Halloween
Universal Pictures | Release Date: October 19, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
67
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 51 Critic Reviews
Positive:
33
Mixed:
16
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyOct 23, 2018
You wouldn’t call it profoundly scary – the one thing a wiped-clean slate can’t do is instantly defamiliarise us with every iteration of the monster that’s come since Carpenter. But it’s robustly suspenseful and shot with loving care. Read full review
60
The Observer (UK)Mark KermodeOct 23, 2018
After four decades of diminishing returns, the fact that a guy in a mask can still take an entertaining stab at a somewhat jaded audience is oddly reassuring. Read full review
60
CineVueMichael MazzantiOct 23, 2018
There’s nothing inherently problematic about reverence and homage, but the partial focus on the Strodes, and the ideas cased within regarding the bonds and abscissions violence brings, makes one wish more time was spent studying their multi-generational dynamic than on Michael’s murder spree. Read full review
60
Film ThreatNorman GidneyOct 19, 2018
David Gordon Green’s Halloween is able to graze the brass ring that 9 other sequels and remakes have tried to touch, but it still doesn’t run home with the prize. Read full review
60
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisOct 17, 2018
This isn’t a wisecracking, tongue-in-cheek picture: Green wants us to believe in his Bogeyman, and Curtis is his ace card. Leaving no room for winks or giggles, she makes Laurie’s long-festering terror the glue that holds the movie together. Read full review
60
EmpireChris EvangelistaOct 15, 2018
While it doesn’t capture the magic of the original, this Halloween brings much-needed closure to a troubled franchise, with Curtis excellent and Michael Myers pleasingly terrifying again. Read full review
60
Total FilmMatt MaytumSep 10, 2018
The latest Halloween installment is fun while it lasts, but unlike its predecessor, it’s not a classic for the ages. Read full review
58
ConsequenceSarah KurchakSep 9, 2018
Halloween deserves credit for its efforts to balance old and new, for taking us back to Haddonfield in a way that isn’t purely for cheap nostalgia, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that there’s something more that it could have been achieved. Read full review
50
We Got This CoveredJoseph FalconeOct 23, 2018
While it doesn’t do much to elevate the genre, Halloween does tick each and every box, which should be more than enough to appease your run of the mill fanboy, but scare off anyone with half a brain. Read full review
50
Washington PostPat PaduaOct 18, 2018
Sometimes feels like a horror movie with a contact high. Read full review
50
L.A. WeeklyApril WolfeOct 18, 2018
Too often, in this version, Green doesn’t seem to know where to put the camera to elicit that sense of surveilling or being surveilled. Worse, that incompetence often works hand in hand with overwrought comic dialogue. But let’s get to what really works here: Curtis. Read full review
50
ObserverRex ReedOct 17, 2018
Halloween addicts just want more — and so do I. Unfortunately, this one doesn’t deliver the goods with any new ideas or fresh suspense. It just lays there, like leftover pumpkin. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreOct 16, 2018
For all these cumulative credibility that the “Pineapple Express” team bring to Halloween, this is only marginally better than the many sequels or the 2007 Rob Zombie re-boot. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoSep 10, 2018
Green and McBride are playing with some interesting themes and there’s a female empowerment story of trauma here that’s interesting (but underdeveloped), but do you know the biggest sin of the new “Halloween”? It’s just not scary. And that’s one thing you could never say about the original. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Sep 9, 2018
Halloween isn’t explicitly a horror-comedy, but it does have the destructive habit of undercutting its scares with broad laughs, Green and McBride deflating the tension at every turn with goofball asides. Read full review
40
The GuardianBenjamin LeeSep 9, 2018
There are some effectively nasty kills (this is no PG-13 reboot) and Green’s visual eye often results in some impressive imagery but both the look of the film and the script feel confused. Green can’t seem to decide whether he wants it to be gritty and lo-fi or slick and cinematic and so ends up awkwardly between the two, anything resembling an atmosphere sorely missing. Read full review
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