Film “Halloween Kills” in the cinema: Who’s afraid of the black man? – Culture

For the film premiere of “Halloween Kills” in Los Angeles, the leading actress Jamie Lee Curtis came dressed appropriately in mid-October – as her own mother. In their most famous film role, to be precise.

It was a tribute to the beautiful coincidence in film history that her mother Janet Leigh became world famous as the leading actress in the horror film “Psycho” in 1960, and Jamie Lee Curtis then a generation later in 1978 in the horror film “Halloween” – for which the makers strongly believe in “Psycho.” “served.

The inventor of the series, John Carpenter, spiced up the very simple story of the original “Halloween” film (knife killer chases girls) with Hitchcock’s sophistication. In fact, by not only confronting the audience with the monster, but equating it with him: Just like as a viewer in “Psycho” you take a camera shot from the point of view of Norman Bates with knife in hand to Janet Leigh in the shower rose, Carpenter pressed you through the camera work into the perspective of the “Halloween” serial killer Michael Myers.

A film about the question of what collective trauma does to a society

The idea that evil does not reveal itself in the other, but when you look in the mirror, borrowed the horror genre from the mindset of the 19th century, from psychoanalysis, of course, but also from Darwinism, those philosophical currents in which it is is ideologically anchored. The trick of turning the viewer into a sex offender, of course, only works at the box office if you don’t cannibalize it on the assembly line. Which is why part two to part eleven of “Halloween” weren’t really material for film history.

That’s why you are first of all inspired by a certain knife-killing fatigue when the twelfth part of the series comes to the cinema with “Halloween Kills”. But, dear pumpkin friends, there is good news: this is a very good horror film. Which is because the director David Gordon Green, who has let off steam in almost every genre from the Hollywood mainstream comedy (“Ananas Express”) to the small indie film (“Prince Avanalche”), is a great admirer of “Halloween” – and has a master plan to bring the classic into the present.

"Halloween kills": To the premiere of "Halloween kills" in Los Angeles, starring Jamie Lee Curtis dressed up like her mother when she starred in "Psycho" played.

For the premiere of “Halloween Kills” in Los Angeles, leading actress Jamie Lee Curtis dressed up like her mother when she starred in “Psycho”.

(Photo: Valerie Macon / AFP)

The original was so formative for Green that he wrote a script for a sequel years ago without anyone commissioning him. The script went into the drawer until Green shot the drama “Stronger” with Hollywood star Jake Gyllenhaal in 2017. Gyllenhaal happens to be the godson of “Halloween” heroine Jamie Lee Curtis. He made contact, and Curtis was very fond of a new edition.

This resulted in a first joint sequel in 2018, which was ultimately just a little horror finger exercise, an exposure for what David Gordon Green and Jamie Lee Curtis are now doing in “Halloween Kills”. They bow again to the original, with flashbacks that take up the storylines from back then, but which you don’t have to know to enjoy this film. Because they emancipate themselves a good bit from the old story, the eternal man-chase-woman game, by opening up the story to a broader staff, and they do this with a good sense of social problem areas.

“Halloween Kills” is less of a one-girl show by Jamie Lee Curtis than a film about how collective trauma can transform society. The makers exercise this in the small town of Haddonfield, the location of the “Halloween” films. A small town in which not only Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode suffers from the repeat offender Michael Myers, but all residents have suffered physical and mental wounds from his actions, victims, police officers, eyewitnesses, bereaved, a whole community ripe for the psychiatrist.

"Halloween kills": Three generations shocked by the serial killer: Judy Gree, Jamie Lee Curtis and Andi Matichak in "Halloween kills".

Three generations shocked by the serial killer: Judy Gree, Jamie Lee Curtis and Andi Matichak in “Halloween Kills”.

(Photo: Ryan Green / AP)

One of the messages of this film, which is a merciless reflection of the time it was made, is that collective suffering does not necessarily lead to collective healing, but also to individual delusion. While the killer is raging again, a mob forms in the small town of Haddonfield, whose hatred is so existential that it can no longer defeat its trigger because otherwise it will lose its livelihood. And that is a horror that, like all good horror films, unfortunately goes far beyond the cinema.

Halloween kills, USA 2020 – Director: David Gordon Green. Book: Danny McBride, Scott Teems, David Gordon Green. Camera: Michael Simmonds. Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Andi Matichak. Universal, 106 minutes. Theatrical release: October 21, 2021.

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