In Halloween which is a sequel to the John Carpenter original that ignores all the other off shoots, the director David Gordon Green makes the mistake of allowing us glimpses of the real Michael Myers. The personalization lessens the effect of the horror, turns the audience and some of the more disposable characters into a Michael Myers fan club with Charles Manson echoes. We need to be rooting for Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode.
The personalization of Myers adds depth at the expense of suspense. The only thing that matters is the Myers-Strode confrontation, the 40 year trial separation that leads to their permanent divorce. Everything else is either exposition or homage. The killings are pale imitations caught in the stale characterizations and tropes initiated forty years before.
A little Strode energization and fight from everyone involved would have considerable echoes, depth, smarts and an epic payoff. Instead the end has a well armed and alarmed but not martially trained Jamie Lee Curtis succumbing to the easiest of Myers slashing while her family finds its battle balls in defense of hearth, home and mom. This mom needs to be Linda Hamilton Terminator tough, needs to show her family that she can protect her and them from this bad spouse that threatens them.
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