It’s final timeline! Where H20 was a sequel to Halloween 2 and the Rob Zombie version was a full reboot of the series; the 2018 film is a sequel only to the first movie. No longer is Laurie Strode the secret sister of Michael Myers, which was also the case in the Rob Zombie version, but is instead just “the one that got away”. There was plenty of buzz online after this came out and I can see why. This senior slasher’s still got it!

It has been 40 years since the events of the original movie and Michael Myers has been quietly chilling in Smith’s Grove Sanitarium this whole time. He has a new psychiatrist in charge of his care, a student of Dr. Loomis named Dr. Sartain, and he lets us know that Michael is being transferred to a new facility. The day before Halloween. I guess because administrators have a sense of humor about these things. Laurie, meanwhile, has spent the last 40 years getting all T2 Sarah Conner-ed out, getting divorced twice and having an estranged child. It’s not Jamie or John in this timeline. It’s Karen and she has a daughter of her own, Allyson. Allyson wants to be closer with her grandma but Karen still isn’t over being trained like a soldier as a kid. Good thing she was, though, because the bus Michael was on crashes and now it’s go time for murderween. There are also a bunch of side character that we will meet and so will Michael.

This movie have a lot of little shots and references to the rest of the series. For someone that’s been binge watching all of them, I ended up doing the “pointing Leonardo DiCaprio meme” a whole bunch. Some are just for fun, like seeing a group of kids wearing the masks from Season of the Witch. Others are switched around where they would do a shot that originally had Michael in it but replace it with Laurie, bringing to mind the whole “he who fights with monsters” quote as Laurie has definitely let her obsession with Myers turn her into a monster in her family’s eyes. I love the Strode women in this, as well. They all have great interactions with each other and all of them get moments of badassery. I appreciate that the film shows that while Laurie’s preparations did come in handy, it doesn’t make it out like she was justified in how she raised Karen.

While this would the 3rd or 4th time the series would attempt to get “back to basics”, they don’t skimp out on the action. While the first kill doesn’t happen until about a half hour in, the first onscreen murder his Michael breaking the neck of some kid that looked maybe 14 and signals that The Shape is not here to fuck around. Which reminds me, this is the first time in any of the movies that anyone actually refers to him as The Shape instead of that just being his nickname in the credits. Anyway, the gore in this is extremely well done with some of the kills being particularly gruesome. We also get more than long shots in this film where the camera follows Michael stalking around uncut for multiple minutes. The whole thing is shot so well to both give a sense of tension but also for the couple jump scares as well. I appreciate that these jump scares are actual Myers moments instead of endless false moments of people bumping into each other like H20.

This was an incredibly satisfying sequel to the original movie and, no wonder, it was the first since part 3 to have John Carpenter himself working on it. This includes him working on the music for the film and I love that Casio virtuoso. I would highly recommend this to horror fans. Obviously you get more out of it if you’re already a fan of the franchise but I think it stands alone pretty strongly as well.

Score: 4.5 out of 5