David Gordon Green’s Halloween went down a storm last month at the highly anticipated slasher sequel’s Toronto International Film Festival premiere, and it seems that the wider critical community is similarly pleased with Michael Myers’ latest outing.
In fact, review-aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes has now declared that the Blumhouse production is officially Certified Fresh, making it the only sequel in this whole franchise to hold the honor. At the time of writing, the new Halloween sits at an impressive score of 87% ‘Fresh’ reviews among a recorded total of 99. To put this percentage into perspective, the 1978 original boasts a superior figure of 93%, but aside from that, the most widely acclaimed entry in the series was previously 1998’s Halloween H20, which holds a middling 52%.
Though critical acclaim rarely ensures commercial success, the latest box office projections also suggest a franchise high for the series, with opening weekend estimates ranging from $50 million to over $70 million against a $10 million budget. Needless to say, a sequel seems all but inevitable.
If you need further convincing that this one’s worth a trip to the cinema, we’ve lately been receiving a generous array of clips from Green’s feature. Just this last week, for instance, has seen the release of a teaser video showing an incarcerated Michael getting a visit from a team of true crime podcasters. Though the killer remains characteristically unresponsive to their queries, the crew does manage to get a strong reaction out of his fellow prisoners when they produce Michael’s famed mask.
Another recent video shows Michael back in his hometown of Haddonfield, where he doesn’t get the warmest of welcomes from Laurie Strode. The clip ends with Jamie Lee Curtis’ character trying to shoot her old assailant, who manages to quietly slip away.
We’ll see what else this much-hyped horror film has to offer when Halloween hits theaters on October 19th.