--- description: There’s nothing creepily suggestive about Halloween Kills, the latest in the Michael Myers franchise. Everything it amounts to is right there on its shallow, pitted surface. title: 'Halloween Kills' Sags Under the Weight of Its Own Mythology image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2ed50ad3d2aebe79/698a1dcd86f68e4b546f0659/5756_B060C017_191015_R70Q1610135R.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [movies](/tag/movies/) ## movies Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # _Halloween Kills_ Sags Under the Weight of Its Own Mythology  by [Stephanie Zacharek](/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Film Critic Oct 14, 2021 7:54 PM CUT  Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) in Halloween Kills, directed by David Gordon Green Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) in Halloween Kills, directed by David Gordon GreenUniversal Pictures—© 2021 Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.  by [Stephanie Zacharek](/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Film Critic Oct 14, 2021 7:54 PM CUT For a sequel to a [sequel to a sequel to a sequel](https://time.com/5419481/michael-myers-halloween-movies-ranking/ "undefined")—or something like that—David Gordon Green’s 2018 _Halloween_ was marginally un-terrible. Jamie Lee Curtis, reprising her role as slasher-survivor Laurie Strode, got the chance to do away with killer nutjob Michael Myers (Nick Castle) once and for all, and at last succeeded. Or maybe not. Because, as you might have guessed, Michael, knife-wielder extraordinaire, is back in _Halloween Kills,_ also directed by Green. This time around, though, the results are more mangled and messy. If nothing else, the 2018 _Halloween_ at least plucked a few comforting threads of continuity from the 1978 original. Curtis’ Laurie, with her parched-by-life skin and long gray mane, looked very much like a woman who’d held tight to a grudge for 40 years. The decades hadn’t been kind to Michael, either: the one advantage you’d think a mask would confer is the hiding of wrinkles, but Michael’s pasty plaster visage had aged along with him, as if his own mindless evil had become a source of perpetual exhaustion. **Read more:** [_Jamie Lee Curtis Is So Much More Than Just a Horror Legend_](https://time.com/5434332/jamie-lee-curtis-halloween-movie/ "undefined")  Michael Myers (a.k.a. The Shape) in 'Halloween Kills' Ryan Green/Universal Pictures—© 2021 Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.Nick Castle as But _Halloween Kills_ doesn’t even have that degree of hamfisted visual poetry going for it. Curtis returns, but barely: near the end of the 2018 _Halloween,_ Michael had stabbed her in the stomach, though not fatally. In this movie, she spends most of her time recovering in a hospital bed, as does another victim of one of Michael’s rampages, Will Patton’s Officer Hawkins. In _Halloween Kills,_ there’s no one to focus on, and almost no one to cheer for: Judy Greer, as Laurie’s long-estranged daughter Karen, and Andi Matichak as Laurie’s granddaughter, Allyson—both introduced in the other film—are proffered as possible final-girl heroines, but only half-heartedly. Neither of them, not even everyone’s favorite almost-star Greer, makes the barest bloody thumbprint of an impression. _Halloween Kills_ is scattershot and febrile, a confused film in which people spend a lot of time milling around, figuring out what to do next. Meanwhile, Michael—or the Shape, as he’s also known—has returned to his old stomping ground of Haddonfield, Ill., a nice little place where nothing ever happens, except when its resident stabber comes to town, which is often. Still, everyone forgets about him from year to year; this is a town of convenient amnesiacs. To spice things up, maybe, Green takes great pains to make _Halloween Kills_ seem political, heavily borrowing visual references from the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol. Anthony Michael Hall, as beefy, baseball-bat-wielding citizen Tommy Doyle, is gunning for Michael’s blood. He’s invented a catchphrase—“Evil dies tonight!”—that’s taken up enthusiastically by the mob that gathers around him. They’re so angry, they corner the wrong guy—oops. A more capable director might have done something with this idea, but in _Halloween Kills_, it’s just a halfhearted nod in the direction of the mess our country’s in. Green—working from a script he co-wrote with [Danny McBride](https://time.com/5652778/the-righteous-gemstones-review/ "undefined") and Scott Teems—does nothing so valiant as pick a side. **Read more:** [_21 Underrated Horror Movies You Probably Haven’t Seen and Can Stream Right Now_](https://time.com/5898733/underrated-horror-movies/ "undefined") The violence in _Halloween Kills_ is gruesome and gory in a way that’s so dull and unimaginative it almost doesn’t register as unpleasant. Eyes are gouged out or stabbed, repeatedly—that motif seems to be a fave. Necks are gashed using broken household items—you know, the usual. There’s nothing creepily suggestive about _Halloween Kills._ Everything it amounts to is right there on its shallow, pitted surface. The idea of [“elevated” horror](https://time.com/5304199/hereditary-toni-collette/ "undefined") is a faulty one: the [best horror movies](https://time.com/4544336/halloween-movies-babadook/ "undefined") reach us deeply _because_ of their adherence to certain codes and styles, not in spite of them. But nobody needs depressed [horror](https://time.com/5698033/upcoming-horror-movies/ "undefined"), movies so terrible they’re unworthy of even two hours of our most throwaway leisure time. _Halloween Kills_ doesn’t slay; it merely saps your will to live. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6107021/halloween-kills-review/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6107021/halloween-kills-review/"},"headline":"Halloween Kills Sags Under the Weight of Its Own Mythology","datePublished":"2021-10-14T19:54:50.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:54:49.018Z","description":"There’s nothing creepily suggestive about Halloween Kills. 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