~Cyanide Latte~'s Reviews > Halloween

Where do I begin with this one? I have such mixed feelings at this point, I'm not sure if there's an adequate way to get my thoughts across.

I enjoy the 1978 film Halloween, but I can't dismiss the fact it's flawed. And I feel as though this novelization attempted to fix a couple of those flaws, in particular the way Michael's character is handled as well as the continuity between the first film and Halloween II, but ultimately I wonder if this didn't cause just as many problems as it set out to solve. I'm also not entirely of the opinion that Curtis Richards was necessarily a great choice to write this novelization; while I've not read any of his other works to measure against this one and I do know that movie novelizations do have a rather strict framework to meet, his writing style leaves much to be desired.

On the subject of continuity between the story, I don't believe it was entirely necessary to use this novel to try to more seamlessly link Halloween and Halloween II. Carpenter hadn't originally wanted to continue the story of the first film, and has since come to retcon the plot point of Laurie being a third Myers sibling who was adopted by the Strodes. I've always been on the fence about whether or not I am okay with them being related, or if I outright dislike it. And I do agree that it's easy to just sort of detach the differing films' timelines and plot points and look at them all as separate entities the further along you get from the original movie. Heck, reading DC comics for as long as I have has practically made that particular skill second nature. But I really don't think it was entirely necessary to have made the novelization of Halloween bridge that gap where it hiccups in the second movie. It would have stood just fine without the siblings angle, and made Michael's kills less personal and a lot more frightening. This is a strike I'd normally just count against the second movie, but I have to count it against this novelization as well, particularly because Richards didn't take that plot point anywhere.

The biggest thing here that I remain exasperated by is the use of a retelling of Dierdre of the Sorrows as a means of explaining why Michael is evil. While it can be argued as being better than what the movies went on to do, I struggle with it. It seems like something of a cop-out that takes away from the individuality of Michael himself. I do appreciate that the aim of this seems to be to make him at least marginally more sympathetic or at least tragic, but it does feel as though it removes him as a central figure of the story itself. I've heard the argument made that it's also a very ableist thing to do, connecting his character in any way to Irish legends to give a reason to why he kills, but I would argue that no matter how you slice the cake, Halloween has a lot of ableism that leaves it flawed. Whether it's this or just viewing the movie itself, it's in there and you can't erase or ignore that aspect of it. Regardless of whether you apply more modern views and knowledge or not, there's inherent ableism in it and we just have to accept it, so thanks for that John Carpenter. I'll have to do some more thinking on whether or not applying a backdrop of Irish legend to Michael's psyche is necessarily ableist (though it doesn't necessarily feel like a great thing either,) but I've got very mixed feelings on it. I've seen people in the fandom apply the lore in this novelization to his character and allow that to make Michael more sympathetic, and they do it much better than this book. And I've seen people take the idea and apply it as, this was young Michael's favorite story and it made an impact on his young, still-developing mind and psyche and how he views his killing, and they do it well. Everything this book does with the idea just...really feels like it's stilted against making Michael his own character and I can't say I appreciate that at all.

I will say however, I did appreciate the efforts this book made to give more look into Loomis's time as Michael's psychiatrist, as well as Laurie's inner thoughts, and her interactions with her friends and with Tommy and Lindsey. Those things really helped to flesh out the other characters more, and I did appreciate it.

I initially found a PDF copy of this on archive.org, and managed to read most of it, but I think the file was either incomplete or corrupted. Additionally, the majority of the book is littered with grammar/spelling and formatting errors, which took me by surprise. I finished the book via listening to the fan-made audiobook on the YouTube channel The 80s Slasher Librarian. A huge thanks to that channel for allowing me to finish this book! Ultimately, I'm not sure I'd recommend this to anyone other than fans of the franchise who are interested in trying this out. It's not the best way to get the story.