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I gave this one a fair chance, wiping my mind clear of it's predecessor before watching but just as with David Gordon Green's HALLOWEEN (2018), got very little out of it.

Again, Green here shows all the subtlety of a JCB both in the script and direction. Forget story logic and don't expect much in the way of rational behaviour from the characters . Instead, brutality, absurdity and little else reign supreme in this HALLOWEEN universe. There are so many stupid moments throughout with characters behaving every inch as dumb as you'd see in an early Friday the 13th and an ending that rivaled the ineptitude of the 2018 movie's climax.

More so than Michael Myers, Green himself is now a seemingly unstoppable force of nature, recurringly striking dread into large numbers of people around Halloween time - namely audiences with an aversion to incompetence.

I could write at length about the absence of suspense and scares but it's the sheer stupidity of the characters that killed this one stone dead for me. A hulking Michael Myers is on the loose with a sizeable body count already racked up from events earlier in the evening and people here decide to investigate ominous locations and situations rather than phone the police or simply steer clear of the danger. Some characters waste bullets firing wildly in a panic so that there are none in the chamber when Myers is upon them. Others it seems, simply don't know how to operate a firearm despite being in possession of one.........making Myers' life rather convenient indeed. I'm only scratching the surface here too........some characters really have to be seen to be disbelieved.

If I'm to focus on a few positives, it was nice to see some original HALLOWEEN cast members back and the sequence with Kyle Richards escaping and hiding from Myers was easily my favourite. The reason I say this is because it was the closest the film ever got to achieving some level of suspense.........and guess what - it did so without any blood, guts or gratuitous brutality. Just a wonderful old school exercise in building tension.......a protracted moment of a terrified woman cowering alone in the shadows, barely able to breath with death standing just a few feet away and her life in the balance. For me, there was nothing else in the movie that came close to this again.

The 1978 sequence was a welcome novelty but still merely a novelty. I very much liked how it looked and found myself wanting the film to stay in this period instead of pulling us kicking and screaming back to 2018! I still had a hard time watching Michael escape from an armed police officer merely feet away by simply walking away before his capture outside the Myers house moments later. In the absence of the late Donald Pleasence, the doppelganger Loomis on the scene was quite jarring but I'll give some credit for a ballsy decision to include him. Nice as it was, this 1978 extension to the original still left me wanting to watch HALLOWEEN II (1981) to kind of set the record straight!

As the 1978 sequence ends, we are asked to accept Myers effectively submitting to capture at the hands of the police, only to get an ending to the present day storyline that utterly makes a mockery of that scenario. When you witness how he fairs against a burly group of firefighters and later a Haddonfield mob armed to the teeth, you have to wonder exactly how his capture in 1978 and subsequent 40 year incarceration were achieved so routinely. A tedious and quite pretentious piece of narration by Laurie Strode over the final moments of the movie, might attempt to explain but sounds more like eccentric twaddle from Dr Loomis on one of his worse days after a night on the tiles.

The obligatory mention of a new John Carpenter score always being welcome should of course, go without saying.......but I'll say it anyway, even if his modern cues lack the eerie menace that invested his classic scores earlier in the series. The music was still fitting and effective nonetheless.

All in all, for me this was just as poor as HALLOWEEN (2018) - which I guess was inevitable since that one set the mood and tempo that this one simply feeds off. And again, despite ignoring all other sequels and connecting to the original, these two follow-ups have far more in common with those generic sequels than Carpenter's original exercise in suspense. Green and Blumhouse aren't done with the series yet......one can only hope that the imminent HALLOWEEN ENDS will at least raise the standard significantly and perhaps prove true to it's name.

Eagerly-awaited in part due to Covid-19 delays, Last Night In Soho had audience expectations at fever pitch by the time Edgar Wright finally unleashed it at the box office.

I have to say I found the experience largely underwhelming and a disappointment on the whole.

Many have been won over by the wonderful production design and use of lighting and colour in recreating swinging 60's London and yes, these are merits the movie fully earns and deserves.

Where it misses the mark quite badly is it's uneasy fusion of nostalgia, mystery and horror-fantasy into a would-be winning storyline. The first 45 minutes or so are passable in setting up the plot as Ellie, a fashion design student hits the bright lights of present day London to learn her craft. She eventually rents a room for herself that was previously once occupied by Sandie - a young singer/dancer in the 60's who navigated the glamour and seedy underbelly of the city in it's swinging heyday in search of stardom.

Each night through her dreams, Ellie experiences and co-lives Sandie's journey through the highs and lows of a tumultuous city, in a period bristling with excitement and opportunity but also rife with degradation and exploitation.

There is also the small matter of some bloody knife murders woven into Sandie's increasingly ominous odyssey through the nightclubs and neon against a background score of familiar iconic 60's chart toppers. This horror aspect is almost synthetically injected into the plot and unfortunately never really plays out satisfactorily. Collectively, the story elements are very sloppily thrown together and never co-exist in a way that energises or benefits the story. If you're David Lynch, you can perhaps get away with this but Edgar Wright.........is Edgar Wright.

After an hour, the film has the very distinct feel that it has played all it's colourful cards too early and the remainder of the run time consists of Wright repeating the same cinematic devices over and over in countless nightmare sequences that long outstay their welcome before the roll of the final credits. It becomes very familiar and predictable. Some might even find it tedious.

The ending is particularly slapdash and genuinely looks as though it was conceived at the 11th hour solely to offer something that might serve as a twist. As it plays out, it is a twist that some will still see coming but appears a hastily constructed piece of exposition whether anticipated or not.

Last Night In Soho is the type of fantasy that The Twilight Zone could have done more effectively in far less time. It does undeniably have it's moments and there is plenty to admire in the enchanting recreation of London's landmarks and backstreets to the vibe of a lively 60's soundtrack. I'm sure there is something to be taken from the story in how it can be dangerous to over-romanticise nostalgia but I feel Wright could have done this far more skillfully with his pen than he managed here.

Instead, we are frequently subjected to overly repetitious sequences of our heroine screaming and running away from faceless (male) phantoms through the glittering London streets of old as the likes of Dusty Springfield, Petula Clark or Cilla Black boom from the speakers. While this is initially eerie and effective, by it's umpteenth implementation it becomes tiresome and clear that Wright is relying far too heavily on this device to carry the pseudo-horror elements of the movie. The problem is, he has no other efficient horror-driven ploy to bring in as an alternative.

Wright also seems to clobber us with the assertion that all men back in 60's London were predatory rogues out to shamelessly exploit vulnerable young women and as such, the movie has a very tell-tale stamp of 2020's MeToo impressed upon it that took me out of the time capsule it tries so hard to construct.

Aesthetically, the movie is very pleasing to the eye and the term "style over substance" has probably never been more apt than here. Wright certainly uses these elements well though his techniques don't seem entirely original. There are many moments that bring to mind films like Polanski's REPULSION and THE TENANT, along with cult movies such as BLOOD AND BLACK LACE, CARNIVAL OF SOULS and even the more recent BLACK SWAN. The giallo horror subplot meanwhile, sadly proves a letdown though it is nice to see the film often lit in the style of giallo maestro Mario Bava.