Quote Posted by june gloom
So over the past couple of weeks, one of my partners and I have watched the entirety of the Michael Myers-oriented
Halloween films (skipping
III, obviously.) It's been a mixed bag but I've developed a greater appreciation for slasher flicks I didn't really have before, even though I do still have my personal issues with the genre's major tropes. The original film is as close to perfection the genre gets. It's been a long 40 years since then and the franchise has changed with the times.
Halloween II was fun in a slightly stupid kind of way, but also gave a rare look at the immediate aftermath of a movie like
Halloween I, something we don't usually get: angry mobs, newscasters, confused cops. Bad things happen in the wake of Michael's rampage as people try to piece together what happened. We're also treated to a few twists, the minor one being a hint (only a hint, mind) of a more supernatural element to Michael that would get expanded upon by later films, and the major one being the familial relationship between Michael and protagonist Laurie Strode.
The Thorn trilogy (
4,
5 and
6) I think are decent films in their own right, if we're willing to accept a somewhat disjointed attempt at aping the supernatural elements of
Friday the 13th or
Nightmare on Elm Street. They're worth watching for Donald Pleasance, though a young Danielle Harris in the first two really cements herself as just as an important name in the franchise as Jamie Lee Curtis. The fact that they dared to have Michael menace a small child instead of a screaming 20-something masquerading as a teenager was a good twist, and
Halloween 5 in particular stands the test of time for being genuinely scary at times (I'm thinking of the car chase as well as the final sequence in the old Myers house.) The last of these films,
The Curse of Michael Myers, was released several years after, in 1995, and while it's something of a mess, the producer's cut I think is watchable and is a pretty good sendoff for Pleasance, who clearly enjoyed playing Loomis. (It would be his last film released when he was alive; he has a couple of posthumous film roles, however.)
Halloween H20, meanwhile, is a late 90s slasher flick, through and through. Released in the aftermath of
Scream and in a brief era of horror movies that hasn't really been replicated, for good or ill,
H20 is not a smart film, but it is a welcome comeback for Curtis and feels like it would lay the groundwork for the much better alternate sequel in 2018, while also setting the precedent of eliminating some of the previous films (in this case, the Thorn Trilogy) for a new continuity. It also was the film that established Josh Hartnett as one of the biggest teen heartthrobs of the late 90s, while also giving us a cute cameo of Curtis' own mother, Janet Leigh (of
Psycho fame, appropriately enough.)
It was followed up by
Halloween Resurrection, which, like
H20 before it, is very much of its time, but where
H20 was a late 90s horror film through and through,
Resurrection was part of a wave of extremely bad films in the early years of the new millennium that date themselves immediately with period fads (in this case, reality TV and pre-Youtube webcasting) and odd celebrity casting (in this case, Busta Rhymes, who at least is enjoying himself even if nobody else is.) It's an incredibly dumb film and while I wouldn't blame anyone for hating it, I can't, because it's too stupid -- and funny -- to hate. And it most certainly is not the low point for the franchise.
That comes next, with Rob Zombie's
Halloween remake. Absolute, utter garbage, almost completely irredeemable. I find it hard to identify it as anything other than what I might call Midwestern Alienation: a kind of deeply pessimistic, antisocial take on characters and their environment, an exaggeration of the kind of attitudes and culture that can be found in blighted towns from Buffalo to Boise. It forges an attempt to create a psychological origin for why someone like Michael would exist, but it does this in an incredibly hamfisted way, with a cast full of unlikeable people, some of whom border on monstrous, speaking dialogue written by a man who has no idea how ordinary people, let alone women in particular, talk. What value that can be found in the film lies in the decent cinematography (which even the most uncharitable viewer can admit is not strictly limited to copying Carpenter's work,) the return of Danielle Harris as an adult (this time playing the role of Annie) and a revision of Loomis (played by Malcolm McDowell) into something of a vulture, who profits off peoples' pain while still being earnest in trying to get across the danger Michael presents. But these elements aren't really enough to save the film as a whole, which just feels like a slap in the face of the entire franchise in general and the original film in particular.
Zombie would follow up this mess with his own
Halloween II, which is actually... not bad, if deeply strange. Opening with a short clip where a young Michael (played by a different child actor this time) is presented with a white toy horse by his mother, it segues into a truly terrifying hospital sequence (calling back to the original
Halloween II being set mostly in a hospital) that eventually reveals itself as a dream, and we move to two years after the previous film. If absolutely nothing else, it's a realistic look into the kind of ongoing trauma someone like Laurie Strode might be struggling to work through, as well as being clear that she's not the only one. The film also generally doesn't make a lot of sense unless you're down with completely unexplained and barely-hinted-at psychic bullshit and hallucinations. The way it treats Michael's mother, who was an important character in the first film, feels mean-spirited, even if we accept it as a hallucination of Michael's after surviving getting capped in the dome at the end of the previous film.
In general, the Rob Zombie duology is just mean-spirited and unpleasant, which is par for the course for Rob Zombie, whose films run on their own internal logic where literally everyone is an awful person. That the first film was successful enough to warrant a sequel just blows my mind, and yet I can't be
too surprised that Rob Zombie keeps getting to make movies, because he has a reliable audience: people who cry at Monday Night Raw.
And then, finally, we come to
Halloween, the 2018 followup to the original
Halloween, not to be confused with Rob Zombie's
Halloween. The rundown: Everything has been thrown out except the first film, even disposing of the old Laurie-is-Michael's-Sister twist. It's revealed that Michael was indeed captured after the first film, and for forty years he's been locked up in the asylum under much heavier guard. The film begins as he is due to be transferred to another facility that generally is considered to be a deep hole you throw things into to forget them. Again the film dates itself with a pair of podcasters, attempting to get Michael and L(
https://www.worktime.com) work timeaurie's stories for the 40th anniversary but are rebuffed both times, but it's enough to provoke Michael to escape during his transfer and immediately go on the rampage, up to and including killing a preteen boy. Laurie, for her part, has spent the last 40 years preparing for this moment; her house is a heavily armed fortress and she's more than ready to hunt Michael down and kill him for good, no matter what it means for her relationship with her family. The film is good at exploring the trauma of someone who simply cannot move on, while also showing how even someone like Michael isn't immortal, no matter how inhumanly strong he is. This version's take on Laurie also feels heavily inspired by Linda Hamilton's tough, uncompromising Sarah Connor from
Terminator 2, someone who prepares to fight back instead of running away (as
H20's Laurie did, faking her death and changing her name to run a private school in Northern California.) In a genre that is so thoroughly built on watching women suffer it's always nice to watch them turn the tables on their tormentors. It's a fantastic followup to the original film, sleek, brutal and masterfully directed, a love letter to the franchise as a whole (so many references to previous films, including poking fun at the whole brother-sister thing.) It strips away all the cruft this series has collected over the decades and boils it down to something very simple: a maniac with a knife is on the loose, with enough new elements to make it feel original.
In short, this is a series that has had its ups and downs, and while I do advocate for the Thorn Trilogy as decent films in their own right, it's nice to see that the franchise, after all these years, has stopped letting itself be shaped by the genre it helped create and instead returns to doing the shaping.
Wow, really interesting, added to my next-to-watch list.
Cruella is a reimagining of how Cruella DeVil became probably the most well-known Disney villain of all time and how she became and embraced her evil side to her. We start off with seeing her as sweet Estella and her passion for the life of fashion design but as the story goes on and as we are introduced to the Baroness (played by Emma Thompson) we realise that there really is another side to her, an evil villainess side that wants fame and revenge.
I had low expectations at first and didn't really know what to expect from this movie but I can assure you, I was amazed and definitely not disappointed! Cruella isn't another 'trying to make you feel sorry and sympathy for the villain' story line - it is completely different and not at all like this because, like me, I was a bit concerned about this.
The music, the amazing fashion design and costumes, the special effects and the very strong acting by both Emma Stone and Emma Thompson is superb and absolutely blew my mind. It's set in the 1970s fashion era and this film is just so creative that it draws you into the past. There were many plot twists and I loved how they incorporated small details from the Glenn Close version and the animated 101 Dalmations into this film. In my opinion, the costumes definitely deserve to win an award. They were just breath-taking and I can't imagine how long it would have taken to create and design all the fabulous costumes.
Emma Stone is an icon and obviously portrays Estella/Cruella magnificently (all the actors do)! Of course it's a Disney so it wouldn't be that dark of a movie but I say there were some scenes that were dark and atmospheric which I very much enjoyed!
I would definitely recommend watching Cruella - you won't be disappointed. Even if you are not into fashion, this movie gives everyone, all ages, something to take from this film, for example, the phenomenal music choices, the actors and the Disney aspect! Safe to say, Cruella is now my new obsession and looks like it will be for a long time. Even after watching the film once in cinemas, I've wanted to go back and rewatch it multiple times!! Hope this was useful and GO WATCH CRUELLA!! :))