Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Halloween Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman December 28, 2018

The macro-level history behind the Halloween movies isn't particularly interesting. After a very successful and genre-defining original classic, the franchise veered into the standard Horror franchise fast lane which it admittedly help shape, spitting out a number of lore-building films, standalone sequels, a franchise film in title only, and a pair of reboots. Indeed, the Halloween brand has essentially taken the path of least resistance through its now forty-year history with various stabs at creativity but largely selling audiences on a name and an expressionless Shape rather than honest character depth and narrative integrity. With this 2018 film, Director David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express) has done something to shake the film loose from the clutches of closed-minded constraints and built a film that ignores decades of Halloween storylines -- including those featuring Jamie Lee Curtis reprising her role as Laurie Strode -- and builds this Halloween as the one and only true sequel to John Carpenter's original.

Halloween proves largely successful in forging its own identity yet crafting a film that is comfortable and familiar. A few key lines erase any pretenses that the film will adhere to any lore constructed by any of the movies since 1978, though it does adhere to structural formula quite closely, precluding the need for a real plot summary beyond commenting that in four decades, Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney and Nick Castle) has been incarcerated in a mental health facility under the care of a doctor (Haluk Bilginer) obsessed with his persona while Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) has sacrificed her life and sanity in the name of self defense and protecting her daughter (Judy Greer) and granddaughter (Andi Matichak) from Michael at all costs. It's an interesting take, to ask audiences to ignore six direct sequels, but David Gordon Green makes it work, even if it could have worked better than it does. The film is at its best in its first half, when reintroducing the world and building it from the foundation that Carpenter set in the original, not from the variously tentacled branches subsequent films have created. Rather than focus on Michael as an unstoppable entity, the character is humanized in a way that he has perhaps never been humanized before. The audience never sees him directly, but Green, from the outset, reveals glimpses, quick shots at angle, that show an aged man, his face revealing the weathering of time, outlined by a white beard. The character, audiences quickly learn, has not spoken for four decades. Michael Myers is flesh and blood that has grown outwardly old but the man inside remains obsessed with finishing what he started decades ago. It's not a physical condition that drives the character but rather a mental disfigurement that propels him to stalk Laurie Strode, the people closest to her, and those who stand in his way.

That mental disfigurement which has followed Michael for four decades is what has driven his doctor to dedicate his life to understanding him and is what drives a key component in the film's most would-be delicious twist. There's a moment later in the film that's next to impossible to praise without spoiling the reveal, but it's the one legitimate left-field surprise in an otherwise rote movie that momentarily kicks the film, the masked killer, and the franchise into an entirely new direction. Unfortunately the opportunity to run with it is snuffed out in a matter of moments, but it's definitely the high point that could have rewritten the rules and been a transformative turn of events -- literally and figuratively -- for the franchise. Green chooses to ultimately ignore it, to tease, and settle for snapping the film and the audience back into routine, which includes a plodding and methodical middle stretch as Michael randomly kills a number of innocents around Haddonfield and pushes towards a climax that plays out without much ingenuity or surprise.

Green does hearken back to the original a number of times, with shots and locations and visual and aural cues and themes that not-so-subtly pay homage to Carpenter's original. One of the high points for the film comes by way of its score, which like the rest of the movie is built on Carpenter's foundation but that finds its own voice with an edgy, unnerving, and dangerous cadence, highlighted by a scene in which Michael kills two characters in a bathroom partway through the film. Ultimately, though, Halloween struggles to do anything meaningful with the franchise. It's a slick movie with a few highlights, including a handful of creative and grotesque kills and a wonderful performance from Jamie Lee Curtis as a self-trained marksman who has believably spent the better part of her life preparing to battle The Shape one more time, all to the detriment of her family and her increasingly fragile and deteriorating sanity.

Halloween Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Like so many of its contemporaries, Halloween was shot on digital. The franchise, of course, has its roots in film and, until now, every movie in the franchise had been shot on film, including the pair of Rob Zombie pictures. It's a bit of a disappointment, then, that David Gordon Green and Cinematographer Michael Simmonds chose to break tradition, but it is 2018 and, for better or for worse, digital is becoming, if it has not already become, the de facto "new normal" in Hollywood.

Nevertheless, the digitally sourced presentation is top-notch. Universal's 1080p Blu-ray delivers a high yield visual experience, presenting core textural and color arrangements with a precision and integrity that are largely above reproach. The picture is crisp, clean, efficient, and highly detailed with only a few ever-so-slightly softer edges apparent throughout. Textural intimacy and sharpness are first-class throughout, whether considering wonderful detail on the well worn gates outside of Strode's property, the natural leaves and woods around her rural escape, and the weathered home exteriors and warmer interiors that make up her defensive retreat. Facial features are finely revealing. The film offers glimpses of Michael Myers from the outset, a weathered, aged man with dense lines and white facial hair, seen at angle, briefly, here and there. Such scenes demand the utmost clarity to absorb the rapid-fire glimpses and the Blu-ray is more than capable. Michael's mask is a joy upon its true reveal. It's seen near film's start, out-of-focus, but when The Shape reunites with it, lays his hands on it, and dons it for the first time in the movie, it's a revelation of wear and tear and aging and all of the fine textures that shape it. The scene takes place during the day, a plus for the audience's opportunity to witness it in its full glory. The color palette is highly efficient and true. Red blood is a highlight, particularly in a grungy bathroom seen midway through the film, a scene in which Myers repeatedly slams a character's face into the wall to extremely bloody result. Clothing, flashing police lights, natural greens, and fall colors (including orange pumpkins) are all very nicely saturated. Skin tones appear healthy and full while black levels are appropriately dense and absorbing without crushing critical elements in any given shot. The encode is very efficient, refusing to reveal any banding in potentially difficult scenes (such as a foggy nighttime scene in chapter six) and it keeps source noise in check, revealing only a little in lower light shots.

Halloween Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Halloween's DTS:X soundtrack does not often take full advantage or make discrete use of the overhead channels at its disposal, but the track otherwise makes for a fundamentally sound listen. The track builds a full, able-bodied presentation in which music is the most obvious beneficiary of length and clarity. The soundtrack is every bit as effective as one would expect it to be. Musical engagement is wonderful. The opening title track delivers precision notes of a familiar refrain, a wonderful reproduction of Carpenter's original, iconic score. The presentation thereof is largely the front end's task, with modest surround integration only. Such holds true for much of the film. Music is definitely more up front than it is evenly distributed through the rears. The front left and right channels carry the bulk while the back channels, and the overheads, for that matter, offer a complimentary fill that does not absolutely immerse the listener into the score but that does create a fuller listening sensation. Clarity is terrific, essential in detecting and appreciating the details within the original refrain as well as many of the more edgy and experimental notes that define some of the track's more intensive, weighty notes. The subwoofer is used in a complimentary fashion for musical support and does not extend itself prodigiously at any point in the track. Gunshots lack thunderous depth and could even be said to a moderate sonic disappointment, but the low end does find some depth when a car runs a character over in chapter 15 and at a few moments during the final confrontation. Along with music, dialogue is the sonic mainstay and the presentation thereof is without flaw, playing with seamless clarity and positioning and expert prioritization when competing with any surrounding elements.

Halloween Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Halloween's Blu-ray disc contains a collection of deleted and extended scenes and several featurettes. A DVD copy of the film and a Movies Anywhere digital copy code are included with purchase. The release ships with an embossed slipcover.

• Deleted/Extended Scenes (1080p, 12:42 total runtime): Included are Extended Shooting Range - Deleted Suicide Thoughts, Shower Mask Visit, Jog to a Hanging Dog, Allyson and Friends at School, Cameron and Cops Don't Mix, Deluxe Banh Mi Cops, and Sartain and Hawkins Ride Along.
• Back in Haddonfield: Making Halloween (1080p, 6:05): A discussion of how the film invents its own tale yet pays respect to the original film. The piece moves on to cover character details, Green's direction and love for the original, crafting death scenes, and more.
• The Original Scream Queen (1080p, 2:32): A quick exploration of Jamie Lee Curtis' character as she was in the original and as she is in this film. Cast and crew praise her acting talents and shaping the character.
• The Sound of Fear (1080p, 3:19): Using Carpenter's original score as the foundation for this film's new music.
• Journey of the Mask (1080p, 2:33): Building the iconic mask for the film. Discussions also include the mask's origins and the feelings it conveys.
• The Legacy of Halloween (1080p, 4:25): Jamie Lee Curtis, John Carpenter, David Gordon Green, and Jason Blum sit down for a brief chat about making the film, the original film's staying power, returning Laurie Strode to the center of the Halloween world, and more.

Halloween Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Halloween is a good movie that is a little too reliant on genre structure and paying its respects to the original. It's also more risk-averse than it should be. When the film takes its biggest risk with the best opportunity for long-term reward, is squashes the potential to take the film and franchise in a new and interesting direction that could have better defined the psychosis that exists within, and extends from, Michael Myers. Instead, Director David Gordon Green is content to build a movie that is well made and a worthy successor to the original but one that doesn't allow the apple to fall too far from the tree. Universal's Blu-ray is excellent, featuring top-rate video and high quality audio. A few supplements are included. Recommended.