Here's What The Critics Who Didn't Like HALLOWEEN Are Saying

Halloween first reactions are rolling in, and as is often the case with highly anticipated films, there's a lot of extreme praise to the point many start to be skeptical about their legitimacy. Headlines like "Halloween has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes," and even the stuff we posted show there are a LOT of people praising this film.

Well, in the time since those headlines yesterday the Rotten Tomatoes rating has dropped down to a 79% with a few critics being more down on the film than others. The criticisms are starting to roll in, and in case you were curious to see what they're saying, here are some of the main complaints. 

First up we have A.V. Club's A.A. Dowd, who feels the film is just another bland sequel in the Halloween franchise. He would appear to be fine with that, had the film not retconned all prior sequels, which he alleges it's just on the same level as. Put simply, this film doesn't measure up to the original in his eyes:

Just another pale imitation, another bad Halloween sequel watering down the fear factor of the original.

Guardian's Benjamin Lee puts the new Halloween over the sequels, although in doing so ultimately decides the franchise doesn't need another film beyond the original. Lee has some of the same criticisms as Dowd, although he diverges in the overall look of the film as well as its clunky dialogue:

Green can’t seem to decide whether he wants it to be gritty and lo-fi or slick and cinematic and so ends up awkwardly between the two, anything resembling an atmosphere sorely missing. Similarly, much of the clunky dialogue is clearly the result of McBride’s comedic background but the comedy is pitched somewhere between self-referential snark and broad silliness, never truly finding its groove.

Keith Uhlich of Slant Magazine piggybacks on the humor of the film, most of which he feels was forced and sometimes inappropriate given the context of the situation:

What does feel closer to Green's heart is the unrefined and, in this case, unbefitting comedy that seeps into the proceedings. For one, two snooty British journalists (Jackson Hall and Rhian Rees) attempt to do a podcast on the Myers case, if only so the film can half-assedly satirize Serial. Which means that all the pre-release chatter about Green and his collaborators treating the terror with utmost earnestness proves to be a sham. There's barely a single scare that isn't undermined by some forced bit of funniness

Halloween releases in theaters October 19.