David Gordon Green’s long-anticipated “stab” at a new entry in the Halloween film series was unveiled this weekend at the Toronto Film Festival and most of the initial reactions and reviews have been positive so far.
John Defore of The Hollywood Reporter found there to be “… more scene-setting than in the usual thriller, with the script fleshing out both this family dynamic and introducing Allyson’s circle of high-school friends. These kids would resemble the usual group of slasher-pic victims-to-be, if not for the fact that they’re actually likeable. Not only are we not eager for them to die, in some cases it’s going to make us sad when it happens.”
Leah Greenblat of EW praised the film’s sense of humor, stating that Green “…and McBride fill the script with comic riffs and referential winks to the original, even as the movie lets Michael slash, stomp, and impale his way through Haddonfield’s terrorized, poorly reflexed population.”
Some critics, such as the AV Club’s A. A. Dowd, thought the new film borrowed too much from Carpenter’s classic, saying that the film “…is just another pale imitation, another bad Halloween sequel watering down the fear factor of the original.”
According to David Fear of Rolling Stone, the crowd that witnessed the midnight premiere were “… in ecstasy…” even if he thought the film was a close approximation of the original.
The Rotten Tomatoes score is still in flux at this point, with only 28 reviews in up to this point, so stay tuned to Horror News Network for more information and reactions as they become available closer to the October 19 release date (and read our thoughts about Halloween and all of the other film’s this season with HNN’s Fall Horror Movie Preview).
For more on Halloween, click here.
