Halloween’s Initial Reviews Receive Praise From Various Critics

Despite the risky, early screening at the Toronto International Fim Festival, Halloween received praise from the critics present. The franchise is a fan favorite, popularly rewatched during October. However, this is not the first time the movie got a reboot. In 2007, Rob Zombie made a remake of the film. Also, Halloween II came out in 2009.  Still, the critic’s positive feedback proves that the film is worth giving a shot. Here are the initial critic reviews for Universal Studios’ Halloween sequel.

Universal Studios’ Halloween: The Good

Halloween is a shining example of what any other budding slasher reboot or sequel should strive to be, a film that doesn’t just lean on what made the character popular, to begin with, or explain that character away with a backstory to the point that you obliterate the scare factor entirely. This Halloween movie is a near perfect blend of craft, character growth and nostalgia. – Perri Nemiroff, Collider

Ryan Green/Universal Pictures

While no entry in the franchise has surpassed the original film, this Halloween sequel is truly a cut above the rest and a great piece of horror entertainment even for those unfamiliar with the series. Filmmaker David Gordon Green has infused his Halloween with a dark wit and a gleeful self-awareness, and Jamie Lee Curtis brings a fierce conviction and wounded humanity to her iconic scream queen role. The rest of the cast, both major and minor characters, also get their moments to shine, often in truly hilarious ways. The tension is thick, the kills are brutal, the jokes are funny, and the performances are memorable across the board. – Jim Vejvoda, IGN

You probably wouldn’t expect David Gordon Green and Danny McBride to be the first choice to make a sequel to the mother of all horror film classics, John Carpenter’s Halloween, but thanks are due to producer Jason Blum for sending it their way. Forty years after the original film’s release, Green, McBride, co-writer Jeff Fradley, and most importantly, star and big beating heart of the franchise Jamie Lee Curtis, made a film that’s a profoundly feminist re-examination of its psychology of trauma through its iconography. It’s also a rip-roaring slasher flick that’s hands down the best Halloween sequel ever. – Katie Walsh, Nerdist

Continuing one of the strangest careers ever to start in the art house, George Washington director David Gordon Green gets to live a fanboy’s dream with Halloween, clearing the franchise of decades of crud and starting over with a sequel that pretends no movies ever happened after John Carpenter’s geek-beloved, genre-launching original. (Why isn’t it Halloween 2, then? Who knows.) The kind of gig hitherto reserved for J.J. Abrams and few others, it’s one Green fairly leaps into, delivering both fan service and honest-to-god moviemaking of the sort rarely seen in horror spinoffs. Carpenter should be pleased, and so should genre buffs — for once, this is a pic their less-geeky girl/boyfriends should enjoy. – John DeFore, The Hollywood Reporter

For many, the thrill of seeing Michael Myers stalk the streets of Haddonfield will be enough to forget the many flaws. But in forgetting what came before, Green and McBride have positioned Halloween 2018 as somehow better, bolder and more necessary than those sequels and the scariest thing about it is that it really isn’t. – Benjamin Lee, The Guardian

Universal Studios’ Halloween: The Bad

Instead, the movie mostly works because it’s so fundamental, and funny too: Michael still never speaks; his mask and his slow, deadly, deliberate walk say everything they need to. At 59, Curtis seems to have fully arrived in her role as a midnight-madness queen, and she has a great time in jeans and a grey fright wig, swinging her shotgun around and screaming at everyone to get in the safe room. – Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly

Ryan Green/Universal Pictures

First the trick: David Gordon Green’s “Halloween” sequel pretends like the last nine films in the franchise don’t exist, picking up 40 years after John Carpenter’s seminal 1978 slasher movie as if none of that other nonsense has ever happened. Now the treat: His take reunites Michael Myers (once again, it’s Nick Castle under the mask) with Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), the babysitter who got away, for a final confrontation — one they’ve both been anticipating all this time, but audiences had no reason to think they’d ever witness.

That makes this new “Halloween” an act of fan service disguised as a horror movie. The fact it works as both means that Green (who flirted with the idea of directing the “Suspiria” remake) has pulled off what he set out to do, tying up the mythology that Carpenter and company established, while delivering plenty of fresh suspense — and grisly-creative kills — for younger audiences who are buying into the “Halloween” brand without any real investment in Michael and Laurie’s unfinished business. – Peter Debrudge, Variety

Regardless of whether you are a geek or not, giving Halloween a shot is not a bad idea. Completely disregarding the events of the previous films, Halloween serves as an avenue to bring the franchise to its original roots. The likelihood of a third movie to follow the franchise is still quite blurry, so this is the nearest thing we have to an answer.

Halloween hits theaters on October 19, 2018.