David Gordon Green’s 2018 rendition of Halloween, a sequel/reboot that revitalized Michael Myers for the arthouse horror generation, did almost everything right. His reimagining of the franchise, in a sequel that stemmed directly from John Carpenter’s 1978 original while actively dismissing the string of disappointing sequels and Rob Zombie’s grizzled remakes from the canon, leaned into the portions of the story that made Myers such a lasting horror icon. There was actual character development present here, an understanding of what made this character so deeply unsettling, plenty of tension-filled kills, and a good lick of irreverent humor to be found in the proceedings. If Halloween is The Shape perfected, Halloween Kills is what happens when complacency sets in almost immediately and the franchise begins to flatline well before its expiration date.

This bland follow-up starts just moments after the events of Green’s first film but not without nearly a full act of preamble. Before the film turns back the clock to address the fallout of Meyer’s first chain of kills, it begins with another loosely-connected event as confused teenager Cameron (Dylan Arnold) finds an injured Officer Hawkins (Will Patton), who viewers are unlikely to remember from the previous film and yet appears to be central to the goings on here. Turns out, he is not. Nevertheless, the movie turns to 1978 to introduce a young Officer Hawkins (Thomas Mann) as he and his partner arrest Myers, a loose plot thread that postures as if it will become very significant, but again, does not, as it ultimately plays almost no role in the larger tapestry of the film.

Halloween Kills was pitched as the second part to this larger Halloween revival and – as it exists now – it is so full of seemingly loose threads and unconnected plot points that it barely works as a singular work. The Officer Hawkins bit being just one such example.

Viewers are otherwise reintroduced to a stock of characters who’ve had run-ins with Myers over the years including Lonnie (Robert Longstreet), Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall), Marion (Nancy Stephens) and Lindsey (Kyle Richards), the later two of whom appeared in the Carpenter’s 1978 version – a fact that evidently is supposed to excite modern audiences. The script from Green, Scott Teems, and Danny McBride feels frightfully complacent with offering these kinds of in-universe tie-backs as a replacement for actual character development, confusing nostalgia for storytelling and hoping viewers can’t tell the difference.

The story begins in earnest when we finally reunite with the Strode clan: Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis), Karen (Judy Greer) and Allyson (Andi Matichak); as they depart the scene of what they (falsely) believe to be Meyer’s demise. Turns out four bullets to the chest, various stabbings, and trapping the brute in a burning building was not enough to kill the Haddonfield Hellraiser. The Shape is summarily raised from his burning grave by a dozen first responders, who he then handily murks off in a scene that just reads as comical and nonsensical.

There’s more nonsense as Myers moves throughout town killing everyone in his path. The bodycount increases alongside the mindlessness of this endeavor. Perhaps the biggest issue that haunts this outing is that Halloween Kills lacks any discernible structure. It sidelines its most interesting characters and devotes very little time to making the new characters interesting. One of the better parts of the movie explores the idea of what happens when a townspeople take it upon themselves to enact justice, complete with a rallying cry of “Evil dies tonight!”, but this idea of the failings of vigilantism is half-baked to the point of begin unintelligible.

This is particularly exacerbated by the fact that every time the troops rally together to hunt down Michael Myers and Kill! Evil! Tonight!, they always end up parring down, the group regularly splitting up or sending just one person into the building of their inevitable demise. At points, it feels like self-parody except that – tragically – the movie just isn’t very funny. There are moments that pop, much like a pair of eyeballs in a particularly over-the-top kill, but they only serve to break up the monotony of this loosely-constructed middle chapter. One that doesn’t really begin and certainly doesn’t end. Instead, Halloween Kills is little more than a shapeless brute already running on fumes. A tragedy following such an exciting and intelligible reboot just three years back.

Worse still, this sequel completely abandons the goodwill the 2018 flick had built up by largely abandoning the heart and core of that movie: the three generations of Strode women and their tricky, troubled relationships. This time, they’re all fairly useless and underutilized, their interactions with one another limited and exposition-ridden, and their active participation in events always weirdly non-central. Where the last iteration introduced us to a grizzled survivalist version of Laurie Strode, this one traps her in a hospital bed for the duration. Who on Earth found this to be exciting? When a major final moment twist arrives involving the Strode women, it feels entirely unearned and lacking in impact – the death of a new narrative lineage that was denied the chance to go any further or dig any deeper in this lame, hollow sequel.

CONCLUSION: ‘Halloween Kills’ is your typical slasher movie sequel in that it’s a far-cry from the quality of its predecessor, presenting nostalgia and re-packaged ideas with exponentially diminishing return. Overkill abounds in the bloodshed and rehashed plots alike.