henrygravesprince's review
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.5
I have a lot of thoughts about this novelization that I’ll probably later make into a full-fledged review, but for now, I just want to say I hate a majority of the choices made around Michael’s character and background for this novelization, and the inconsistency in the assigned motive is bizarre: it feels as if the author wants Michael’s motive to have been that he was literally possessed by a cursed Celtic spirit, compelled by psychosis, and sexually repressed all at once, and fails both to capture the ambiguity of the film or compensate that with a compelling character study. On top of seeming to instead participate in the sort of hysteria around “times changing” and the preservation of the sanitized, false suburban American dream/nightmare that the film commentated on, the prose itself feels sort of juvenile (in a way I would have forgiven if it had provided literally anything substantial to outweigh that negative), and overall, I’d hesitate to recommend this to even to other people who love Halloween (1978) as much as I do.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Ableism, Blood, Forced institutionalization, Sexual content, Death, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Child death, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Violence
Moderate: Confinement, Gore, Stalking, Sexual violence, Incest, Car accident, Animal cruelty, and Animal death
Minor: Racial slurs, Drug use, Gun violence, Rape, Bullying, Medical content, and Body shaming
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