The Halloween Film Series Thread... - Part 4

[The Shape]

2018 beats II hands down for me.

Better Laurie, better Michael, better story, just overall better movie.

This pretty much sums it up. There are many things I liked and appreciate about HII, but H18 is the better and more interesting sequel IMO.

I also find HII to be a bit boring sometimes.

 

[SupermanFan]

Personally as much as I don’t like the sister angle I feel there was no need to remove it in H2018. Well they didn’t present reason enough for it to not be there imo. Especially the convoluted way they have Michael & Laurie end up meeting in 2018.

Also HII’s ending is much more satisfying for me than the meta role reversal of Michael & Laurie in H2018.

 

[The Joker]

If you take out the sister reveal, II is almost on par with the original. And the opening is so rewatchable.

Earl, you want mayonnaise on your sandwich? How about mustard?

 

[The Joker]

That and he’s not even initially specifically after Laurie.

Exactly. Imagine living in Haddonfield, and the situation depending on which Michael is on the prowl. If you're facing the Michael who wants to kill his family then as long as you're not around Laurie then you're probably safe. If you're facing the original/2018 Michael then he could easily just casually walk into your house and smash your head in with a hammer.

 

[weezerspider]

Personally as much as I don’t like the sister angle I feel there was no need to remove it in H2018. Well they didn’t present reason enough for it to not be there imo. Especially the convoluted way they have Michael & Laurie end up meeting in 2018.

Also HII’s ending is much more satisfying for me than the meta role reversal of Michael & Laurie in H2018.

I didn’t mention that, but the Prey vs Predator debate, whether Laurie is special to Michael for surviving psychological mumbo jumbo is just as cheesy as the sister storyline to me. The more I think about it, the more I am starting to feel like the only way to make a truly great sequel that can stand with the original is without Laurie. There’s just no feasible storyline where their paths collide that isn’t somewhat contrived.


Again, not to sound too negative, I thoroughly enjoy both Halloween II and Halloween (2018). The original film is one of my all time favorite films and Carpenter is one of my favorite directors, so I’m just picky and tough to please when it comes to the sequels.

 

[SupermanFan]

I feel really sad for Laurie in H2018, she’s waited for Michael to escape all those years yet he’s not given her another thought. Not even convinced he recognises her when they meet. That’s one aspect I do kind of like.

 

[Schlosser85]

I feel really sad for Laurie in H2018, she’s waited for Michael to escape all those years yet he’s not given her another thought. Not even convinced he recognises her when they meet. That’s one aspect I do kind of like.

Yea it feels like she built this rivalry all up in her own mind. "He's waited for me.....I've waited for him". We never see any evidence that's true on his part, or that he even knows or cares who she is, or if he even realizes she's the same girl from forty years ago.

 

[Doctor Jones]

I appreciate the responses.
I think both give Laurie a kind of dumb identity( II making her his sister, 2018 making that one night completely define her and turn her into essentially a superhero at home protection).

This irks me too. This is part of the meta narrative trend going on in movies that has been aggravating me. It comes off less of just engaging with a story and doing something good, and more about the importance of the movie in our world today and how it impacted and implements in the narrative. Like we love Halloween and it's important and it impacted a lot of us, so the narrative is that the night of Halloween impacted Laurie so much to the point where it was the most important thing in her life and it totally defines her.

I get that would be a traumatic experience, but would it really be that traumatic?

 

[DarkKnight88]

I get that would be a traumatic experience, but would it really be that traumatic?

Um, YES!

 

[Doctor Jones]

Um, YES!

Maybe I'm just framing it wrong. Take the real world considerations out of it, and just dramatically speaking, it's just rings less true to me and more for the sake of "what Halloween as a franchise means to me."

 

[Schlosser85]

I get the complaints about the 2018 movie wanting to have its cake and eat it too by disregarding every other movie except the original yet still wanting Michael Myers to be so notorious, but I don't think it's implausible that Laurie couldn't have massive PTSD even only from one night. She saw all her friends slaughtered and got chased around all night by a silent relentless knife-wielding maniac in a blank white mask.

Plenty of people have lifelong trauma from one harrowing incident.

 

[Doctor Jones]

I'm fine with the trauma, I just wish it was dramatized differently. I actually preferred it in H20. She gets worked up every Halloween. That's not the only way to do it I'm saying, I just think for what that was, that was done a little better.

 

[Schlosser85]

I kinda prefer 2018 Laurie even though I understand some preferring the H20 version where she's better-adjusted and it hasn't dominated her entire life, but that's just personal preferences I think.

 

[Sawyer]

The thing about H20 is... okay, 4-6 never happened. Then where the hell was he for 20 years? She watched him burn at the end of II, the. there’s no activity for 20 years and suddenly he’s just back?

IMO, 2018 works better in that regard. We know what the deal was. Michael was locked up and essentially passed into folklore as far as Haddonfield is concerned. The only ones hanging onto Michael are Laurie, who has basically become the girl who cried wolf even to her own family, and (to a much lesser degree) the sole remaining cop who was there in ‘78 and a few true crime podcasters.

 

[Schlosser85]

The thing about H20 is... okay, 4-6 never happened. Then where the hell was he for 20 years? She watched him burn at the end of II, the. there’s no activity for 20 years and suddenly he’s just back?

IMO, 2018 works better in that regard. We know what the deal was. Michael was locked up and essentially passed into folklore as far as Haddonfield is concerned. The only ones hanging onto Michael are Laurie, who has basically become the girl who cried wolf even to her own family, and (to a much lesser degree) the sole remaining cop who was there in ‘78 and a few true crime podcasters.

Also him somehow surviving that ending was ridiculous even by Michael standards.

And it's even more ridiculous that Loomis survived too!

 

[Sawyer]

Also him somehow surviving that ending was ridiculous even by Michael standards.

And it's even more ridiculous that Loomis survived too!

Yeah, and how the hell was Loomis’s scarring so minimal? Like... the mother****er got BLOWN UP.

 

[Schlosser85]

Yeah, and how the hell was Loomis’s scarring so minimal? Like... the mother****er got BLOWN UP.

He dove behind a crate very quickly.

(**** if I know)

 

[The Joker]

The only part of H20 that bothered me in regards to that is Michael didn't have burned skin.

 

[weezerspider]

Maybe I'm just framing it wrong. Take the real world considerations out of it, and just dramatically speaking, it's just rings less true to me and more for the sake of "what Halloween as a franchise means to me."

I think her struggling with PTSD and training with guns and being paranoid is all well and good. Her building a damn fortress and training her child every single day to fight is a little cheesy to me. It’s like they felt the need to build her to a larger than life character to match Michael. She’s basically a Batmanesque character which is a turnoff for me. The more grounded, the better.

 

[Mani-Man]

When it comes to Future Timelines, i like H2018 a bit more than H20.
They both are cool ideas, but i favor H2018 a bit more.
Perfectly would have been something between the two.

I liked that h20 kept the brother/sister thing, that laurie gets triggered by the date, that she lives under a different name and all that...its cool stuff.
But it sucks that they pretty much only took the basic ideas.
Michael has no burned skin or so and at times it feels too disconnected to its "prequels".

On that H2018 does a better job connecting and building a bridge.
It feels more like a true sequel...also i dont like josh hartnett...harnett?
In that i like the H2018 cast a lot more in general.

Also, where the hell was Michael all these years in H20?

 

[SupermanFan]

The only part of H20 that bothered me in regards to that is Michael didn't have burned skin.

Yeah I never understood that. Same with the mask issue too, how hard was it to get it looking even semi decent?

 

[Schlosser85]

Yeah I never understood that. Same with the mask issue too, how hard was it to get it looking even semi decent?

Michael looks lame and his mask looks dumb in a head scratching number of movies. Why is it so hard to get the mask right?

 

[Mani-Man]

Michael looks lame and his mask looks dumb in a head scratching number of movies. Why is it so hard to get the mask right?

Its weird, they made the first one on such little budget and it looked so good.
Seems the bigger the budget got...the worst did the mask look.

How they can mess up such a simple yet effective look, is beyond me.

 

[SupermanFan]

Michael looks lame and his mask looks dumb in a head scratching number of movies. Why is it so hard to get the mask right?

Well it’s funny cause the mask actually was a Shatner but the paint job got F’d up on it, then wasn’t there worries about a lawsuit from Shatner or the Star Trek holders? I think that’s where the mask issues stemmed from. Tbh I don’t know why they didn’t just keep the mask from 6 I thought that mask was the best of the series after II until the new one. Although even though I hate Rob Zombies movies I actually thought the mask in the first one was pretty good.

 

[shauner111]

If you take out the sister reveal, II is almost on par with the original. And the opening is so rewatchable.

The only thing I like about this movie is the cinematography.