Tag: Halloween 2018 book review

Halloween: A movie review of Blumhouse’s H40

Introduction

I don’t want to start off with the typical cliché of the fact that the Halloween movies are 40 years old at this point and go through all the old bullshit about how so many movies have been made, including the remake and all that other fun stuff. I’m going straight to the point and talk about the fact that this is the movie people have a wanting for a long time.

Synopsis / Plot

Michael Myers breaks out of sanitarium, terrorizing Haddonfield, 40 years to the day of the original babysitter murders.

Characters

The characters are only kind developed but once we get into the bottom below where I praise the acting you can find yourself being like well, the acting makes up for only so-so character development.

Acting

I think it’s spot-on even from the most bit characters, which is a new trend in Hollywood that has been happening the last couple years, which I find to be an extremely interesting and very much a pleasurable thing. Backround characters are treated as something of note. The annoying aspect of background characters being bad actors always make for a weak movie and this is definitely moving in the right direction from all those old sequels.

Kills

I highly enjoyed all of the kills. Now, none of them are particularly interesting, you’ve seen things like this before but I enjoyed that because lately, especially with the Saw movies, Hollywood has been getting very over-the-top with their kills in horror movies and it’s ultimately destroying the entire horror industry. None of it is scary, and it’s absurd as I pointed out. This movie got it right! it had some up front and personal kills mixed with the Quentin Tarantino aspect of shying away from showing everything but letting you build it up in your mind. This is the right way to do a movie! Afterthought on this: a lot of people complained about the infant crying after his mom was killed was a missed opportunity. I disagree, it was more brutal than a kill would of been. A newborn left to fend for itself is 10x more evil than stabbing it.

Subtext

None of note but we don’t need that in this movie.

Conclusion

Most of her critics were completely wrong about this movie. I find the gripes to be unfounded. A lot of people came away from this with a version of the Mandela effect because they aren’t remembering it correctly. They still entitled to their opinion but they really should have bothered to have paid more attention in my mind. The acting was superb, the Kills were nothing new but still decent, the characters were okay but the acting more than made up for it, the tension was there, which lately is a new trend, is actually great. My only real gripe is super nitpicky, with one exception, most of the actors in this movie are hot but just kind of mediocre looking. Not a single one is overly photogenic, which is weird for Hollywood, but I don’t see anything wrong with hiring Hot or ugly people, even in horror movies, provided they can act. it works because all these people can act even if they’re not all Brad Pitt and I’m okay with this trend overall. Ultimately Halloween hits on all the right notes and is really done a great fan service 40 years later. In my mind Laurie Strode was done well, so much better than H2O or Halloween resurrection. This is the movie that I’ve been waiting to see since I was a kid.

Over all this movie gets 4 out of 5 stars and I hope it gets a sequel ASAP.

Halloween Movie Novelization Book Review

INTRODUCTION
When I was a child, almost all movies had a novelization. Why? Most likely because Hollywood wanted to make more money and much like a McDonald’s Happy Meal toy, this was one more worthless item to shill to kids or fans of popular novels. Sadly, the novelization was almost always terrible prose, aimed at the lowest common denominator and forgotten about with glee, shortly after you bought it. Remember the heyday of these is pre-DVD, when extras weren’t as easy to come by via VHS and some audiences were clamoring for more of these favorite flicks, so you cannot really blame anyone for giving them a gander, as they weren’t all terrible, but they weren’t very good, either. My reason for buying these as a child, they often could give more insight into scenes that were cut from the movie, as well as hopefully develop characters past the confines of the movie, whilst giving us more depth in general as well. Few ever lived up to that, that is until Halloween 2018, went retro and made a novelization for its movie and that is one reason for me to buy it, as I am waiting for the DVD or a Double feature of this and the original 1978 classic to finally see it. So is this little gem worth it?

SYNOPSIS
Jason Micheal is accidentally released back into Haddonfield on the eve of his transfer, exactly 40 years to the day of the babysitter murders. Laurie, estranged from her family, finally gets a chance to end her nightmare that started back in 1978. Who will rise victorious? (Hint: it’s Hollywood, it’s almost never the bad guy.)

PROSE
Finally, a novelization that does prose well. Holy shit! Not only is this guy hyper competent, but he adds a bit too much description. There is very little errors within this book, minus like one that you can discover for yourself should you read this. Not only is the description spot on, but the word use makes this one of the smartest novelizations ever. Mea Cupla for instance, is Latin. That is high brow for this type of book and I am very happy to see such. It also adds a bit of physics and quoting of Nietzsche. If all this sounds right up your alley, you will love this.

CHARACTERS
They’re developed enough, but not really in a memorable or you will care sort of way. Most the cast is simply there.

SUBTEXT/THEME
Not much, but they occasionally add a tiny insight when it comes to evil in the word and like I said, it’s a novelization.

CONCLUSION
While this book is sadly just relaying the movie with no real additions via different scenes or extrapolation to the world that is Haddonfield, the myth of Michael or developing the characters more, it still one of the better efforts that a novelization has ever undertaken, even if it lacks suspense, has kills which are weak and is longer than it should be. Overall, I think this and the movie are going to be worth your time.

3 ½ out of 5