The Night He Came Back… for a Decent Script
Some movies are scary. Some are nostalgic. And then there are those rare few that make you want to high-five your sibling halfway through the slaughter — Halloween (2018) falls gloriously into that category. Maybe I have a soft spot for this one because it was the last time my brother and I saw a movie together in theaters, nervously laughing every time the iconic score kicked in. Or maybe it’s because David Gordon Green somehow did the impossible — he made a Halloweensequel that didn’t suck.
Either way, this movie slices through forty years of franchise nonsense like Michael Myers through a babysitter. It’s brutal, funny, surprisingly heartfelt, and — dare I say — the best use of a kitchen knife since Julia Child.
Plot: A Love Letter Written in Blood
In case you’ve blocked out every Halloween sequel involving psychic connections, sibling retcons, and Busta Rhymes doing kung fu (and who could blame you), Halloween (2018) hits the reset button hard. It’s a direct sequel to John Carpenter’s 1978 masterpiece, ignoring everything else like a toxic ex.
Michael Myers has been locked away in Smith’s Grove for forty years, occasionally mumbling through his mask (or not at all, because he’s too cool for dialogue). Two true-crime podcasters show up to taunt him with his mask — because if horror movies have taught us anything, it’s that white people will literally provoke a serial killer for content.
Meanwhile, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) has turned her PTSD into an Olympic sport. She’s spent decades fortifying her home, stockpiling guns, and alienating her daughter, Karen (Judy Greer). She’s basically what would happen if Home Alone starred a 60-year-old woman with trauma and a drinking problem.
Of course, Michael escapes during a bus transfer — because every Halloween film must legally include one. Soon, he’s back in Haddonfield, carving his way through suburban bliss while Laurie and her estranged family gear up for one last showdown.
It’s simple, efficient, and refreshingly devoid of supernatural gibberish. No cults, no telepathy — just one angry man, one angry woman, and 106 minutes of mutual catharsis through homicide.
Jamie Lee Curtis: Grandma With a Shotgun
Let’s be clear: Jamie Lee Curtis doesn’t just act in Halloween — she dominates it. Her Laurie Strode is a fascinating blend of fragility and ferocity. She’s haunted but hardened, broken but unbent. Think Sarah Connor with more emotional depth and better hair.
Curtis gives us a survivor who isn’t saintly — she’s paranoid, overbearing, and sometimes flat-out unpleasant. And yet, you get it. She’s been waiting for forty years to kill the man who stole her life. She’s less “final girl” and more “final boss.”
Her interactions with her daughter and granddaughter are heartbreaking and hilarious in equal measure. When Karen says she had a “normal childhood,” you know she’s lying — no kid who learned gun safety before kindergarten had it easy.
And when Laurie finally comes face-to-mask with Michael, the film delivers one of the most satisfying payoffs in slasher history. She’s not running anymore. She’s hunting.
Michael Myers: The Strong, Silent Type (With a Hobby in Architecture)
James Jude Courtney’s Michael Myers is good— a perfect blend of menace and mundanity. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t run. He just exists, like an existential crisis in overalls.
One of the film’s best moments comes early on, during a long tracking shot of Michael casually walking from house to house, picking up random weapons and murdering people as if he’s doing errands. It’s horrifying, but also kind of funny — he’s like a murderous postman on his route.
He’s older, sure, but not slower. In fact, there’s something even scarier about middle-aged Michael. He’s got dad energy now — the calm, unflinching patience of a man who’s seen it all and just wants some peace and quiet… preferably through the sound of people screaming.
And that mask? Still perfect. Blank, emotionless, iconic. The best part of Blumhouse’s Halloween is that it remembers: Michael doesn’t need a motive. He kills because he can. Evil doesn’t explain itself — it just breathes heavily.
The Tone: Horror With a Side of Humor
This Halloween walks a razor-thin line between horror and dark comedy, and it nails it. Danny McBride’s fingerprints are all over the script — not in the form of cheap jokes, but in those painfully human, absurd moments that make you laugh because you’re nervous.
Take the scene with the babysitter and the kid she’s watching — it’s one of the funniest and scariest sequences in the movie. The kid’s banter (“Send Dave first!”) feels natural, even as Michael looms in the shadows. It’s the perfect reminder that horror works best when it’s grounded in real life — and when your real life involves babysitting during a killing spree.
The film also treats its kills with artistry. Every stab, bludgeon, and impalement feels precise — not gratuitous. You get the sense that Michael’s not just killing people; he’s expressing himself.
Direction & Music: Carpenter’s Children Come Home
David Gordon Green directs like a man who’s seen every bad Halloween sequel and personally vowed revenge. The pacing is deliberate but never dull, the atmosphere drenched in autumnal menace. Every leaf crunch feels like a countdown to doom.
And the music — oh, that music. John Carpenter himself returned, teaming up with his son Cody and Daniel Davies to deliver a score that’s equal parts nostalgic and electrifying. It’s the cinematic equivalent of hearing your favorite song remixed by the person who wrote it.
When that familiar synth hits as Michael appears, you don’t just feel fear — you feel history. My brother and I practically grinned every time the theme played, partly because it’s iconic, and partly because we knew someone on screen was about to have a very bad day.
Family Drama Meets Knife Drama
What makes Halloween (2018) so good isn’t just the gore — it’s the generational trauma baked into the story. Laurie, Karen, and Allyson represent three stages of survival.
Laurie is obsession. Karen is denial. Allyson is ignorance — the blissful kind that ends around the moment you find your boyfriend cheating and your babysitter dismembered in the same night.
The movie somehow makes all this emotional without getting sentimental. You care about these women, even as they’re boarding up windows and loading shotguns. It’s like Little Women — if Jo had a flamethrower.
The Final Showdown: A House of Traps and Trauma
The climax of Halloween is everything you want it to be — brutal, clever, and cathartic. Laurie’s fortress of paranoia becomes a literal trap, her trauma weaponized against her monster.
When she locks Michael in the basement, says “Goodbye, Michael,” and sets the place ablaze, it’s not just a victory — it’s therapy through fire. Sure, we all know he’s not dead (you can’t keep a good boogeyman down), but for a moment, it feels like closure.
It’s poetic, in a flaming-horror-icon kind of way.
Final Thoughts: The Shape of Things to Come
Halloween (2018) isn’t just a great horror sequel — it’s a great movie. It honors Carpenter’s original while carving out its own identity (pun absolutely intended). It’s tense, beautifully shot, and surprisingly emotional.
Jamie Lee Curtis delivers the performance of her career, Michael Myers scary again, and the film proves that sometimes the simplest stories — a knife, a house, and forty years of fear — are the most effective.
Watching it in theaters with my brother, surrounded by gasps and laughter, felt like closing a loop that began in 1978. It’s rare that a film manages to resurrect both a franchise and your sense of childhood wonder — or, in this case, horror.
So here’s to Laurie Strode, the queen of final girls. Here’s to Michael Myers, the silent slasher who never needed a motive. And here’s to Halloween (2018) — the film that reminded us all that sometimes, going home again is the scariest thing you can do.
Final Rating: ★★★★★
(Five out of five flaming basements — because sometimes, vengeance really is best served hot.)
