September 28th, 2018 @ 1:00 am

sooooooooooooooooooo there’s going to be a new halloween movie coming out next month (DYING WITH ANTICIPATION), and my sister is actually flying in from LA to watch it with me and my fam.  halloween is kind of… our thing.  we grew up watching it form a young age (nope, i was never deathly scared of mikey as i was freddy or jason), and we passed it onto our cousins upstate.  we can all quote it left and right, my sister and i just “know” the sounds and timing of everything…  etc.  so, that being said, we/i have a halloween obsession.

the new one coming out, if you’re unaware, is a reunion between michael and laurie strode (jamie lee curtis’s character) 37 years later.  we’re supposed to disregard every other halloween film from the series but the original from 1978.  for this film, she’s said that it’s basically her suffering from PTSD and it looks as if she’s turned into sarah connor.  she is on a MISH to kill him this time around.

it’s kind of hard for me to totally get into or wrap my head around this, because i LOVE a lot of the other halloween movies.  i was raised watching 1-5 as a kiddo, and i also grew to love 6 as an adult.  i think i only saw h20 once or twice, but i don’t remember hating it, and i totally disregard everything after h20.  don’t get me started on rob zombie’s piles of shit.

anysways, of course i’m hyped to see a new halloween movie, but looking at how many there were over the years is just criminal.  there are 11 in that list, and we could have lived without a few of them.  there are so many things people could argue about there…  movies they love, hate, the hatred of a michael-free halloween III, etc.  i figured i’d just break down my favorites/most hated.  i just wanted to also touch on my utmost love for halloween II.  spoilers for an almost 40 year old movie ahead? lol.

FAVES (in order):  halloween II, halloween, halloween 4, halloween III, halloween 6

WORST: ressurection, both rob zombie movies

indifferent: halloween h20 (i honestly just don’t remember it)

halloween II:

i can’t comprehend why anyone wouldn’t like this movie.  i’ve read that the story lines are all over the place, that it’s “too dimly lit in the hospital”, no character development, etc. – for me, i think probably the biggest problem for halloween fans was that john carpenter didn’t direct it.  i say that actually and eye rollingly because there are so many halloween snobs out there snubbing it bc of that.  he still ended up having a major hand in it, so i don’t understand why they’re complaining.

ANYWAYS.  i find this movie the creepiest of all of the halloween movies.  all of the security footage of him walking around, and the movie camera men following him around the inadequately lit, empty hospital is equally creepy.  don’t get me wrong, i love the first halloween, but i don’t find most of that movie creepy.  i find michael creepy, but the entire movie setting itself as a whole, no.  definitely a lot of parts, but we’ll get back to that once we get into my thoughts of the original.

LOOK AT THIS PICTURE FROM HALLOWEEN II…  SKIN CRAWLING GOODNESS:

i always feel like halloween II goes by very quickly, even though the director purposely tried to slow down the pace.  the scenes are more centered around michael than everyone else, and i like that.  this movie enters straight from the heinous, infamous night before, and mainly rolls right into the overall hospital setting.  michael has to end up walking over to haddonfield memorial hospital on foot, so he takes a little while.  he stops off for a knife in one of the most classic halloween series scenes ever…  FUCKING CREEPY.  look at this:

this old lady is making her husband a ham sandwich.  mid-slice, she inquires to whether or not he wants mayo.  he fell asleep while watching “night of the living dead”, so she goes into the living room to see why he’s not answering her, and that’s when ol’ creepo mcgee sneaks in for her knife (THE knife).  it’s a good thing, bc he’s in and out like the flash and he doesn’t kill her or her husband.

once he gets to the hospital, he goes on his strolling around creepily spree, and kills pretty much the entire staff one by one while searching for laurie.  the characters are pretty self explanatory off the bat, and i don’t feel like they require depth.  i don’t see why anyone has complaint about that…  they all work at the hospital, and you get the short gist pretty quickly.  even as a kid, i didn’t need a back story for everyone.  the two EMT guys have the most depth out of the entire staff.  one is fucking the hot nurse and the other has an interest in laurie (and his brother goes to her school and is in her grade). also, a lot of the characters lose their lives pretty quickly, so it doesn’t really matter.

dr. loomis is in this one as well, and he’s looking for michael through haddonfield until he realizes where they took laurie.  at some point, he finds out that laurie is michael’s sister and they surmise that michael is under some celtic curse, which makes him a supernatural being until everyone in his bloodline is killed.  once laurie is killed, he theoretically won’t be cursed anymore.  this also leaves a window open for the plot of movies 4, 5 and 6.  a lot of people hate that, but even though i think it gets rid of the “creepy random killing” michael, it adds a new vibe.  he’s still the same old scary, slow walking, head tilting, all powerful, totally (pun intended) immortal michael at the end of the day…

once laurie gets to the hospital, they sedate her to operate on her wounds.  throughout the movie, she’s basically half asleep, shoeless and limping.  homegirl still makes it out alive, though.

i think it’s also being at a hospital, where you’re supposed to be safe, that really fucks with me mentally.  one time back in the 90s, my mother had a knee/joint problem and had to go to this horribly spooky hospital in little neck.  it’s now a senior living center, but it was basically the hospital from halloween II, lol.  it wasn’t a major hospital, just a random small one that used to exist (they really don’t anymore ’round these parts).  this was the only picture i could find of it:

my mother said that when she had to go for an x-ray, they brought her down to the basement for it and that she was alone, it was dark, and that it was basically a scene straight out of halloween II, lol.  my mother doesn’t scare easily, either.

the pace of the movie really makes it what it is.  i love the original, but i will always love this one more.

for me, the original halloween creeped me out only in a few places and scenes…  at the school when he was staring at her from across the street through the window, in the backyard outside of laurie’s bedroom window, when tommy saw him across the street from the window and when he sits up at the end after the closet scene.  of course the bob scene is creepy, but i always found it more funny than creepy.  the murders of bob and annie are pretty spooky.  the rest, just a GOOD horror film for me… but wtf do i know?

i wanted to just touch on halloween II bc i hate that they’re omitting it from the new one.  i feel like they still could have just come back from that one somehow.  i mean, he does end up surviving that fire anyway…  😛

when i worked at a video store, the #1 thing i took with me was to NEVER EVER EVER listen to the public criticisms of movies.  i got the worst movie advice from my customers.  i also do not ever listen to rotten tomatoes.  there are plenty of favorite classic/cult movies belonging to myself, friends and fam that they rate so low.  they’re absolutely ridiculous.  for kicks, you can read some of the reviews for this movie here.

by no means am i a proper movie critic.  i am spewing shit out of my tiny black heart about this movie…  i can’t dissect the technicalities that some can.  i also don’t care to.  what i DO know, is that i love horror movies, and i have since i was a kid.  i know what i like, i’ve seen TONS of them, and i know what creeps me out.  if you’re seriously going to sit down and try to praise any halloween movies as if they deserve a damn academy award, that’s ridiculous.  the people who rate these should just unplug and watch a horror flick.

lastly, RIP ben tramer.