(Spoiler-free)
Alright, this review is admittedly late to the party, but there is a method to the madness. I’ll get to it shortly…
First of all, this is a solid sequel and worthy addition to the series. It takes a purist approach by following the groundwork laid in Carpenter’s 1978 genre-creating classic; it doesn’t set arbitrary values for itself like “higher body count” or “more exotic killings,” it doesn’t add extraneous and tangential plot detours to desperately contrive enough story for a new movie, and it doesn’t eat up copious screen time pursuing answers to questions that nobody asked.
All in all, the plot, cinematography, score, and acting effectively elevate the film to such levels that they compensate for some of its lesser qualities and make for an enjoyable watch that’s uniquely worthy of a trip to the theater.
Big deal, you say. That reads like all the other reviews for this movie. So now we come to the reason for this one. There’s a screenwriting elephant in the room that no one seems to be talking about, and I think deserves some attention. Many of the script choices in this movie are highly questionable, and some are just plain weird. Some subplots don’t go anywhere, some “twists” are merely plot contrivances to serve convenient ends, etc. but these are relatively negligible and even forgivable as they tend to fall below the line of suspension of disbelief. My beef with the writing lies elsewhere.
More brutal than the stabs to heart or claw hammers to the skull is the dialog that lands squarely on the nose. And I mean RIGHT on it. Let’s look at one brief exchange from the trailer…
When protagonist Laurie confesses that she hoped spree killer Michael Myers would escape from prison, and she’s asked why; her stunning reply is “so I can kill him.” Now, trailer dialog always entails the caveat that we’re hearing it out of context, so we’re left to think that maybe there’s more to this conversation and it’ll play out much better in its totality. But, no. Like virtually everything from Halloween’s trailers, what we see is what we get.
As a friendly reminder, I liked this movie and Jamie Lee Curtis’ performance in it, but there is no measure for the awfulness of this line. The dramatic punch that the circumstances suggest it’s supposed to have falls miserably flat due to its blatancy, total lack of nuance, and utter failure to do its job of delivering the emotion of the character with a certain eloquent poetry that would never be uttered by a gruff old vigilante speaking of shooting a slasher in the face, but is called for in the name of satisfying storytelling.
In the words of Christopher McQuarrie, “think of what you want to say, and then don’t say it.” Dialog is never just a filmmaker-to-audience conduit for story information. It should be an ornament that adds flavor and style to the film, while covertly imparting exposition under the viewer’s nose. There is no more exigent situation for heeding this advice than this moment from Halloween. Countless preferable responses could have elevated that moment into something like what it was intended to be. Let’s explore a few…
Laurie: Do you know that I prayed every night that he would escape?
Hawkins: What the hell did you do that for?
Laurie: So I can kill him. So I can finish what Dr. Loomis started.
Or
Laurie: Because what he needs can’t be done while he’s locked up.
Or
Laurie: Some animals shouldn’t be caged. They have to be put down.
Or
Laurie: The cops and shrinks don’t know how to deal with him. I do.
Or
Laurie: Because he doesn’t deserve to die of old age.
See? None of these are great. They’re the product of about three minutes of brainstorming, but I’ll stand by any one of them as superior to that black hole of subtlety that made it into the film.
After really harping on that one line, I hate to say that it’s not the least bit rare among this film’s dialog. Every spoken word either serves to explain the plot to us or intimate precisely what the character is thinking, leaving absolutely nothing for us to decipher for ourselves. Need further evidence?
Martin: We’re here to investigate a patient that killed three innocent teenagers on Halloween, 1978. He was shot by his own psychiatrist and taken into custody that night, and has spent the last forty years in captivity.
Laurie: I need to protect my family. You have no security system, Karen.
Karen: Mom, you need help!
Laurie: Evil is real.
Laurie: He is a killer. But he will be killed tonight.
It is certainly true that Loomis had some musing monologues in the original that were borderline clunky (and would have been laughable if not delivered by the likes of Donald Pleasance), but that can be at least partially chalked up to breaking in a new kind of character in a new subgenre; and it doesn’t nearly approach the awkwardness with which the speech in the latest installment comes across.
What’s troubling here is that so many other features of the movie are so good, and this one is so easily fixed with some quick and easy tweaking. Oh well, perhaps this will be addressed in the inevitable sequel(s).
What do you think? How did you find the dialog; and the movie in general? Let us know!
