“It’s Halloween night in Haddonfield.”

A Halloween movie that is exactly what its title suggests. Michael Myers kills and kills and kills like the mythic being this trilogy is pushing him to become. The whimsy of the 2018 movie is still there, but it’s slightly diminished by the growing brutality of The Shape’s predation and a secondary story about what a bummer mob justice usually turns out to be. It’s all set to a killer score by Mr. Johnny Carpenter himself, which is as much a draw for me as all that slasher business.

My VHS cover pull-quote: “It’s kind of the Infinity War of the Halloween franchise. Or the Kingdom Hearts III because there is a whole philosophical two-person theater piece going on throughout the movie, with two characters interrogating Michael’s nature. Light and dark. Eraqus and Xehanort.

It’s late.”