Halloween | 2018 | R | – 6.9.7

Why is “Halloween” rated R? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “horror violence and bloody images, language, brief drug use and nudity.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes nudity, a brief, interrupted sexual encounter, some kissing, brutal slasher-movie violence that involve deaths by stabbing, impaling, pummeling and fire as well as shooting with lots of blood and gore, and over 25 F-words. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.”

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The 11th sequel of John Carpenter’s 1979 classic horror movie: A traumatized woman (Jamie Lee Curtis) who escaped Michael Myers (Nick Castle) years ago gets ready for a showdown with the infamous murderer of teenagers on the 40th anniversary of the original attack, which took place on Halloween. Also with Judy Greer, Virginia Gardner, Miles Robins, Andi Matichak and Will Patton. Directed by David Gordon Green. [Running Time: 1:49]

Halloween SEX/NUDITY 6

 – A flashback includes a young woman in profile and nude except for skimpy underwear as she sits on a chair (we see her breasts, abdomen, partial buttocks and legs) and when something makes her fall, she tries to cover her breasts with her hands and the camera pans to view her lying face up on the floor covered in blood (we see her bare breasts and abdomen again) and with one bloody hand across her chest. Many cheerleaders at a party wear miniskirts that bare legs up to the upper thighs, with midriff-baring sleeveless tops that also reveal cleavage. A teen girl wears a bustier that reveals cleavage. A few teen girls reveal cleavage in V-neck tops. A woman wears a “sexy nurse” costume with cleavage showing and a miniskirt that ends at the top of her thighs, one of which has a garter. Mannequins used for target practice feature curves for breasts and male genitals, but without nipples or other details. In a gas station, we see the body of a man lying face down with his head and shoulders obscured by some equipment and his trousers are missing (we see his legs up to his underwear and some of his waist; please see the Violence/Gore category for more details).
► A young man and a young woman lie clothed on a couch where they kiss and rub against each other for several seconds until a noise off-screen interrupts them.
► A teen girl sees her boyfriend kiss another girl at a party and breaks up with him afterward, arguing for several seconds. A teen girl walks home with a teen boy, who kisses her without permission; she backs up and shouts at him. A teen boy and teen girl kiss passionately in a high school hallway and another boy approaches and kisses them both on the head.
► A young man shows a young woman a tattoo on his shoulder to commemorate their having sex for the first time that night and she makes a crude sexual remark. A man tells his teen daughter that men will only get her pregnant and high on drugs.

Halloween VIOLENCE/GORE 9

 - A masked man grabs a boy and shoves him against a metal fence, beating and impaling him on a sharp post (the point goes through the flesh under the chin and comes out the face with a large amount of blood) and the boy hangs there as a teen girl screams. A masked man in the back of a police cruiser jams his hand through a metal security barrier and strangles a man, tosses him from the vehicle, gets out of the car and stomps on his head, smashing it like a pumpkin (flesh, hair and bone scatter in pools of blood) as a teen girl escapes the vehicle and runs through the woods.
► A masked man punches through a window and grabs a woman, battering her and slamming her head back as she shouts, she shoots off two of his fingers with a shotgun and he recoils with dripping blood; the woman walks from room to room, lowering metal doors to seal off each one (we see some blood dripping from the staircases), she finds the masked man among mannequins and struggles when he attacks her and a teen girl arrives as the woman and masked man stab each other with a carving knife and a fireplace poker (blood sprays in a shadowed room), and the woman falls out a window and off a balcony to the ground and then disappears.
► A masked man appears in a doorway where a woman shoots him in the chest, stunning him and he falls back (we cannot see the injury) as a woman rushes out of shadows and stabs him with a carving knife (we hear cutting and stabbing sounds), she hits him in the head with a skillet, he tumbles down the a flight of stairs, sits up and grabs a woman's ankle as she climbs the stairs, but she kicks him away, a teen girl stabs him with a carving knife (we see some blood), the woman flips a switch and a metal slatted barrier crashes down to seal a room as we see numerous gas jets redden with heat in the walls and she tosses a lighted flare into the room (we see the man in flames).
► A woman enters a filthy gas station washroom and gasps as she looks in two stalls (we do not see what she is looking at), she sits in another stall and we see only her head and shoulders and sometimes her boots; a man stalks in, pushes against stall doors and drops a handful of bloody teeth over the door in front of the woman (she screams for several seconds), he pushes the door, she drops to the floor, banging her head on the toilet and shouting, he grabs her leg and pulls her up, slamming her head against a wall several times, and continues to beat and strangle her leaving her bloody and dead on the floor and he walks outside and rifles through the woman's car trunk, finds a cracked face mask and wears it for the rest of the film. State hospital inmates board a transport bus at night and we see an accident scene: the bus crashes in a ditch and the inmates wander in a road, an elderly man and a young boy stop on the road and when the man gets out of the vehicle he does not return, the boy grabs a shotgun and exits the vehicle, finds a wounded and bloody security guard that tells him to run, the boy enters the bus, is startled and accidentally shoots a man in the shoulder (we see blood and the man wears a sling later), and he runs back to his vehicle and calls the police as a masked man pops up from the back seat, grabs him and slams his head against the doorframe several times, killing him in a shadow (we do not see blood).
► A masked killer walks among families and children trick-or-treating, he enters a shed behind a house, takes a hammer inside the house and we hear several thuds, grunts and we see the edge of a table shaking; the camera pans inside the house where we see a woman seated with her head on the table, dead, in a large pool of blood. A man with a large carving knife enters a house where he grabs a woman by the hair and slams her head down onto the window sill, he pulls her head back up (her expression is shocked) and he slashes across the back of her neck as we hear ripping and see blood spurt. A man enters a gas station bathroom and a large man slams his head against a wall several times, punches him and throws him into a corner where the man's bloody head hits a wall and a lot of blood pours from his mouth. A teen girl opens a closet door and is attacked by a masked man, beaten and strangled as she struggles, screams, he drags her by one foot and continues to strangle her.
► A man in a car runs a masked man over and gets out of the vehicle, shoots the man at point-blank range (we see a little blood) and the other man in the car stabs the shooter in the throat with a scalpel, drawing a lot of blood; he drives away and runs over the body of the man he stabbed.
► A sheriff finds someone sitting under a sheet with eye holes (like a ghost costume) and removes the sheet to show the bloody body of a teen girl; he also finds a teen boy stuck to a wall by a carving knife through his bloody neck (blood has run down the boy's body and his feet hang a couple feet above the floor). A man finds a dead man missing his overalls (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details), lying dead, face down with his head obscured by equipment. A man sees a man at a desk with his bloody head resting in a pool of blood and his lower jaw stretched several inches and ripped. A woman drives to a gas station and sees two bloody bodies. A man walks outside a house and finds several officers lying dead in pools of blood as a masked man walks up behind him and strangles him, dropping him dead below the frame. A detective looks at pictures of a woman's bare bloody back.
► A woman drives to a state hospital, sits with a pistol in her hand and when she sees inmates coming out to get onto a bus, she cries and screams but does not shoot. A woman breaks into her adult daughter's house to show her that the house lacks security, she jumps out with a pistol and shouts, "Got ya!" and her daughter is startled, argues with her and tells her to leave. A woman stands armless mannequins around her driveway and yard, and she shoots them with a shotgun for target practice, hitting a dozen or more in the head. A woman puts her daughter into a basement safe room under a sliding counter in the house where one wall is full of guns, a crossbow and ammunition. A woman shoots at a masked man through a window and misses.
► Ominous music plays as a man and a woman enter a sanitarium where we see people shuffling around, swaying, groaning, making odd noises and guard dogs bark as loud door buzzers sound; the man and the woman are taken to a courtyard where a few men are staked out far apart on chains and we hear that one inmate had 50 psychiatrists who were removed from the case.
► A man in a sanitarium removes a cracked mask out of a duffel bag and asks one chained man to remark on it; the chained man makes two fists and grimaces, while other inmates shudder, hoot, howl and jump up and down, ending the scene.
► A woman argues several times with her granddaughter, adult daughter and son-in-law about imminent danger because a serial killer who attacked her is to be transferred to another prison and may escape; they do not believe her and she enters a restaurant to sit with them but cries and babbles before leaving to stand outside. We hear a tape recording of a man saying that an inmate must be killed and incinerated. A young boy tells a teen girl that a man is standing in his bedroom doorway and she mocks him. A young boy jokingly tells his babysitter, "I'm gonna kill you." A teen girl argues with her boyfriend, who throws her phone into a bowl of cheese dip. A couple who are podcasters asks a woman who was attacked by a serial killer to meet with the attacker for an interview; the woman ejects them from her house.
► Two women and a teen girl hitch a ride in the back of a pickup truck where they sit close and hold one another's bloody hands, looking shocked and tired and a bloody carving knife is in the hand of the teen girl.
► We hear that a woman was attacked by a serial killer 40 years ago but is still traumatized and we see her heavily fortified house with many locks and a long bolt and crossbar on the front door. A flashback shows a woman training her young daughter to shoot a rifle, and we hear that the daughter was taken by child protective services at age 12.
► Teenagers visit a large graveyard during the day. A teen boy blows up a pumpkin on a porch with a cherry bomb and we see smoke as we hear a bang.
► We see a man in a hospital bed with an oxygen tube at his nose and an IV line taped into a forearm. A young boy cuts his toenails while sitting in the living room and we hear the snips and cracking nails.

Halloween LANGUAGE 7

 - About 28 F-words and its derivatives (one not fully enunciated), 1 obscene hand gesture, 9 scatological terms, 4 anatomical terms, 7 mild obscenities, name-calling (crazy, stupidity, ignorance, idiot, dumb, ditzy, dipswitch, sick, psycho, psychotic, paranoid, bogeyman, insects, animal, monster, circus, Chapstick, crusty), exclamations (oh my gosh, shut-up), 4 religious exclamations (e.g. Oh My God, Jesus Christ, Dear God). | profanity glossary |

Halloween SUBSTANCE USE

 - A young man smokes a marijuana cigarette at night on a porch, a teen girl calls marijuana "Alakazam," and a young boy tells a teen girl that he knows she and her friends "smoke weed." A woman drinks a single-serving bottle of whiskey in her vehicle, a woman picks up a glass of wine belonging to a relative and begins drinking it and another woman says she thought she stopped drinking, a man sips from a glass of wine and we see a few glasses of wine on two tables, a teen boy on a street carries four cans of beer and says that he is really drunk (he does not behave as if he is drunk), and four teen girls sit on the steps of a house drinking what could be clear alcohol or water. A young man smokes a cigarette on a sidewalk.

Halloween DISCUSSION TOPICS

 - Post traumatic stress disorder, believing women who report violent attacks and abuse, the effects of trauma on families, physical violence, serial murders, severe mental illness, medical ethics, fear, preparedness, protecting one's family, justice, single mothers, absent fathers, inability to speak, relationships, love, respect, emotional support.

Halloween MESSAGE

 - Traumatized women are often not believed and called crazy, but with determination, they can receive justice.