Dave Lancel

Well, so I just saw this movie for the first time yesterday. Almost 40 years after it was released. A bit late yeah, but it never really seemed interesting enough to check out. And what can i say? To be honest, I expected the movie to be pretty bad considering how much praise it gets (usually in horror that's a sure sign it's only trendy to like it somehow). But I never expected it to be this bad.

• The characters are just a big mess. The acting is atrocious and the casting choices are very weird. Everybody looks way to old for the role they play, and the dialogues are just some of the worst I've ever heard. My favorite being Laurie saying "was that the boogeyman?" which had me burst out in laughter. Great stuff. Anyway, none of the characters ever sound realistic in any way. And there is NO chemistry with any character and I mean zero. Michael Myers himself is just nothing special at all. The opening scene with him is pretty great tbh (when he's a little kid), but after that, it's all downhill, and we don't get to know anything about him at all whatsoever. He's truly lacking any character whatsoever. He doesn't speak or even have motives. He just goes around strangling people. Yeah very creative.

• The story is among the worst I've ever seen. Almost not a single thing makes sense, and it becomes very slapstick at times. It is the perfect example of all the archetypes everybody hates in horror movies like "go randomly into the closet" and "stab the killer and toss the knife away afterwards and sit and wait for him to get up" or my personal favorite "just give him the car". The main storyline itself is extremely narrow and it truly feels random. For like 70% of the movie there are no real interactions of any kind between anyone and some overgrown babysitters just sees spooky things and gets killed in (extremely) predictable and stupid ways. There is a doctor too, but that part is so ludicrous that it almost seems to be for comedic relief. He's sure funny when he breaks out his doomy and gloomy speeches, I'll give him that. Especially when he's peeking on the kids from behind the bush. That was hilarious. The ending is atrocious too. Worst end sequence I've seen in a while. And that brings us to...

• The directing is simply awful. Some shots drag out for a laughable long time, so much that it gets really awkward. And there is so much repetition too, and some parts that (I guess) is supposed to be scary just looks very funny. Like the times when Michael collapses. Or when they are being tailed by a car accompanying the "creepy music" for like the 5th time in like 10 minutes. The editing is poor also, like when Michael cracks the car window. And the movie is shot in such a way that not many scares are unexpected. It's a very predictable movie. Like the music will always let you know well before hand when something creepy is about to happen. Which brings us to...

• The score is very amateurish and very often plain bad. Yes the main theme is kinda good, but not after you've heard it slapped on like 50 scenes. It starts to get funny after a while to always hear that tune. Not very scary.

Overall, the movie felt like a very bad low budget horror of it's time. But would it have been better back in the days? Hell no. It's a bad movie, no matter what time period it's from. It's just a very trendy movie, and now that I've finally seen it, I can safely say that I wasn't missing out on anything. Phew.

there are comedy movies that leave you cold, because they not hit your sense of humour. In my case these movies are everthing that Seth McFarlane produces. Ted was okay, but everything else is not my cup of tea.

And then you have actors and filmmakers which just hit your laugh-spot. And for me this is Ben Stiller.

I watched Tropic Thunder the first time with my best friends in our cellarroom with a bunch of bear sixpacks on a video projector. And it was just awesome. It was just funny as hell how the actors in the movie act and how Ben Stiller made fun of hollywood stars, war movies and the whole industry.

Now i watched the movie again and it has not lost any kind of funny over-the-top comedy action.

If you want to watch this movie, watch it with good friends. It will tripple the fun.

9/10

update 09.02.2020: I just watched it on netflix again. Boy, I really like this movie :) Sure, there are some hit-and-miss-Scenes or Scenes where the joke is to long. But for me this are only a couple of scenes. Most of the movie just works for me.

These whiny actors are portraited in the properly best way possible.