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A bigger slash

Forty years after she first “dropped the knife,” Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) tangles, yet again, with the unstoppable killer Michael Myers, and this time she’s got an arsenal and a panic room.

The original Halloween was an art film. John Carpenter put together a perfect little horror movie with an auteur’s eye, full of beautifully mapped shots, expert use of lighting, that unforgettable score, and that extremely photogenic, painted-up William Shatner mask. It set the high watermark for slasher films, a mark that has never been surpassed.

The new Halloween comes to us courtesy of writer-director David Gordon Green and writers Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley. Green is no slouch, responsible for a few highly regarded indies (George Washington, All the Real Girls) and classic comedies (Pineapple Express and banner episodes of TV’s Eastbound & Down). When it was first announced that he and McBride were working on a new Halloween, the initial “What? Huh?” was quickly followed by “Say … this could work!” Thankfully, it works quite well.

This is the 11th film in the franchise, and the 10th to feature Myers. (Halloween III: Season of the Witch jettisoned the character.) It’s easily the second-best Halloween movie after the Carpenter original, mostly because it takes many of its cues from the 1978 offering. Also, it doesn’t hurt that the maestro himself, Carpenter, returns to rework his iconic theme and provide the film’s eerily effective score.

Forget about all those chapters that have unspooled in the four decades since the original. Green even disregards the hospital-based Halloween II, which Carpenter wrote with writing partner Debra Hill. Nope, according to the new Halloween, Michael got apprehended shortly after Donald Pleasance’s Loomis emptied his revolver into him, and he’s been percolating in an insane asylum ever since.

A prologue scene features a couple of podcasters gaining access to Michael in his asylum’s courtyard, where they show him his original killing mask. This proves to be a rather bad idea, with Michael busting out of a prison transfer and returning to Haddonfield where reclusive, bitter and ready-to-rumble Laurie still resides. Michael promptly resumes his murderous spree, totally messing up candy day for everybody all over again.

A Halloween movie won’t work if the mask looks wonky. Green and his crew come with a good look this time out. The mask, now four decades old, has rotted out a bit, but maintains its contours and fine hair. It even has a puncture wound on the side from when ’78 Laurie put a sewing needle in Michael’s neck.

Green ups the gore quotient from the original, with some nasty head stomping and brain splatters. It’s not easy to scare audiences who have seen it all before but, I assure you, Green and company will make you squirm and jump. The film’s best scene, a restroom slaughter, is reminiscent of Ridley Scott’s Alien, when an exquisitely crying, cowering Veronica Cartwright was cornered, eventually meeting a merciless doom. It’s not for the faint of heart and is defining proof that Green knows his way around a slasher movie.

Curtis is clearly having a blast, her hairstyle identical to her ’80s heyday, but her weapons of choice most definitely upgraded. Judy Greer plays her skeptical daughter, with Andi Matichak present as the third generation of Strode girls.

Danny McBride’s writing is clearly evident in key scenes where humor sweetens the mood and creates endearing characters so we can feel extra bad about them when they get dispatched. A scene where a young boy driving with his dad explains that weekend camping trips are fine, but dancing is his focus now, has McBride all over it. Huge credit to both Green and McBride for keeping the comic moments genuine.

I, for one, would be totally OK if this was the last Halloween movie. It finishes on a satisfying note with a perfect final shot. But with a near $80 million domestic take on its opening weekend, something tells me we haven’t seen the last of Michael Myers. Ω

“Public restrooms can be scary places.”

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3Bad Times at the El Royale Writer-Director Drew Goddard, in hiding as far as feature directing goes since his 2012 The Cabin in the Woods, assembles an all-star cast for one nutty, and sometimes a little too cute for its own good, movie. The star of this movie is the El Royale, a fictional hotel based on the actual Cal Neva Lodge, once owned by Frank Sinatra, in Lake Tahoe. It’s a solid piece of art direction, for sure, from its aged lobby straddling two states, to its creepy tunnels behind the rooms set up for criminal voyeurs. Jeff Bridges plays a mysterious priest who checks into the resort along with a singer (Cynthia Erivo), a vacuum salesman (Jon Hamm) and a hippie (Dakota Johnson). After the messed-up manager (Lewis Pullman) checks them in, each visitor has their own story in their own rooms. Goddard has flourishes of brilliance here, mixing thrills, mystery, humor and lots of blood into the intertwined plots, giving the film a Tarantino-like feel. (I know that’s a cliché these days, but it’s true.) The film is set in 1969, paying homage to the time through its soundtrack, set design and subplot involving a Manson-like cult leader (Chris Hemsworth). At nearly two-and-a-half hours, it’s a little bit much; a half hour could easily be excised from the film. Still, the stuff that works makes it a worthwhile movie.

4First Man Space exploration movies and TV events based upon real missions, not surprisingly, have often made “the mission” the thrust of the plot. First Man goes a different route. It dares to focus on Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling in top form), the man at the center of the Apollo 11 mission, and what made him tick. It shows the familial struggles the man dealt with leading up to the mission and, most strikingly, his viewpoint, through his visor, as a bunch of workers clad in white packed him into a sardine can and blasted him off into space. It’s an amazingly intimate movie, considering the subject matter. Director Damien Chazelle (La La Land) doesn’t ignore the details of NASA’s build up to eventually planting Armstrong’s feet on the lunar surface. In fact, the film is one of the most scientifically intriguing I’ve seen when it comes to what astronauts go through and the mechanics of a space launch. What it also manages to be is a moving, often haunting, study of the sacrifices and enormous pain Armstrong went through to beat the Russians to the moon landing punch. I confess to not knowing that Armstrong lost his young daughter to cancer in 1962, seven years before his legendary flight. Appropriately, that event is as central an occurrence as the moon landing in this movie. This film is about Armstrong’s sacrifices, hardships and the enormous psychological and physiological tortures he went through in that decade leading up to Apollo 11. In turn, it’s a testament to every man and woman who risked their lives and left families and histories behind on the big blue marble in the name of the space race.

1Hell Fest Hell Fest is in the spirit of I Know What You Did Last Summer in that it rips off a lot of countless horror films that came before it, and it also sucks hard. Natalie (Amy Forsyth) joins some friends for an evening of terror as they attend an amusement park full of haunted houses, death mazes and masked cast members running around the park with a mandate to scare the shit out of them. Walking among the paid crew, wearing a mask and hoodie similar to many other characters in the park, is an anonymous man who isn’t going for makebelieve. He actually likes to really kill people with ice picks, mallets, guillotines, syringes and knives. Much of the action takes place in the dark, with flashing strobe lights and shades of red and backed by stock horror sound effects. There’s a pretty good reason why none of this is scary. Director Gregory Plotkin films in a way that renders the locales flat, cheap-looking and stagey, just like your average amusement park haunted house. Maybe this stuff is a little scary in real life, but is sitting in a movie theater watching folks enter into these themed rooms scary? No, not really. 5 A Star is Born It’s movie magic at its most beautiful when Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga share the screen in A Star is Born. It’s a rousing remake of the old warhorse rise-to-fame story, and it’s easily the best movie with that title ever made. Considering it’s the fourth, it’s amazing how original the film feels. Cooper makes his feature directorial debut and stars as Jackson Maine, a Southern rocker barely getting through his gigs thanks to too much alcohol, too many pills and a nasty case of tinnitus. The film opens with Cooper live on stage belting out “Black Eyes,” a song that clearly states this movie means business on the musical front. He brings a lot of legitimate musical soul to the role. And he damned well better, because his counterpart in this story is played by none other than Lady Gaga in her fierce feature lead debut. (She had bit parts in Sin City and Muppet movies.) As Ally, a waitress who sings occasionally at the local drag bar, Gaga delivers so well beyond expectations it seems impossible. She’s so good it hurts, especially in the film’s dramatic moments, of which there are many. So, see this one knowing that the goosebumps will rise, the smiles will stretch your face muscles and the tears will flow. A Star is Born is one of the year’s best movies; Cooper and Gaga are one of the all-time great screen pairings. You’ll do yourself a disservice if you miss this one.

4The Sisters Brothers John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix join forces as the title characters, guns for hire, contracted to find a prospector (Riz Ahmed) with a scientific trick for finding gold in rivers. Reilly plays Eli, the nicer of the two brothers, who is starting to consider life after riding and killing. Phoenix plays Charlie, perfectly content to be a bounty hunter of sorts, as long as the mission includes hookers and lots of booze. When another man (Jake Gyllenhaal) intercepts the prospector with intent of turning him over to the brothers, he has a change of heart, and the hunt takes on a new dimension. Reilly and Phoenix are great together, creating a palpable fraternal bond. This is a dark period Western speckled with some funny moments, but don’t be tricked by the commercials for the film. It’s a mostly dark affair, acted well by all involved. Jacques Audiard (A Prophet) has made a moving, absorbing, appropriately nasty Western that gives the impression everybody on screen smells really bad. Phoenix, having a banner year, turns out to be perfectly cast as a gunslinger, something I wouldn’t have believed going in. He and Reilly give this film a ton of soul, and it doesn’t hurt having the likes of Gyllenhaal and Ahmed in their supporting roles. They are all equally good.

2Venom This is a sometimes entertaining mess, but it’s still a mess. Let’s get the obvious out of the way: you shouldn’t have a Venom movie without Spider-Man playing into the comic villain’s backstory, somehow. Venom looks like Spider-Man in the comic because the symbiote fused with Peter Parker first, resulting in the “Spider-Man on steroids” look. This film has no Spidey. Now it’s a space alien that passes through an evil scientist’s lab, a space alien that still manages to look a little like Spider-Man, having never met the guy. Tom Hardy labors hard at playing Eddie Brock, an investigative reporter who’s infected by the symbiote and starts biting off people’s heads in PG-13 fashion. Brock winds up with Venom’s voice in his head and an ability to make Venom sort of a good/bad guy. It’s all kind of stupid, playing things mostly for laughs and squandering a chance for a real horror show. Hardy gives it his all, but the film feels like a botch job pretty much from the start. Michelle Williams gets what might be the worst role of her career as Brock’s girlfriend, and Riz Ahmed plays the stereotypical villain. There are hints of something cool, but they are buried under a pile of muck.