Halloween at Aunt Ethel’s (2019)

As an attempt to reinvigorate the Halloween franchise, the full movie mostly works.But i have a few problems with it, mostly involving the 40-year gap and ignoring the previous films. I hold know ill will towards ignoring Resurrection, and it’d be pretty weird if they acknowledged the Thorn trilogy and all that. But the problem with ignoring everything is that Michael Myers goes from a force with 100s of kills to 5. We as the audience understand Michael Myers as a force of nature, but the characters in the movie shouldn’t, but they still treat him that way. Laurie’s trauma I understand and actually kind of like to watch online.  

At first I felt the same way about it that I did about everyone else’s reaction to Michael, but really she was at ground zero to Michael’s rampage, and just looking to real life people have gotten messed up from far less so it’s actually believable she’d become this reclusive person prepping for his return. The film is at it’s best when it’s Laurie’s story. I’d kind of compare it to the Aliens films. In the first one, it was people totally unprepared. In the second one, we got to see what happens when soldiers face off against the Aliens. Here, Laurie has completely Home Alone’d her house to prepare for Michael, so the final confrontation is satisfying because she knows what to do and she’s prepared for it.  

However, the other characters are still required to do lots of stupid stuff. There’s some dumb comedy and weird character bits, and I actually didn’t mind it for the most part because it gave a level of realism to their world. What I did mind was when people would do the dumbest things they could. Not just things like “oh, they don’t know they’re in a slasher movie,” dumb, things no person should do in any situation regardless of a killer being on the loose dumb. There’s also some annoying subplots that go absolute nowhere, like a cheating boyfriend. Most slasher movies would take the chance to kill him, but here he just…I don’t even know, he never even shows up again after being a dick. Look, the film has problems when I look back at it is what I’m saying.  

Now remember that you free download this movie from filmxy but while I was watching it, I can’t deny it was a satisfying Halloween film. Far and away the best of the sequels, and definitely a better return than H20. There’s a great approach to Michael as a creepy force in the distance that I really liked. There’s one scene in particular where I thought to myself “wait, did I just see him walking by in the background there?” and I really wasn’t sure I had until the characters started finding bodies. Stuff like that is great and gives it a creepy atmosphere. It’s got good atmosphere, but for me it was never outright scary. I was never really terrified or genuinely creeped out, more just thought “ooh, that was well done”. Still, it’s a good return, and it shows Michael well, and Jamie Lee Curtis absolutely owns the show.