HALLOWEEN always comes a week early to the pictures. It’s because of a studio perception that audience appetites for scary cinema end as the clock strikes midnight on the 31st, reducing a horror film’s box office longevity. As such, this week brings a new sequel to John Carpenter’s classic slasher Halloween, the tenth since the original release in 1978.

The film - which is also, confusingly, called Halloween - sees Jamie Lee Curtis return to the role of Laurie Strode for one final showdown with Michael Myers (Nick Castle) forty years on from her first traumatic encounter with the psychopathic serial killer. For those not in the know, Myers is the knife-wielding villain who hides his face behind a gaunt mask. Laurie never fully recovered from meeting Myers, who has unfinished business with the girl who got away.

Directed by David Gordon Green, this new Halloween wisely disregards the dire thicket of continuity that clogged up earlier sequels to pitch itself as a direct follow-up to the original. Curtis is excellent in a role that explores the aftermath of being a so-called ‘scream queen’, whilst establishing Laurie as the world’s toughest grandma. In a cast that predominantly get wiped out quickly and with grisly creativity, Judy Greer co-stars Laurie’s daughter Karen and Will Patton is Frank Hawkins, in a police role reminiscent of the doctor played by Donald Pleasence in the original.

John Carpenter is among the film’s producers along with horror maestro Jason Blum. On returning to the franchise, Carpenter said: ‘I’m going to help to try to make the 10th sequel the scariest of them all.’ He’s succeeded.

A lighter horror-comedy this week, skewed at younger audiences, is the sequel to 2015’s Goosebumps. Once again adapted from the popular book series by R. L. Stein, Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween sees a new set of youngsters - including It star Jeremy Ray Taylor - take on Slappy the Dummy (voiced by Mick Wingert).

Jack Black, presumably preoccupied by the likes of Jumanji and The House With a Clock in Its Walls, does return for the sequel but in a reduced meta role as the author of the in-film Goosebumps books. Watch out for Stein himself in a cameo as Principal Harrison.

Spooky fun, Goosebumps 2 is a weaker offering than its scattershot predecessor but should gift families a solid distraction as half term looms.