So long and thanks for all the flesh
(Warning: plot twists and story discussed in explicit detail)
Heard the feedback: Worse Halloween ever. Slow and boring. Where's Michael? Who's the new guy?-- and I agree. Worse Halloween ever, not much of a slasher film.
But what it is as it turns out is a pretty interesting David Gordon Green film.
As horror Halloween Ends barely qualifies. Green edits the slasher sequences with even less care than Michael his victims, chopped to the point of hamburger. Some of the shots are staged in a bizarre if not inexplicable way-- when Michael is assaulted for example and (gasp) not winning, you'd imagine the filmmakers would want the event played up, dramatized as a major turning point (Michael hasn't recovered from his last beating, Michael has weakened from years of hiding, Michael has grown old); instead you see the struggle at a distance, from the end of a tunnel. Later there's a sequence in Laurie's house with so many entrances and exits that comes across as excessive, even unintentionally comic; you almost want to install a turnstile in place of a front door.
Characters make stupid choices, enter quiet houses alone, go off by themselves...you'd think by now and on top of the Scream franchise people would be tired of horror movie cliches and they are or at least I am. And yet; and yet and yet and yet and yet
On Michael (James Jude Courtney, heavy breathing by Nick Castle): to tell the truth he was never really a presence in the original, nor was he meant to be. He was always The Shape, a shadow or an outline lurking in the frames of the film, more the threat than anything actually violent (and when he does start acting out the level of gore is nowhere near as graphic or convolutedly staged as anything in its sequels, or its many mutated forebears). The film was always a minimalist elegantly shot exercise in sustained, dashed, and exceeded expectations, the audience more prone to clutching at their armrests (or dates' upper arms) than actually gasping out loud. Once in a blue moon when the opportunity presents itself I'll actually watch John Carpenter's film again (like I did last night), to appreciate the way all the working parts click smoothly into place.
It was never about Michael, at least in Green's 2018 reboot/sequel; it's about Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis), and the town of Haddonfield behind her. The brother/sister motive, the Curse of the Thorn, the various faked deaths and misdirections and resurrections are all part of some ever expanding Cinematic Universe the various directors and producers have thrown together and are here unceremoniously dismissed. Rob Zombie's Halloween reboot does do this much right of focusing on the original pair but at the wrong figure, giving Michael a past he doesn't really need.
The final entry in Green's trilogy doesn't actually start with Laurie but with yet another Halloween sequence, involving another child and another babysitter (Rohan Campbell as Corey Cunningham); their slow-motion slide into horror is wonderfully staged and shot-- Green has you looking over Corey's shoulder and staying with him as the child he's watching turns out to be more than a handful and panic sets in. Four years later Corey has been acquitted of manslaughter but is treated as a social outcast, maybe not legally but socially held responsible for the child's death.
What does Corey have to do with Michael? Actually I'd say a lot. He's Green's metaphor for The Shape, what could have been if Michael was a touch more socially adept or mentally flexible-- both walking wounded and guilty party combined in an awkward hunch-over figure. Campbell with his puzzled eyes and drooped mouth (there are times when the camera looks at him and you think a younger Michael Rooker) seems both an object of pathos and a source of unease. You feel you should be sorry for him the same time the hairs rise at the back of your neck.
At the same time Corey isn't necessarily the only ogre in town. As in Halloween Kills, Green proposes that ordinary folk and mob rule can be uglier than Michael ever was-- that Michael was only a catalyst that brought out the worst in Haddonfield. Corey isn't legally guilty of what he did, but he does feel somehow responsible, and other youths sense this, sense his open wounds, and close in for the hurt if not kill. That's what Laurie senses-- what made Laurie approach Corey in the first place-- and what Laurie's granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak, very good here) senses as well.
Corey's scenes with Allyson, with whom he's formed a nervous yet intense relationship, show Green's true concern: the kids who've grown up with trauma, in a town full of trauma, occasionally misunderstanding and often being misunderstood, a pair of walking wounded who reach out for each other in the hope of human contact. Arguably the most joyful image in the film is of Corey's head on the floor upside down, Allyson cradling it in wondrous affection; arguably the most heartbreaking image in the film is later, of Corey's head on the floor upside down, Allyson cradling it in stricken grief.
But it's all really about Laurie-- and Curtis in what she's oft repeated is her last performance on the subject is a sight to see, traveling a long arc from rabid survivalist to appalled observer to healed survivor to stricken grandmother. In Green's most inventive camera shot, we follow her as she wanders about her room, wondering about her state of mind, thinking: will she do it? Will she atone for her perceived guilt, for the wrongs she believes she's done? Will Michael-- this being the most subversive most persuasive thought of all-- be cheated of his ultimate prey?
The final passages have less a kick of horror than the slow seeping bittersweet tang of mourning. After all is said and done, what can you say to someone who's been a huge part of your waking life, from teenage years onwards, both onscreen and off? If Laurie holds Michael's hand in the closing sequences as she applies her knife, how else can she hold it other than tenderly? That final procession may have the look of a crowd with pitchforks, but the feeling is different-- not so much a mob out of control as a people performing a ritual of closure. Maybe-- at least with Laurie and Allyson-- a ritual of recognition and ultimately of moving on. Michael as it turns out was only some kind of shape, an outline into which we fill in our fears and anger, our unspoken desires and nightmares. The real monster is us; it was us all the time.
No comments:
Post a Comment