Sutter Cane’s review published on Letterboxd:
100 Unseen Horror Film Challenge: #51
David Gorden Green and Danny McBride looked at the highly divisive reaction to Rob Zombie's Halloween films and said, "Here, Rob, hold our beer." After having adored the 2018 sequel and thoroughly enjoying the flawed, but savage Kills, my expectations for the finale of this trilogy were at an all-time high. Having watched it about 6 hours ago, I am still ruminating about how I feel.
Green and McBride swing for the fences here, taking one of the boldest swings I have seen in a prominent horror franchise in a long time. Unlike Zombie's attempt to subvert expectations with out-of-left-field choices, I can at least appreciate what they were going for. I'm just not sure it ultimately worked for me. I know some will loathe this take on the iconic slasher, and understandably so. I get it; this is such a 180 from the past two films and really anything in the series since Season of the Witch. They certainly didn't give us a run-of-the-mill slasher. But was it the right decision to go this route?
That all depends on whether or not you can buy what they are selling. Setting that aside, Jamie Lee Curtis is incredible in what will presumably be her last go around as Laurie Strode. Everything between her and Will Patton is gold. I'd watch an elder love story between those two in a heartbeat. Unsurprisingly, the score from John Carpenter, his son and godson, is dynamite. At this point, he can churn these out in his sleep. As for the new characters, I don't want to go into spoiler territory, but one has a more vital role than I would have ever imagined. I am still not sure how I feel about it all. I do believe this is the weakest of the new trilogy, and that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it; I did, but for now, I want to think about it all a bit more. Oh, and the ending shots were some of the more gorgeously photographed in a slasher flick I have seen, and stylistically, this film transcends your conventional genre tropes. Again, I realize why this will be divisive, but you can't disparage these filmmakers for experimenting with a concept we've never seen in this franchise before. My rating is tentative; I'll give it another look once I finish the horror film challenge.
I want to add that we had one of the worst theater experiences I have ever had during the showing. In the screening, we had some unruly teens with flashlights on, talking at high volumes, laughing, and playing on their cell phones. Much to the chagrin of my lady friend, I engaged with these miscreants, which led to a verbal altercation. Ultimately, I had to get the theater manager, who had already dealt with these dillweeds in the lobby. He had to escort them out while they shouted at him and me. About 5 minutes later, he returned to fetch me because the manager had called the police. These kids had threatened the theater manager and told him they planned on hurting me while refusing to leave the cinema. I had to file a report with the police and return to the film, having missed around 10 minutes of the film's start. So, I will revisit it on Peacock at the beginning of turkey month. After the showing, several other theater patrons thanked me, and the whole audience received movie passes. Where's Michael when you need him? I kid. You have to love people!
