Halloween Kills

David Gordon Green might have been paying homage with his faithful 2018 remake — or was that reboot? — of John Carpenter’s Halloween. But his sequel, Halloween Kills, suggests that he was really in it for the money.

This mostly uninspired follow-up comes off as prepackaged seasonal nostalgia that neither improves upon its predecessor nor makes any meaningful new contributions to the 43-year-old horror franchise.

The story takes us back to Haddonfield, referenced as “a simple town where nothing exciting ever happens” by a naïve cop in one of several flashbacks, circa 1978. Of course, that was before the decades-long killing spree of invincible masked murderer Michael Myers, whose name his since become part of local Halloween lore.

Another prologue later, we’re reintroduced in the present day to Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), Michael’s resilient longtime target who locked him inside a burning house and left him for dead at the end of the last film. While she’s being taken to the hospital for her injuries from that confrontation, she sees firefighters headed toward the blaze. And you can guess how that will turn out.

Laurie, along with her daughter (Judy Greer) and granddaughter (Andi Matichak), are done taking matters into their own hands. So they recruit their neighbors in a collective effort to stop Michael’s terror once and for all.

Green again makes several nods to Carpenter’s original, both visually and narratively. Yet this effort lacks the same freshness, with diminished surprises and thrills compared to the prior installment, feeling like a bridge to the real payoff.

The screenplay indulges in many of the same slasher and serial-killer tropes it seeks to subvert. It does manage some clever satirical jabs at urban legends, mob violence, and the way in which our paranoia and irrational fears fuel the portrayal of high-profile criminals as folk heroes.

Settling for surface scares instead of deeper psychological dread, the film showcases a handful of creatively choreographed death sequences that amp up the gore quotient.

Another sequel already is in the works for next year, with the promissory title Halloween Ends. We probably shouldn’t hold out hope.

As for Halloween Kills, it means Michael’s fate won’t be permanently sealed for at least one more film. It also lowers the stakes for both the perpetrator and his victims, turning this chapter into a bloodbath.

Rated R, 105 minutes.