Jamie Lee Curtis returns  to a role she has played for over four decades in the latest instalment of Halloween, the enduring saga of one Michael Myers. Directed and co-written by David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express) alongside Danny McBride (Eastbound & Down) and Scott Teems, Halloween Kills is the follow-up to the 2018 direct sequel to John Carpenter’s 1978 original film about a terrifying masked killer. 

Halloween Kills picks up from where it left off on Halloween night 2018. Having managed to trap Michael in her house which she then set ablaze, a gravely wounded Laurie Strode (Curtis) is seen fleeing the scene in a pick up truck accompanied by her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak). But when Michael manages to free himself from the fire and resumes his killing spree, some old faces from the terrorised town of Haddonfield’s decide to band together to put a stop to the killing. 

Thanks to Green and Mcbride’s unparalleled comedy credentials, this latest instalment almost feels more like a pastiche than a fully-fledged follow up to Carpenter’s much loved work. It’s clear from the offset that Halloween Kills appears to be more interested in its own cannon and self-reflexivity than in advancing the story beyond what we already know.  It’s also clear that in absence of a coherent plot, the writers have seemingly decided to throw everything at this story in the hope that something might stick. The result is a shambolic, risible mess which is further hampered by a total absence of genuinely scary bits. Green has made a film not for horror purists but for people who know the franchise inside out and are capable of reciting whole chunks of dialogue.

The film does the minimum of what is expected from it, and for some this will be more than enough. The rest of us, however, will have to wait another couple of years for something a little more substantial to sink our collective teeth into, but for now this will have to do.