An immediate sequel to “Halloween” (2018), “Halloween Kills” attempts to ride the momentum of the first movie.
On Oct. 15, 2021, “Halloween Kills” was released to theaters and for streaming on Peacock. After a few flashbacks, it then starts where “Halloween” left off, with Michael Myers trapped in a burning building.
Already, this invites some serious criticism that I have of the film. There was an excessive number of poorly edited flashbacks that attempted to retroactively add scenes to fill in around the plot of the original “Halloween” (1978), which made the storyline of “Halloween Kills” difficult to follow.
A number of new characters were also introduced without flashbacks to explain their origins, which made it difficult to distinguish which characters are significant and which aren’t. It turns out, though, that most of these characters only contributed to the plot by being victims.
Another issue that I have with the movie is the high number of child actors. Normally, child actors are inconsistent at best, but there are more than what was necessary, in my opinion.
The issue with acting was not exclusive to the children. Some of the actors were not giving their best performance. Whether it was bad lines or just bad casting, I’m not sure. But in general, I believe that the acting was poor across the board.
The last big issue I had was with the writing. The script was inconsistent and it seems that not a lot of thought was put into some of the characters. The only characters who were set up well were the ones from the previous movie.
With all of that being said, let’s move onto the elements I did like.
A lot of the kills used practical effects that were extremely well done. The choreographers did an amazing job at finding new ways for Michael Myers to kill his victims. If you are into gore, this movie does not disappoint.
Another aspect I think they did well was the pacing. Despite the pachy writing, every scene seemed to take just the right amount of time. Leading up to the climax of the film, it feels like everything had just the right amount of flow for it to be smooth for the audience.
Granted, the pacing does not matter nearly as much if half the time I spent watching the movie I was trying to figure out what was actually going on.
Overall, I believe this movie has a niche appeal to fans of slasher films, but I can’t recommend it to anyone else, as I don’t believe it offers anything else of value. I give “Halloween Kills” a thumbs down.
