The new 'Halloween' hits all the rights notes for fans of the original

After years of huge disappointments, Hollywood has finally started to figure out how to do a reboot of a long dormant or irrelevant franchise well. That may not be the best thing for the cause of creating original artwork, but I'll take it over a retread that detracts from what you love about the original.

In the past decade we've seen Star Trek and Star Wars revitalized, as well as Blade Runner and Rocky, too. And miraculously director David Gordon Green and comic actor Danny McBride have turned their fandom for the original John Carpenter film Halloween (with the same simple but effective title and a similar stark credit sequinto the ideal follow-up set 40 years later.

I think the key to their success here is that they are clearly fans who don't want to fix what ain't broken. Instead, they've made a throwback, solid slasher film with terrific nods to the 1978 film that spawned it, but enough cinematic flourishes of their own to make for a real fun time at the movies.

This is not an insidious psychological horror film, like say Hereditary, but it also takes it's subject matter seriously and most importantly treats its hero -- a wonderfully game Jamie Lee Curtis -- like a real person.

You feel for her character Laurie Strode, when people dismiss the trauma she went through 40 years ago as "not that big a deal," and it's believable that modern audiences might downplay the relatively low body count of the original, too. But, of course, her character would still be traumatized -- almost all of her closet friends were wiped out over the course of one night.

After a reasonably paced set-up -- which establishes Strode's estrangement from her grown daughter and extended family, as well as what the infamous killer -- Michael Myers -- has been up to -- this film also falls into a similar one long night rhythm of the original, with the same badass score, font and creepy kills that fans of that first film adore.

To the film's credit though, it functions as more than just a genre epic -- it really does feel like a bit of an homage to the #MeToo moment we're living in -- and it asks us to have empathy for people who are trapped in a prison of their own pain and paranoia.

There are clear McBride contributions to script which keep the film from becoming too dour, and while nothing can top the eerie shock of the original, there are some genuinely good scares here too, especially when Myer's silence is used to devastating effect opposite his prey.

The other day my wife and I were trying to figure out how differentiate between Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers. And this film gave me even more clarity. Myers is scarier because there is clearly a working mind there -- he has CHOSEN to be silent for 40 years, but he clearly has a disturbing relish for luring people and disposing of them. He is the ultimate sociopath.

Voorhees is more of a big monster -- a killing machine -- he's almost Frankenstein without the pathos.

This film felt like it said everything that needed to be said about this fictional world. I am happy to discount the sequels and Rob Zombie reboots and consider this film and Carpenter's the definitive bookends to each other. I really hope that leave well enough alone with this series.

Of course, as I write this I'm reading that the film is poised to break an October opening weekend record, so perhaps Michael Myers will always be with us.

Just lurking. Ever so quietly. In the shadows.