Halloween 2018 (HalloGREEN) isn’t the perfect return to form for The
Shape, his Peeping Tom antics have been replaced by quick mostly random
kills. If anything, the new incarnation
of Michael Myers represents a perfect amalgam of the sequel versions of The
Shape; a robotic killing machine slowly walking from house to house on
Halloween randomly killing people in his path.
His supernatural elements have been down played but there is still an
aura of mystery about him; we are presented with the mere shape of a man,
refusing to speak, defined only by killing.
The recent blu-ray release of the film included several glossy studio
produced bonus features that give a quick look at the behind the scenes making
of the film, the most notable bonus feature being the deleted and extended
scenes. What struck me about these
scenes is that they all aped the original film in some way, paying homage to
one movie or another, like the cut shower scene that plays out like the shower
scene in Psycho. It was a fun nod, but
not really needed in a film chock full of homages and fan letters to the
Halloween franchise. There is a deleted
scene of a hanging dog, perhaps paying homage to the poor pooch that Michael
ate in the original movie, but again superfluous and not needed, a pace killer
in an already uneven film. It’s unclear
if Michael kills the dog to eat from it, or if it’s merely to display in
Haddonfield to scare the local residents as kind of a grim impromptu deco art
piece.
I loved the third act, but some of what made the original movie
effective as a creepster was its slow burn; Michael slowly circling in on
Haddonfield and stalking his victims, setting up his Halloween ritual with
Judith’s gravestone and Laurie’s friends, that creeping methodical approach was
paramount to the success and atmosphere of the original. HalloGREEN is more
contemporary in its approach, Michael doesn’t spend as much time setting up the
pieces as he does knocking them down like an animal unleashed from its cage.
In the original Dr. Loomis’s heavy-handed talk
about pure evil in the original made Michael seem more supernatural in a way as
if his soul was consumed completely by some foreign and unknowable
darkness. This movie seems to ground him
a little more, Dr. Sartain asserts he can speak but chooses not to. That suggested to me that Michael’s act was a
deliberate one; he’s more than a puppet on the strings of some dark entity,
that he purposely chose to separate himself from humanity, perhaps like a dark
sorcerer practicing black magic attempting to elevate him or herself in the
realms of chaos away from humanity, away from any center. Practitioners of black chaos magic are said
to focus on a disturbing event or image during ritual, something that tears
down the fabric of morally relative to support their personal praxis and
further their elevation in the spiritual realm; perhaps Michael is practicing a
form of this, with his focus on recreating the murder of Judith, a dark act that
defined him ever since. If anything is
certain, Michael deliberately has separated himself from the rest of humanity,
shedding form and social standing to become a sick caricature of man.
LAURIE WAS RIGHT, this world is a nightmare, we lie to ourselves to sleep at night. Lying to yourself is fundamental to a sound mind, horror grounds us in this society of comfort, brings us back to the cold harsh landscape of this world where nobody is equal, nobody cares, and all we have are our dreams and hopes and lies to fend off insanity in the face of utter meaninglessness and nihilism.
Depression is the default mindset of the
woke; only through defining ourselves through meaning and purpose are we given
any hope of shaping the world in our image, but the horror will always
remain. The horror of reality is a perpetual monkey on your back, placate
it with purpose. Feed it with horror fantasy, but balance it with real
experience, learn to live on the fringes of civilization as the modern world collapses; embrace the horror of
nature, give yourself to the frenzied ecstasy of fear in the night. Learn
from the night creatures, mimic their ways, for the secret wisdom of the world
is whispered through the wind in their wings and written in the blood on their
claws.
When every institution fails In the end the only thing that can save us from the fear of the boogeyman, of the night, of the steady march of death, is the true love and connection of a family. of blood. of tribe. we cannot hide from it, it will find us in our most sacred and secure spots. its inevitable, like fate.