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AAAAAAAAA!!

Human Lucy-furr!!! 😭💕💕💕💕💕

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Halloween 2018 (Movie Review)

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I’ve gone into it before on this blog, but one of the things I’ve been trying to do since I started writing regular movie reviews is to broaden my palette for various genres, primarily with horror. So before going into the reboot-sequel of the franchise, I decided to finally watch the original 1978 John Carpenter’s Halloween for myself. Watching it in a world of where the tropes of slasher movies it helped codify have been played out, parodied and revived multiple times over the decades, made seeing how the tropes were initially contextualized a fascinating experience. The original still holds up on entertainment value as a horror movie due to believable performances from the lead actors, especially Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode, with Carpenter’s direction and score helping to turn Michael Myers into one of the pillars of horror movie villain icons.

Halloween 2018 from director David Gordon Green, the third movie in the franchise to just be called “Halloween”, goes back to basics by ignoring everything outside of the original. Focusing on Laurie’s plans to bring Michael down once and for all after he escapes during a prison transfer, the movie aims to make audiences scream and cheer as a conflict forty years in the making gets brought to a head.

[Full Review Under the Cut]

Halloween 2018 doesn’t go out of its way to make a point of how none of the movies besides the original matter to this one with any meta-commentary, outside of one or two throwaway exchanges. If there is one thing it takes a subtle focus on to criticize other entries in the series, it’s trying to explain the “Why” of Michael Myers. One of those throwaway exchanges involves the “Laurie is Michael’s sister” retcon that was thrown into the second movie to explain why he seemed focused on her. The setup staying as simple as possible worked to the advantage of the 1978 movie, but overexplaining the setup of a horror antagonist tends to happen as these franchises go on for better or worse. The new movie uses the retconning of the other movies as an opportunity to get closer to the more subdued tone of the original, while still doing some works towards escalating the conflict by focusing it on Laurie Strode’s four decades worth of preparation to kill Michael.

Laurie’s characterization initially gets built from how others see her and how the trauma she went through forty years ago has informed much of how she led her life since. We’re introduced to her in an isolated home in the woods outside Haddonfield through the eyes of two true-crime podcasters, Aaron (Jefferson Hall) and Dana (Rhian Rees), who run down how her preparations in case of Michael’s escape have alienated her from her family. There’s a vulnerable side to her shown during early scenes where she does attempt to reconnect with her daughter, Karen (Judy Greer), and granddaughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak). Karen’s working through her own trauma as she only looks back on growing up with Laurie as a mom in the context of how social services came to take her away when she was twelve. Allyson alternatively wants to believe there’s a chance for them all to reconnect as a family. Interactions with her family give Laurie the necessary sense of emotional vulnerability in this movie, keeping her hardened outlook on life from becoming one-note.

On the other side of the coin is The Shape himself, portrayed again by Nick Castle with James Jude Courtney and Tony Moran reprising the role of the unmasked Myers. The pre-credits sequence re-establishes Michael’s detached persona as Aaron tries desperately to ring any kind of reaction from him by presenting him with his mask and mentioning the events of the original movie, only to walk away with nothing. Cutting to the opening credits mid-provocation along with the credits themselves being a clever evolution of the original’s mix well together to set the tone for how the movie aims to escalate without pushing the premise fully into absurdity. How this affects the Michael’s presentation becomes clear as the first major suspense sequence, featuring him going through a gas station, pushes his kill count above the original before he even gets to Haddonfield itself.

A theme that carries through the movie that connects Laurie and Michael, besides her preparations to kill him, comes from how people are desperate to understand Michael while dismissing Laurie as someone they’ve already figured out. They mistake Michael’s silence for a puzzle to be solved, when his unrelenting actions should be enough to speak for themselves. Laurie’s dedication to preparing for a confrontation with him has unquestionably strained her relationship with her family, but her understanding that there’s no logic to why Michael goes after certain people with such dedication is why she’s capable of making the stand she does against him this time.

The proper showdown between Laurie and Michael is what the marketing for Halloween 2018 was built around from the beginning and it doesn’t disappoint once it begins. Equipping her house with traps and herself with the weapons necessary to fight back makes this confrontation a back and forth where the question of who has the upper hand hangs over everything. This sequence also contains the best examples of this movie using the visual language of the 1978 movie to evoke mood rather than just existing as shallow reference. The path towards this showdown mostly consists of a similar setup to the original movie of Michael moving quietly through Haddonfield’s suburbs in a series of buildups to kill sequences with some decent stories involving the normal life of Allyson and her friends thrown in. There’s even a well-executed minor twist towards the end that manages to build tension for the characters going into the showdown at Laurie’s home.

Seeing Halloween 2018 a day after watching the original for the first time without any of the rest of the franchise taking up space in my mind, outside of secondhand knowledge through cultural osmosis, makes an interesting lens to see how Drew Gordon Green worked to create a well-crafted update on the horror of the original. It manages to use what was setup within that movie to craft tension and thrills in its own way with some pretty good payoff in the end.

[utopianparadoxist]

Here’s a post on Joey’s Hero Title--The MAID of LIGHT!--and how understanding it strengthens our reading of Joey’s struggles with neglect and loneliness, her STRIFES, her skills and abilities, and more! We even look at some interesting foreshadowing for where her arc may be going in the next Acts!

(Credit to @thricequeen and @dahniwitchoflight for providing key details that feed into my own speculation, btw! Thanks a ton, peeps)

Classpecting has so far been a hugely underappreciated part of Hiveswap’s narrative, and I’d like to change that. This post is also a focused introduction on Classpects in general, and should ideally be perfectly easy to follow if you’re a new Hiveswap fan with no exposure to the system from Homestuck! 

I do have to warn, however, that there will be Homestuck Spoilers in this essay. So heads up about that! Now, on to some bad news. I have similar Classpect essays brainstormed for Xefros Tritoh and Jude Harley. But alas, it may be a while before I can write those. 

As excited as I am to post this, it comes with an announcement I wish I wasn’t making. If you enjoy this essay and want to know more about future content from me, please read on.

So. Shit kind of hit the fan for me recently, and I may be going on hiatus from this analysis/Youtube venture soon. To give you an idea of what my life is like at the moment:

I’ve been massively struggling with unmedicated anxiety and ADHD (at least) since Trumps’ election. I’ve been bouncing from job to job, doing well enough but never QUITE well enough to be actually stable. 

I’m currently employed as a contractor for a really promising position…! That I keep waiting to get assignments on. It’s been weeks, and it hasn’t happened yet. And I can’t afford to wait like this. 

I live in a one bedroom apartment with three other people. My wonderful, amazing, caring and supportive best friend--who’s essentially been funding my wild venture at doing this patreon thing from the beginning--has been withering under the toxic enviroment in his workplace. He’s developed chronic back pain that’s quickly becoming a serious concern to us. 

Also, I’m several thousand dollars in credit card debt due to heavy expenses while I helped said best friend escape his abusive home life. So is he.

On top of that, my family may now be looking at like two months without electricity due to Puerto Rico being pounded by hurricanes. And for the last year or so, I’ve been unable to help with...anything. Worse, I can barely help myself and have occasionally turned into a drain on the resources of the people I care about.

The only reason I’ve thought of this Patreon venture as worthwhile up until now is because of the moments I WAS able to make a difference here, in this community--whenever I make someone feel better about Homestuck, or help people make new connections they find exciting. 

Starting this Patreon venture has been the best decision I’ve ever made because of that feeling. It’s been worth everything. I’ve made wonderful friends, and It gives my life meaning. I love it. It has also, financially, been the worst decision I’ve ever made--at least for the time being.

Thinking out and writing these posts has involved intense mental effort that pretty much takes over my life until I’m done doing it, and that combined with my mental issues and financial instability has made it impossible to build any coherent structure to either my work or my life.

Yet still, I want so badly to keep doing it.

The hell of it is, I know I’m right about Homestuck. Both in that I make as close to accurate statements about it as we’ve seen as a community thus far (I’m sure I don’t have everything right, but I’m working on it) and in that I am fundamentally correct to believe in it. 

Homestuck, and the broader universe it is building are the kinds of stories that can make the world a better place. I want to help make that possible, and that will never change.

But for the time being, I have to focus on taking care of me and mine and getting my life in order. So I am posting this as my final gambit.

I’m not asking for handouts. But feel free to read this essay--or watch the video version I’ll be putting out before I temporarily close up shop. You can also check out my Patreon, which I’ve now updated with nearly all of my written work as well as with links to my videos.

I am confident in pretty much everything posted there, and I think odds are good any particular link will lead you to make connections about Homestuck you hadn’t before. Real cool ones, too! If you find that useful to you, and you like reading and engaging with this content, then please consider throwing me a buck on Patreon. 

At the time of writing, I have about 1,100 followers on Tumblr. If I was up to about 1,000 on Patreon, I’d at least be able to take care of myself without burdening the people I love further and focus on this work in a healthy way.  More than that and my life could start getting better, meaning my work would become better as well.

So for you guys, that means about half of my follower base choosing to give me a dollar a month would be plenty. Or a quarter choosing to give me two. I don’t really think it’s insurmountable, which is why I’m posting this. 

For right now, I’d love to write Classpects posts similar to Joey’s on Jude and Xefros. I’m also just entering the next phase of Homestuck: Explained, which means--among other things--making a concise and accessible video on the Classpect system for non-fans. I think this joey post makes clear I’d do a pretty good job at it! 

Alas, barring the outrageous success of this post, I’m gonna be putting them off for a little while so I can focus on my next steps. If you’d like to see more of that stuff sooner, helping me out would be a great way to get it.

And I will clarify that even if you’re willing, I would rather you don’t support this venture unless you’re A) An Adult and B) Financially stable and sure you’re comfortable with doing so! That should go without saying, but I would really hate for someone to put themselves or their families out by trying to support me.  Worst case scenario, I’ll get back to this eventually. 

Thanks for everything up until now. And whether I’m presently around or not in the coming weeks…

Keep rising.

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