Halloween Kills: Send it to an early grave

Halloween Kills (2021) • View trailer

One star (out of five). Rated R, for strong gory violence, grisly images, profanity and drug use

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

What. A. Stinker.

 

Unless I’m missing one, this is the 12th entry in the undead franchise that began with 1978’s Halloween, a modest little shocker that still out-performs all of its descendants.

 

Having barely survived what they felt was their final encounter with the murderous
Michael Myers (hah!), Karen (Judy Greer, left) and Allyson (Andi Matichak, right)
rush a badly wounded Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) to the hospital.

The series has been wholly re-invented at least twice, and Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode has been killed the same number of times … only to be resurrected by subsequent filmmakers anxious for her dwindling fan cred, who explained this away by insisting, “Oh, that one (or those several) didn’t count.”

Even by such increasingly contrived standards, in a textbook case of rapidly diminishing returns, director David Gordon Green’s Halloween Kills is an insufferable waste of time.

 

For starters, Curtis’ top-billed credit is a bait-and-switch; her Laurie Strode is present for only five, perhaps 10 minutes … and she spends the majority of that time moaning in a hospital bed.

 

Instead, our nominal “heroes” are Laurie’s daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak), returning from 2018’s Halloween, the most recent re-boot, which kicked off a trilogy that’ll conclude (yeah, right) with next year’s Halloween Ends.

 

And while it’s nice that Green — along with co-writers Scott Teems and Danny McBride — have name-checked characters and events from John Carpenter’s 1978 classic, it would have been even better if they’d written a coherent script. Seriously, nothing that happens in this misbegotten flick makes any sense — except as a means to set up another welter of gory deaths — and every character’s dialogue is random, hysterical gibberish.

 

So okay: It’s fun to see the now-adult Kyle Richards, reprising her role as Lindsey Wallace, one of the kids Laurie babysat back in 1978; and Nancy Stephens, as Marion Chambers, the nurse accompanying Donald Pleasance’s Samuel Loomis (also glimpsed in fleeting flashbacks); and Charles Cyphers, as Haddonfield’s former Sheriff Leigh Brackett, who lost his daughter during the masked Michael Myers’ initial rampage.

 

But it would have been even more fun, if this new film gave them something intelligent to do.

 

Sigh.

 

By way of quick recap, the 2018 film concluded as Laurie, Karen and Allyson cleverly trapped Michael in a long-planned basement dungeon, and then set the entire house on fire. At long last, the demise of Michael Myers, right?

 

Of course not.

Foxcatcher: Men behaving badly

Foxcatcher (2014) • View trailer 
4.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity, drug use and violence
By Derrick Bang

The über-rich haven’t been this creepy since 1990’s Reversal of Fortune.

And that was based on a true story, as well.

John Du Pont (Steve Carell, left) knows precisely how to inspire the impressionable Mark
Schultz (Channing Tatum), and for a time the weathy older man seems well-meaning, if
a bit daft. But this relationship dynamic is about to turn very, very uncomfortable.

Foxcatcher is director Bennett Miller’s highly unsettling account of wealthy heir John du Pont’s bewildering (to the outside world) decision to position himself as head coach, trainer and sponsor of the U.S. wrestling team hoping to qualify for the 1988 Seoul Olympics. This scheme is granted public legitimacy when brothers Mark and Dave Schultz are dragged into du Pont’s ludicrous, vanity-laden quest, accelerating an already uncomfortable sibling dynamic that becomes increasingly toxic.

Disaster is inevitable; the only question is what form the crisis will take.

Miller excels at getting the best from his casts, and he’s noted for guiding actors to Oscar nominations — and wins — in compelling, character-driven slices of history. Both Philip Seymour Hoffman and Catherine Keener earned well-deserved nominations for Capote; Hoffman went home with the prize. Brad Pitt never looked better than he was in Moneyball, and Miller worked a modern miracle by orchestrating goofball Jonah Hill’s transformation into a serious actor.

But it’s equally important to note that Miller surrounds himself with some of Hollywood’s most skilled writers, who also earned Academy Award nominations (respectively) for their work on Capote and Moneyball. I’ve absolutely no doubt that E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman will garner similar praise for their insidiously subtle, squirm-inducing depiction of what emerged as the late 1980s’ most bizarre sports scandal.

But it’s hard to detect the fine-tuned screenplay right away, because of the almost scary degree to which this film’s three stars inhabit their respective roles. They’re all excellent, crossing that threshold where we often forget the actor playing the part, and wholly accept that we’ve somehow been transported back in time, and granted a window on the activities of these actual people.

Dave and younger brother Mark Schultz were heroes at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, both taking gold medals in different weight classes of men’s freestyle wrestling; they also took world golds at, respectively, Kiev (1983) and Budapest (1985).

They’re played here by Mark Ruffalo (almost unrecognizable) and Channing Tatum. The film’s narrative catches them during the early build-up to Seoul, and their circumstances couldn’t be more different. As often is the case with siblings, their personalities are wholly distinct. Dave radiates calm, confidence and authority; Mark, although idolizing his older brother, chafes at being in his shadow.