When the sheet covered corpse wobbles slightly as the police officer approaches, there’s a grisly extra thrill to watching HALLOWEEN (2018). The same as when the vicious knives glint in the light with a slight wavering. Worse still is when a shadow of a tall man suddenly appears in your peripheral vision startling you into an out loud swear word. This is horror movie going under the stars and the poor guy is question is carrying popcorn and seems to have lost his girlfriend among the prone bodies engrossed by the film.
MOONLIGHT CINEMA is one of summer’s great delights in Sydney with a range of films from kids to grown-up new releases. My pick was Jamie Lee Curtis’ revisiting of the horror classic from my girlhood. HALLOWEEN (2018) brings back the character, Michael Myers, who scared the bejesus out of us in 1978 and lets him loose on a slightly crazy Laurie Strode who is now a reclusive, estranged mother and grandmother.
The story that has been put together for this revisiting is not predictable, the action is of course, but there are events and relationships which give an extra dynamism to the narrative. There is very unsympathetic and unflattering Curtis driving the action with a gun-toting PTSD paranoia and the three generations of women are all pretty volatile. There’s chasing and stalking enough to fulfil Hitchcock’s mantra, when in doubt threaten the heroine, but these women are armed. Result? An exciting amount of screaming and shooting. The men are expendable and incompetent and there’s a beautiful, feisty granddaughter to be menaced.
Laurie has built Fortress Strode but the action must necessarily take place in random strangers’ houses and on the streets filled with Halloween revellers first. With a very pumpkin orange cast to the film stock, the murders are suitably gruesome, bloody and noisy. The direction from David Gordon Green balances what audiences expect with some of the tropes turned on their head. The subversion of the body pushed out of the window and suddenly gone from its prone place on the ground is a goody.
It’s a film which avoids silly yet has all the shocks needed. The knives are scary and wielded with a metallic scabbard drawing sound effect even when being held menacingly at the side! The final chase has pulses and beats in the music until it stops and it’s just chilling breathing echoing across the lawn. That’s exactly the moment when the wind decides to whip up an ice-cream wrapper and flick it into your eye line.
There’s something about lying back, being prone and hunkered down in an unfamiliar environment that gives an extra frisson of enjoyment in viewing a horror film. Plus the huge screen moves ever so slightly at odd places. Add in a picnic and bottle of wine and a chance to cuddle up with someone braver, if he and the popcorn can find his way back, and you have a wonderful summer film-going experience.
MOONLIGHT CINEMA continues over summer at Belvedere Amphitheatre in Centennial Park, Nov 29 – 31 Mar with a range of movies from ‘Dirty Dancing’ to ‘Venom’ or ‘Storm Boy’ and ‘Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindlewald’ to see with the kids.
