defense) and killing him seemed out of place and they had no real character development around it, it felt like he went from 0-60, they gave him no moments thinking about it no peering into his psyche or development, it was just like "he's a killer now, that's it".

-Corey going after the doctor and nurse, I get why they did that what with Allyson not getting the promotion but Corey going after them himself just seemed out of left field with no build up. So much of the film was missing character development despite it being a few minutes shy of 2 hours long.

-Allyson's change and the Corey and Allyson romance plot was another thing that felt like it went from 0-60 and they legit made parts of the film like some sort of Romeo and Juliet type of romance film in the middle of your weird/bullied kid becomes a killer type of film (like Christine, Martin, 976 Evil, Trick or Treat, Friday the 13th part V, May, Carrie, etc.). Christine was obviously an inspiration yet they took none of the lessons they should have from it.

-The UHD had a handful of deleted scenes (one being the super ridiculous over the top death of Corey's mom), but I know there were a bunch of re-shoots so I wonder if the movie feels so disjointed at times due to things cut out due to reshoots and not just the ineptness of the writing and directing team (though there is precedent there).

-The luring and killing of the cop was another thing that felt like it went from 0-60. There were what two interactions with the cop and Corey, and the confrontation in the second one had more to do with Corey than the cop. It was like hey you were inviting my girl and I over for cake and paying a bit of extra attention to her (your ex) so commence to killing.

-What's with the cop seemingly being in his late 30's to mid 40's too, the man looked to be Sheriff Brackett's age that he was in the original Halloween. Seems a bit odd given Allyson was 20-21 or so.

-As has been noted previously the black lady that was stabbed through the neck with the tube lighting surviving was pretty absurd.

-On that note it seems like every time there was an interesting moment in the film there was some annoying loudmouth that popped in and screwed up the scene like the above lady's sister or Corey's mom.

-Shit I'm getting lost now so I'll end it while I'm still remembering what I can. Ok well Michael just did not seem like Michael whatsoever even less so than H:20 Michael so when his death scene came it didn't even feel like the character died. H:20 Michael felt off and the ending with him reaching out to Laurie was absurd but the total depiction wasn't so out out there to make you feel as emotionally vacant as the one in Ends did.

-Oh damn, forgot about the whole almost orgasmic shaking Michael had after killing the cop was another out there absurd moment. Shoot we didn't see him kill the mechanic in the original Halloween, but after similarly long or longer bouts sans killing we see his first kills in Halloween IV (not in this continuity but there's some precedent there) after 10 years without killing and more importantly in H'18 after 40 years without killing and there was no such reaction. It looked cartoonish. Then after that stabbing he suddenly regains his strength so that's another "hey we're depicting something supernatural-esque even though we're saying there's nothing supernatural in this movie". I mean it's not blatantly supernatural but it felt like they were depicting it like a weak and frail vampire finally draining someone.

-I laughed out loud at the whole "funeral procession" ending. My first viewing I was just pissed at this waste of a Halloween film, but this was Halloween: Resurrection levels of goofy. The film had several unintentionally goofy moments like that but this felt like the height of it.

I think overall the film (like Kills) is just disappointing because there was potential there in concept and bits and pieces of the film showed some of that. H'18 to me was less uneven and absurd than Kills or Ends, but overall less interesting because it fulfilled most of its' potential (though there is a LOT I'd change, it's not about that and more so about a less bumpy ride), there were less flashes of "hey this could turn out to be something" even though the end result after those moments in Kills and Ends usually ended up ridiculous. So I didn't hate Ends as much in this viewing so much as I pitied it as it could have been so much better.

Great write up. That movie is weird to me cause as some standalone Halloween film it actually wouldn’t be THAT bad. Not as bad as some entries anyway. Even as it stands I don’t think it’s the worst. But it felt like a very weird way to end that trilogy. Corey was actually a relatively interesting character played by a good actor I’m not really familiar with but, like I said, you need that whole transfer of MM power to be in some other film. 2018 and 2021 films did nothing to set up his arc and MM disappearing and living in a tunnel or whatever for a while just struck me as strange.

 

[Adamant]

The person I went with to the Halloween 45 convention this past week got a pic with James Jude Courtney (Blumhouse Michael) and asked him his opinion on people that don't like Halloween Ends. Basically, JJC said that David Gordon Green (writer/director of BH trilogy) was a genius and that he predicts in 10 years HE will be loved like HIII is (where it took people years to come around to it). I couldn't help but lol. No fucking way. BH Halloween movies are all dogshit. I would literally rather watch Halloween Resurrection, and I hate that damn movie.

Anyway, nice write up @Plissken