HALLOWEEN (2018)...

The new Halloween doesn't know whether to pay homage to the original, or to be relevant to today. So it tries to do both. The result is a competent but uninspired movie that never quite finds its own groove.

The story of Michael Myers and his stalking of Laurie Strode was sly and primal back when John Carpenter first gave it to us in 1978. The new version, from David  Gordon Green, is like a big, dumb guy trying to recite poetry.

He may have meant well,  but horror isn't Green's metier. 

True, it can't be easy to handle a classic of the genre and put your own stamp on it, and Green isn't the first to fumble in such a situation. At times, his rendition of Halloween is actually watchable. Green has directed some fine movies and television shows in the past, and though that doesn't mean he's right for the job here, his talent and style occasionally shine through. And when Carpenter's original music kicks in, at once throbbing and sinister, one almost thinks a good movie has been made. It's the screenplay that bombs. 

Jamie Lee Curtis is back as Strode. Now she's haggard, nearing 60; she's never quite recovered from her first encounter with the masked Halloween killer. She drinks a lot and lives alone in a highly barricaded house with enough weapons to fill out a Clint Eastwood movie. She's Strode as imagined by third rate writers.

When Strode isn't fending off nosy podcasters who are obsessed with Myers, she's being belittled by her daughter and son-in-law, played by Judy Greer and Toby Huss. You may recall Greer as Kitty Sanchez in Arrested Development, and Huss from a bit part on Seinfeld. (He played 'The Wiz.') They badger her with dumb lines like, "You have to put it behind you, mom!" Of course, Strode can't forget Myers, especially when she learns that he's being relocated to another mental health facility. In another ho-hum move by the writing team, he's being relocated on Halloween night. Do you think he'll escape?

Curtis, along with Carpenter, served as a producer on the film, so she must have approved of these schlocky ideas. Perhaps she was blindsided by the movie's final image, that of mother, daughter, and granddaughter, exhausted and bloody after their climactic confrontation with Myers. Maybe it seemed like a symbol of women's empowerment, or the #metoo movement. But to modernize the Halloween concept didn't make the movie any more entertaining. It's all too lead-footed and predictable to be scary.

Curtis' performance is standard for a Halloween movie. She's content to let her grizzled appearance do the acting for her.  At one point she delivers a sky-shattering scream, which makes it seem  Laurie Strode has gone totally nuts. Too bad the movie doesn't continue in that vein. The best Gordon and co-writers Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley can do is turn Strode into an ass-kicking vigilante, an earth mamma with a gun collection.

As for Michael Myers (played by two actors, including Nick Castle, from the original), he's still big and mysterious; we still don't know what drives him. The movie makes no concessions to his age, either. We see that he has some white whiskers,  but this man who would be near 70 is still enormously powerful. Maybe evil keeps him young. He doesn't use his trusty knife as much, either. Now he likes to bash people's heads against walls. He steps on a guy's head, too. The contents shoot out like toothpaste from a tube. He even bashes Strode's head against a door about 20 times. I don't know how the old gal takes it.

Universal and Miramax spent a ton on advertising, and it's nice to have Jamie Lee Curtis back, so the movie will have a big opening weekend, I'm sure. But the audience I was with didn't seem especially moved by any of it. During the closing credits, they rose as one and shambled out of the darkness into the lobby. They will see better movies this season.