Angela H.
- Nov 1, 2021
- 9 min read

Halloween Kills (2021) | Discussion, Recommendations & Spoilers | Film Review-Horror

Halloween Kills (2021) is an American supernatural horror film written by Scott Teems, Danny McBride and David Gordon Green and directed by David Gordon Green. The film stars Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Andy Matichak, Will Patton, Dylan Arnold and Anthony Michael Hall. James Jude Courtney, Nick Castle and Airon Armstrong all play The Shape, also known as Michael Myers. The film was released in American theaters on October 15, 2021 and distributed by Universal Pictures.

The beginning of the film is a continuation of the prior film, Halloween (2018). We follow Cameron (Dylan Arnold) as he talks to a friend on the phone about his behavior at the Halloween party. It is apparent he regrets cheating on his now ex-girlfriend Allyson (Andy Matichak) and tells his friend he needs to make things right with her. As Cameron nears a fence, he sees Officer Hawkins (Will Patton) lying on the pavement beyond the fence. He goes to help Officer Hawkins, screaming for help. Officer Hawkins tells Cameron he should have killed Michael Myers when he had a chance and regrets not doing so Halloween night of 1978.

We are then transported back in time to Halloween night of 1978 and find Officer Hawkins and his partner walking through the neighborhood in Haddonfield, trying to find Michael Myers. They eventually decide to go to Michael's old house, figuring he'd probably return there. They get to the Myers' house and split up, with Officer Hawkins' partner going upstairs. Michael attacks Hawkins' partner and chokes him from behind. Hawkins hears the commotion and comes running, only to accidentally shoot his partner in the neck instead of Michael.

At this point I thought to myself, "Really? What are you doing with a gun, buddy?" That shot was so bad it's like he turned his head away and covered his eyes, then took the shot. Then I thought to myself as his partner was sliding to floor, if I were directing this, I'd have the partner say, "Ooooaaaaffff" as he slides to the floor because only a damn oaf would make a shot like that.

Officer Hawkins shoots at Michael a few more times for good measure as Michael heads down the stairs, missing every single shot. I mean, no wonder Michael gets away, that damn oaf is the worst shot. The only thing he actually shot was his partner. I'd take his gun away and give him a wooden gun like in The Other Guys (2010) until he can figure out how not to be a dumbass.

After his partner dies, Hawkins heads outside to try to find out where Michael went and finds other (actually competent) cops outside, holding Michael at bay. Dr. Samuel Loomis (Donald Pleasance) is outside too and he wants to make ground beef out of Michael's head. If it were me, I'd say, "Good choice Dr. Loomis, I'll go get the flamethrower and RPG." That's not how it goes down, of course, and Hawkins decides to let Michael be taken away to an asylum instead of killing him.

Returning to the present, we see that several members of the community are gathered together in a bar to celebrate Halloween. Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall) tells the patrons of the bar the story of Michael Myers and everyone tells their own recollection of the horrors of Halloween night in 1978.

We are then transported to Laurie Strode's (Jamie Lee Curtis) house and find that Michael is still in the basement of Laurie's house and it is still on fire. The fire department has shown up to heroically put out the flames, only to discover Michael is alive. Seeing as how no one told them there was a maniac in the basement, they get killed one-by-one in kind of hilarious ways. One of the ways the firemen were killed was that when Michael was heading towards them, about five feet away, they try to spray him with the fire hose and it does nothing. It's basically like someone took the sprayer from the kitchen sink and sprayed him judging by all the absolutely nothing it did.

Meanwhile, Laurie, her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and Karen's daughter, Allyson, all head to Haddonfield Memorial Hospital to get Laurie's wounds tended to. The doctors perform surgery on Laurie, but I'm not so sure they know what they are doing. I mean, I've seen Botched (2014-Present) and surgeries are usually done with the lights on and they aren't that sloppy. I mean, I was waiting for someone to put a sandwich down on Laurie, like The Sphinx in Gone in 60 Seconds (2000). At that point, I pretty much assumed Laurie was going to have some complications later from her surgery.

We are then introduced to some of Laurie's neighbors, an older couple who spend their time drinking and flying mini drones. I also like to get tanked and fly mini drones, so I identified with these two immediately. Anyway, of course Michael breaks into their house, breaks their mini drone (Really, dude? The drone? Whyyyy?) and kills them.

For some reason, while the wife is dying, Michael cuts off the husband's head and proceeds to take almost every knife they have and stab the man in the chest. I kind of lost it because all I could think of was if I was the wife, I'd say, "What the fuck is going on right now?" Then, I mean, because I'm already dying and the shit-talking never stops for me, I'd say, "Dude, you could have tried out better knives at Williams-Sonoma, why do you gotta try them out on my husband's decapitated corpse you troglodyte?" But you know, I didn't write the film.

We go back to the bar to see the patrons of the bar watching a news report about the escape of Michael Myers and they are alarmed (rightly so). Two of the patrons of the bar go outside to get their car and leave. The husband tells his wife he forgot his stethoscope, so he goes back in the bar while she goes to start the car. The windows are fogged up and she realizes someone is in the backseat. Already frightened by the news report, she flees the car screaming, and tells the bar patrons Michael Myers is in her backseat. Tommy grabs the bar owner's baseball bat named Huckleberry (I mean, do you really want an up-close personal confrontation with Michael behind the wheel of a car) and heads out the door to confront the person in the car.

I mean, personally, I'd rather get run over by a car than experience Michael's lead foot, which I've heard he named "The Cantaloupe Crusher" after his exploits in the first film, but Tommy Doyle doesn't care about "The Cantaloupe Crusher" or Michael's magical ability to take hit after hit without breaking any bones. Come to think of it, maybe he doesn't have bones. He's probably like that guy in Kung Pow: Enter the Fist (2002) who got his stomach plug knocked out. Michael Myers is basically built out of bologna or some shit. An real Oscar Mayer nightmare.

But, I digress.

Anyway, the person in the car tries their best to get away and eventually crashes the car around the corner. As the patrons check the car, they see whoever it was has ran away. It turns out it's not Michael, it's one of he inmates who escaped in the first film.

We then are introduced to another one of Laurie's neighbors and they are just a short distance away from the couple with the mini drone (it turns out it is the Myer's house, but renovated to not look like a hobo den). It seems that Michael might be heading to the hospital to kill Laurie and he will slice and dice at will (or just for fun, I mean, who knows what Michael's motives are, he's made bologna, yo), so he is taking a direct route to the hospital if he is, in fact, heading there.

Back at the hospital, we see Allyson looking into a room in the upper part of the hospital that looks like a morgue. I can't lie, I've never seen that shit before in my life. I know there's a lot of dead people in Haddonfield, but maybe put them somewhere where people can't just walk by and look in. Also, cover them up.

The incompetence in Haddonfield is unreal. Botched sandwich surgeries, Oscar Mayer making people out of bologna and setting them loose, cops that close their eyes and shoot their partners instead of the perpetrator, and ex-boyfriends that put your phone in pudding. I mean, what the fuck is going on in Haddonfield?

The rest of the film follows the community as they band together to try and take Michael Myers' down and finally stop the terror that has been reining over them since 1978.

If You Like This Film, You May Also Like:

Halloween (2018)

Friday the 13th (1980)

Friday the 13th, Part 2 (1981)

Halloween (1978)

Halloween II (1981)

Discussion:

*Discussion contains spoilers

After Allyson sees the medley of fresh corpses in the makeshift morgue, you know, just hanging out on the upper floor of the hospital, we see Tommy Doyle and Cameron's dad, Lonnie (Robert Longstreet) gather community members to take Michael down.

Of course, these community members are following the incompetent theme of Haddonfield and they try to kill Michael in various ways, failing miserably and hilariously. The wife from the bar tries to shoot Michael while he is sitting in a car and as she approaches the driver's side of the SUV, Michael kicks the door and it hits her hand, causing her to shoot herself in the head. It was so comical I laughed for at least five minutes.

Eventually, the inmate who stole the car makes his way to the hospital for safety and the idiots of the community start to point out that the inmate is Michael Myers. Um...that guy is built like a hobbit and runs like a freak with his arms out to his side.

Now, dimwits of Haddonfield, does Michael:

A. Run away from danger like a freak

B. Look like a damn hobbit in his Jiffy Lube jump suit and William Shatner mask or

C. Wear an inmate outfit?

No, no he doesn't. He walks casually but purposefully towards danger, like a real sociopath would. Michael Myers is the honey badger of the animal world; in other words, he don't give a shit.

The idiots of Haddonfield decide that this hobbity inmate is definitely Michael Myers and chase him down in the hospital until he flies out the window from the highest floor like Peter Pan. But you know, without the much-needed magical fairy dust, making him hit the ground at warp speed and turning him into spaghetti Bolognese.

They feel bad afterwards, of course, when their small pea brains reboot and they realize that the hobbit was not, in fact, Michael Myers, but they are still determined to find Michael and disassemble his bologna corpse.

As Michael makes his way into the couple's house (his old house), he kills them. I mean, it's his house, who cares if it was condemned and he hadn't paid property taxes, ever. People made out of bologna don't care about property taxes. They just don't.

It's pretty funny because one guy gets a cheese knife and he's determined to fight Michael off with it. I mean, it's dull and like two inches long (that's what she said), so...it's like he said to his husband or partner, "I'm planning on dying in the next two minutes, so don't call the cops or run out of the house or anything sensible like that." The other guy gets a regular big-boy chef's knife, but you can't kill a fully-grown bologna monster, so he dies too.

Meanwhile, Allyson and what's-his-face, oh yeah, Cameron leave the hospital and go to the Myer's house with Lonnie to try to kill Michael, since they figure he'd return there if he wasn't heading to the hospital. Lonnie goes in alone like a halfwit and immediately gets killed (duh).

Allyson and Cameron follow when they hear a shot (even though Lonnie told them to stay in the car) and they immediately split up like morons. Cameron gets killed by Michael and Allyson falls down the stairs like the clown she is and breaks her leg. It seems like Allyson is about to die, but Karen shows up and stabs Michael in the back with a pitchfork.

Karen takes Michael's mask off and runs away with it like the school bully and leads Michael into a trap. The community has gathered with ineffective tools like potato peelers and jar openers to kill Michael (not really, but the tools they have are just as bad). They beat Michael up and he's seemingly dead, but he's made out of bologna and you can't kill processed meat. Shame no one called me for the flamethrower and RPG. Try and survive an RPG to the chest, Mike.

So...of course Michaels survives his bologna beating and gets up and kills everyone. Then he basically teleports to the Myer's house and stabs Karen until she falls down. I have no idea why Karen is upstairs and not actively burning the house down. I mean, I'd have my flamethrower backpack on and my Molotov's out, burning down that house of bologna as soon as Michael was trapped by the mob. What's he going to do? Collect on his non-existent insurance and rebuild the house? No. He's going to have to get a damn job and get his own house, that's what. He can work at Jiffy Lube, seeing as how he's already dressed for it (shrugs).

I'm not convinced Karen is dead though. She's not in the hospital morgue on the third floor, so there's still a chance. After Michael lays down the chef's knife on Karen, he's apparently done with his stab-a-thon and turns and stares out his bedroom window like a total freak, thus ending the film.

My Thoughts:

I really liked this film. I liked all the references to Halloween (1978) and Halloween II (1981) and even though the characters made bad decisions, they were decisions that seemed plausible in the Halloween universe. I mean, of course townspeople would be incompetent as they aren't trained fighters and of course the cops wouldn't be used to fighting a supernatural bologna being. Who would?

I liked this film way more than the Halloween (2018). I read that a lot of people think that this film is super gory, but I think Halloween (2018) is way more gory than this one. This one was more fun and felt more nostalgic.