SlashersNo. 6890 · The 2026 edition
Halloween Kills
Is Michael Myers back for good, or is it time to give the franchise a rest? 'Halloween Kills' reignites the debate.
Our own summary of the original — the full post and photos live at rollingstone.com.
A review of 'Halloween Kills' examines whether the latest installment revitalizes the long-running horror series or leaves audiences feeling like they've seen it all before. The piece discusses the film's impact on viewers' appetite for future Halloween movies.
About this
This is a Rolling Stone review by David Fear of the 2021 horror sequel Halloween Kills, the middle chapter of David Gordon Green's rebooted Halloween trilogy. Fear argues the film squanders the goodwill built by Green's 2018 reboot, calling it a weak, dead-on-arrival middle entry that nearly erases the earlier film's achievements and saps the desire to watch any more Halloween movies. The piece summarizes the plot and critiques the filmmakers' choices, themes, and use of franchise history.
Facts from the original
- The review is titled 'Halloween Kills…Your Desire to See Any More Halloween Movies.'
- It was written by David Fear and dated October 14, 2021.
- Halloween Kills is the sequel to David Gordon Green's 2018 franchise-reboot Halloween.
- John Carpenter's 1978 Halloween is described as the original and the Rosetta stone of modern horror.
- Rob Zombie's 2007 Halloween is also referenced as a remake of Carpenter's film.
- The 2018 Halloween reset the franchise back to 'Square Two,' discarding the many Roman-numeraled sequels and detours, including Halloween III: Season of the Witch.
- Green and co-writer Danny McBride imagined Michael Myers had been institutionalized for decades and that Laurie Strode had been estranged from her family and living on a compound.
- Jamie Lee Curtis plays Laurie Strode in the 2018 film and Halloween Kills.
- In Halloween Kills, Laurie is sidelined for the majority of the movie due to injuries, and Curtis is barely in the film.
- Judy Greer plays Laurie's daughter Karen and Andi Matichak plays granddaughter Allyson.
- Will Patton plays Officer Hawkins, who is also hospitalized in Halloween Kills.
- John Carpenter praised the 2018 film for dragging his 'the night he came home' concept into the modern world.
- The 2018 Halloween ended with a cross-generational sorority of final girls having vanquished evil or fought it to a fiery draw.
- Following the 2018 film, it was announced that Green would build out a trilogy.
- Halloween Kills pays tribute to the franchise's tradition of producing inferior sequels, according to the review.
- The review states that Halloween Kills comes close to erasing the goodwill built by the 2018 reboot.
- Anthony Michael Hall plays the grown Tommy Doyle, the kid Laurie was babysitting in the original.
- In the film, Tommy Doyle leads a coalition of survivors and others to hunt Myers.
- Myers escapes his would-be flaming tomb, kills first responders, and heads back to his old home, now occupied by a gay couple.
- Characters in the film chant 'Evil! Ends! Tonight!' and complain that 'the system's broken.'
- The review says the movie becomes a metaphor about mob mentality, with a character proclaiming 'It's like he's turning us into monsters.'
- Halloween Kills includes flashbacks to 1978 and a subplot about the younger Officer Hawkins, played by Thomas Mann.
- James Jude Courtney and Dylan Arnold appear in Halloween Kills.
- The review notes that a related article covers how to watch Halloween Kills online on Peacock.
- The review characterizes Halloween Kills as a middle chapter designed to get from Point A to a future Point C.
- The review states one more movie remains in the trilogy before the undead can possibly be stopped.
- David Gordon Green directed the 2018 Halloween reboot.
- The review argues Halloween Kills is a dead-on-arrival disaster audiences must suffer through.
From the original
David Fear's review contrasts David Gordon Green's well-received 2018 Halloween — which reset the franchise, ignored the many sequels after John Carpenter's 1978 original, and imagined Michael Myers as long institutionalized — with its sequel, Halloween Kills. He praises the 2018 film for its mix of reverence and revision and for Jamie Lee Curtis's hall-of-fame turn as Laurie Strode, and notes that a trilogy was promptly announced. Halloween Kills, he writes, pays tribute to the series' past mainly by continuing its tradition of painfully inferior sequels, even casting a retroactive pall over the legacy and killing the desire to watch more. Plot-wise, Laurie, wounded from the last fight, is sidelined in a hospital for most of the film, barely appearing — a questionable choice that makes the movie feel like a time-killer. Instead, the focus lands on a loose coalition of survivors led by the grown Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall), who organizes vigilantes to hunt Myers after he escapes the burning house and kills first responders. Fear criticizes the mob-mentality metaphor and its chants as MAGA-ish and lazy, and finds the 1978 flashbacks and the younger Officer Hawkins subplot tedious. Ultimately he concludes it feels designed only to bridge to a future finale, and that fans are stranded in a weak-link entry that risks permanently turning people off the series.
