Halloween, by David Gordon Green: Ultimate Sequel (Review)

A mask. A knife. Jamie Lee Curtis traumatized… Back to basics for the Patron Saint of slasher films. And what’s more, it makes you cry.

On this Halloween evening, the second channel is programming from 11:25 p.m. David Gordon Green’s version released in 2018 in cinemas. A success, which is also available for free on France.TV. Here is our review.

“ Keep it simple and relentless »: the only advice given to David Gordon Green by John Carpenter after reading (and approving) his update ofHalloween. And as we know the Prince of Darkness, his unique contribution “real” to the film, apart from the minimalist piano score rejuvenated by him.

“Simple and relentless” says a lot about the monolithic and prototypical nature of the 1978 classic. Perhaps not the 2001 horror film, but not far. An exercise in form so pure, so musical, and so crystalline, that its subsequent exploitation in a video club series (horror cinema is a bitch) almost seems like a misunderstanding.

This 2018 vintage is the third film in history entitled “Halloween” and the fourth “continuation of the first”. By cutting twenty years of DTV fat, Gordon Green finds the rectilinear logic of the story: 40 years later, Michael finds a mask, a knife, and goes towards Laurie, who is waiting for him. It is a tribute as much as a sequel, full of very successful variations on the original and anchored in an almost clinical post-traumatic reality, which evokes more the thrills of survival than those of the slasher.

It’s scary, it rings true, and even a little true (we recognize the profession of the director of Stronger), especially when Jamie Lee Curtis, haunted by decades of psychotic seclusion, is slow to reload his Winchester… The resounding success of the film inaugurates a new industrial era for Michael Myers. The irony has not escaped us. But what can we do about it?

Benjamin Rozovas

Trailer for Halloween :

Halloween: why you have to stay until the end of the credits