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
91
The PlaylistVictor StiffSep 9, 2018
Halloween is a love letter to the original picture and entertaining on its own terms. Thrilling, atmospheric, and brutally violent, Green delivers exactly what fans want from the series and then some. Read full review
90
IGNJim VejvodaSep 9, 2018
While no entry in the franchise has surpassed the original film, this Halloween sequel is truly a cut above the rest and a great piece of horror entertainment even for those unfamiliar with the series. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerOct 18, 2018
With original director John Carpenter's blessing, Green manages something that is both a tribute to and an evolution of the 1978 classic, with moments designed to create resonances that are not just re-enactment but part of his bigger theme of trauma-causing scars (there are also, in a nod to his days as an Austin resident, a couple of subtle visual nods to the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre). Read full review
88
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenOct 17, 2018
These filmmakers have made arguably the best Halloween since that first one. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzSep 12, 2018
It's fierce, it's lean, it's mean, and it has at least three first-pumping "Hell, yeah!" moments. Read full review
83
Original-CinJim SlotekOct 18, 2018
As with Carpenter, build-up is the thing (Michael is mostly talked-about for the first half-hour), and producers Blumhouse’s trademark jump-scares are a nice stylistic fit. Read full review
83
The Film StageJosh LewisSep 10, 2018
The kills are plentiful and the splatter sticky, meanwhile Green and cinematographer Michael Simmonds do excellent work with the widescreen frames, using all kinds of background/foreground tricks as well as reflections and shadows. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattSep 9, 2018
Long live Michael Myers, so maybe someone can finally kill him — in a big, funny, scary, squishy, super-meta sequel that brings it all back to the iconic 1978 original. Read full review
80
Film Journal InternationalRebecca PahleOct 18, 2018
No one-dimensional, stone-cold badass here—this version of Laurie Strode is among the most nuanced horror heroines presented onscreen over the last handful of years. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangOct 16, 2018
With a canny balance of empathy and exploitation, Halloween treats its heroine’s lingering trauma with surprising emotional realism and only a hint of comic exaggeration. Read full review
80
Rolling StonePeter TraversOct 16, 2018
That Green’s sequel works as well as it does — it’s still a slasher movie — is due only in part to the director and his collaborators’ copycat admiration for Carpenter’s blueprint. Mostly it’s the troubled times we live in that allows this energizing, elemental horror film to touch a raw nerve for #MeToo. Read full review
80
Time OutJoshua RothkopfSep 10, 2018
What elevates Halloween beyond mere fan service is the presence of Jamie Lee Curtis, whose willowy Laurie Strode has been converted, Sarah Connor–style, into a shotgun-toting shut-in with more than a hint of crazy about her. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeSep 9, 2018
The picture has a good shock or two up its sleeve before getting to Laurie's armored, booby-trapped home, and once it's there, it surprises us again. Read full review
79
The VergeBryan BishopOct 8, 2018
The 2018 Halloween isn’t an entirely successful film, and it won’t provide an easy template for a new generation of revitalized slasher flicks. But it does serve as a fitting coda to a story that began 40 years ago. Read full review
76
TheWrapWilliam BibbianiOct 17, 2018
This isn’t a glorious rebirth, it’s a functional facsimile, and it’s a wholly satisfying piece of slasher entertainment regardless. Read full review
75
UproxxVince ManciniOct 23, 2018
Halloween is tasteful and clever and understands its source material enough to appeal to leave the superfans cheering (I should know, I sat next to one). But I couldn’t help thinking that it sells the original better than it sells itself. Which is just fine. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperOct 18, 2018
Director Green isn’t trying to reinvent the squeal. Halloween, the 2018 version, is the B-movie sequel “Halloween,” the 1978 version, has always deserved. Read full review
75
Philadelphia Daily NewsNick VadalaOct 18, 2018
Unlike with the series' other sequels, this one finally feels like it was worth the wait. Read full review
75
USA TodayBrian TruittOct 18, 2018
By staying true only to the initial narrative, this Halloween solidly ranks as the best chapter since the first – not exactly the highest bar – mostly by making Laurie (a remarkable Jamie Lee Curtis, whose last appearance in the series was 2002's "Halloween: Resurrection") anything but a victim. Read full review
75
The Associated PressJake CoyleOct 18, 2018
While Green’s Halloween, which he penned with Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley, has faithfully adopted much of what so resonated in Carpenter’s genre-creating film — the stoic killer, the gruesome executions, the suburban nightmares — what makes his Halloween such a thrill is how it deviates from its long-ago predecessor. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliOct 17, 2018
This is the sequel Halloween fans have been awaiting for four decades. With John Carpenter whispering in his ear (the original director returned in an “advisory” capacity and as co-composer), David Gordon Green has taken the series back to its roots. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChroniclePeter HartlaubOct 17, 2018
Curtis makes an all-in return to the Strode character, and the filmmaking team builds a solid framework around her, in the propulsive and entertaining new Halloween. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrOct 17, 2018
As franchise reboots go, the new Halloween is top shelf. Jamie Lee Curtis returns with a vengeance to the role of Laurie Strode. Read full review
75
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiOct 16, 2018
Most importantly, Halloween recovers its long-lost gravitas and self-respect. It makes us remember why we loved Carpenter’s original in the first place: It was artful, frightening and supremely well-acted — not “Scream 4.” Read full review
70
Screen DailyTim GriersonOct 18, 2018
This sequel can’t compare to John Carpenter’s ingenious 1978 original, but director David Gordon Green delivers a crowd-pleasing chiller that doubles as an existential commentary on horror itself, both on the screen and in our lives. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneOct 15, 2018
The Halloween of today is slick and sick, but little is left of that sleep-destroying dread. Still, not all is lost, because the Bogeyman, bless him, has not forgotten his manners. For old times’ sake, he gets to sit up straight. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinSep 13, 2018
Green’s Halloween doesn’t have the geographical simplicity — the elegance — of Carpenter’s. It’s a bit all over the place. But I love how he takes memorable images from the original and turns them on their heads. Read full review
70
ScreenCrushE. Oliver WhitneySep 10, 2018
Green serves up everything we love about the first Halloween, completely playing off our nostalgia for the slasher classic, and to me, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Read full review
70
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 9, 2018
By contemporary horror standards, the original “Halloween” was actually quite tame, featuring just five (human) deaths, whereas this one more than triples the body count — and it does so with style, borrowing several of Carpenter’s classic devices...before getting into the more prosthetic-heavy mayhem that follows. Read full review
67
IndieWireEric KohnSep 9, 2018
Green has made a slavish, sharply executed bit of fan service elevated by Jamie Lee Curtis’ transformation into a badass grandmother back to finish the job. Read full review
65
The AtlanticDavid SimsOct 18, 2018
Boiled down to its core, the 1978 Halloween was about the chilling permeability of the suburbs and the ease with which American domesticity could be disrupted. Green’s new movie sticks to that theme, and does it well, but the film only shows hints of being something more interesting until its excellent final act. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsOct 17, 2018
It’s a fairly engrossing bit of fan service, boasting many clever touches and a few disappointing ones. Director and co-writer David Gordon Green’s picture veers erratically in tone, and the killings are sort of a drag after a while, en route to a rousing vengeance finale. Read full review
62
Paste MagazineJim VorelOct 18, 2018
David Gordon Green’s Halloween is an intensely frustrating experience, buoyed by solid action and well-crafted scares, but simultaneously damned by an incredibly clunky script and appalling lack of focus. Read full review
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