Major spoilers. Move on. Read this when you're ready.
I only want to review the plot twist of this newest Halloween sequel. The film in totality is pretty awesome and I have no real interest in diving into the rest since it's otherwise pretty good, but it has become clear to me after really ruminating over this film for the past couple of days after seeing it that the plot twist could have been a really interesting surprise as opposed to a poorly executed and near-fatal distraction from an otherwise good entry into such a celebrated horror franchise. Read on to hear my thoughts on how and why this could have been a better-executed twist.
The character in question, the "New Loomis" as Laurie Strode mistakenly and questionably refers to (as I explain later), is Dr. Sartain, introduced in the first act as the doctor of Michael Myers who took the reins from old man Loomis after his passing.
Sartain is introduced as a completely sensible and incredibly knowledgeable character who the screenwriters utilize as a tool for plot exposition in the first act, explaining to the British podcasting duo (and through osmosis, the audience) why Loomis is gone and why he is the guy who is looking after Michael now. He is never once given any sort of dialogue or unsettling scene that can clue us, the audience, in on what his true intentions are later on or why he matters so much to this film. It is a delicate balance for a screenwriter to give an audience *just enough* to anticipate a character's actions with dread, yet still morbidly satisfy the audience when a character lives up to our darkest expectations, and Dr. Sartain is one of those characters--unfortunately, we don't get the exposition necessary to give us something to suspect (or expect) about Sartain. The first act is crucial to laying out these kinds of connections, suspicions, and foreshadowing clues, and unfortunately, this opportunity is squandered.
Instead, the entire first act is spent on setting up the motivations and developing the characters of the (entirely disposable and unnecessary) podcasters on one level, and on a more utilitarian and much more necessary level, the first act is utilized as a device to give Michael his mask and essentially get him to Haddonfield on October 31. It is crucial to get Michael from the loony bin and into the mask and overalls as expediently and sensibly as possible in these films, so kudos to Danny McBride and Co for doing this. Unfortunately, the characters used to do this were the podcasters, who are disposable characters and are given way, way too much screen time and are the first major characters we meet, which sets up certain expectations for these characters that are ultimately deflated and sabotaged when all that happens to them is they are murdered in the Halloween 4-homage truck stop bathroom early in the first act.
Meanwhile, we basically see nothing of "New Loomis" until the bus crash that introduces act two, which he survives with some injury. Again, we have no reason to suspect anything of the doctor. I found myself as a viewer sympathetic towards Sartain when he is mistakenly shot by a bystander and seems to be on the verge of death as a result. If his arc were set up correctly, I would have felt somewhat of a sense of suspicion as to why the bus crashed and he was the lone survivor. Instead, I just watch the movie and feel for the doctor.
Soon after, a major mistake is made by the screenwriter. Laurie Strode, upon meeting the good doctor near the end of the first act, refers to him as "the new Loomis." This is a huge problem with lasting ramifications given the character arc of Dr. Sartain. To fans of previous Halloween timelines, Dr. Loomis was a good man who wanted Michael to be exterminated, destroyed, removed from the world by any means possible, even at the expense of his life and safety. He saw Michael as simply an embodiment of evil who would only go on to harm others in his pursuit to kill and he wanted him wiped from the earth. So when the anchor of the entire Halloween universe, our most pure and trustworthy Final Girl Laurie Strode, explicitly names Sartain as "New Loomis," we can rest easy knowing he, in fact, is *The New Loomis*. He embodies the same ethos as the late, great Donald Pleasance's character. He is the New Loomis and we have no reason to think otherwise, because we implicitly trust the character who bestows this moniker upon Sartain. Except, inexplicably, he is so totally not New Loomis, and we as the audience are subject to a horribly clunky plot twist as a result.
Sartain, as we learn way, way too late into the second act, actually wants Michael to live, to go out and kill in Sartain's presence, so Sartain can see him kill "in the wild." He has absolutely no redeemable moral qualities whatsoever, unlike the good doctor whom he replaced. He wants Michael to kill innocent people and wants to study Michael doing so so intensely that he is willing to see what it actually feels like to do what Michael does--and damn it, he actually does. He murders a man in cold blood with a highly contrived scalpel-blade-hidden-inside-a-ballpoint-pen contraption he keeps in his pocket, and even dons Michael's mask to feel the full effect of his murderous actions. It is an utterly ridiculous turn of events and really sours the film until it is thankfully saved by the brilliant cat-and-mouse chase sequence inside Laurie's rural house in the woods outside Haddonfield that pits her against her ultimate nemesis, the *only* villain this franchise has room for, The Shape.
And that leads me to my final thoughts on Halloween 2018. I give credit to the screenwriters for taking a major chance with a long-dormant horror franchise, I just wish that the first act was spent more on developing Dr. Sartain, a monumentally crucial character in this film, rather than the disposable and almost entirely useless podcaster characters. We could have developed a creeping, sneaking suspicion of Sartain's motivations throughout the first act that culminated in a satisfying murderous twist at the beginning of the third act, but instead we are treated with a highly questionable turn of events that come entirely out of left field that nearly ruin this film and raise some serious questions for the inevitable sequel. The Halloween franchise only has room for one villain--Michael Myers. Any attempt to subvert this unavoidable fact with a poorly-executed plot twist will only serve to muddy up the formula with convoluted film canon and put Halloween on track for more questionable sequels, which was the reason we had to wait all this time for such a good entry into the Halloween franchise in the first place. I sincerely hope the powers that be can learn from the mistakes of the past (and the mistakes of this sequel) to build upon and contribute to a horror franchise that continues to be as frustrating as it is promising. 7/10.
I only want to review the plot twist of this newest Halloween sequel. The film in totality is pretty awesome and I have no real interest in diving into the rest since it's otherwise pretty good, but it has become clear to me after really ruminating over this film for the past couple of days after seeing it that the plot twist could have been a really interesting surprise as opposed to a poorly executed and near-fatal distraction from an otherwise good entry into such a celebrated horror franchise. Read on to hear my thoughts on how and why this could have been a better-executed twist.
The character in question, the "New Loomis" as Laurie Strode mistakenly and questionably refers to (as I explain later), is Dr. Sartain, introduced in the first act as the doctor of Michael Myers who took the reins from old man Loomis after his passing.
Sartain is introduced as a completely sensible and incredibly knowledgeable character who the screenwriters utilize as a tool for plot exposition in the first act, explaining to the British podcasting duo (and through osmosis, the audience) why Loomis is gone and why he is the guy who is looking after Michael now. He is never once given any sort of dialogue or unsettling scene that can clue us, the audience, in on what his true intentions are later on or why he matters so much to this film. It is a delicate balance for a screenwriter to give an audience *just enough* to anticipate a character's actions with dread, yet still morbidly satisfy the audience when a character lives up to our darkest expectations, and Dr. Sartain is one of those characters--unfortunately, we don't get the exposition necessary to give us something to suspect (or expect) about Sartain. The first act is crucial to laying out these kinds of connections, suspicions, and foreshadowing clues, and unfortunately, this opportunity is squandered.
Instead, the entire first act is spent on setting up the motivations and developing the characters of the (entirely disposable and unnecessary) podcasters on one level, and on a more utilitarian and much more necessary level, the first act is utilized as a device to give Michael his mask and essentially get him to Haddonfield on October 31. It is crucial to get Michael from the loony bin and into the mask and overalls as expediently and sensibly as possible in these films, so kudos to Danny McBride and Co for doing this. Unfortunately, the characters used to do this were the podcasters, who are disposable characters and are given way, way too much screen time and are the first major characters we meet, which sets up certain expectations for these characters that are ultimately deflated and sabotaged when all that happens to them is they are murdered in the Halloween 4-homage truck stop bathroom early in the first act.
Meanwhile, we basically see nothing of "New Loomis" until the bus crash that introduces act two, which he survives with some injury. Again, we have no reason to suspect anything of the doctor. I found myself as a viewer sympathetic towards Sartain when he is mistakenly shot by a bystander and seems to be on the verge of death as a result. If his arc were set up correctly, I would have felt somewhat of a sense of suspicion as to why the bus crashed and he was the lone survivor. Instead, I just watch the movie and feel for the doctor.
Soon after, a major mistake is made by the screenwriter. Laurie Strode, upon meeting the good doctor near the end of the first act, refers to him as "the new Loomis." This is a huge problem with lasting ramifications given the character arc of Dr. Sartain. To fans of previous Halloween timelines, Dr. Loomis was a good man who wanted Michael to be exterminated, destroyed, removed from the world by any means possible, even at the expense of his life and safety. He saw Michael as simply an embodiment of evil who would only go on to harm others in his pursuit to kill and he wanted him wiped from the earth. So when the anchor of the entire Halloween universe, our most pure and trustworthy Final Girl Laurie Strode, explicitly names Sartain as "New Loomis," we can rest easy knowing he, in fact, is *The New Loomis*. He embodies the same ethos as the late, great Donald Pleasance's character. He is the New Loomis and we have no reason to think otherwise, because we implicitly trust the character who bestows this moniker upon Sartain. Except, inexplicably, he is so totally not New Loomis, and we as the audience are subject to a horribly clunky plot twist as a result.
Sartain, as we learn way, way too late into the second act, actually wants Michael to live, to go out and kill in Sartain's presence, so Sartain can see him kill "in the wild." He has absolutely no redeemable moral qualities whatsoever, unlike the good doctor whom he replaced. He wants Michael to kill innocent people and wants to study Michael doing so so intensely that he is willing to see what it actually feels like to do what Michael does--and damn it, he actually does. He murders a man in cold blood with a highly contrived scalpel-blade-hidden-inside-a-ballpoint-pen contraption he keeps in his pocket, and even dons Michael's mask to feel the full effect of his murderous actions. It is an utterly ridiculous turn of events and really sours the film until it is thankfully saved by the brilliant cat-and-mouse chase sequence inside Laurie's rural house in the woods outside Haddonfield that pits her against her ultimate nemesis, the *only* villain this franchise has room for, The Shape.
And that leads me to my final thoughts on Halloween 2018. I give credit to the screenwriters for taking a major chance with a long-dormant horror franchise, I just wish that the first act was spent more on developing Dr. Sartain, a monumentally crucial character in this film, rather than the disposable and almost entirely useless podcaster characters. We could have developed a creeping, sneaking suspicion of Sartain's motivations throughout the first act that culminated in a satisfying murderous twist at the beginning of the third act, but instead we are treated with a highly questionable turn of events that come entirely out of left field that nearly ruin this film and raise some serious questions for the inevitable sequel. The Halloween franchise only has room for one villain--Michael Myers. Any attempt to subvert this unavoidable fact with a poorly-executed plot twist will only serve to muddy up the formula with convoluted film canon and put Halloween on track for more questionable sequels, which was the reason we had to wait all this time for such a good entry into the Halloween franchise in the first place. I sincerely hope the powers that be can learn from the mistakes of the past (and the mistakes of this sequel) to build upon and contribute to a horror franchise that continues to be as frustrating as it is promising. 7/10.