Halloween (2018) is old school in an anachronistic way with a plot and characters that make no sense while relying on outdated notions of pure evil to do the heavy lifting in filling in the gaps in a villain (Michael Myers) that is inscrutable, silent, and vengeful.

The story, such as it is, is the sort of straight forward reboot fiction thats prevalent in most popular horror films, which supposes mainly that none of the other Halloween film sequels happened.

Michael Myers has been imprisoned in a maximum security film for 40 years and Jamie Lee Curtis’ world weary grandmother (can she play any other type any more?) has spent her entire life preparing herself and her daughter (Judy Greer) for the paranoid eventuality that he will break free and they will have to confront him at the family home because of course his murderous rampage could only end there.

This being a horror movie, of course he breaks free and he goes on a bloody rampage of revenge and he gets his satisfaction! (Tip of the hat for that quote to Kill Bill) Okay, he does go on a random killing spree on Halloween night where a man dressed in dark clothes, wearing a hockey mask, and walking around with a machete supposedly attracts no notice at all. But — spoiler- he does not triumph at the end and become bloody satisfied.

This is a film supposedly set in the present times that is deadset on making you think its the 70’s with the original creepy score along with too many old things to be coincidental like (i catalogued all of em i noticed) pinball games, rubiks cubes, plaid, record players, giant old cathode ray computer monitors, etc. and a general murky darkness associated with filmmaking in days of yore.

Along with its laser focus on reminding you of the past, it remains steadfast on repeating old horror tropes of the past to diminishing returns. When a girl escapes from Michael Myers and runs fleeing into the woods I felt a pretty strong sense of deja vu. They solved the “problem” of having the girl just whip out her cell phone and calling someone for help with an earlier scene at her prom (another horror trope) where her boyfriend throws her phone into a jell-o bowl and dares her to get it back. Staggeringly, instead of just retrieving it after leaving the boyfriend, she leaves the party, and her phone behind to inexplicably walk home on a dark deserted road — uggh.

Is it really neccessary that for a horror film to work every character including the police needs to make the worst possible choices? That’s what 70’s horror taught us, along with yelling “don’t go in there” to the screen and immortalized in far side comics, and other pop-culture ephemera. I suppose this would be a totally different film if any character used a shred of intelligence. Que sera right?

Like the original film, there is a scientist character that has studied Michael Myers intensely and is focused on answering the question “what is evil” even at the expense of his own safety. I daresay that to any modern film goer we don’t have to look far beyond the screen to answer that question. Also, it adds nothing to the film and tries to pretend that our hulking personification of menace is somehow human even though he takes enough punishment that would make John McClane blanch and of course carries on like he wasnt hurt at all from stabs, blows, and gunshots.

The maudlin tone of the film is briefly lifted by a scene where Michael hides in a childs bedroom closet and proceeds to terrorize the child and stalk and kill his babysitter and her boyfriend. For one brief shining moment it reminds us that this whole thing is too ridiculous not to be played for laughs. After the babysitter overdramatically trips and falls when running away, the boy yells to the boyfriend “don’t go up there, you gonna die!” His incredulous face and personality resembling nothing so much as Gary Coleman from Diff’rent Strokes saying “whatchoo talkin bout Willis?”

The phrase Whatchoo talkin bout Willis kinda sums up my reaction to the whole film? You expect me to buy any of this warmed over rehashed nonsense? I left the theater feeling like I had seen a re-run.