After a three year delay “Halloween Kills” has finally hit theaters on Oct. 15th.

In what feels like a clear nod to the first sequel, “Halloween Kills” picks up immediately after the end of the 2018 film (and it’s also probably not coincidental that most of it takes place at Haddonfield Memorial Hospital).

However, it opens by introducing a few new and old characters familiar names for fans of the Carpenter films but new to the Green ones.

The most prominent is Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall), the kid that Laurie was babysitting on that fateful night in 1978. He gets together with fellow survivors every year, including Lindsey Wallace (Kyle Richards, reprising her role from the 1978 original), Marion Chambers (Nancy Stephens, also from the first two movies), and Lonnie Elam (Robert Longstreet, not in the Carpenter movie, but the character is).

They’re getting together on Halloween to celebrate surviving four decades after the most traumatic night of their lives, but they’re really set up as future victims for anyone who has ever seen a horror movie (which is, based on their behavior.)

Meanwhile, across town, Cameron (Dylan Arnold) stumbles upon the bleeding body of Deputy Hawkins (Will Patton), who is rushed to the hospital, where he will eventually share a room with Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis).

As the two reminisce and recover, Michael Myers escapes the burning house from the end of the first film and begins a truly brutal rampage.

On that note, “Halloween Kills” is a much darker film than the last one, filled with more than a dozen of what slasher fans used to call “quality kills.”

As Myers makes his way across Haddonfield, Laurie’s daughter Karen (Judy Greer, at least given a bit more to do here than last time) tries to stop Laurie’s granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) from joining the mob formed by Tommy to track him down.

As they chant “Evil dies tonight,” they make, shall we say, some mistakes.

Although I suspect even the hardcore fans of the last Green film would be disappointed even in a crowd. The biggest difference between the visions of Carpenter and Green comes down to momentum.

The first “Halloween” is lean and mean, whereas this movie can’t maintain focus for longer than a few minutes, and so it tries to use cheesy, overheated dialogue to impart seriousness that the pace lacks.

In particular, Laurie’s monologues are a mish-mash of nonsense about unstoppable evil.

And fans will be truly sad that she barely leaves the hospital or even impacts the plot, which is a baffling decision given how much fans of the last film praised Curtis’ return, seeming to tie Myers and Strode together before untying them here.
“Halloween Kills” follows the classic sequel formula of “Again, But More of It.” There are more kills, more characters, more references, and more general chaos.

However, all of it keeps pulling the movie away from the story of a bogeyman who came to life and became something else entirely.

Many people knew the end of the movie before it had happened as idiotic filmmakers have announced the date for “Halloween Ends” the last sequel (hopefully) this franchise will see.

We have seen so many variations on Michael Myers over the years from Carpenter’s to Rob Zombie’s to all of the various sequels in between those two filmmakers.

I’m most startled that an undeniably talented director like David Gordon Green made, barring an impressive recovery in the already-greenlighted “Halloween Ends,” what will be one of the franchise’s most forgettable.

Overall “Halloween Kills” was a decent movie. We can’t expect great things from any horror franchise that has been around nearly four decades.But at the end of the day this installment wasn’t nearly as tragic as it could have been.

IMDb gave “Halloween Kills” a 6/10, I agree with the rating because their wasn’t much to the plot that wasn’t in the previous movie.  These movies are harder to watch each time since we have had many different directors for this franchise and many major plot points have been cut out.