After a very long saga of 10 films, instigated by John Carpenter in 1978, Michael Myers is back in a new film simply titled: Halloween. John Carpenter is back in production, but the direction is given to David Gordon Green (Joe). If Rob Zombie tried to reboot the franchise in 2007 and 2010 by returning to the origins of evil, David Gordon Green makes a clean sweep of the past and returns directly after the first film, as if all the other feature films had never existed.
Halloween back in 2018
The action of the first Halloween takes place in 1978 and stages the confrontation of the young Laurie Strode against the psychopath Michael Myers. 40 years later they are back. Michael Myers has escaped and intends to take his revenge. As with the recent returns of franchises like Alien or Predator, the studios erase their regular slippages, remove this rubbish, to backpedal directly to the origins. In this case, here, 8 films fall by the wayside, to return to where it all began, directly after Carpenter's immense classic. American studios like to play with our nostalgia, offering melancholic works that themselves respond to their origin. Halloween is a perfect example of how Hollywood plays with our memories and sympathy. But where sometimes it only serves to throw a little more discredit on a work, Halloween is a total success.
David Gordon Green offers a very big role to Jamie Lee Curtis in great shape. The character still hasn't recovered from the trauma of his encounter with the terrible killer. He's an aging character, a tired icon, at the end of the road, as Hollywood likes to portray them right now. It's a time when symbols are collapsing and it's relatively enjoyable. After Logan, or Han Solo, will Laurie Straude join these sacred monsters of cinema? In any case , David Gordon Green presents a tired, paranoid main character, but ready to receive the devil. This time Laurie Straude is determined to give the pie to Michael Myers. Jamie Lee Curtis is touching and imposing in this cult role that she reinvents, somewhere between a brutal force and an exciting psychological fragility. The child/mother relationship is perfectly exploited and demonstrates how personal demons influence an education, how protection can annihilate well-being and love. In short, the themes addressed are very successful. But is this Halloween really scary?
A total success: one of the best returns since Mad Max: Fury Road
Halloween: The night of the masks is probably the most cult slasher in the history of cinema. David Gordon Green knows this and plays with this mythology. He develops it, reinvents it without ever distorting it. From the start when Michael Myers' famous mask is back, in a visually impressive scene, first glimpse of the murderer, the chills will run through the spine of fans of Carpenter's horror cinema. The psychopathic killer is back. David Gordon Green offers a textually sublime realization. He magnifies this evil cult, gives it a coat of arms, offers it its most violent moments and delivers it from all sentimentalism. Cold and precise, Michael Myers is a mass that nothing stops, unshakable and inflexible, nothing moves him, nothing touches him, this individual is abandoned by any emotion except the excitement of killing. Thus, Laurie Staude and Michael Myers are restudied, and totally passionate. A Dantesque confrontation, where the prey becomes predatory, and where some clever references to the first film appear.
Finally, the great strength of this Halloween is that it is a classic slasher. David Gordon Green does not seek to fall into one-upmanship or to offer novelties at all costs. The Halloween saga is so traveled by many turnips, that the filmmaker is content to make it simple: a violent confrontation between two antagonists. The horror effects are not ultra innovative, but the coldness of execution is tense. The feature film is not appalling, fear is more primary. The viewer's mind knows that a mortal enemy is lurking somewhere, a predator ready to pounce. Beyond the horrific effects, it is this tension that makes the power of the film. The assembly is totally awake, senses sharpened, ready to be surprised by Michael Myers. It is this tension that allows Halloween to stand out, and the violence of its action scenes, very realistic. Of course the filmmaker's photography is once again splendid.
This new Halloween is a total success and undoubtedly the best opus of the saga. David Gordon Green infuses a heavy and tense atmosphere from beginning to end and mystifies a legend of the 80s. There is no shortage of references to Carpenter, but the filmmaker manages to infuse his own vision as an artist. Nostalgia does the rest.
