"Evil will die tonight!"
The movie opens with a trip down memory lane, just past the closing moments of the original Halloween- as police are on the trail of Myers, following him to his home where he kills again. Where we see more of the terror he left behind on that awful night, after the credits rolled in the original John Carpenter classic. It closes a small hole left behind with the 2018 "sequel", which ignores all of the franchise films and focuses on what was left behind in that original film.
And in 2018, Evil will die tonight.
For Laurie Strode, it was a promise that failed to materialize within the opening moments of Halloween Kills, as Michael escapes the "death trap" we last saw him in. He is still the Shape, he is still the essence of evil. And he still has evil to do.
He Kills again. And again.
Evil will die tonight.
For the former victims of Michael Myers, it's a rallying cry to strengthen them against fear of the dark and the lingering memories of Halloween 1978. Four survivors, Tommy Doyle, Lonny Elam, Lindsay Wallace, and Marion Chambers reminisce at a bar where they relate the events for locals and pay tribute to the dead and still living. Then they receive the news- Michael is back.
Evil will die tonight.
Tommy Doyle (Anthony Micheal Hall) will not stand aside to let others protect him anymore. He declares the above statement with rage, with fear, with determination to fight against the dark, to cast out the demon that has haunted his sleep for decades. It's a battle cry quickly picked up by the other people in town- echoing down the streets, in the hospital corridors, in the homes of frightened Haddonfield- it echoes loud, insistent, and virulently.
Michael's greatest evil is the fear he creates- not just the victims of his brutality, but the families, the friends, the lovers, wives, husbands, children, and parents. And righteous rage will burn and it will consume- Halloween Kills is horror at it's best, at it's most brutal, at it's most gory, at it's most primal, it's most savage, it's more fear-drenched and it is a work of cinematic perfection.
10 out of 10
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