This isn’t a full fleshy review of the highly anticipated Halloween 2018 movie because you can find all sorts of nuanced rants and raves crawling around the internet and the opinions seem kind of all over the place. Where did I ultimately land? I’m still not sure if it was a true sequel or an H20 remake but I don’t think I care, I loved it! Even through some of the plot problems and the extra characters that only served as Halloween skewers, the thrill of Michael Myers returning to Haddonfield was fucking exciting as I was rattled around in my seat thanks to the Dolby theater experience. There was enough there for longtime fans with the added easter eggs of previous installments and accessible to brand new fans who only know of Michael Myers through his mask alone. I live for the Halloween season and carry that love on every day of the year. And in turn, I love the original Halloween film because Carpenter brings back the childhood nostalgia and essence of that magical night while creating the ultimate figure of silent, looming fear against the most quintessential horror movie soundtrack ever.

It would be an understatement to say I went into the new Halloween with a loaded set of feelings and maybe that alone forced me to accept it wouldn’t live up to my carefully curated standards. And frankly, how could it? I’m one person within millions of clamoring fans; each armed with their own ideas of what this film should be. With a movie like Halloween, it’s more than hype, it’s an avalanche of memories and expectations and horror loving nostalgia and for some fans, I realize the film’s problems came down even more disappointing and hard to take (and not without merit in some cases). Either way, I think horror fans can agree we do not want to see the Halloween franchise end (it won't) and half the fun is waiting to see what comes next!

I arrived at the theater super early on October 18th wearing my Halloween 40th Anniversary Fright Rags t-shirt while nodding in solidarity with others who wore variations of the same thing and have since then processed my thoughts. I worked to differentiate between my child-like excitement watching the story unfold and whether it was truly a good movie when I wiped away the heightened anticipation. For me, it’s both. I got the full Halloween experience with the numerous kills, Myers emotionless mask closeups and the fiery, final showdown. I cheered incessantly for three generations of Strode women fighting together and enjoyed Laurie’s transformation from meek babysitter to trained assassin. I got what I came for in that this movie reignited my Halloween spirit and paid tribute to the original.

Most of the sequels following the original Halloween are fun to watch through their varying fan serviced moments and their otherwise embarrassingly incoherent scenes.  Many of my horror pals have been posting their Halloween movie rankings, from best to worst. I can't wait for no one to agree with me on this so here’s mine:

                                                                              HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!

This may be my favorite Nic Cage performance ever and not because he does anything drastically different from past roles but he does the manic, violent, avenger thing well and in this case it’s very horror specific. The trope of the action hero exacting their revenge is a satisfying story, but I find most often the original source of that anger is dissolved into weapons and fire and death metal riffs. We can forget what it’s all for until the very end. I liked that Mandy was a mysterious and intriguing character with some agency of her own despite her limited screen time. She helped to add much of the otherworldly and existential themes into a story that would otherwise be pretty straightforward.  Her overall look is unusual, her eyes shoot lasers straight into your soul. She eerily reminds me of Susan Atkins from the Manson murder cult.





​








​This movie is RED. Nic Cage plays soft spoken lumberjack, Red Miller. He sees red, dreams red, looks red; every character is saturated in this red light, like the devil is lurking absolutely everywhere. Mandy starts off with a quiet sensitivity, depicting artful, wooded landscapes and calming bodies of water  and serene darkness. Even with minimal dialogue the audience experiences the entirety of Red and Mandy’s love story. Then throw in cult leader, Jeremiah, and sci-fi biker gang, the Black Skulls and their secluded cabin life goes to Hell. Once the movie shifts to a brutal, grindhouse rampage, some of the most chilling sequences are Red’s animated fever dreams which manage not to feel out of place in an already hallucinatory experience. The 70s and 80s horror nostalgia is strong. It felt very Mad Max meets Texas Chainsaw Masscre meets like...Hellraiser.

​I would have liked more scenes with Mandy and the Black Skulls. Visually they had the most captivating and creepy moments for me. I would watch a full-length feature starring any of them. I'm interested to see if Nic Cage gets the high praise he deserves for his role much like Toni Collete in Hereditary, the academy tends to ignore horror movies almost completely. I think whether people loved those films or not, it would be shocking to deny how amazing their performances were.

If you liked Mandy I would also recommend the 2018 film Revenge as it is similar to Mandy in exploitation and violence but from a female revenge perspective. And really most people favor at least one Nic Cage movie so why not give Mandy a chance this Halloween season? Do it for Cheddar Goblin!