Halloween comes early this weekend as the new Halloween movie opens in theaters.
With the opening just days away, new reviews have started to appear. So far, it sounds like the film is going to be a welcome return to form for the venerable slasher series.
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Halloween currently has an 84 percent fresh rating from review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes. The critical consensus reads, “Halloween largely wipes the slate clean after decades of disappointing sequels, ignoring increasingly elaborate mythology in favor of basic – yet still effective – ingredients.”
Halloween is directed by David Gordon Green from a script he co-wrote with Jeff Fradley and Danny McBride. Jamie Lee Curtis returns to the franchise as Laurie Strode, as does original Michael Myers actor Nick Castle. They’re joined by Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, Will Patton, and Virginia Gardner.
Keep reading to see what critics are thinking about the new Halloween movie. Halloween opens on October 19th.
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
“That Green’s sequel works as well as it does — it’s still a slasher movie — is due only in part to the director and his collaborators’ copycat admiration for Carpenter’s blueprint. Mostly it’s the troubled times we live in that allows this energizing, elemental horror film to touch a raw nerve for #MeToo. We watch a woman call a male monster to account for her own lasting trauma. That’s too real to laugh off as Hollywood make-believe. We’re living it.” – Peter Travers, RollingStone
Mara Reinstein, Us Weekly
“The new generation of Halloween watchers may be disappointed that Meyers doesn’t SnapChat his murders or traverse into the Dark Web. The film does not unspool on a series of laptop and iPhone screens. I say there’s something appealing, even comforting, about a throwback horror flick that’s overtly low-rent. Back story and ultra-meta quips be damned! Besides, I guarantee no other entry this year will star a 59-year-old female barking at her loved ones to get down in the panic room underneath her kitchen. If the bogey man somehow manages to come back after this latest face-off, at least we know she’s waiting. What a treat, indeed.” – Mara Reinstein, Us Weekly
Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post
“Most importantly, “Halloween” recovers its long-lost gravitas and self-respect. It makes us remember why we loved Carpenter’s original in the first place: It was artful, frightening and supremely well-acted — not Scream 4.’ – Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post
Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times
“There is zero originality in all this mimicry, but there is an unusual and highly effective sense of purpose. The single-mindedness with which this “Halloween” ties itself to its landmark predecessor isn’t strictly a matter of fan service, though that commercial imperative is certainly present. It feeds into an overarching narrative ethos that says Michael Myers — an avatar of pure, banal, motiveless evil — will kill and kill again in ways that are not just inevitable but borderline predictable. And if you know this in your bones, the way Laurie does, you have a slightly better chance of turning the tables.” – Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times
Jake Coyle, Associated Press
“Green, the sometimes brilliant, sometimes confounding filmmaker of art-house indies (“George Washington”), broader comedies (“Pineapple Express”) and, more recently, a few starry studio projects (“Our Brand Is Crisis”), can’t recreate the eeriness of Carpenter’s original. But he pumps more blood into the story, both literally and figuratively. Foggy nights and gas-station bathrooms turn predictably gory, more so than the original. But the scenes that fall between those foreboding, twinkling piano notes have far more warmth and spirit than you’d expect. You almost wish Green — easily the most talented filmmaker in the franchise since Carpenter — was instead making something original here on the same streets, with the same cast (including the scene-stealing Miles Robbins) and none of the skull crushing.” – Jake Coyle, Associated Press
Brian Truitt, USA Today
“By staying true only to the initial narrative, this Halloween solidly ranks as the best chapter since the first – not exactly the highest bar – mostly by making Laurie (a remarkable Jamie Lee Curtis, whose last appearance in the series was 2002’s Halloween: Resurrection) anything but a victim. And while it sticks mainly to the usual successful template, sending Michael on a slashing, slicing murder spree through Haddonfield, Ill., Green’s worthy revamp is also a nuanced look at mass tragedy in America through the lens of a survivor forever haunted by one deadly incident.” – Brian Truitt, USA Today
Barry Hertz, Globe and Mail
“Gordon Green, along with regular collaborator Danny McBride (whose comic sensibilities are threaded nicely throughout the script), isn’t interested in reinventing the knife so much as he is in ensuring it’s used with the same precision and unrelenting terror as Carpenter wielded it. The result is almost the Platonic ideal of a slasher-reboot – it’s fierce, it’s lean, it’s mean, and it has at least three first-pumping ‘Hell, yeah!’ moments. Hopefully, producers will never, ever have to make another one.” – Barry Hertz, Globe and Mail
Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out
“What elevates Halloween beyond mere fan service is the presence of Jamie Lee Curtis, whose willowy Laurie Strode has been converted, Sarah Connor–style, into a shotgun-toting shut-in with more than a hint of crazy about her. That’s a great reason to return to the universe of Halloween: Everyone’s waving around a gun these days, and the idea that the survivor of the so-called ‘Babysitter Murders’ would, 40 years later, become a militia-worthy nut with murderous instincts of her own has a sad symmetry to it. Laurie tells us she’s prayed for the day that Michael would escape from the loony bin, so she can have her vengeance. ‘Well, that was a dumb thing to pray for,’ a cop replies. But we’ve prayed for it, too.” – Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out
Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly
“Instead, the movie mostly works because it’s so fundamental, and funny too: Michael still never speaks; his mask and his slow, deadly, deliberate walk say everything they need to. At 59, Curtis seems to have fully arrived in her role as a midnight-madness queen, and she has a great time in jeans and a grey fright wig, swinging her shotgun around and screaming at everyone to get in the safe room.” – Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly
Katie Walsh, Nerdist
“For all of the deep and fascinating semiotic analysis of this film, it’s also just a great Halloween movie. Matichak proves to be a perfect final girl as Allyson, cut exactly from her grandmother’s cloth: tough, smart, and principled. The film is stunningly shot, in highly stylized, beautiful images that never overwhelm the storytelling. And the score, by John Carpenter himself, as well as his son Cody Carpenter and Daniel A. Davies, is a masterpiece that will send chills of pleasure up your spine. It’s everything in a Halloween film that inspires us to return, again and again, but the reversal, reimagining and reinterpretation of these elements is what truly thrills in this new iteration.” – Kate Walsh, Nerdist
