Latest / The Kulturecast / Halloween Ends (2022) — "I've said goodbye to my boogeyman, but the truth is, evil doesn't die. It changes shape."

Transcript

Halloween Ends (2022) — "I've said goodbye to my boogeyman, but the truth is, evil doesn't die. It changes shape." · The Kulturecast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, weird way.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: It's been four years since Michael Myers killed my daughter,
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: vanished without a trace.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: What are you gonna do when Michael comes back for here?
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Because he is coming. Maybe the only way he can die.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Is a fine I too. It's your last Halloween, Michael Halloween,
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: and hello everyone, and welcome to the Culture Cast. I'm
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: your host, Chris Dashu. And man, it has been it's
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: been a year. It's been quite a year since the
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: last Halloween, since Halloween of twenty twenty four. Halloween of
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty four found me not here and Lincoln. It
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: found me back in Texas due to some circumstances more
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: or less outside of my control. I was taking care
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: of my parents' dog last year while they were overseas,
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: and then my life that was already falling apart, continued
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: to fall apart even further. And Alan Sachs, who I
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: worked on the Peter and the Acid King project with,
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: he passed away. My dog got sick, I got into
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: a car accident all about the span of a lot
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: of month of the month of October last year. So
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: this year's October uh could do nothing but be less
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: awful than that. And I don't know if it was.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: I think that this year's Halloween was was kind of
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: awful in a different way. As I mentioned on the
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: last solo episode that I did, my dog passed away
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: in the last couple of weeks, and on the Tron
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: episode I talked about that kind of idea of an
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: end of an era, where the kind of the moment
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: when we can look back on something and say, from
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: this point forward things were, you know, markedly different, or
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: from this point you know, up until this point, things
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: were different, and then things were different afterwards. So I mean,
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: things are things are always different after a certain point
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: in your life. If if you actually sit and are
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: kind of introspective about it, you know, you can often
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: find a kind of multiple inflection points in life. And
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: you know, again, loss, moving, marriage, divorce, those kinds of
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: things tend to be kind of at the top of
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: the list of things for you know, traumatic things that
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: we have to deal with, grief driven things that we
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: have to deal with. And the last year for me
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: has been a lot of grief, been a lot of trauma,
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: been a lot of a lot of a lot a
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: lot of overwhelming emotions that are hard to that are
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: hard to deal with on their own. And you know,
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: I go to therapy once a week, which I think
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: is mentally helpful. If anyone listening to this show is
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: struggling with mental health, I would definitely go out and
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: seek professional help. Go and speak with your primary care
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: physician or provider about kind of what you're dealing with mentally,
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: and get them to give you a referral to a
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: healthcare professional, a mental health care professional, and start your
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: mental health care journey. I'm not sponsored by Better Help
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: or any of those other kind of questionable mental health apps.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: I went to my doctor. My doctor told me to
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: go and get psychiatrically evaluated. I went and did that,
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: and then I went and talked to a therapist after
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: the fact, after I figured out what was going on
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: with me, I went and took care of it. And again,
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: I don't know, this is just my mental headspace on
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: how to handle things. But taking care of your grief
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: and trauma and mental problems when they happen and quicker,
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: you know, sooner rather than later, will allow you to actually,
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: you know, handle the things that are overwhelming you in
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: a healthy and positive way. And boy Corey Cunningham and
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Halloween ends is the best example I've seen in a
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: very long time of a character who does not allow
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: himself to heal from the trauma and grief that has
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: been not really his fault, given what happens at the
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: beginning of Halloween Ends, which I think is one of
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: the one of the more kind of interesting openings of
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: a horror movie in the last decade, possibly ever even.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: But the character sure of Corey Cunningham is such an
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: interesting character in cinema because he is a character that
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: has been included in a horror franchise that did not
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: need a new villain, that did not need a secondary
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: you villain being introduced in the thirteenth hour, essentially to
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: supplant Michael fuckin Myers, who is a character that so
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: many people have a lot of really strong affinity and ties.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: For me personally, I love Halloween. I watch it every
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: year on Halloween, and I watch it at least one
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: or two other times during the year. I actually, you know,
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: David Gordon Green's trilogy say what you will about it.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: It was immensely financially successful, which I think is not
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: necessarily an indicator of quality. But you know, in these
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: kinds of cases, one could make the case that that
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: is the case, and at least to the people that
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: are making the decisions to further create films or lay
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: out the money to the people to make the films. Yeah,
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: I mean this, this, this movie, This movie kind of
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: bothered a lot of people more than any other movies
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: in the Halloween Gordon Green kind of trilogy did. And
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: it's because of the Corey Cunningham character. It's because the
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: character was introduced that is a I wouldn't say even
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: a loner. I mean, he's just like a nerd who
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: bad things have happened to him, and he, instead of
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: taking care of his mental health and doing something about
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: it in a healthy way, has decided to further turn inward,
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: further isolate himself. His home life isn't good as it
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: is anyways. He you know, he's picked on by people
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: in the town. The entire town has ostracized him because
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: of the accident that happened, which I mean obviously was
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: not his fault. But the opening of Halloween Ends, I
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: think is one of the more horrifying things we've ever
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: seen in cinema in terms of like the the stakes
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: of what is happening, and then the like Oh my god, misunderstanding.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: So Halloween ends as a movie that, like I've mentioned,
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: kind of ruffled people's feather in a way because the
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: focus of the movie is in a lot of ways
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: similar to Halloween three Season of the Witch. David Gordon
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: Green even wanted to have Halloween Season of the Witch
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: the Shamrock Mask Factory. He wanted to have that in
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: this movie. He actually wanted to include that in this film,
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: which I think is rather telling of the movie as
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: a whole, that the point of the movie was actually
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: going to be to further kind of pay homage to
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: the film in the franchise that has aged better than
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: most of the films that came after it. You know,
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: Halloween three, I think is a movie that on its own,
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: obviously as a film outside of the Halloween franchise, I
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: think it's an immensely successful film. Now I understand why
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: when it came out initially it was received so kind
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: of poorly. I mean, look, people wanted to see more
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: Michael Myers. But the original Halloween movie was meant to
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: be a anthology horror series. It was never meant to
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: be the story of Michael Myers and the continuing adventures
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: of Lourie Strode. It was always always, always supposed to
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: be about an anthology story of you know, of Halloween Knight,
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: telling the story of Halloween Knight, not necessarily telling the
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: story of one character and her interactions with another singular character. Look,
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: nothing wrong with it. I mean, if you're successful, if
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: the movie is successful, you'd be kind of hard pressed
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: to not go. Okay, well, I understand why we're making
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: another five Michael Meyer movies. But Halloween three kind of
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: was not at the time what anyone was expecting. It
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: was a complete and utter departure from the Halloween franchise.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: It was not Michael Myers, it was not Lourie Strode.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: They're not even mentioned in the third movie. It wasn't
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: John Carpenter either, though you could make the case that
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: the second movie was John Carpenter, and that didn't seem
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: to help. I mean the second I'm not a huge
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: fan of Halloween two, Halloween two. I think in a
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: lot of ways, like is the reason they made these
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: Halloween movies is to counteract Halloween two more so than
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: h two O or any of those movies. But it's
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: not surprising that Halloween Ends is what it is given
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: that David Gordon Green is a student of cinema, he
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: is a student of franchises. He understands and appreciates the
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: importance of film franchises, and.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: He pays homage.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: But he also is irreverent with the way he treats
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: the source material. And that's, in my mind, something I'm
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: here for. You know, we've talked a lot about over
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: the years, you know, being subversive or subverting audiences expectations,
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: and you know, to use the famous pop culture example
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: of the last ten years, you know, the Last Jedi
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: is a movie that subverted everyone's expectations in a way that,
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, really upset a lot of people. I'm not
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: going to sit here and pretend like I liked Last
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: Jedi when it came out. Actually haven't seen it since
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: it came out. I don't remember enjoying it at the time.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: I remember thinking that the movie had had its problems
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: and that I wasn't a big fan of it. But
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: the people that really didn't resonate with it felt like
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: it took the franchise as we know it and didn't
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: honor the roots of the franchise and was kind of
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: looking at the franchise as an opportunity to do something
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: very different, And well, why would you do that if
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: you have a franchise that has all these rules and expectations.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: It's like, well, some people are interested in paying lip
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: service to the original series, some people are interested in
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: cow telling to the expectations of the original series, and
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: some people are interested in just doing their own thing.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: And they've always wanted to do this thing in this world.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: And you know, could they have written a script for
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: a movie that isn't Halloween that has a character like
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: Corey Cunningham at the beginning, or has the shamrock mask factory. Sure,
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: but would it have gotten people through the doors as easily?
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: No?
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, And that's I mean, that is the reality. This
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: is a business. I mean, you know, it's called show business.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: It's not called show show. As I've said with so
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: many people in the industry before, it's not called show show.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: It's called the show business industry. Because there's a money
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: component here. To speak to the tron aries of it,
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: all boy, there is a money component to tront Aris.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: And it didn't make any money. Why didn't it make
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: any money? Well, it's not because it didn't give the
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: audience what they wanted. There was just no audience there
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: to watch the movie. I don't know who they made
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: tron aries for that movie. The original film came out
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: in eighty two, the sequel came out in two thousand
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: and eleven or twelve, and then the most recent film
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: came out in twenty twenty five. Anyone who watched the
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: original Tron in theaters, it's in their forties or fifties
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: at this point, well it's even sixties. They're not going
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: to see tron aries in mass and the people that
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: would be going to see it, I don't think they're
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: interested in the Tron franchise because it's just I just
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: don't think that it. I don't think it has the
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: legs that it used to with the audience now because
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: people's tastes have changed. However, when Halloween Ends came out,
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: it was well received financially, but critically, it was critically
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: and as a as a fran and you know, as
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: kind of the fans of the horror franchise would would
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: let you know, the fans of the franchise did not
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: like him. The fans of the franchise were pretty disappointed.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: They didn't like the Corey Cunningham character. They were again
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: not interested in the lack of Michael Myers. It was
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: some of the similar kind of critiques of The Dark
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Knight Rises, where it's like, where's Batman. Batman's in this
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: movie for five minutes, and it's like, yeah, that's very fair.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: In Halloween Ends, Michael Myers is in the movie fifteen minutes. Maybe,
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's if it's even that. You know, the
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: movie's one hundred and eleven minutes, so it's almost two
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: hours long. I would say Michael Myers is in the
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: film less than a half an hour, but it's it's
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: less about him specifically and more what he represents. And that's,
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: you know, to come back to the kind of this
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: is a very different Halloween story of it all. This
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: is the story of Michael Myers's influence and legacy on
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: the town after that Halloween Night that took place, you know,
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: in the first movie, in the twenty nineteen Halloween Night,
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: because the beginning of the movie is set in the
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: year of the original release of the New Halloween franchise,
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: and so you know, everything has taken place over one
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: night in this series, in these three films. So this
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: film opens with a flashback to the Night of Halloween
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: where Corey Cunningham accidentally kills the kid that he's babysitting
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: by kicking the door and causing him to fall off
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: of the stairwell and plummet like three stories down to
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: his death. And you know, obviously Corey gets arrested, Corey
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: is cleared of manslaughter, but I mean, the entire town
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: knows that he killed someone. Whether or not it was
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: intentional doesn't seem to change the fact that the entire town.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Has ostracized him. And that is.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: A literalism of what people who are suffering from trauma
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: and guilt and grief struggle from. Is feeling othered by
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: it the thing that you're suffering from. Obviously, the movie,
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: because it's a film, and because Haddenfield is a kind
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: of town that has been and again Laurie talks about
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: it in her and her narration throughout the film, her
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: monologue that is kind of throughout the film, she talks
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: about how the town of Haddenfield has kind of been
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: infected by the sickness that is Michael Myers, by the
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: by the by the overwhelming evil that is Michael Myers,
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: and that evil has kind of permeated the town. And
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: you know, the opening of the film, the title crawl,
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: we have pumpkins within pumpkins within pumpkins sprouting out of
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: each other. And I think that's very telling it and
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: indicative of what this story is getting at, which is,
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: you know, around you know, even those small towns are
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: you know, very welcoming and kind. You know, I live
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: in Nebraska. Nebraska nice is a phrase, Nebraska nice being
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: people aren't actually nice to your face. They're nice, you know,
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: they're nice to your face, but they're not actually nice
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: to you behind your back. They're actually just you know,
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: being assholes. And that's where the term Nebraska nice comes from.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: And hadden Fields in Illinois, so you know, we're not
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: We're we're not in the world of Scream where it's California.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: We're in the Midwest. And I think what's funny is
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: David Gordon Green actually gets to the midwesternness of Haddenfield
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: in this movie, where we have you know, the local
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: the local theater punks, the band kid punks acting like
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: assholes when they're normally the ones being marginalized. You know,
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: they're they're going after someone who you know is the
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: most marginalized and ostracized of everyone in the town because
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: you know, he's viewed as as a murderer and a
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: fuck up and you know, kind of a monster, and
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: you know, people pick on him because you know, they're
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: you know, he's like the town drunk essentially.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: You know, at the.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Beginning of the movie, he's talking about how he has
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: all these plans he's going to go away to engineering school,
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: and then once everything happens and again, and it's not
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: his fault what happens, like this is not a what's
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: interesting is unlike Halloween, this is not a Michael Myers
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: is evil and he's always been evil. And again, they
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: even make the case in this movie that, you know,
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: maybe Michael Myers is an evil and maybe Lourie Strode
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: is just you know, antagonizing someone's who's mentally unwell, because
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, again, someone who's mentally well does not kill
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: their sister with a knife. And so you know, they
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: make the case possibly in this movie, like, well, is
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: Michael Myers actually evil or is Lorie Strode just the
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: one who antagonized him. I don't think that the movie
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: is making the case that Michael Myers isn't an antagonistic
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: and that the people have Haddenfield are the problem. I
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: think it's just more asking an interesting question. It's kind
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: of opening up the horizon of like just to ask
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: that question, not necessarily make the statement that that's the case.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: And I say all of this.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: Because the Corey Cunningham character represents the idea of instead
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: of you know, evil being from within, evil can be
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: fomented externally and the kind of over nature of what
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: you're dealing with without any sort of support at home
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: or any support of your own. Because again that's the
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: other thing that Corey Cunningham character has no support at
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: home whatsoever. That evil is, you know, it's the nature
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: versus nurture. Michael Myers is just evil, seemingly just evil.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: Corey Cunningham if not for the fact that he accidentally
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: killed a young child on Halloween night who was fucking
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: with him. Mind you, the kid was fucking with him,
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: not the other way around, Corey Cunningham would have just
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: gone on and lived a normal life. He might have
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: gone away to college and never had any issue.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: He I mean, he.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Would he have met Laurie Strode's granddaughter Alison.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: No.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: But to be fair, if he hadn't met her, a
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: lot of the other awful things in this movie would
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: not have happened as well. But Corey Cunningham, if not
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: for the fact that something bad happened to him, he
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: would have gone and lived a normal life and been
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: perfectly fine. It's the way that he reacted to what
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: happened that is the point of this movie, And the
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: point of this movie really is like, make sure that
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: if bad things happen, if you're in a situation where
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: trauma and grief are ruling your life and you feel
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: overwhelmed by it, that you have a healthy outlet for
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: your emotions. You have a healthy outlet for your feelings,
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: you have a healthy outlet for what's going on. It
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: doesn't seem like Corey ever went and spoke with a therapist.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: It doesn't seem like Corey ever went and spoke with
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: anybody about what happened. I'm not even sure that the
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: people in the town really know what happened. And look
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: like anything else, everybody in the town could not be
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: against him, so there would be some people in the
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: town that would be sympathetic to him. There would be
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: people in the town sympathetic to him because he seems
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: like a nice person at the end of the day,
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: seems like a bit of adult I mean, at the
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: beginning of the film, we have the parents of the
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: young child being like, well, hopefully he's better at babysittinghi,
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: and he has a yard work, and it's like, well, shit, man, like,
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: why are you like this kid is being piled on
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: even at the beginning of the movie, and so you know,
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: and then you look at the way his family treats him.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: You look at the way his mother treats him, you
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: look at the way his stepdad treats him, and you're
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: just like, I understand now why someone who is already
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: at risk it has now further given in to the
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: evil further kind of turned their face towards the evil
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: of the situation and made it apparent that, you know,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: he's embraced the evil. But he was not always evil.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: He was teetering on the edge of evil. He came
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: from a broken home. He came from a home where
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: his mother was abusive and his mother was I mean,
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: I would say sexually abusive almost, but and in a
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: lot of ways, like what his mother was doing was
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: very overwhelming. She's a I'm a helicopter parent maybe, but
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: her like there's like a weird level of like physical
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: intimacy that she has and kind of like ownership of
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: the intimacy that she has over her son that would
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: lead me to believe that there was some sort of
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: abuse going on at some point. But it just it's
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: less about telling us specifically what's happening, but giving us
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: an idea that, like, this guy's home life is just
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: as unst as the rest of the world. And maybe
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: you know, the world wasn't as unstable as it is now,
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: but you know, the fact that it is as unstable
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: as it is now is contributing to this character's already
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: overwhelming mental situation, the situation being like he killed someone.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: There's no support system there, there's no one there to
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: kind of reassure him that things are okay, reassure him
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: that he's not a monster. And you know, that's where
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: we kind of see the Loris Strode character come in
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: to the to the equation. And so the thing that's
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: interesting about the Loris Strode character is Laurie in this
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: movie is better. Laurie is unlike her version of the
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: character in the first two films, where she's living out
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: in the woods by herself and running away from things.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: She is embracing the grief and the trauma and saying,
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: you know, fucking bring it on, like let's go, Like
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: I want so badly for you to like test me,
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: tempt me, do what like grief and trauma. Do what
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: you can to push me down, do what you can
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: to make me not feel like I am in control here.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: But I am going to push back and tell you unequivocally, no,
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: I am in control. I am not going to let
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: it derail me. I am not going to let it
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: overwhelm my life and control my life. That's why she
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: moves into a house at the beginning of this movie.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: That's why she's working on her memoir. That's why her character.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: I think, if anything, and this is the thing that
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: I find really interesting. I didn't see a lot of
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: anger directed toward the Lourie Strode character, even though in
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: this movie she's being written very differently from the last
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: two movies. And I find that rather funny because I
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: feel like this is the way people wanted Laurie Strode
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: to be written as someone who is just like, you
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: know what, I'm not going to let this affect me.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: I'm not gonna let this ruin my life. I'm not
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: gonna let this control my life. I am going to live.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: I am going to acknowledge that bad things happen. Bad
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: things can happen, but bad things don't necessarily always happen,
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: but they can happen. And you know that's why in
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: that first Halloween movie, we have Laurie literally out in
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: the woods, isolated in this cabin, and it's like, man,
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: what a bummer for the character of Laurie Strode. But
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: at the same time, it's like, you know, if this
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: is the story that you want to tell, this is
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: a logical direction to go. That she's so concerned with
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: the return of Michael Myers that she's going to isolate
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: herself from everyone else so that no one else has
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: Michael Myers drawn into their web because he, again, per
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: her belief system, is attracted to Laurie Strode. I mean again,
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: this franchise, these three movies make the case that Lourie
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: Strode isn't really special in any way to Michael Myers.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: They more or less make the case here that evil
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: comes from everywhere and that evil is ever present, and
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: you know, it's how we re and in this movie,
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: it's how we react to the evil in the trauma
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: that defines us, not the evil and the trauma that's
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: you know, inflicted on us. Like evil in trauma and
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: grief don't define us. But with the Corey Cunningham, it
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: more or less has defined him throughout the entire run
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: of the film. I mean, every time he interacts with
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: anybody in public, they make a point to talk about,
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: you know, that's Corey Cunningham. Didn't hear what happened to him?
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: Or that's Corey Cunningham, what a freak? Like everybody in
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: town knows. I mean even Laurie knows. Laurie sees him
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: the night everything happens, Like Laurie knows that, you know,
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: the town is treating this kid poorly, which is why
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: Laurie goes out of her way to you know, however,
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: all of that does not change what we get as
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: the movie, because as it is a Halloween film, and
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: as it is not going to just be a bunch
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: of people enjoying their time on Halloween five years later
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: and just reminiscing about Michael Myers, because hey, we haven't
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: seen him since twenty nineteen. This is a Halloween movie
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: written by David Gordon Green and friends, so we are
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: going to get the literal return of Michael Myers, but
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: also the sort of metaphorical transference of evil or again,
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: this franchise finally addressing the idea of is Michael Myers
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: evil or is he possessed by something evil? Is he
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: does he have agency of his own? Or is there
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: something else? And this movie makes the case that there
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: might be something else. There's a scene in the film
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: where Corey Cunningham, after being kind of further antagonized by
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: the band kids, the last kids you would ever think
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: to be bullies, he's thrown kind of underneath an overpass
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: and he crawls into a or I guess he's dragged
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: into a sewer drain, and he interacts with Michael Myers,
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: who looks him in the eyes and kind of can
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: see into his soul in a way, and in seeing
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: into his soul, it, you know, he he realizes that,
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: you know, there's a there's a ability and a possibility
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: for evil, and an ability and a possibility for Corey
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: to I don't know, to be evil. I mean, it's
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: never explained. They don't really do anything with it. In
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: terms of Michael and Corey, we get Laurie kind of
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: talking about to Corey kind of like, you know, what
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: she can interpret as his abilities, what she's interpreting as
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: he's doing, what his kind of agency in the situation is.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: But what I really like about the Lrie Corey interactions
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: in this movie are it is the it is the
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: doctor Melfie Tony soprano of the film. It is the
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: kind of emotional core of the film is Laurie trying
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: to prevent Corey from going down that road of Michael Myers,
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: of you know, becoming the other being othered by your
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: society and your neighborhood and your community to the point
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: where the only course of recourse that you have is
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: to lash out and attempt to kind of secure your
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: place in the community. And Laurie sees that with Corey.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, she can see that Corey is clearly at risk.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: He's the kind of person who has, you know, has
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: a lot of agency of his own, but his agency
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: is constantly being interrupted by the external world and how
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: he's being treated by other people. He's letting the way
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: he's being treated by other people overwhelm what he knows
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: he should be doing. I mean again, like, you know,
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: he had a lot of aspirational goals. He had a
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: lot of aspirations before the murder at the beginning of
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: the film happened. And then you know, we picked back
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: up three years later and he's, you know, he's given
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: up life completely. He's working in a you know, a
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: junk yard. He's not doing much with his life. He's
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: being antagonized by the Marching Band kids. But you know,
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: he has taken a downturn in life that is again
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: partially his fault and partially not. He didn't take it
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: very well. He didn't react to it very well. Clearly
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: we don't see that. That's the part of the movie
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: that we don't see. We don't see the accountability that
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: is lost on Corey Cunningham's part. We don't see the
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: accountability that's lost when it comes to him going, well,
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: yes this happened. No it's not my fault. Yes it
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: was an accident, but I'm not going to let the
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: townspeople continue to bully me and ostracize me. I have
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: to further stick up for myself. And it's not clear
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: to me that Corey Cunningham at any point in the
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: film actually sticks up for himself. It's not other than
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: when he starts killing people, which obviously is kind of
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: the nuclear option in terms of actually sticking up for yourself.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: But we don't get the sense that Corey Cunningham at
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: any other point in the film feels comfortable sticking up
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: for himself unless he has, you know, the identity that
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: he's born with taken away by using the Michael Myers mask.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, we have a lot of mask wearing in
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: this film. It's very metaphorical. The idea of wearing a mask,
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: you know, having a mask, you know, what does that
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: mean to you know, to hide one's face, to hide
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: one's identity, to hide, to hide or hide behind something.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: You know, And with someone like Batman, you have something where,
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: you know, the the cape and the cowl and the
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: mask are being used as kind of objects of power
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: because Batman knows that the level of fear that he
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: strikes within people is being exacerbated by dressing up like
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: a bat by dressing up like Batman, and Corey Cunningham
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: understands similarly that if he dresses up like Michael Myers
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: and goes about murdering people, in the town that the
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: iconography of Michael Myers, the mask that Michael Myers wears,
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: has struck enough fear into people, has struck enough fear
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: into the townspeople that he can traffic in using that
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: and hide behind that as a way to manage his
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: mental health by using Michael Myers as kind of a mask,
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: both for himself but also for committing crimes, taking it out,
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: you know, getting revenge on the people who treated him
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: like shit and ostracized him in the town. You know,
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: he runs into the mom of the child that he
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: kills at the bar, and you know, she she just
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: won't let it go either. And look, I'm not saying
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: she doesn't have a right to be upset, but she
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: literally goes, You're a monster, Corey Cunningham. You lost your mind.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: You killed my son. It's your fault, you know, Like
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: innocent people don't kill kids. And it's like, you know what,
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: like that's not the case. Like, you know, evil, evil
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: can be born, but evil can also be fomented, and
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: evil can be you know, evil can sit and fester
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: for a long time. And three years, while it might
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: not seem like a long time, is the amount of
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: time in this film where Corey Cunningham has done nothing
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: about the murder that he committed at the beginning of
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: the movie, whether or not it was intentional, he's still
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: killed and he hasn't seemingly done anything about it other
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: than wander through life for three years and allow the
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: townspeople to continue to pick at him and picket him
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: and picket him and picket him, and push and push
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: and push, from the band kids to the kids parents,
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: to the radio DJ who went about ostracizing Corey over
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: and over and over again. And what's interesting is, you know,
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: he brings up the idea that people look at him
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: differently and they see him as a monster, even though
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: he's a survivor of what happened as much as anybody else's.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: And you know, he says to Alison Laurie Strode's daughter
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: in law, like, you know, people look at you and
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: they see a survivor. It's not your fault that Michael
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: Myers went after you. But people look at me and
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: they see a monster. And you know, what happened to
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: us is not what happened to both of us is
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: neither of our fault. And it's in that moment where
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: you realize that, like, no, Corey is actually to blame
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: here as much as anything else. He's to blame because
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: he's unwilling and unable to do better, and he doesn't
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: want to actually like take Alie Allison's like, you know,
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: open hands. He's not actually wanting to take her like
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: comfort and care. He rejects that, and in rejecting that,
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: he finds himself in a situation where he goes and
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: is further antagonized by the marching band kids. He's then
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: tossed over the bridge, and that's when he interacts with
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: Michael Myers, and that's when you know, that's the crossing
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: of the rubicon moment of the movie. It's only about,
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: you know, a half an hour into a two hour film,
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: but about a half an hour in you realize, like,
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: this is the moment where Corey Cunningham could have just
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: gone away with Alison and he could have stayed at
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: the bar and things would have been different, and things
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: wouldn't have ended the way that they did, and he
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: wouldn't have gone and murdered you know, a bunch of townspeople.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: I mean again, most of these people that he murdered
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: were deserving of it. I mean, this is kind of
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: a dexter scenario. You know, being bullied is obviously not
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: a reason to kill someone. But the Marching Band bullies
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: are pretty nasty. I mean, yes, they're like high school kids,
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: but they they're just unrepentant in how in how much
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: of assholes they are, And so the film kind of
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: codes it as well. They're getting what's coming to them,
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: and for the most part, a lot of the people
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: in the town by again by Corey's approximation, are getting
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: what's coming to them. I mean, that's kind of the
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: point of what's going on is you know they're getting
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: what's coming to them because you know, they ostracized and
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: antagonized Corey, and you know how terrible and how awful
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: for them to do that, and it is it is terrible.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: I mean, the way that they treat Corey as terrible,
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: the way that they make him feel like a monster,
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: and they ostracize him as terrible. But at the same time,
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: you know, he's not handling it in a healthy way.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: He should have just left. He should have never stayed
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: in Haddenfield. And if he hadn't stayed in Haddenfield, none
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: of this would have happened. If he hadn't stayed in Haddenfield,
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: he might have gone somewhere where nobody knew him. Because yes,
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: you know, while people do have things follow them from
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: town to town or state to state, there are also
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: plenty of people that, you know, they leave where they
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: are and they go somewhere else and nobody knows them.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: And that's that. And Corey could have done that, Corey
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: should have done that. Corey didn't do that, And in
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: not doing that, we then have a character who's been
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: pushed to the limit of his mental capacity because he
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: cannot and will not and is unable to look at
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: the situation as anything other than the world is out
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: to get him. And look, the world the world is
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: isn't not out to get him. It's been shown very
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: clearly that the community is very vocal with him about
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: the things that have happened and the things that he's done.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: Is that realistic? I mean, in this day and age,
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: you could you know, extrapolate, you know, interpolate onto other scenarios.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: You know, people feeling like they are justified and validated
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: in their bad behavior, and so their bad behavior has
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: existed in that form kind of passively, but now they've
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: been given the opportunity to outwardly embrace.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Their worst vices.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: And I think, you know, the last Halloween film, Halloween Kills,
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: the entire hospital kind of interlude of the film really
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: spoke to the mob mentality of Haddenfield, which is, you know,
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: even a good town of good people can be turned
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: into monsters by you know, the notion or the idea
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: of bad things going on or people, you know, doing
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: bad things in the town. And I like that in
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: Halloween Kills we see the mob mentality kind of we
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: see that infection moment of the town where the town
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: starts to become evil and lose its mind, you know
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: it the Stephen King story. One of the aspects of
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: that kind of story is that Darry, the town itself
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: is evil and Darry has kind of been infected by
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: the presence and the evil of Pennywise. And I think that,
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: you know, David Gordon Green cops from it in this
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: movie in that respect, like Haddenfield has been infected by
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: the evil of Michael Myers. He's you know, subterranean even
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, he's underground in this film, which is ironic
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: given the kind of Pennywise being underground of it all.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: But Michael Myers is in the sewers of this movie.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: He's underground. He has been waiting for three years, underground
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: to I mean again, we're not even sure, because he
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: could have made his presence known in three years. I
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: think he's been waiting again, per the narrative's belief, he's
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: been waiting three years for Corey Cunningham to come down here.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: He's been waiting three years for some someone to find him.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's clearly the homeless man who finds him.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: But you know, Corey Cunningham wandering into the drainage ditch
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: is the inciting incident of this film that then everything
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: else plays out from. It's the reason Michael Myers comes
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: out of the sewer, because Corey goes back to get
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: the mask. It's the reason that Laurie and Michael meet
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: one final time, because Corey interacts with Michael and makes
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: and you know, essentially it reawakens the beast, as it were.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: And I like that aspect of the movie. It doesn't
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: bother me that Michael Myers isn't in the film that much.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: And I'll tell you why. I don't think in a
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: lot of ways, that the horror films of old, the
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: slasher films of old, and the way things were done
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: are really interesting. In twenty twenty five, I think it's
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: more interesting to do something fun and new and creative
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: with your characters. And I think sidelining Michael Myers as
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: a kind of as kind of the evil that he
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: is is and the evil of the town and the
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: evil of every evil incarnate, using that but having it
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: kind of be like the evil DNA a little bit
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: of kind of you know, speaking of John Carpent or
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: the Prince of Darkness, you know, like, is is the
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: devil real? Or is he just like a or is
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: he just like you know, a complex string of amino acids.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, this movie asks that question. Is evil real?
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: Is Michael Meyer's evil? Or is evil something that exists
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: within him? Is evil something that he has not been
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: able to control himself either, And so similarly to Corey,
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: he kind of has just embraced it because that's the
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: easy thing to do, and confronted with it, I think
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: Michael is actually evil. I think Corey is one of
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: those people that was kind of, you know, he was vulnerable,
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: He's av he was you know, a very vulnerable person
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: who you know, because of his vulnerability and his you
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: know he's at risk. I mean, you know, he's such
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: an at risk like person, and he was at risk
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: before all the bad things happen. He was at risk
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: before he accidentally killed a kid. I mean, his mom
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: was still treating him that way before everything happened. His
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: home life was still a mess before everything happened. It's
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: just once there's nowhere safe to go, that's when you
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: feel overwhelmed, and that's when you feel like you can't
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: do anything about the situation. And Corey has no course
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: of action. He has no release valve for the tension
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: and the pressure in his life, which is why he
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: should have gone and gotten taken care of mentally, because
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: you know, we wouldn't have this movie if that had happened.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: But at the same time, because that isn't what happens,
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: we get to see one of the better I think
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: kind of you know kill compilations or collections of a
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: Halloween movie. We get a Junkyard scene that's pretty great.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: It's got a lot of interesting kills. I think that
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: the intensity that they bring to that scene is great.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: We had Michael killing people in a lot of interesting ways,
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, and a lot of might not Michael ways,
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: I mean non Michael Meyer's ways, like using cars and
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: motorcycles and other things. I mean, Michael Myers is primarily
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: known as a you know, butcher's knife killer. I mean
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: that is his kind of, you know, his weapon of choice.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: And we get a lot of non kitchen knife kills.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: And I really like that about the movie because we
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: get to see someone else using the Michael Myers mask,
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: someone else using the Michael Myers kind of symbology to
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: create fear in the town and to create fear among
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: the people that were antagonizing him. And you know, that
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: extends to the visual language of the film. We get
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: a lot of callbacks to the original film with Corey
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: standing at the edge of the bush and Laurie looks
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: outside and sees him. There's a lot of visual language
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: that's repeated. There's a lot of things that we kind
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: of get from other films. I mean, again, to go
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: back to the Halloween three Silver shamrock of it all, Like,
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: this movie is so Halloween three in that it just
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: kind of is interested in doing its own thing and
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: it doesn't.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Really care about anything else.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: It doesn't really care about what's come before it, which
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: is interesting given the film is directed by David Gordon Green,
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: who directed the other two films in this franchise, and
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: he wrote the other two films in this franchise, And
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: it's just it's wild that he's so concerned with telling
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: a different story, one that he knew would be divisive
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: because the horror bros want Michael Myers. They want more kills,
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: they want more gore, and it's like, look, you got
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: Halloween Killed. Halloween Kills is the most a tip like
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: say what you will about Halloween ns. Halloween Kills is
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: the black sheep of the Halloween reboot trilogy. And I
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: will tell you why it is the black sheep because
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: Michael myers Is intensity in that film is exacerbated intentionally
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: so that we can see Michael Myers ripping people apart
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: and being horrifying in a way that he never was before.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: And he's pushed at the end of the first movie
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: to go and exact vengeance and revenge on the town
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: that has wronged him, and he goes about it in
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: the most bombastic, gory and over the top way. In
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: that fight with the firefighters at the beginning of Halloween
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: Kills is pretty intense. And by a fight, I mean
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: him murdering all the firefighters and them not standing a chance.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: That is atypical of Halloween. That's not like Halloween is
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: a very slow burn franchise. The original movie, most of
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: the film is just Michael stalking people, and then we
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: get Lourie and Michael at the end of the movie
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: sort of fighting each other, but more Laurie just running
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: away from Michael and trying to protect herself. So, you know,
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: Halloween as a franchise is not known for people being
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: eviscerated on screen left and right. That's never been the
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: intention of Halloween. But Halloween Kills because because the horror
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: tastes have changed, because things like Terrifier exist, because things
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: like Saw and Hostile exist. The creators of Halloween knew
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: that the people who were gonna come see this movie,
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: there would be a sub section of the audience of
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: the people that would come see this movie that want
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: to see a gory, brutal Michael Meyers murdering people and
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: tearing them apart with his butcher knife film. And we don't.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: It's not that we don't need that, it's just that
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: should be viewed as atypical. This movie is a typical
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: Halloween movie. It's a very slow burn film. It's a
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: very methodical film. You know, Michael or Corey as Michael
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: goes around kind of killing people very slowly, very methodically,
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: very intentionally Halloween kills. I mean, it's a brutal film
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: of Michael just roaming the town murdering people. And look
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: nothing wrong with it, but it is the atypical Halloween
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: movie of this trilogy. The trilogy really like the third movie,
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: I think is more in line with the first movie
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: than the second one does with either. And I think
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: again that just goes back to the well, the intention
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: of the filmmaker in the second movie was so different
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: than in the third, And I think that's what's interesting
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: about David Gordon Green for me, is that David Gordon
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: Green is not necessarily compelled to do what the audience
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: wants him to do. He's not necessarily compelled to do
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: what he thinks is the expectation. He tends to just
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: do whatever he wants. He tends to do whatever he
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: thinks is going to push the story in an interesting direction.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: And him and Danny McBride and Paul Brad Logan, and
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: Chris Burmere, like, they have all done a fantastic job
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: with this script in creating a movie that speaks to
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: the themes and the ideas of the Halloween franchise, but
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: they tell it in a way where Halloween feels secondary
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: to the story. Halloween, the franchise feels secondary to the story,
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: and I think for a lot of people, the third
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: act of the movie is kind of where the real
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: rubber meets the road in terms of like, well, now
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: we've gone a step too far, and look, I can't
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: blame this movie's advertising campaign for trying to convince you
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: that it was going to be the fight of the
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: century between Lowery and Michael. If that's what you thought,
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: that's because the trailers of this movie sold it that way.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: And that was not being done in good fate. That
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: was being done as advertising for films tends to be
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: not being done with the best intentions. It was being
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: done because they wanted people to come through the door,
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: and they knew.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: What people are going to see.
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: But they knew that there was going to be a
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: group of people who would be swayed by seeing, oh,
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: this is the last time that Michael and Laurie will
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: ever fight each other. So this is gonna be an event.
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: I gotta go see the last time Michael Myers, you know,
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: is on screen. First off, this is not the last
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: time Michael Myers is never going to be on screen.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: If if any of us know anything.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: About the horror world of horror filmmaking, it's that you
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: cannot keep a good franchise down. It might seem like it,
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: but even something like Friday the Thirteenth is getting you know,
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: reappraisal and readjustment with you know, the Angry Orchard collaboration
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: of it all, which is so fucking insane and so
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: wild and so bizarre in and of itself. But Halloween
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: as a franchise is a notable and one with notoriety.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: So of course the advertising for the film was going
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: to be Michael and Laurie taking it to one another.
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: That is literally fine minutes of a two hour movie,
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: like ten minutes tops like the Michael of it All.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: The Michael Myers of it All specifically is not part
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: of the main plot. It's kind of the wrap around,
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: as it were, to use a horror anthology parlance, like
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: it is the wrap around of the story, we get
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: to see the Michael Myers story come to a conclusion.
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: I almost said satisfying here, but I think that that's
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: me subjectively saying that. I think objectively a lot of
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: the people that are huge, bigger fans of Halloween than
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: I am, we're disappointed. And I understand why. I you know,
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: if I'm gonna go see a Michael Myers movie, I
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: kind of want Michael Myers to be in it. But
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: I also, as someone who watches a lot of movies
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: and can get out of my own way, understand that,
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: you know, I am in the filmmaker's hands. I am
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: in the director's hands here, like the director is making
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: a film for him ultimately or her, and if I
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: resonate with that film, cool, If I don't with that film, cool.
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: The intention of the film maker was to make a
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: film for them or for what he perceives or she
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: perceives to be the audience, and that's what David Gordon
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: Green did with all of the Halloween movies. It just
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: happens to be that the first two movies resonated more
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: with the audience that it was expected to resonate with
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: than the last one. But I can't help. But wonder, like,
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: did David Gordon Green not think, well, if I don't
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: put Michael Myers in my movie a lot, people might
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: be disappointed. I wonder if he was like, well, I
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: put him in my movie a lot. In the first
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: two The first movie was very much like a love
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: letter to Michael Myers in a lot of way, like
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: we get you know the movie. He's the focus of them.
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: And so I sit here and I wonder to myself, like,
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: did we need yet another retread of the first two movies.
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: I don't think so. I actually think the Halloween NS
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: does some really interesting, fun and unique things with a
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: tired franchise. And I'm not gonna say tired as in
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: the first two movies in the Requel trilogy.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: We're tired.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: But if the third movie in this Requel trilogy had
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: just been like those first two movies, I think I
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: think myself and a lot of other people would have said, well,
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: this is all we're doing. Like, I don't know what
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: people wanted from this third movie. I guess people wanted
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: an hour and a half of Michael and Laurie fighting.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: But Jamie Lee.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: Curtis is a woman in her you know, in her sixties,
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: you know, going on seventies. Like I don't know what
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: physical back and forth you were expecting from Michael and
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: Laurie in Neat, you know, like, this movie shows us
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: a short, intense, close combats battle between the two of
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: them where they sit and fight in Laurie's kitchen, and Laurie,
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: you know, she gets the upper hand, but not really
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: and then by the time that you know she is
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: you know, has the upper hand, Michael also gets the
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: upper hand. And so like I was convinced, I was
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: convinced this movie was gonna end with the two of
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: them just kind of flying off of a cliff together,
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: or you know, getting decapitated at the same time, or
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: any number of things that would cause them to both
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: die at the same time. And we don't get that,
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: but the movie baits us into that right towards the end.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: The movie shows us, like, well that that could have
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: been the case in a different movie. In this movie,
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: we have Allison come and save Laurie in those waning
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: moments of the fight as Lurie's being choked out by Michael.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: And I think it works.
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: I think it works that then Michael is dragged to
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: an industrial grinder. He is then fed into said industrial grinder,
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: and we watch as Michael Myers the shape is ground
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: apart and we watch it happen. So there's not any
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: of this like, well, we didn't see it happened, so
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: maybe he's not dead. Like no, in this movie, there's
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: none of that. In this movie. It's we watch him
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: die and that's it. We don't cut away, we don't
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: look elsewhere, we don't attempt to have our gaze averted.
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: We are here to watch the town and their procession
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: of people affected by Michael Myers drag his body because
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: he's already dead, mind you, like, he has been killed already.
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: Laurie and Laurie and Allison killed him by slashing his
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: neck and wrists. But you cannot survive, I mean, you know,
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: regardless of whether or not you know this is a
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: Halloween franchise. Regardless of whether or not Michael has survived
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: all kinds of other things, this franchise has made it
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: clear that he's not gonna survive that, and so he's
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: dead by the time they drag him to the industrial
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: grinder at the end of the movie. But that's not
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: really the point. The point is to put to bed
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: Michael Myers as a character, and put to bed the
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: Michael Myers kind of legacy, and put to bed what
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: Michael Myers is all about. And I think this movie
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: does a good job at putting the Michael Myers of
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: it all to bed. Look, we'll probably get more Michael Myers,
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: will probably get more of him as a character. I
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: hope not. I don't need anymore. This is a good
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: ending to the franchise. This is a worthwhile way to
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: put the Michael Myers character to bed. I wish Corey
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: Cunningham had survived. I wish they had kind of made
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: the decision that they seemingly thought about making to allow
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: his character to survive, to have him be the Michael
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: Myers of the franchise, to have him be the Michael
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: Myers the series. But I mean also Rohan Campbell, I
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: guess was not ever going to be that. I mean,
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: it's interesting they kind of float the idea of the
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: transference of evil, and they float the idea that he
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: could be the next Michael Myers, and that you know,
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: his journey to becoming Michael or evil is very different
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: from Michael's, but it's still a journey that he's gone on,
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: and it's still a journey that he has been part of.
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: And I was super interested in that character and seeing
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: where that character went with things and where the franchise
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: went with that character, who is so different from Michael,
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: who has different agency than Michael, who has different motivations
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: and means and intense than Michael. And I really wish
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: that they had not bailed on the Corey Cunningham character.
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: I wish they had not bailed on Corey as the
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: focus of the franchise because he's an interesting character and
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: Michael Myers looms large in the movie. But Michael Myers
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: didn't have to be the continued focus of the franchise.
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: We could have moved away from And in this movie,
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: it almost feels like they they ripcorded out at the
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: last second, they parachuted out at the last second. And
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: it bums me out, It really does, because for me,
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: I wanted the franchise to end, and it did. But
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: I also thought, well, if they could continue the franchise
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: in a substantive way, and they could use a chance
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: to kind of get themselves out of this while also
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: ending things like why not right? Like you it's unrealistic
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: to expect that this franchise is not going to continue,
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: and we don't get that. Corey Cunningham dies at his
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: own hand and then he gets his head smushed by Michael,
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: And I liked the idea of it looking like he
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: was going to kill he was going to kill himself
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: and frame it on Laurie.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: I like that idea.
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: I wish that had been further kind of kind of
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: discussed and maybe talked about, and it wasn't, And it
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: really wasn't, and I'm disappointed because that's another kind of
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: avenue that we could have gone down. But you know,
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: the idea of Laurie being framed for his murder and
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: him kind of going off to do murdery things, I mean, yeah,
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: that's not Halloween. But I mean again, if you listen
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: to the response to this movie, most people didn't think
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: that this movie was much Halloween.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: To begin with.
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: So that's and that's my issue with this movie is
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: you know, you go into it expecting Halloween and it's
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: not Halloween. But right at the end of the movie,
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: it remembers, oh, yeah, no, this is a Halloween movie,
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: And I kind of wish it have just not done that.
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: I kind of wish that, yes, Michael needed to die.
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: I agree with that sentiment, like that needed to be
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: over and done with, But for me, like I could
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: have really used some other thing to keep this going.
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: I could have really used a further into of the
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: Corey Cunningham story. And I think the issue that I
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: have with this movie, as much as I like this movie,
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: is this should have been two separate movies. The Corey
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: Cunningham stuff gets in such the way of this movie,
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: and it's so good that everything else that the movie
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: is doing with the Halloween Michael Myers of it all
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: doesn't live up to how good the Corey Cunningham stuff is.
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: It almost feels like they're hamstrung by having to have
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: Michael Meyers still be in this as opposed to just
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: doing their own story. And I'm really disappointed by that,
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: because for my money, I would rather have a movie
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: where the main character and the other characters. Maybe there's
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: a legacy sequel aspect to it of it, but that's
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: not going to get in the way of the climax
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: of the movie that I'm watching. The legacy stuff should
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: be integrated into it in an interesting way, but it
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: shouldn't supersede the things that are happening. Look at Ghostbusters
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: after Life, Oh, there come the Ghostbusters at the end
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: of the movie, completely robbing our characters of any agency
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: that they might have had in terms of stopping a
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: Zool in that movie. And in this movie, it's like
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: Michael Myers ends up overwriting all the interesting Corey Cunningham,
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: Alison Strode, Laurie Strode kind of interaction that the movie
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: has spent an hour and a half doing, and at
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: the end it's like, but we know you're here for Michael,
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: so we're gonna still do the Michael thing, and we're
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: just gonna do the most obvious Michael thing. And and
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: that for me is kind of like, Ah, that's the
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: missed opportunity with this movie is that this movie had
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: to have Michael Myers in it, and it had to
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: concern itself with ending that. And while yes, I think
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: it ended it in an interesting way, I don't think
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: it did it as interesting as it could have. I
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: think it kind of second guessed itself in terms of
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: what it thought the audience was gonna want, what it
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: thought the audience was gonna need. It knew that the
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: audience probably wasn't gonna vibe with the Corey Cunningham story,
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: but they did it anyways. But then they pulled back
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: at the last second, And in pulling back at the
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: last second, it's like, well, why did we spend all
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: this time commit to the bit or don't commit to
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: the bit or don't And in my mind, this movie
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: commits to the bit ninety percent of the way, But
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: it's that ten percent that matters, because it's the ten
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: percent that sticks out like a ninety percent sore thumb
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: when you don't do it. And that's the problem with
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: this movie. The end of this movie sticks out like
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: a sore thumb for the rest of the movie because
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: the end of this movie is the ending of a
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: movie that we weren't really watching. It's the ending of
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: a movie that it thought it was showing us. But
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: the movie that it's been showing us is the story
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: of how evil foments, how evil becomes, how evil takes hold,
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: not how evil has already taken hold, because in the
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: original Halloween, evil's already taken hold. In this movie, this
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: is about how if we don't support each other, if
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: we don't look after each other, if we're not caring
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: and compassionate and kind to each other and try to
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: understand the human experience best we can. We will ostracize people,
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: we will push people away, We will cause people to
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: turn to violence because that is the only option that
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: they feel like they have. And I actually think the
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: message of Halloween Ends is a lot more important and
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: prescient than the Halloween Kills, Evil Dies Tonight mob mentality.
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: I think Halloween Ends is one of the few films
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: that I've seen where it makes the case that mental
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: health is important. We should not turn people away that
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: are struggling. We should not ostracize p people that are struggling.
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: We should not make people that are already vulnerable and susceptible,
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: we should not further cause them harm and push them
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: to do things like stabbing people in the neck with corkscrews,
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: like murdering men and women, like taking a man's face
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: and slamming it into a turntable so hard that his
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: jaw distends. None of that could have happened if Haddenfield
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: itself had not been evil. And that's the interesting thing
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: about this franchise is is now the evil is not
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: so much the people in the town as much as
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: the town itself and kind of the the holistic nature
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: of all of the evil in the town. It's kind
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: of hard to find any one person in the town
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: that isn't terrible. Other than like the people that were
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: directly involved with Michael's evil, everybody else is just going
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: out of their way to be antagonistic. I mean, we
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: have the doctor and the nurse who are antagonizing Alison.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: We have all the band kids, We have all kinds
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: of people in the movie that are antagonistic towards Laurie
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: and Alison and Corey. And you know, I think for me,
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: in a lot of ways, the story in this movie
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: works better than it's worked in any of the other ones,
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: which is the town is evil. Bad things when they happen,
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: tend to have a life of their own, and they
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: tend to live on long past when they've happened, and
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: this movie is indicator of that. Michael is an old,
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: decrepit man, but he can still kill people. Evil is
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: even when evil is old and gray, Evil is still evil.
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: Evil in any form is evil, and Corey is evil. Laurie,
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: you know, she acknowledges his evil. The town is evil.
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: The town's been infected by the evil, but Alison and
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: Laurie have rejected the evil. They've rejected the darkness. And that,
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: for me is what I love about this franchise is
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: that at the end, even though the movie kind of
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: flails around in the third act, I like the conclusion
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: of Halloween ends with Laurie and Will Patten seemingly getting together,
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: Michael seemingly dead, Laurie being given a seemingly happy ending,
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: and the movie echoing the final shot of the original
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: film with you know, Michael's mask sitting there, and you know,
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: you know, we're going to close on that, and we're
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: gonna have There's not going to be any breathing this time.
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: There's just going to be the mask. And there's no
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: question as to whether or not Michael is alive. Michael
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: is dead and gone, and I'm glad kill the past,
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: let it die. You know, I'm not one for revisiting
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: the past, because I think getting lost in the past
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: is a real fool's errand because the only thing that
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: we can do is change the future and change our
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: current situation, and how we react to the things that
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: we deal with is what's important. The things that have
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: happened to us. They've happened. It's past tense, can't do
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: anything about it now. And that's what Corey doesn't understand
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: is he he's the only one who can move on.
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: He's the only one who can move past things. If
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: other people haven't moved past it, that's on them. But
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: he allows those things to get to him. He starts
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: internalize those things. By the end of the movie, there's
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: nothing left. He has lost his identity completely and embraced
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: Michael Myers to the point where Michael kills him because
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: he is stealing Michael's shtick, as it were. And I
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: find Halloween ends to be an immensely interesting film. I
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: find it to be a compelling film and one that
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: I didn't know I needed, but one that now that
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: I have it, I kind of can't help but like
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: really enjoy it every time I watch it. I've gone
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: on the record multiple times saying the opening of the
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: movie is is hilarious in a lot of ways, and
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: it's such a it was such a shocking moment that
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: it kind of reminds me of the opening of Scream
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: in a way. It's like he just didn't see that coming,
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: and you know, scream obviously with Drew Barrymore, Like everybody
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: knows Drew Marymore is gonna die at the beginning of
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: the movie, other than the people who saw the movie
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: in theaters, Like you could still go into this movie
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: not knowing what's going to happen in the first ten minutes,
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: and it is impactful and it is wild, and again
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: like it's it's a moment of violence that's accidental, unlike
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: a moment of violence at the beginning of Halloween that
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: is intentional. But yet the outcome is still the same.
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: The outcome is still death and violence, and that's because
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: our way of handling it is the underlying issue. The
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: lack of attention, the lack of care, the lack of
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: compassion in this society creates monsters and fomense monsters and
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: Halloween ends, I think is turning a mirror on society
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: and saying, look, we create monsters by not being empathetic
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: and not being compassionate towards people, even people we don't
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: agree with, even people we don't like, because people are people,
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: and it's the lack of compassion in the world that
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: causes people to feel like they have no other course
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: of action. But to turn to violence when people are
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: not compassionate, and that is seen as a constant. I
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: think Halloween N's is definitely worth revisiting. I think Halloween
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: ns is a film worth checking out. I think Halloween
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: Ends is is and has aged better than the movies
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: that surround it in the franchise. And I, for one,
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: am a I am a huge champion of this film,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: and I think that if you haven't seen it, I
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: would definitely check it out and it you know, it
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: should it should yield dividends in that regard because for me,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: I always want something weird from my franchises, and this
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: is This is pretty weird. This is definitely out there.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: So if you're on the fence about it, definitely check
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: it out. Maybe don't announce that there's gonna be a
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: trilogy of movies ahead of time so that the movies
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: are completely robbed of their stakes, but hey, I don't
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: make movies for a living, I just talk about them,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: So like, rate and review this show on iTunes and
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: Spotify or wherever you get it. Please Patreon dot com,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: slash Culturecast, patreon dot com, slash Projection Booth, the patreon
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: dot com slash Father and alone, are three places you
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: can go to interact with the people that I work
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: with or the shows that I work on. And yeah,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: Happy Halloween, stay safe, stay weird, don't do anything I
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: wouldn't do, which is it's a pretty wide margin, and
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: we'll catch you on the next episode of the Culture Casts.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: Bascos People, Stupid School, the Bins to the bs in
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: the busts from the books Cool bost