Halloween Reboot A Haggard Tale

Halloween

Starring Jamie Lee  Curtis, Nick Curtis

Directed by David Gordon Green

Rating: * ½(one  and a  half stars)

Michael  Myers , the masked marauder   is back. 40 years  is a long time to reboot a horror cult classic which pitched  a suburban American housewife , played with a fiery yet reined-in intensity  by Jamie Lee Curtis,  against a serial killer who was to Hollywood what Raman Raghav was  Hindi cinema.

“Is this  how it feels?”  a psychiatrist wonders aloud after slaying a colleague just to feel what Myers feels.If the  unintentional humour  of this episode doesn’t have choking on  your popcorn then there is the same psycho shrink declaring that Myers must not come to harm as  he is ‘State  Property.’

Kasab,  anyone?

Times have changed.Women  all over the world have worse things to worry about than  a crazy man  with a hammer. The new Halloween  film, given surprisingly  indulgent reviews by American critics, does nothing to update its concerns about violence against women. It simply picks up the story –hammer, knife, sickle and all–dragging and kicking, from where it left off and begins again.

Scream your head  off.

 The  scream-play assembled by three eggheads, follows  the slasher-on-the-prowl  routine with deathly  earnestness. It doesn’t miss a single opportunity to jolt us. But after  a point the  killing rampage runs out of steam…and gore become an unnerving bore.Sad, because we would want  to know how Laurie Strode(Curtis), now looking 40 years  older(because  she is!)  has dealt with the trauma of being savaged by a serial killer.

We get  only a glimpse  or two into her traumatized psyche when  at the outset two investigative  reporters barge into Laurie’s selfimposed exile to pry open her wounds. The journalists could have  amply served  the purpose of carrying forward a  plot which needs  a serious helping hand(it limps and groans!).However the nosy twosome  are quickly and  brutally murdered by…guess who… in what must rank as  the most tasteless toilet terror-attack ever shot in a horror film

Brutality, like compassion, has  no rationale to fall back on.Once Myers is “back” he takes  over the little town’s destiny on Halloween  night(what  timing!) with any weapon he can lay his hands on. While the slashing spree goes on, many questions remain unanswered. Why  is  a man so hysterically homicidal , transferred  from one prison to another(thereby given the  pretext to escape)rather than swiftly executed?

Tragically  Michael Myers  isn’t put  to sleep. But we are.