Halloween 2018 * * * Stars

Director: David Gordon Green
Year: 2018
Rated R
Rating: * * * Stars
Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Will Patton

After forty years in a mental institution, evil-eyed Michael Myers escapes to reek havoc on the fragile inhabitants of Haddonfield, Illinois. With plenty of armed weaponry and PTSD in tote, badass survivalist Laurie Strode (a weathered Jamie Lee Curtis) vows to kill Myers while keeping him from showing off his neato butcher knife. That's the crux of 2018's Halloween, my latest review. Trick-or-treat all you fanboys, Samhain enthusiasts, and tattooed worshipers of masked Micheal!

Anyhow, Halloween is the 11th film in a series that dates back all the way to John Carpenter's pioneering installment via 1978. It announces itself as the only sequel and denounces every other story angle from all the money-grabbing sequels that came before it. Gone is the campy feel from Halloween's 4, 5, and 6. Gone is the scuzzy and vile stature from Rob Zombie's carnival vision. Gone is every element from Season of the Witch (naturally). Added is the gore and squeamish factor from 1981's Halloween II (plus a little humor courtesy of actor turned scribe, Danny McBribe).

In truth, this new Halloween is lean, mean, and impracticable, with streamlined direction from ill-defined genre director David Gordon Green. Granted, Green is not as stylish, innovative, or tension-ridden as Carpenter nor does he have Johnny boy's fiendish way with the characters (almost everyone involved is either underdeveloped or obvious denizens just waiting for the slaughter). Still, Halloween '18 is uber-memorable. It gets the "bloody" job done while being one of the more sophisticated entries in the Halloween film franchise.

As the equivalent of meat and potatoes film-making for the horror-salivating millennials, Halloween is like J.J. Abrams helming The Force Awakens or Christopher Nolan cleaning up the cartoonish Batman chapters. No need to reinvent the wheel here and no need to dumb-down teen slasher mechanics. Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun DUN!!! Rating: 3 stars.

Written by Jesse Burleson