10 Rotten Tomatoes Scores For 2021 Movies NOBODY Saw Coming
3. Halloween Kills (41%)
Even though fans were cautiously optimistic about David Gordon Green's 2018 retooling of the Halloween franchise, its 79% Tomatometer was still a massively pleasant surprise.
This made it by far the second-best-reviewed film in the entire franchise behind only the 1978 original, and also only the second critically Fresh film in the series to date.
Fans were thrilled when two more sequels were speedily announced, then, and the marketing for Halloween Kills did a great job selling it as a fittingly brutal follow-up.
Universal clearly thought they had something great on their hands too, as they premiered the sequel at the prestigious Venice Film Festival more than a month before its general release.
The reviews from the festival crowd were mixed to say the least, and while many expected general critics to assess it more favourably, the film's Tomatometer actually only dropped further the next month, tumbling to a wildly disappointing 41%.
Given the film's painfully clumsy depiction of mob mentality and the fact that Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) spends the bulk of the sequel off-screen, it's little surprise that the only aspect of the film to receive consistent praise was its gnarly kills.
Granted the Halloween films generally have a pretty poor standing with critics, enough that Halloween Kills is still the fourth-best-reviewed entry into the entire franchise, tied with cult fave Halloween III: Season of the Witch.
Needless to say, the shock response to this sequel has massively lowered expectations for the next movie, Halloween Ends, especially as David Gordon Green has promised (or threatened?) that it will address the pandemic.