Halloween Kills Review: 5 Ups & 5 Downs

3. The Painfully Thin Script

Halloween 2018 certainly had its silly moments, but its script came from a place of real thoughtfulness compared to most other films in the series.

The same can't really be said for Halloween Kills, the screenplay for which feels like it was hastily scrawled down to meet a studio deadline but needed a few more passes before getting the greenlight.

By far the worst aspect of the script is a major subplot involving Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall) forming a lynch mob to take down Michael.

Beyond the group's laughable repeated utterance of the mantra "Evil dies tonight!," the subsequent critique of mob mentality is howlingly clumsy, told as though written by a child.

The "who are the real monsters?" hand-wringing is groan-worthy at best, there's eye-rolling comic relief and frequently atrocious dialogue, and the prior exploration of Laurie's trauma is largely sidelined.

Hopefully this isn't an indication that Halloween 2018 was a stroke of luck, because Green and co. really need to try harder for Halloween Ends.