Blu-ray Review: 'Halloween' (2018)

My full film review for Halloween can be read here. Here’s the bottom line from it:

“Halloween feels like a John Carpenter film with a mysterious killer, a nostalgia fueled and synth driven score, and creative kills that are filled with tension and creativity (the motion sensor sequence may be the highlight of the film). Let this creative team be involved in future installments of the Halloween franchise and there may be hope for a successful and rejuvenated slasher on our hands that will breathe life into the comatose yet rabidly infested horror film Halloween movie season that occurs every year around this time.”

The DVD/Blu-ray release of the film is a two-disc release with just under 30 minutes of special features including deleted and extended scenes and five featurettes.

There are seven deleted and extended scenes totaling 12 minutes and 42 seconds. Here’s a breakdown of each scene.

• Extended Shooting Range-Deleted Suicide Thoughts (2:30) – Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) puts one bullet in the cylinder of a .45 magnum and places it under her chin just as Dana Haines (Rhian Rees) and Aaron Korey (Jefferson Hall) come to visit her.
• Shower Mask Visit (1:30) – You see someone in Michael’s mask through a shower curtain as Dana takes a shower.
• Jog to a Hanging Dog (1:10 ) – Allyson (Andi Matichak) stumbles onto a dead dog hanging upside down from a tree as the cops speak to her neighbors. A maskless Michael looks on from afar.
• Allyson and Friends at School (2:15) – Vicky (Virginia Gardener) says she can’t make it to the dance because of a babysitting gig coming up last minute. She and Dave (Miles Robbins) discuss her taking his cherry. Allyson meets up with Cameron (Dylan Arnold). He gives her a small pumpkin and they talk about how everyone’s family is messed up in some capacity.
• Cameron and Cops Don’t Mix (2:00) – After Cameron kisses another girl at the dance, he catches up with Allyson and they seem to be on the verge of making up when the cops arrive. Cameron mouths off to the cops and they take him away in handcuffs.
• Deluxe Banh Mi Cops (1:49) – More of Officer Richards (Charles Benton) boasting about the peanut butter and jelly sandwich he had the Vietnamese restaurant make for his partner Officer Francis (Christopher Allen Nelson).
• Sartain and Hawkins Ride Along (1:00) – Dr. Sartain (Haluk Bilginer) asks Officer Hawkins (Will Patton) if he’s ever worn women’s underwear while riding along in Hawkins’ police cruiser. Sartain vigorously picks his nose to which Hawkins complains about Sartain, “picking boogers in his car.” Sartain merely states that he scratches his brain through his nose.

A 6:05 featurette that mostly highlights co-writer and director David Gordon Green’s love for John Carpenter’s original 1978 version of Halloween, its long-lasting effects on him, and the influence it has had on not only him but everyone who has seen it over the last four decades. Green talks about his favorite death in his film while Rhian Rees details the difficulties of performing a death sequence and how screaming for long periods of time takes its toll on you.

A 2:32 brief homage to Jamie Lee Curtis. The featurette showcases how protective Curtis is of the Laurie Strode character while the cast and crew are impressed with how much effort and passion she injects into her performance. In the film, Laurie has chosen to end her own story rather than waiting for Michael to come for her and end it himself. In a way, Curtis has done something similar by returning to this franchise.

A 3:19 look into the making of the music for the film. John Carpenter worked with his son Cody and Daniel A. Davies to create the score of the film. They used the original 1978 score as a creative foundation or a template and merely aimed to build on what Carpenter established 40 years ago. The three of them experimented a lot and it’s cool to see Carpenter geeking out to a franchise its own creator had lost interest in up until recently.

Has various members of the cast having a 2:33 conversation about what the mask represents for each of them. Most of them dance around the mask symbolizing pure evil, but it’s interesting to note that David Gordon Green encouraged James Jude Courtney to lose himself in the character whenever the mask was on. There was an emphasis on capturing the cold darkness associated with Michael lurking in the shadows as The Shape.

A four and a half minute discussion between Jamie Lee Curtis, John Carpenter, David Gordon Green, and Jason Blum. They talk about how the project came to fruition, how Blum had contacted Green several times about making a Blumhouse film yet always turning him down until Halloween came along, and how Halloween (1978) was so different from other horror films from that time period (horror films from the 70s typically had an explanation for everything and the music cues always gave away what was about to occur).

The home release of Halloween does not include any sort of commentary track.