Michael Myers’ bloody return in ‘Halloween Kills’

“Halloween Kills” is the sequel to the reboot film, “Halloween,” which came out in 2018 as a direct sequel to the very first Halloween movie in 1978, while ignoring the sequels that came out later. 

“Halloween Kills” does a great job of following the events of the last movie while expanding on the last film by bringing back characters from not only the last movie, but also characters from the first “Halloween,” but with new actors as it has been 40 years since the original. A plotline in this movie that I am not a fan of is the sidelining of Laurie Strode,  Jaime Lee Curtis’ character, due to her injury in the previous movie.

The movie begins with a flashback that explains how Michael Myers was arrested, leading to the changes in the continuity of the sequels. After Laurie and her surviving family escape and leave Michael Myers to his imprisonment in the house, firefighters unintentionally release him. Michael slaughters all of the firefighters. Michael then launches another killing spree that eventually leads people to realize that Michael is trying to go back to his childhood home.

SPOILERS 

Tommy Doyle, played in this movie by Anthony Michael Hall, leads a mob of citizens in Haddonfield to find Michael and finally kill him. The movie does a good job of showing how people’s fear can lead them to hurt innocent people in the pursuit of fighting evil. After what seems like a fight that would brutalize Michael, he walks out of the fight like nothing ever happened to him, and slaughters them all without hesitation. 

Then, Michael seemingly stabs Karen, Laurie’s daughter, to death. Laurie now believes that Michael is not human, but an unholy monster because in her own words, “No human could have survived that fire.”

 “Halloween Kills” has the highest body count of any movie in the Halloween franchise, with Michael’s body count being 25 confirmed, but five more kills implied, much higher than the past movies. 

Even though “Halloween Kills” doesn’t add anything new to the franchise, the film is still something that fans of the franchise will want to see. The film also does a great job of setting up the third movie, the showdown between Laurie and Michael in “Halloween Ends,”  with a planned release in 2022. The film will feature a time jump between “Halloween Kills” and “Halloween Ends,” as director David Gordon Green stated, to bring a “satisfying “ conclusion to the Laurie Strode vs. Michael Myers “saga,”.