A return to form for the horror franchise that refuses to be killed off.

What Blumhouse have done for the horror genre has not only been remarkable, their ruthless efficiency in doing so has been downright terrifying. If you’ve not been keeping your ear to the horror ground of late, Blumhouse Productions and founder Jason Blum have become hell-bent on genre domination through an ingenious strategy of low-cost filmmaking that has won numerous admirers while pocketing them the sort of profits that make Hollywood accountants weep.

While their profit margins show them as one of the biggest winners of the recent horror boom, what shouldn’t be overlooked is just how much influence they’ve had in engineering it. After earning almost $200 million on Paranormal Activity (from a measly $15,000 budget), Blumhouse showed the world just what can be achieved with a killer idea and a little faith in your filmmakers to pull it off, regardless of budget.

Blumhouse are nothing if not opportunistic however, and while they’re clearly more than happy making a mint from original content, becoming the saviours of the most iconic horror franchise in the game is just too big an opportunity to pass up.

In many ways, Halloween feels to be the dawn of a new era, not just for Blumhouse and the franchise itself, but for the entire horror genre. As a huge shot in the arm for a genre giant seemingly on its last legs, prepare yourselves for a horror resurrection Michael Myers himself would be proud of.

Four decades on from the mass murders that rocked the small town of Haddonfield, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) finds herself face to face once again with Michael Myers (Nick Castle), the masked boogie man who has haunted her for all these years. Consumed by fear and a burning desire for vengeance, Laurie must now put her years of survival training into effect to protect her family when Michael returns to finish the murderous job he started forty years ago.

Halloween isn’t the first, and certainly won’t be the last, iconic horror franchise to fall from grace, yet there are few who’ve had their name dragged through the mud quite so dramatically. As the movie that truly defined the slasher subgenre, Halloween was the perfect example of the pure terror you can inflict from the simplest of setups, however the purity of the product has become tainted over time through some of the most lacklustre sequels/reboots in horror history…and that’s saying something.

After the sheer, unmitigated horror (and not in a good way) of the Rob Zombie years, which appeared to hammer the last couple of rusty nails into the franchise’s coffin, something drastic needed doing to give Halloween at least a fighting chance of survival - and drastic is certainly what we get.

The entire Halloween series has, to put it mildly, become somewhat convoluted over the years, as unnecessary and illogical character developments to key figures and ridiculous narrative deviations saw the franchise become an absolute mess. It comes as a big relief, therefore, to see director David Gordon Green and scribe Danny McBride dispense with all the nonsense and take the biggest kitchen knife they could find to everything post-1978.

Drastic though it may be, this is the only way Halloween was ever going to survive in the current horror climate. This genuinely feels like Halloween’s last shot at redemption and if the franchise had any future with an audience whose patience had long since worn thin, now was the time to draw a bloody line under the sorry situation and get back to the heart of what made the original such a hit in the first place.

What puts Halloween above everything else released since 1978 is not just the clear reverence its creators have for the original, but their utmost dedication to both preserving its legacy and building upon it. In trimming the fat that had built up around the franchise for the past forty years, the filmmakers have created a much leaner product that’s as close to the spirit of the first film than we’ve ever been before.

Saying Halloween leans rather heavily on the nostalgia would be something of an understatement, but make no mistake about it, this is very much a film of the here and now. Halloween’s nostalgia is undeniable and at times irresistible, yet thankfully it holds back on the reverence just enough to avoid it obstructing the task at hand.

There are call-backs. Plenty of call-backs. Call-backs that will put a smile on the face of the many, many fans who’ve waited an age for a sequel - any sequel - that can hold a candle to the original. But, while it’s happy to embrace its past and the legacy of the first film, 2018’s Halloween shows admirable commitment to be its own beast entirely and to set out its stall for a brand-new generation of horror fans

The world building and character development on display feels logical, organic, and well earned; showing a true willingness on the part of those involved to avoid getting their head stuck firmly in the past. Of all the film’s cast, it’s Jamie Lee Curtis that benefits the most from this development, and the outcome of Laurie Strode’s growth feels wholly satisfying.

Ditching all the unnecessary nonsense that bogged the character down on previous Halloween instalments, it’s great to see the writers directly acknowledge the trauma that Laurie went through in the first film, while extrapolating that to its natural conclusion forty years later, as we find her a paranoid and emotionally broken shell. It’s an approach that works well within the confines of Halloween’s overarching narrative and one that allows the film to resonate in ways the franchise never has before.

Moreover, the film’s focus on the devastating generational effect of such trauma plays out exceptionally, as Curtis is ably assisted by Judy Greer and Andi Matichak, who play Laurie’s estranged daughter and granddaughter respectively. While the ramifications of Michael’s heinous acts may be all too easily brushed off in previous Halloween efforts, the knock-on effect of the abuse here on three generations of Strode women feels utterly genuine and completely of the moment.

For the most part, Halloween’s many nods to the original avoid the hollowness you often get from nostalgia-heavy efforts eager to cash in on audience recognition. While it’s certainly fan service, it all feels well-earned and from the moment John Carpenter’s iconic theme hits like a knife to the gut after an opening scene that’s among the tensest of the entire franchise, you know you’re on safe ground.

While much of the credit for this back-to-basics approach must go to Blumhouse for allowing it to happen in the first place, you must give a huge tip of the hat to David Gordon Green for having the strength of conviction to keep it simple, while possessing the skill to pull it off convincingly.

Along with writer Danny McBride, Green’s affection for the first film is clear for all to see, yet it’s in his keen eye for the technical side of horror filmmaking that the director replicates the feel and tone of Carpenter’s original while supplementing it with a distinctly modern aesthetic. Green sure knows how to shoot a good horror and is clearly aware of what made the original Halloween tick as a visual product.

The camerawork, cinematography, and editing are exceptional and pleasingly reminiscent of the original, as Green pulls back from the all-out gorefest the franchise had become (thanks Rob Zombie), to aim for something a little shrewder. The result is something that crawls under your skin far more successfully than anything we’ve seen from the series in a long, long time.

Of course, the film isn’t scared of a drop of blood or a decapitation or two, yet Green certainly knows the power of suggestion when necessary. With admirable restraint, the director allows many of Michael’s murders to play out around corners or just out of frame, encouraging our imagination to join the horrific dots. Even the incredible single-shot sequence, in which we helplessly follow a Michael Myers killing spree through a buzzing Haddonfield neighbourhood on Halloween night, keeps things admirably suggestive.

While the film’s impeccable horror tone can’t be faulted, its sense of humour is a little more hit and miss. Pulling Halloween into a comedic realm it’s never really ventured before (at least never willingly), it may come as a shock to discover just how funny the film actually is, yet just one look at the credits - and Danny McBride’s name in particular - and there should be little surprise.

With dialogue seemingly ripped from the pages of an Eastbound & Down script, the laughs can be a little awkward at times, as jokes clash with the horror, taking the edge off its impact. Thankfully however, when the humour clicks it really clicks, becoming a welcome addition to a franchise that has felt as po-faced as Michael’s infamous mask for quite some time.

Regardless of the odd wobble, Halloween walks the thinnest of lines between humour and horror successfully, helped immeasurably by a Jamie Lee Curtis performance that’s equal parts tragic, vulnerable, and powerful, while never losing sight of the need for a sense of humour. Her take on Laurie forty years on and mired deep in a pit of PTSD is truly heart-breaking, yet Curtis balances this beautifully with a steely bad-ass defiance and a wry sense of fun that caries the entire film.

Opposite her, Michael is an absolute force of nature. As much an unstoppable killing machine as he was in the original, little attempt is made to add any unnecessary dimension to the character - and wisely so. Despite the briefest flickers of something approaching humanity amidst his one-take murdering spree, this is Michael Myers boiled down to his essence and it’s utterly terrifying.

Despite a silly slasher trope here and there, and an odd narrative misstep in the film’s final act that briefly threatens to derail things, Halloween’s plot is tight, tense, and downright terrifying. This simplified approach delivers where no other sequel or reboot has, producing a lean, mean narrative that offers exactly what you want from a Halloween movie – pure, unfiltered horror.

With horror in the best place it’s been in for quite some time, this is the perfect moment for a Halloween comeback – and what a comeback it is. Simple though it may seem in hindsight, what Blumhouse have done in resuscitating a lifeless franchise is nothing short of miraculous. By doubling down on what made the original so ruthlessly effective, Halloween goes back to the drawing board to offer audiences a hit of horror nostalgia that feels refreshingly modern.

Keeping things simple, Blumhouse have taken a no-frills stab at a horror franchise that was in real danger of dying out altogether. While the honed approach offers nothing particularly new, Halloween effectively and efficiently expands on the original’s world with smart, organic character development, while tentatively setting up what could be a full-blown franchise resurrection. David Gordon Green and Danny McBride may seem like odd choices to reboot the series given their background, yet despite a couple of wobbles with the humour and the plot, they excel themselves. With the return of John Carpenter in something more than a passing mention in the credits and Jamie Lee Curtis back in full force, it’s just great to see love poured into the franchise once again. At this point in time, like Mike Myers himself, Halloween is nigh on unkillable.