Set in the fictional town of Haddonfield, Illinois, Halloween Kills, directed by David Green, is the twelfth movie in the series dating back to 1978. Halloween Kills begins with Laurie Strode, who is bleeding alongside her daughter and granddaughter in the back of an old truck, when a fire truck drives past them, heading in the opposite direction.

Laurie Strode, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, was the main protagonist in the earlier movies after surviving the attacks of Michael Myers. After many years she has become senile and often found herself being very conscious of her surrounding at all times.

Like many of the past Halloween movies, the beginning scene often alludes to the previous film. In this case, the firefighters have headed towards Michael Myers, a psychotic killer who was set aflame. In typical horror fashion, those eleven firefighters are the first to die at the hands of Michael Myers.

The movie then passes forward to the central plot of the film, which is the idea that Laurie Strode will build a mob with the past survivors of attacks conflicted upon by Michael and finally kill the evil that has lurked Haddonfield for forty years. The mob goes against the local police force as they have been unsuccessful at containing the killer and protecting the community.

At this point in the movie, I felt that the film went from a Halloween movie to a Purge movie.  While Myers caused a lot of bloodshed through many killings through gruesome and horrific murders, it is hard to consider this movie a slasher flick.

The other problem up to this point is the lack of emotion. The faces of the members of the mob lack emotion; many just have regular expressions. It isn’t until later in the movie when genuine human emotion is shown when a mother has spotted her lifeless son dangling on top of a hospital as a victim of Michael Myers. This was definitely nice to see as we see some level of emotion that we can feel as viewers and give us a character to put our shoes into.

I feel that David Green has also removed the suspense that we all enjoy while watching horror films. Many of the deaths are easily predicted, and you can see Michael Myers before the death has occurred. Many deaths are also significantly over the top, which goes off the original series with quick kills. While these kills were enjoyable and over the top, I feel as if the flow of the kills disrupted the theme of the series. However, most of the kills used knives and chainsaws, which led to the uneasy noise in my ears which was at the very least satisfying.

Another problem with the film was the amount of screen time that Jamie Lee Curtis received. It seemed that after every death, a speech was played. After finally getting out of a hospital bed, she was immediately hit and sent back to the hospital, which, unlike the previous movies, made her character seem very weak.

I did, however, find some positives within the movie. Like the last movie made in 2018, I liked the camera angles used. These gave me a sense of suspense and made the movements of Michael Myers a lot more dramatic, and to me gave the movie a feel of actual horror.

The atmosphere of the town was also amiable. Everyone within that community all had a mission that brought out the sense that these people were not just randoms who were going to be put on the kill count as randoms.

Overall, I would give this year’s horror film a three out of five; while it was indeed a very entertaining movie to watch, it did lack in some areas. While it was not a horrible movie, it did leave me with some levels of disappointment compared to its previous counterparts. In conclusion, I suggest seeing it as it sets itself up for another future Halloween movie, hopefully concluding the Michael Myers genre.