A Psycho Killer You Can Trust

The Big Three Boogeymen of slasher flicks are Jason from the “Friday the 13th” series; Freddy Krueger of “Nightmare on Elm Street”; and Michael Myers of the many, many “Halloween” movies.

I always preferred Michael Myers — the strong, silent type who gets the job done.

Freddy yukked it up like a Catskill comedian, and the suits that make these decisions tried to make Jason a sympathetic character. Crazed killers in hockey goalie masks are never going to inspire anything other than fear,  and Henny Youngman never sliced anyone up with long finger-knives.

“Halloween” is billed as the sequel to the original 1978 film by John Carpenter, which means that we can ignore the nine mostly lousy other sequels.

Jamie Lee Curtis is back as Laurie Strode. She is now a grandmother, a boozer and a head case, not necessarily in that order. She lives in a fortified compound with lots of guns and weird stuff in jars. With long, grey hair and John Lennon glasses, she emits more than a whiff of Cambridge, Mass.

But they don’t shoot like that in Harvard Square.

Unhappily, this new Halloween flick has some plot, which only gets in the way of the story. But even the expendable characters, like the obnoxious British couple who want to do a podcast about the Michael Myers murders, come in handy once Michael escapes from the rickety old school bus that the mental health professionals always use to transport dangerous psychos.

According to the immortal drive-in movie critic Joe Bob Briggs, the number one rule of the successful horror movie is that anyone can die at any time. And by that yardstick, the new “Halloween” succeeds.

Michael warms up on the Brits, from whom he retrieves his famous mask. He then takes out assorted cops and bystanders before making his way into town, just in time for — you got it — Halloween night.

Meanwhile Laurie’s teenage granddaughter is enmeshed in plot. This is a good time to go to the restroom.

Summary: At least 18 dead bodies. Head-stomping. Stabbing. Mad scientist. Extra-stupid sheriff’s deputies. Panic room with spaces between the floorboards, which kind of defeats the purpose. High school Halloween dance (which truly makes this a horror film). The regrettable state of service station restrooms. 

The producers haven’t updated the graphics, which is comforting, and Big John Carpenter contributed the same sort of “Vangelis Meets the Pile Driver” music featured in the original.

Bottom line: A by-the-numbers slasher, with a good performance by Curtis and a couple of tense moments. A suitably warped person might enjoy watching this with the original once it comes out on video.