Movie: Halloween Kills

by Carson Delarosa (he/him)

“Halloween Kills” underwhelmingly sets the stage for the masked slasher to showdown one last time with the iconic Laurie Strode in “Halloween Ends,” out Oct. 14.

Before I dive into my gripes about this film, I would like to mention what I love: the mindless mayhem. It is apparent that the writers for this horror-flick are very focused on making Micheal Myers an unstoppable, intimidating and ruthless killer. In this film Micheal is literally invincible; he survives gun-shots, stab wounds and blunt trauma, then returns it all to his innocent victims.

The kills and gore in this movie was absolutely morbid and I even caught myself looking away from some of the kills because of how uncomfortable they were to watch. One kill in particular, which takes place near the climax, made me especially uneasy due to the helplessness of the teenage boy Micheal kills in order to traumatize Laurie’s granddaughter Allyson. Despite my discomfort, I love when a horror movie is able to elicit emotions from me, having succeeded in making me care for the characters.

Although the movie has some excellently intimidating scenes and makes Michael appear as an unstoppable force, I found the main plot of the film underwhelming. This movie takes place seconds after the previous movie, “Halloween” (2018), and follows Micheal’s killing spree as it continues into the night. The movie focuses too much on side characters who were barely introduced while mindlessly killing key players just for shock value. For example, literally minutes away from the ending, Micheal randomly kills Karen, Laurie’s daughter, in order to provide some motivation for her in the following film.

My main gripe about this film is that resident bad-ass Laurie Strode is completely wasted in this film. She is injured in the previous movie, leaving her confined to a hospital bed the entire time. A key aspect of these films that keep me invested is just how prepared and bad-ass Laurie is when facing Micheal and I was utterly disappointed to not see her in action here. The movie instead focuses on Allyson and a mob of residents who are all aware of the legend of Myers and sought out to put an end to him, declaring in the most cliche way possible, “Evil Dies Tonight!”

I am still excited for the release of “Halloween Ends” as Laurie will be back in action and twice as motivated after Micheal killed her daughter at the end of “Halloween Kills.” I really want to see Laurie stand a better chance against Micheal and witness an epic finale to an iconic horror franchise.