Critics reviews

What’s even more offensive about David Gordon Green’s 2018 entry into the franchise are its vacuous attempts at fan service, its forced self-referential dialogue and clunky attempts at tongue-in-cheek humor, and its overall glossy, deflated, and superficial aping of John Carpenter’s scrappy and potent classic.

There are gaping plot holes and characters make idiotic decisions, but watching three generations of women take on Myers—with some great callbacks to the original—is irresistibly satisfying.

Perhaps pandering to viewers who these days expect a higher yuck factor, this new iteration is more gruesome yet much less scary, its sleekness and efficiency poor substitutes for foreboding.

While some of the in-jokes and nostalgic mood-setting come off as a little too pleased with their own cleverness, the real effectiveness of this iteration of Halloween is the engagement with the franchise’s treatment of PTSD.