I need to get this out of the way. Why the HELL is this movie just called Halloween? This isn’t a remake! It’s a sequel to the 1978 John Carpenter film. I know Hollywood has seemingly given up on coming up with fun sequel titles, usually they just add a word like “the” to the title. But this is incredibly lazy and not to mention confusing to people who want to talk about the movie. This should be called Halloween 2 or given a subtitle like Halloween Returns. In fact, that’s how I’m going to refer to this movie from now on!

Aside from the incredibly lazy title, this movie is actually worth checking out. This wipes out the events of all the other Halloween films except for the first. Taking place 40 years after the first film, the main characters are the 3 Strode women. Laurie, who is distant from her daughter and her family due to how she acted as a parent. Karen is Laurie’s adult daughter, who has gone the opposite parenting direction and tried to create a more optimistic home life for her family. And there is Allyson, Karen’s teenage daughter and Laurie’s gran-daughter. However, when a bus transporting patients of a mental institute crashes, Michael Myers breaks free. And he returns to Haddonfield to bring havoc to everyone who lives there.

This film does a great job building suspense and creating a dark atmosphere, especially when Michael is the focus in the scene. And while this movie wipes out all the other sequels, there are little easter eggs that reference certain things from those other movies. But the story stands completely on it’s own. It does this by showing us how Laurie’s life went afterwards and how it has impacted those closest to her. As well as have a number of scenes and shots that are ambitious from a cinematography perspective. Something that had been severely lacking in other Halloween sequels. That’s only bolstered by the beautiful original score provided by the master of Horror himself, John Carpenter.

The acting for the most part is pretty good. I will say there are a couple of characters who just aren’t that like-able. Those would be Allyson’s boyfriend and his associated friend who tries to make a move on Allyson later in the story. Allyson’s female friend and her boyfriend are better, but you can also tell that they are there to die. Another issue that might get in the way with some viewers is the tone in certain scenes. This movie comes from David Green and Danny McBride, and they both inject in some humor into the script. There are moments where it does help make the characters more relatable and get us to root for them. But there are other moments where it can feel out of place and conflict with the darker tone the movie is going for. Having said that, most of those moments are short and are out of the way during the first act.

One thing I’ve felt like a lot of the Halloween sequels were missing was atmosphere. There are standalone scenes and moments spread throughout. But a sequel with a haunting atmosphere during most if not the entire runtime just didn’t exist until this movie. That’s what I appreciate the most from this movie. You feel like Michael Myers is an actual threat and menace. The confrontation between him and Laurie is tense and exciting. It’s shot in a darkly gorgeous fashion that can be seen throughout the flick. No, it’s not a perfect movie. But it is a really good movie. And that easily makes this the best Michael Myers sequel.