‘HALLOWEEN ENDS’ Simultaneously a Weird and Rote Send-Off to a Killer Icon

October 13, 2022 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Andi Matichak, Chris Bernier, Danny McBride, David Gordon Green, Halloween, Halloween Ends, Horror, Jaime Lee Curtis, Out in Theaters, Paul Brad Logan, Reviews, Rohan Campbell 14 Comments

Evil Goes Viral

Even if Halloween Ends is a messy, weird, convoluted, predictable, and only quasi-satisfying conclusion to the 40-plus year Michael Myers saga, you have to give it credit for actually trying something new. For much of director David Gordon Green’s trilogy-capper and alleged conclusion to the franchise (at least for now), Mike Myers is MIA. He’s gone. Not involved. For the vast majority of the film, he exists moreso as the lingering idea of the nature of evil than as an actual hulking killer. Instead the focus is on an entirely new character, Corey (Rohan Campbell), a hapless teen who gets roped into a night of babysitting. One prank gone wrong later, Corey accidents kills his charge. Read More

Loose Slasher Sequel ‘HALLOWEEN KILLS’ Defines Overkill

October 13, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Andi Matichak, Anthony Michael Hall, Danny McBride, Dylan Arnold, Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Kyle Richards, Nancy Stephens, Robert Longstreet, Scott Teems, Thomas Mann, Will Patton 1 Comment

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. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘HALLOWEEN’

October 18, 2018 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Andi Matichak, Danny McBride, David Gordon Green, Halloween, Horror, Judy Greer, Out in Theaters, Reviews 4 Comments

The slasher subculture saw its heyday in the 1980s, with franchises like Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Nightmare on Elm Street accruing scores of harebrained sequels, spawning a pattern of rinse-repeat horror franchises that rarely held a candle to the greats in terms of turnover quality. Jason eventually went to outer space. Freddy Kruger broke the fourth wall. Michael Myers was revisioned as a force for utilitarian good, destined to kill all of Laurie’s family in order to save all of civilization. To say that these sequels haven’t always been so hot is quite the understatement. In 2018, director David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express) – of all people – has taken the governing principles of the slasher and given it new life through a winning combination of tasteful updates, tactful homage, and gleeful bloodletting and in doing so, he may have just perfected the slasher movie. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘ALIEN: COVENANT’

May 17, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Alien: Covenant, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Dante Harper, Guy Pearce, John Logan, Katherine Waterston, Michael Fassbender, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Ridley Scott 2 Comments

One thing’s for certain, Alien: Covenant is a Prometheus sequel. Ridley Scott doubles down on the 2012 prequel’s cerebral but ultimately sloppy storytelling, reveling in yet another cast of characters who make stupid decision after stupid decision in a misguided attempt to hoist ideology above character. In essence a film about discovering meaning, Prometheus failed to define its own, collapsing under the weight of its admirable ambition by throwing too much at the screen and having too little stick. By the end of that venture, everything remained a bit of a head-scratcher but Scott, for what it’s worth, attempts to make up for such here in Alien: Covenant. For its faults, Covenant brings the message of this deeply intertwined prequel series into focus here and its irreverent thesis is far darker than we might have anticipated: creation is nasty business. Our makers can be monsters. Gods and Devils are one and the same. Read More

Out in Theaters: ALOHA

May 28, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Alec Baldwin, Aloha, Bradley Cooper, Cameron Crowe, Danny McBride, Emma Stone, John Krasinski, Out in Theaters, Rachel McAdams, Reviews Leave a comment

Cameron Crowe‘s Aloha is one hot saccharine sweet mess; a jumbled collage of love connections, island spirituality and fluffy, flawed emotional beauty that gave me all the feels, despite its occasionally glaring issues. It’s one of those features where one could curmudgeonly sit around and pick apart at its thatch of problems like a hot-breathed seamstress but you’d ultimately be missing the point. Aloha isn’t guided by substantive reality so much as by a dramaturgical sense of magical realism. Mixed in with the hopeful lyricism of the greatest rom-com ballads and imbued with a dulled barb of cynicism, Aloha is a visceral, passionate triumph even in the bright light of its freewheeling, sometimes nonsensical spirit. Read More