HALLOWEEN RETURNS (2018) REVIEW

[Necromancer]

But it comes to the ultimate point that in truth, none of us were really asking for another Michael Myers movie, everything has been exhausted with the Halloween franchise except for Halloween 3 trying to take it into a horror anthology direction but people hated it at the time because there was no Michael Myers in the movie and no one bothered to take up that Halloween 3 idea ever again.

Are you absolutely sure everything has been exhausted with this franchise? Hollywood most certainly isn't convinced of it. With this movie's success don' be surprised of another sequel only JLC won't have a part in it although her character may be referenced in it.

Spoiler...

after the credits it sounds like Michael's breathing...so did they kill Michael off or did they just make an attempt at revitalizing a stagnant franchise?

[RustedChainsaw]

Although I did thoroughly enjoy the movie, I share similar gripes as DMHead777.

Spoiler...

If we're supposed to ignore the past sequels, why does Laurie speak as though she and Michael have been doing this for years? This is just her second encounter with this maniacal STRANGER, forty years later, so it really makes no sense for her to be addressing him like she knows him so well. It sorta reminded me of things Ripley said in the later "ALIEN" movies, about how the Xenomorphs had been part of her life for so long. But in this case it simply doesn't align with the filmmakers telling us to disregard the sequels.

Since Laurie is NOT Michael's sister in this timeline, his motive remains in the air. I get it, he's pure evil and just wants to kill. Sooo why does he spare his fellow mental patients after the bus crashed? Is that...sympathy?

Sadly, this film is a disservice to scream queen Danielle Harris and her contribution to the series. It just didn't sit right with me that they replaced her with a completely new, and largely dull, character. Nothing against Judy Greer, but her role was so meager that it made me wonder what they could have done if they had put real effort into establishing a return for Harris. I think fans would have LOVED to finally see Danielle Harris alongside Jamie Lee Curtis. It'd be cementing the better elements of the series. Even if they ignored 4 and 5, they could've had her return in some form of Jamie. Missed opportunity, to say the least.

[DarkSuperman]

I never thought these words would ever come out of my mouth, but I actually liked it more than the original.

[DMHead777]

I never thought these words would ever come out of my mouth, but I actually liked it more than the original.

[DarkSuperman]

Question. Was the Myers house even in this movie?

It's the truth. Deal with it lol.

[strtfghtr]

[Toby]

Are you absolutely sure everything has been exhausted with this franchise? Hollywood most certainly isn't convinced of it. With this movie's success don' be surprised of another sequel only JLC won't have a part in it although her character may be referenced in it.

Spoiler...

after the credits it sounds like Michael's breathing...so did they kill Michael off or did they just make an attempt at revitalizing a stagnant franchise?

I thought that ending-ending was more like a tribute to the first movie. I wish they wouldn't continue with it but it made a ton of money so fuck it.

Although I did thoroughly enjoy the movie, I share similar gripes as DMHead777.

Spoiler...

If we're supposed to ignore the past sequels, why does Laurie speak as though she and Michael have been doing this for years? This is just her second encounter with this maniacal STRANGER, forty years later, so it really makes no sense for her to be addressing him like she knows him so well. It sorta reminded me of things Ripley said in the later "ALIEN" movies, about how the Xenomorphs had been part of her life for so long. But in this case it simply doesn't align with the filmmakers telling us to disregard the sequels.

Since Laurie is NOT Michael's sister in this timeline, his motive remains in the air. I get it, he's pure evil and just wants to kill. Sooo why does he spare his fellow mental patients after the bus crashed? Is that...sympathy?

Sadly, this film is a disservice to scream queen Danielle Harris and her contribution to the series. It just didn't sit right with me that they replaced her with a completely new, and largely dull, character. Nothing against Judy Greer, but her role was so meager that it made me wonder what they could have done if they had put real effort into establishing a return for Harris. I think fans would have LOVED to finally see Danielle Harris alongside Jamie Lee Curtis. It'd be cementing the better elements of the series. Even if they ignored 4 and 5, they could've had her return in some form of Jamie. Missed opportunity, to say the least.

Like I said above, people who suffer severe trauma from their past never forget a face and they never forget the person who attempted to kill them after having murdered their friends and eaten their dog, I can understand horror fans can become super desensitized to violence and murder and all that stuff, but other people are not and are forever haunted by the things they come across and that's realism that you HAVE to put into perspective, otherwise you'll hate it. Laurie NOT being Michael's sister reestablishes Michael being a scary force of murderous evil while keeping him mysterious which is great.

Michael sparing the mentally-insane patients is akin to him making the conscious choice to not kill the baby in the movie where the mental patients are exactly that, they're mentally-ill and all of them are terrified of Michael and it's not like they were going to do anything to him or call the police or fight him, plus it's likely Michael used them to his advantage to go on his killing spree while the cops are busy rounding up the mental-patients that were wandering around town, would the police or any random person believe anything the mental patients tell them or try to warn them? People believe firmly that all mental-patients are crazy so literally they're no threat to Michael, much like the baby couldn't call the police or fight Michael so he spared the baby, but neither ones spared was out of sympathy. Also, Michael didn't kill any of the mental patients when he escaped the first time in 1978's Halloween, so it's CANON to the original.

I think it was great that they did not include Jamie from part 4 just like how they didn't include John from H20, no one would understand either of the two being involved with this particular story unless you had to acknowledge 4-6 and H20 happened, which they didn't utilize because H20 ignores 4-6 as well but takes place after the original sequel from 1981 (Don't you love being confused?) but it's good they dropped those because screw the pair of them, Jamie was annoying and John was boring, Halloween 4 is a guilty pleasure of mine because it's not a good movie but it's fun on its own, then 5 & 6 came along and took a big shit all over the Michael Myers legacy from how terrible the story was getting (look, it's fine if some Halloween fans enjoy that "Thorn Cult" story-line, but all of them and all of us have got to admit that everything about that story was terrible and stupid beyond belief, far worse than people will admit to it and including anything of that would've made this new Halloween movie far worse than people say it is) and H20 was fun for the time it was made but it's not aged well since it came out and John was boring and forgettable because it was JLC's movie and Resurrection fucked up that movie afterwards, so it was very smart of the filmmakers to skip all of the sequels except for part 3.

AS AN ADDENDUM: If Halloween fans are really THAT upset that the whole "Laurie and Michael, Brother and Sister" story-line was completely abandoned, look no further than Halloween; Resurrection where it perfectly encapsulates why the Brother and Sister story-line DOES NOT secure the longevity of the Halloween movies to be a franchise, if everything was build on Michael has to kill Laurie because he wants to finish the job from many years ago, not caring who he has to kill to get her, it would be as stupid as Superhero movies needing a villain of the week, where you get more sequels as long as Michael never gets to kill Laurie that's stupid and gets very boring very fast. Resurrection explains perfectly why that is in a nut shell, once Michael successfully does kill Laurie...then why should we care about anything else that happens after that?

You can make up compelling characters and fun stories afterwards, but you don't care about Michael existing and having to kill a bunch of stupid teenagers we don't care about because they're not as important to Michael killing Laurie, there's nothing, it's empty, the killing spree feels extremely routine and not as special or as fun with Michael having to go after Laurie being the biggest build up to any of the movies, there's nothing more they can do with Michael anymore. I was half expecting Resurrection to end literally after Michael kills Laurie where he just turns himself into the cops and just stays in the mental hospital for the rest of his life or just up and kill himself for no reason because there's nothing to his motives for killing anymore.

Once again, thank the gods for the filmmakers for establishing Michael as his own mysterious evil entity, now the longevity of the Halloween franchise is secure and has more room to do stuff, even though it really, really, really doesn't need to do that.