Summary:
Jamie Lloyd is once again stalked by Michael Myer, but this time, a mysterious cult also joins the hunt.
My Thoughts:
I know it’s weird to say it, but I was kind of looking forward to this film. “Halloween V”, while not that great of a film from a cinematic perspective, was a lot of fun, and it was the first film in the series that I thought did something fresh and cool with the character’s in Michael’s world. The way that “V” ended- with Myers escaping with the help of a mysterious man in black- I thought was ambiguous enough to be interpreted a few different ways; the way I took it was that Michael made a deal with the devil for his escape. The problem that every “Halloween” sequel has faced is that they have to figure out a way to write themselves out of the (sometimes literal) holes the last entry put them in. Michael keeps dying in the first few movies, so usually the sequels recap what happened in the last five minutes of the previous film, and change the ending ever so slightly so that Michael is once again alive- it totally ruins continuity, but whatever- it’s just a stupid slasher series. Well, “V” actually ended in an interesting place, so I was hoping that this film would head in an interesting direction. Instead, it fell flat on its face. This is easily the worst “Halloween” movie since “Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers”, and it’s probably the worst of the series.
This film starts by essentially rewriting the ending of “V” to say that both Myers and Jamie Lloyd (Myer’s niece) were kidnapped by a cult (led by the mysterious man in black). Six years later Jamie is forced to have a baby, and shortly after the baby is delivered she manages to escape, causing Michael and the cult to come after her. Right away I sort of started to check out. I mean, half the fun of Michael’s character is the fact that he has no loyalty, he just murders whomever is in front of him. It doesn’t make any sense that he would be working with this cult or, if he’s not working with them (a lot of character motivations in this movie are pretty foggy), then it doesn’t make sense that they would be able to hold him for six years.
This entry has a lot more fake-out scares than all of the other movies, and there are a lot of times where the movie tries to make jump scares out of moments where there was no tension to begin with. For example, as a few people are walking out a door, a kid goes in for a kiss with his girlfriend in broad daylight and she freaks out as if Norman Bates had just flung back her shower curtain.
One of the worst things about this movie was that it was Donald Pleasence’s (“The Great Escape”) last in the series as Dr. Loomis. In the last film, his character showed a bit of growth and actually played a rather large part in the plot, but in this film he ended up just being a side character- a glorified cameo. Paul Rudd (“Ant-Man”) makes his screen debut in this movie; let’s just say he has improved a bit since 1995.
But the worst part overall: this movie was pretty boring. Nothing really happens for a good portion of the film, and when kills do start to happen, they feel very similar to things we’ve seen in every other “Halloween” movie before this one. There are only two cool/ sort of brutal kills in the whole movie, and that’s really the only thing that makes this one worth watching at all.
Verdict:
This was the worst film in the series thus far, but, hey, I’ve come this far. I’m sure at some point I’ll probably end up seeing the rest of them, because why not? The only reason I would ever recommend this movie is if you plan on seeing all of the “Halloween” flicks; for no other reason should you ever come near this movie.
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