Hey guys, I’m new to this forum. Huge fan of this franchise, seen them all. Just saw the 2018 movie the other day and I have to say that the bathroom scene…that was some really disturbing stuff. And I can’t put my finger on why I feel that way. That made me more uncomfortable than the deaths in the Rob Zombie movies. I remember watching that scene and just thinking “ok, if the whole movie makes me feel like this I’m not gonna enjoy this”.
I think it just felt real. The movie opened with these two characters, you got to know them, they were likable, they came all the way from England for a podcast, and we kind of grew attached to them during the early parts of the movie. They felt so normal, so relateable. Then they go to a gas station, and the way the tension builds throughout that scene was just so powerful. And the way she was helplessly in the bathroom stall, the way her partner walked in and said “Michael”, only to have Michael slam his head repeatedly into the wall. The girl screaming in horror as she heard her partner being beaten to death, the close up of his face after Michael throws him in the corner, Michael slowly walking parallel to her along the stalls, grabbing her, choking her and then snapping her neck. The entire scene was just…wrong.
As much as it made me uncomfortable though, it was one of my favorite scenes in the movie. But God damn…that was REALLY intense. It just left me with a very sad, disturbed, dirty feeling.
Anyone else feel that way about that scene? It was just so drawn out and perfectly paced to make you feel what they felt. What I found interesting about this new movie is that as a whole package I did feel like it lacked tension and atmosphere (unlike the original which built the whole way through), but there were flashes of brilliant tension in certain specific scenes. And the bathroom scene was one of them. The long shot of Michael walking into houses was another great scene, and my personal favorite scene of the movie was the motion sensor lights scene leading into Allyson seeing Michael and running away, that was perfect. The score was purely amazing.
So yeah, what did you think of the bathroom scene? Because that’s the one scene that’s still lingering in my mind.
I think they played it up because it’s his first big kill and they wanted to establish him as a threat. It illustrates what Michael is all about… toying with his prey a bit before he finishes them off.
It’s definitely not the craziest thing I’ve seen in a horror film, but it was expertly done and felt really brutal.
My favorite part about it was kind of half seeing michaels eye through the slit.
I could not have stated it better myself… and I 100% agree with everything you wrote. Literally everything, which is rare for me to say in “forum” world, ha
I did find it kind of disturbing (not necessarily in a bad way). They just saw Michael in prison a day or two before, chained up standing motionless and silent. He didn’t seem like much of a threat. But when Aaron walked into the bathroom and saw him, the moment he realized who it was and what he was doing really got me. It felt real and terrifying. That sort of “oh crap” moment that he had was portrayed well and he as well as the viewer knew that they were in serious danger.
Him laying there dying unable to help his partner is what really bothered me (for lack of a better word, and again, not in a bad way). Just the terror and the helplessness of it made it seem so real and i couldn’t help but put myself in his situation.
I humbly disagree with your respectful analysis. If you remember, Zombie’s Halloween had a memorable bathroom scene that I loved and was more violent. Please NOTE: I despised that rendition of the film.
However, this interpretation was creepier due to Michaels presentation of the teeth over the stall door to establish the creep factor and the presence of death and terror.
This scene in the bathroom could have been depicted much more violently. It deserved that since these character were set ups and no one really bought into them yet this early. It would have been interesting if they survived to see the podcast/documentary angle continue. Just a thought.
Lol, a great observation. Unfortunately, I think our society is becoming more and more desensitized to this kind of thing. That’s why they had to add some gore, or the younger generation would think it was too tame.
I can relate, OP. I did feel this weird, pressing dread in my stomach/chest during that scene that I didn’t experience much in the rest of the movie, and I don’t experience much in movies in general.
I was listening to the score, and that track puts me on edge. I can almost feel my blood pressure rising when listening to it. That’s probably a huge part of why that scene was so effective.
I really enjoyed this scene. It immediately showed us that even characters that were developed properly wouldn’t matter in the grand scheme. He would kill anybody in his way, and they had his mask.
I just talked about this scene in another post.
Yes, I agree, it shows how brutal MM is and the blunt force trauma over and over to the guys head was effective in creating tension.
I really felt like this movie did an exceptional job of realistically painting Michael legitimately as the force of evil that they talked about in all of those really hammy movies in the franchise that for this reason or that reason were hard to take seriously. This movie was easy to take seriously. It was like giving the series a rebirth. The actor that played Michael was fantastic and the movie did a really good job reestablishing Michael as the true evil that was always spoken of. I didn’t think this movie could erase 30 or so years of terrible Michael Myers movies (I exclude the Rob Zombie films because despite what anybody says, those movies took Michael Myers seriously) but it did.
And that scene set the tone for it all. In my opinion it was excellent.
Yup, I agree 100%. Listen, as much as I love the original, I always felt like (and I may be in the minority here) that it didn’t do a good job of SHOWING that Michael is the “force of evil” or “true evil”. Yes, we see him stalk, the movie has great tension and atmosphere, and Loomis says it a lot in the movie that Michael is pure evil, but I never FELT it from the original. Loomis telling you he’s pure evil isn’t the same as the movie showing you he’s pure evil. You need to feel it.
But the 2018 version captured that aspect of Michael perfectly I think. I truly felt it, it all clicked for me when I was watching it. Michael IS pure evil.
yeah I agree. 2018 Michael gave me chills that none other than the first two movies gave me.
I’m not saying 4 through 8 are ‘bad’, but they feel like movies, and movies of the era they’re in. A little bit campy at times.
The RZ movies, I don’t hate them but I view them as ‘elseworld white trash Myers’,…to me they literally are ‘What would happen if Rob Zombie directed a Myers movie?’ … he’d make them white trashy.
But the first one just had a creepiness to it, and I felt that in this new one too. Moments like stalking the woman on the phone, the hammer kill, the motion-sensor lights in the backyard, the dropping the handful of teeth over the bathroom stall. There’s just a creepiness to it all that’s a little unnerving.
1981 also had some creepy moments.
I know we all see and feel things differently when watching these movies, but I’m starting to think 1978, 1981, and 2018 are my three favorites just because all three have certain moments I find sort of chilling.
