What have you watched recently? 3D!

The 2021 reboot of Wrong Turn.

I expected very little and while I'm not sure much was delivered beyond that it's actually not terrible overall and it's quite different from what I expected.

If you can accept it's a fairly stupid premise, it is entertaining and most definitely doesn't try to punch above its weight.

I like most of Butlers and Grillos films, but this was just dung.

'Halloween'

The 2018 "rebootle" that seeks to destroy the multiple sequels that spawned after John Carpenter's smash hit 1978 slasher is a bit of a damp squib. While not terrible, it's completely pedestrian and contains absolutely nothing we haven't seen before from the genre.

Although beginning kinda stupidly, it settles down into a fairly well acted piece, with Jaime Lee Curtis taking the honours in her reprisal of the permanently tormented Laurie Strode, rendered here as a grannie that's spent decades preparing for Michael Myer's inevitable return. It's all so obvious what's going to happen in the film and there is nothing new at all here for anyone familiar with Carpenter's film, the many Halloween sequels, or slashers in general.

2018's lazily titled 'Halloween' is effective enough, though, if largely harmless. But it does have a good bit of fat that needed better trimming in the editing room. Everything to do with Laurie's daughter is just sort of unnecessary and I ended up feeling that it would have been better to merely focus on the relationship between Grandmother and Granddaughter, without the pauses to focus on her boring offspring's tedious middle class life. There are a some other scenes, too, that leave you wondering why they were included, and there is also an atrocious "twist" that really never needed to exist, which comes off as one desperate last idea that was had late into the production.

The movie also misses Carpenter's touch and It's all filmed in a very perfunctory, if perfectly fine, manner. Not that a slasher film has to be anything but serviceable and respectful to the tropes of its, admittedly, tired genre. But, there's nothing stand out about Blumhouse's 'Halloween' and while I couldn't care less about every sequel from 'Halloween IV' onwards, I have to admit to being mildly irked about its destruction of 'Halloween II', which I've always liked. The wonderfully bizarre 'Halloween III' still exists in its own universe, of course, and we can all be...er...thankful? for that, I guess.

6/10

'Halloween Kills'

David Gordon Green's sequel to his 2018 franchise reboot (and series nuker) manages to squander all of the good will that that film garnered several years ago with a clumsy and misshapen follow up that feels empty and at the same time incredibly bloated. The 2018 'Halloween', although a bit flabby in itself, never felt as lost as the story does here and it made a fairly wise choice of limiting the number of characters that appear on the screen, even if one or two could have been eliminated completely. 'Halloween Kills' on the other hand is absolutely stuffed with secondary people and nearly every one of them is irritating in some way. It also features an awful "we're the real monsters" segment that is simply cringe worthy as we follow a flash mob who vow to hunt down Michael Myers with the repetitive and infuriating chant of "evil dies tonight".

In a good move Green took a leaf out the original 'Halloween II' and sets his own sequel on the same night that his 2018 film took place so there's no need to ponder what Myers was doing for the years in between movies. Also, like 'Halloween II', he also sets much of this story in a hospital where Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) again spends much of the running time recovering from her injuries. But unfortunately it's all so deathly dull, unlike the 1981 movie where the unusually quiet hospital served to be somewhat creepy. Here it's just a fairly realistic hospital that's used as a location for the movie's insipid vigilante midway sequence.

Returning with Curtis are Judy Greer and Andi Matichak as Strode's daughter and granddaughter, but a lot of the screen is taken up with Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall), the kid that Laurie babysat in the original 1978 film. Doyle (re)appeared in 'Halloween The Curse of Michael Myers' played creepily by Paul Rudd, but here he's more of an everyman. An ordinary middle aged bloke from Illinois who becomes the frontman for the previously mentioned chant obsessed angry mob. Also making a reappearance from 1978 is Nancy Stephens as Marion Chambers, the nurse that was seen with Dr. Loomis at the beginning of 'Halloween' and Kyle Richards who played Lindsey Wallace, the little girl that Laurie and her friend Annie were babysitting four decades ago. It's a nice touch to have them all back, but it's also clear that they've been away from major roles for a long time, too, as none of them appear to be terribly comfortable in their parts, with Hall becoming more and more annoying as the film goes on. The scene in the bar at the beginning of the film, where we see them remembering Halloween night of 40 years ago feels really odd, as well, and there's just an awkward atmosphere to everything that happens there. Why would Marion Chambers and Lindsey Wallace even know each other at this point? Also showing up from the 1978 film is Lonnie Elam (Robert Longstreet), who was last seen getting taunted by Dr. Loomis and Leigh Brackett, father of Annie and one time town Sheriff, now a hospital security guard in his old age. Do people not move out of Haddonfield? Or even retire? It all feels like the most heavy handed type of fan servicing and desperate attempts to make a link with Carpenter's movie.

That isn't the only problem with with the script though. There are numerous issues sprinkled throughout and it definitely feels like the whole thing was quite a labour to write. In nuking the entire franchise from 'Halloween II', the film makers have cornered themselves into a bizarre world where Michael's (relatively tepid) murder spree has sorta defined the entire town, who seem incapable of shrugging off his four murders from 40 years previously. Laurie Strode's reoccurring trauma over the incident makes sense, but would Haddonfield really be "haunted" by Michael Myers for so long? Has nothing else bad ever happened there?

Also, at an hour an forty-five minutes, the film is just too long and time is taken up with completely pointless characters, like the couple who live in the old Myers house. That entire segment could be eliminated and the story would lose nothing. In fact, a good half hour of the film could go and nothing would change that much, except for the leaner screen time that would result. I suppose that somebody would have ended up living in the old spook house eventually, but we spend too much time with them and its bogs the pace down. And pacing is one of the film's worst sins and you are constantly waiting for it to get going. David Gordon Green can have his moments, but too often he falls flat.

As it stands, 'Halloween Kills' ends up being a bit of a mess, but one that might please the more undemanding fan. It's not as bad as some of the woeful sequels that the series has seen over the 40 years of its existence, but it just doesn't keep up the ok(ish) entertainment factor that its immediate predecessor had.

God only knows what they are going to try for the (hopefully) final film, 'Halloween Ends', but Jamie Lee Curtis has hinted that it's going to really get up the noses of fans. To be honest, they must be half way there already with this film.

3/10

They Live

Carpenters 80s Sci fi / horror crossover really hits the mark in the current post covid / social media heavy world we live in. Aliens have infiltrated the world and assumed positions of wealth and power, placing humans that are complicit in equal positions of power. Using subliminal messaging the rest of mankind are urged to "conform" "consume" "don't challenge authority" and other similar controlling measures.

A movie ahead of its time in many respects, it doesn't get the appreciation that something like Romeros Dawn of the Dead gets for its social commentary on consumerism but its a damn entertaining and worth while watch.

7/10

:D

Yeh, it really runs out of steam in the second part unfortunately. I just think Carpenter became lost with the story. It's funny, for years I disliked 'They Live', but I kept watching it for some reason until eventually it clicked. Kinda like 'Big Trouble in Little China'. They're offbeat, to say the least. These days both get a regular run out on my tele.

As far as potential sequels are concerned though...no, just no.

^

Had high hopes for that film when I heard that Rick Baker was going to be doing the makeup. But unfortunately just about every part of that production was a failure to some degree. Remember being very disappointed with it.

Body of Lies (2008)

Just watched it on Netflix, good cast, good director, turned out to be like a bad episode of Homeland.