The Halloween Film Series Thread... - Part 4

[The Joker]

A fast paced plot doesn't equate to an action movie. You said there was misplaced humor that ruined the tension in very good scenes. No scenes apart from Vicky's death had their tension ruined by any humor.

Your complaints don't make any sense to me.

 

[Broseph44]

I actually liked that bit of humor during Vicky’s death scene. The only humor to me and scene that felt unnecessary was the two officers discussing the Bahn Mi sandwich in the car. And maybe Ray talking about the peanut butter.

 

[The Shape]

The fat Dr. Sartain putting on Michael’s mask was too much for me. That, I agree, was unnecessary.

 

[CadeSkywalker28]

A fast paced plot doesn't equate to an action movie. You said there was misplaced humor that ruined the tension in very good scenes. No scenes apart from Vicky's death had their tension ruined by any humor.

Your complaints don't make any sense to me.

They don't have to make sense to you.
I am speaking subjectively that H18 looked more like an action movie to me than a slasher.

There was a lot of humor in it. A humor that was aimed at the audience rather than being part of the dialogue between characters like in the original film.

Halloween 1978 is a slow burn focused entirely on building atmosphere, suspense and tension. H18 was constantly breaking the tension with lots of action and humor so that the audience does not get bored. It even has one-liners that don't fit the situation that are more suited for action movies.

Don't get me wrong, I like Halloween 2018 a lot, but there are things about it that annoys me.

 

[The Joker]

They don't have to make sense to you.
I am speaking subjectively that H18 looked more like an action movie to me than a slasher.

There was a lot of humor in it. A humor that was aimed at the audience rather than being part of the dialogue between characters like in the original film.

Halloween 1978 is a slow burn focused entirely on building atmosphere, suspense and tension. H18 was constantly breaking the tension with lots of action and humor so that the audience does not get bored. It even has one-liners that don't fit the situation that are more suited for action movies.

Don't get me wrong, I like Halloween 2018 a lot, but there are things about it that annoys me.

I know they don't have to. Its just usually when people make criticisms about a movie they are understandable even if you do not agree with them.

For example people disliking the Sartain twist. Some people liked it, a lot of people didn't. I personally didn't mind it. I liked how Sartain was like the flip side of Loomis. A psychiatrist who is obsessed with Michael but for entirely the wrong reasons. There was hints to it peppered throughout the movie that Sartain's view of Michael was more empathic and quite different to Loomis'. It didn't come out of the blue with no hints of a prelude that this guy was not quite right. I get why many people didn't care for it though.

Your criticisms like saying the humor destroyed a lot of tense scenes doesn't make sense to me because I can only cite once scene where it killed it. The rest of the time the humor did not interject itself into the middle of a tense scene. Just the Vicki death scene, and it bothered me as much as it did you because that could have been a truly intense scene. Michael back murdering another babysitter. But Julian's comedic "Oh s***" line when Michael emerges from the closet kills it sadly.

But again its the only tense scene where humor ruins it. All the other really good tense scenes like Michael's escape, the bathroom massacre of the journalists, Michael's door to door murder spree, the scene with Oscar and the motion sensors, the entire showdown at Laurie's house were all well done and had no humor thrown in to kill their tension. Ditto for the more somber character moments in the movie like Laurie's little breakdown at the restaurant.

There's a difference between humor not landing, and humor ruining tension. Stuff like Ray's peanut butter line was lame, but it wasn't in a scene where we're having a serious character moment, or a tense scene. That would have bothered me big time, too. There's a time and place for humor. For the most part they didn't have it in scenes where it should not have reared its head.

If it makes you feel any better Halloween Kills apparently keeps the humor tightly in check according to the people who saw the preview screenings last year. No peanut butter type lines, no moments of humor in the middle of a seriously tense scene etc.

 

[CadeSkywalker28]

I know Halloween Kills will have less humor, I follow every news and I read the leaked script before it was removed so i don't worry about the sequel.

When it comes to humor in H18, i didn't just mean humor in the intense scenes, but humor in general.

In the original Halloween, everything is serious, here the serious scenes are intersected with humorous scenes that are simply redundant, as I wrote, I don't watch these movies for humor.

The second thing is that the heroes are treated like badasses as in an action movie. These are no longer ordinary people who fight for their lives, but movie characters who throw one-liners where they have the upper hand.

This scene where Karen lures Michael by crying and it turns out that she just pretended and then
calmly and confidently says "I've got you".

I hated it.

You don't stay cool when Michael Myers is in front of you and I know it wasn't the original plan because Karen's whole past, training and shotgun are reshoots and therefore it doesn't make sense that for the entire third act, Karen is scared, and then calmly confronts Michael.

 

[Sithborg]

The second thing is that the heroes are treated like badasses as in an action movie. These are no longer ordinary people who fight for their lives, but movie characters who throw one-liners where they have the upper hand.

This scene where Karen lures Michael by crying and it turns out that she just pretended and then
calmly and confidently says "I've got you".

I hated it.

You don't stay cool when Michael Myers is in front of you and I know it wasn't the original plan because Karen's whole past, training and shotgun are reshoots and therefore it doesn't make sense that for the entire third act, Karen is scared, and then calmly confronts Michael.

Isn't that the entire deal with the final girl trope? Hell a staple of this movie series in general?

You don't have to like it. But I don't think your explanations are going to help others to understand.

 

[CadeSkywalker28]

What is there to explain?

There is a difference between the final girl who fights in spite of her fear, and the final girl who stay calm and throw one-liners.

Halloween used to have this element of realism, no one pretended to be a badass in front of Michael, only ran away from him and fought as a last resort.

 

[The Joker]

How does the final girl being badass or having a one liner make it any less realistic? One of the best final girls in the slasher genre, Sidney Prescott, has TONS of badass lines and fearless moments when confronting Ghostface. It didn't make her any less realistic or any less a great final girl.

If you just prefer your final girls to be scared but strong who fight back for their lives like Laurie in the original Halloween, I get the preference. But the ones who present moments of fearlessness and throw out some badass lines don't make them any less realistic.

Also the original Halloween had its moments of humor e.g. Loomis and his "Hey Lonnie get your ass away from there".

 

[CadeSkywalker28]

Have you just compared Halloween to Scream?

Halloween is a movie grounded in reality, hence the whole idea that every, even the most ordinary person we see every day may turn out to be a conscientious murderer.

Scream is a meta movie that comments on film reality, hence a different approach to the characters, to the protagonists.

Do you see the difference?

I'm not talking here about Scream or ANOES which I am a huge fan of. I wasn't saying the characters can't be badasses that throws one-liners, just that it doesn't fit Halloween .

The characters that throw one-liners are less realistic, because in reality when someone attacks you and even if you come out unscathed, all you do is shiver because of what happened, nothing else. That was the strength of Halloween, and that doesn't mean if another movie approaches it differently then it's worse.

I don't mind the one-liners and jokes in Scream, because this movie has a completely different tone to Halloween. I like Scream as much as ANOES and Halloween.

Different films have different approaches, create different reality and I enjoy them in different ways.

 

[Broseph44]

The fat Dr. Sartain putting on Michael’s mask was too much for me. That, I agree, was unnecessary.

That I agree on as well.

 

[antsman41]

I don't like Rob's edgy dialogue, but at least the movie had the right feel to it.

In H18, there are just as many cringe moments as there are edgy ones in RZH. On top of that, H18 has a too fast pace and really misplaced humor that ruined the tension in very good scenes.

Like Vicky's death. I still remember it today. Everything perfect, but then the kid who had previously been established as sassy, said "oh ****" and everyone in the theater laughed.

This ruined the whole scene for me. I don't watch Halloween for comic relief. I want to see how ordinary people are "scared" by Michael Myers and how they try to escape him and defend themselves.

H18 looked more like an action movie than a moody slasher.

I needed good laugh.

 

[CadeSkywalker28]

I needed good laugh.

Good for you.

 

[Closerframe]

I don't like Rob's edgy dialogue, but at least the movie had the right feel to it.

In H18, there are just as many cringe moments as there are edgy ones in RZH. On top of that, H18 has a too fast pace and really misplaced humor that ruined the tension in very good scenes.

Like Vicky's death. I still remember it today. Everything perfect, but then the kid who had previously been established as sassy, said "oh ****" and everyone in the theater laughed.

This ruined the whole scene for me. I don't watch Halloween for comic relief. I want to see how ordinary people are "scared" by Michael Myers and how they try to escape him and defend themselves.

H18 looked more like an action movie than a moody slasher.

I admire people who can find glimmers of gold among the crap that was Zombie’s spin on the franchise, but to say H18 was more of an action movie than a moody slasher that’s almost laughable. Sure, there’s a slow burn element to it for the first two quarters and suddenly goes full throttle in the final act, but that by no means makes it feel like an action movie.

The “misplaced” humor was distracting in some scenes, but even Zombie’s best scenes don’t hold a candle to them since his entire goal seems to be reducing Michael and Laurie to pieces of trash. I think I’ve mentioned this earlier in the thread, but Zombie literally took the fictional concept of who Michael is from Halloween: Resurrection and made it his actual backstory. He double downed on this in H2 which is why it is easily the worst in the franchise, in my opinion.

 

[CadeSkywalker28]

The “misplaced” humor was distracting in some scenes, but even Zombie’s best scenes don’t hold a candle to them.

And here you lost me. If you think that the best Daeg Faerch scenes as Michael are worth less than the worst scenes in H18, then... Well, we have nothing to talk about.

To be clear, i don't like Rob's dialogues either, but I'm not going to downplay what he has done well. Just because I criticizes certain things about H18 doesn't mean I don't like it, it's in my top 3 of the series.

But I'm a bit tired of praising H18 at the expense of other movies in the series and if someone wants to have a laugh, I will say that I value Halloween 4 much more than H18, which is in second place after the original.

 

[The Joker]

Yes I made a comparison between Halloween and Scream.

Halloween is not about how an ordinary person we see every day can turn into a murderer. Never ever was that the message of the movie. The movie was about babysitter murders. They wanted that because its something every American girl can relate to. Being a babysitter. We never got to know Michael as a person. We just got a brief back story that he killed when he was a kid, and then for the rest of the movie we have his psychiatrist telling us he is not a man, not human, that he is pure evil etc. Michael is not even portrayed in a realistic manner. Starting with the fact he can drive a car better than most even though he has been locked up since he was 6 years old. He can vanish in the blink of an eye in front of a washing line. He can take stabbings and bullets and walk away without a care. Carpenter himself even said they wanted to make him not quite human but practically a supernatural force.

Halloween is the vastly superior movie, Michael is much scarier than Ghostface, but Scream is more grounded in reality than Halloween is because their killers are very much realistic human beings, and what they do is much more plausible. They do not demonstrate anything that stretches credibility like Michael does. The fact that Scream has its characters more self aware thanks to the tropes of horror movies only adds to the realism of it.

When Ghostface gets shot we expect him to stay down (unless he is wearing a bullet proof vest). When Michael gets shot we expect him to get back up. That's the difference.

Sidney had her bad ass moments, but she did not come out of her encounters with Ghostface mentally unscathed much like Laurie didn't with Michael. By the time Scream 3 rolled around she was a reclusive hermit living in the mountains. She had major trust issues with people. Both franchises showed how trauma can affect someone.

I understand your preference for less humor. I just do not understand your assertion that it destroyed tension of many scenes when it didn't, or that the final girl having a bad ass moment makes it less realistic because it really doesn't.

 

[DarkKnight]

WOW.... I mean agree to disagree anyone? getting a bit harsh.

 

[Pittman4Two]

Yes I made a comparison between Halloween and Scream.

Halloween is not about how an ordinary person we see every day can turn into a murderer. Never ever was that the message of the movie. The movie was about babysitter murders. They wanted that because its something every American girl can relate to. Being a babysitter. We never got to know Michael as a person. We just got a brief back story that he killed when he was a kid, and then for the rest of the movie we have his psychiatrist telling us he is not a man, not human, that he is pure evil etc. Michael is not even portrayed in a realistic manner. Starting with the fact he can drive a car better than most even though he has been locked up since he was 6 years old. He can vanish in the blink of an eye in front of a washing line. He can take stabbings and bullets and walk away without a care. Carpenter himself even said they wanted to make him not quite human but practically a supernatural force.

I think the below video details what Michael is.

 

[shauner111]

Halloween 78 is not grounded in reality lol. How many times did he get shot and fell out of a window only to play another trick? He’s the boogeyman. As dark as it is, the movie is also playful. Michael’s sister sounds like she’s having an orgasm when she’s getting stabbed in the opening scene lmao. Let’s not get carried away with “Scream is an entirely different tone! Halloween is grounded in reality!”

Scream is over the top no doubt, from the score to the acting. But it literally treats Halloween as just a movie with rules that you can learn from. It’s much more realistic by comparison, even if they set up Laurie roaming her neighbourhood and chilling at home in a very realistic manner.

There’s humour all over the place in Halloween, it’s just balanced with creepy ****. Michael in fact has a dark sense of humour that is very childlike. Not unrealistic but it’s a huge part of Halloween. So yes I understand and agree with H18 laying on the jokes too thick, but there’s only a couple of moments that needed to be fixed. It’s no complete 180 from 78’. Btw the peanut butter line is supposed to be a lame attempt at a edgy dad joke. That’s who that character is from start to finish. I’d rather not have a character like that in a Halloween movie but people like that exist everywhere.

 

[Gothamsknight]

Don't really want to get into it, and while i certainly respect everybodys opinion and can understand if they didn't like the humor in halloween 2018, but there's literally nothing and I mean nothing in the RZ films that has an edge over Halloween 2018. People can nitpick the 2018 film all they want, but at it's core, it's far more true to Carpenters original vision then pretty much all the sequels.

 

[Closerframe]

We’re all fans of the series at the end of the day so we’re all entitled to convey what we love and don’t love. I think Halloween 3 is almost a masterpiece for goodness sakes. No hard feelings here!

 

[CadeSkywalker28]

So now we are going to praise H18 for being The Force Awakens of this series.

One more thing. RZH was not supposed to be (and even Carpenter did not want it), a remake of his film, but an original vision, and it was for good and bad.

Again, H18 is in my top3, but praising H18 and pretending to be so flawless you have to nitpick to find something wrong is a laughable for me.

 

[NotSoLongAgo]

Don't really want to get into it, and while i certainly respect everybodys opinion and can understand if they didn't like the humor in halloween 2018, but there's literally nothing and I mean nothing in the RZ films that has an edge over Halloween 2018. People can nitpick the 2018 film all they want, but at it's core, it's far more true to Carpenters original vision then pretty much all the sequels.

I thought RZ's hospital sequence (though it was a dream, which sucks) was pretty top tier.

But anyway, I agree. H18 is a total love-letter to Carpenter, James Jude Courtney was a badass Michael and they had great fan-service. I would say the writing was rough around the edges and it didn't balance the tone very well at times (the reshoots really showed), but for the most part, it was classic Halloween.

 

[Gothamsknight]

We’re all fans of the series at the end of the day so we’re all entitled to convey what we love and don’t love. I think Halloween 3 is almost a masterpiece for goodness sakes. No hard feelings here!

Halloween 3 is incredible to me as well haha.

I thought RZ's hospital sequence (though it was a dream, which sucks) was pretty top tier.

But anyway, I agree. H18 is a total love-letter to Carpenter, James Jude Courtney was a badass Michael and they had great fan-service. I would say the writing was rough around the edges and it didn't balance the tone very well at times (the reshoots really showed), but for the most part, it was classic Halloween.

Well said! and I hear that Halloween Kills fixes a lot of the small stuff that may not have worked for people in Halloween 2018 including the humor.

With all that being said, I'd say the 2018 film is my favorite of the sequels still.

 

[CadeSkywalker28]

Folks, I don't have a problem when someone thinks H18 is a masterpiece, the best sequel, etc.
But why do you praise this movie over and over and underestimate the value of the other movies in the series?

The fact that Rob Zombie wasn't trying to copy the original scene by scene, and only used certain elements of the original to create something else and that he decided to introduce two Michael's, well casted and played by Daeg and Tyler, and show the transformations of Michael, how he slowly loses contact with people and at the same time still maintains his feelings towards his sister. It is a well-conceived and presented idea.

The same goes for the grim atmosphere which is never compromised by anything, especially humor. the scenes between young Michael and Loomis in the hospital are awesome. Visually they are interesting, only in terms of music they fail, which is ironic considering Rob is a musician.

On Halloween 2, on the other hand, we get two very interesting things for which I respect this movie. We see for the first time what Michael does when it's not Halloween, so Michael is wandering aimlessly, he's dead, he's just waiting for Halloween to relive the night he killed his sister. The second thing is to depict Laurie's trauma, how from a joyful and relatively decent girl, she becomes a cynical wreckage of a human being who is haunted by the thought that she will become like her brother and that there is something wrong with her.

Criticize these movies, but don't say everything about them is bad and that H18 has "minor flaws" like humor. One more thing that reminded me too, I don't have a particular problem with Laurie in H18, but in my opinion her trauma is shown in a exaggerated way and they portrayed it a lot better in H20.

The H18 is really very good, but mainly because it imitates the original a lot. That's why it's in third place for me, and I value Halloween 4 higher, because it's much bolder. An intro without Carpenter's iconic music, yet so atmospheric and creating a unique Halloween mood. And then this ending, I know it's wasted in the H5, but I rate H4 here and this ending is brilliant.

So that no one would say that I am only complaining about H18, I will say that Michael Myers is brilliantly portrayed in this film, the cinematography and music are just perfect, lots of great scenes. Allyson is awesome and I can tell you that I wouldn't mind if Karen and Laurie weren't in the movie and she was the lead protagonist.

I will also refer to Scream and these comparisons. The difference between Michael and Ghostface is that Michael is scarier and nobody trash talk him. Ghostface? Yes, but not Michael.

In Halloween Ressurection we get the famous "Trick or treat mother****er", one liner that would fit perfectly in Scream, but not Halloween, So don't compare these movies and tell me that because something works on Scream it will also work on Halloween and vice versa. Each of them has a different tone and style.