Kurt Loder Reviews Halloween and Can You Ever Forgive Me?: New at Reason

The new Halloween is a welcome opportunity to forget all the nonsense we learned from the nine sequels and reboots that preceded it. No more need to pretend that Laurie Strode is Michael Myers’ sister. Or that we ever bought into the idea that Michael was being controlled by some kooky Druid Halloween cult. Or that we weren’t annoyed by the dumb forest hermit, or the oops-wrong-guy axe-murder fakeout, or the sudden insertion of Busta Rhymes—Busta Rhymes!—into the tottering franchise.

No, it’s a new day in Haddonfield—a better day, presumably, because in this direct sequel to John Carpenter’s 1978 slasher classic, the once-unstoppable Michael Myers is still locked away in the Smith’s Grove sanitarium and things are quiet. It’s been 40 years now, and you’d think Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis, back in the role for the first time in 16 years) would be over her many ordeals with the masked man, but no—she’s now a full-fledged crazy lady, socked away in a heavily fortified house with a basement full of guns, totally ready for a final reckoning. And it’s almost Halloween, writes Kurt Loder.

View this article.