Sounds like it was a good movie, then. All the positive buzz was well earned.
My older brother thought it was the best horror movie he's seen in the past five years. (Though he shares in my opinion that this year was not a good one for movies, so take that how you will.)
If you just want a body count, you'll get that. It's not boring, which is how (YMS) and others who gave it negative reviews said it was. But people saying it was excellent? Yeah, no. Not even by horror standards.
It may have the dumbest characters in existence, which makes it impossible to feel an ounce of sincere tension. (Mostly because a lot of the cast are adults which makes the dumb/unlikable character syndrome make even less sense. But that's probably because it's also a comedy, which only makes the movie tone deaf.)
And it has some of the most predictable events/scenes in any horror movie I've seen, in which many get dragged out to near asinine lengths in attempts to build atmosphere. I hadn't watched much of Halloween's other films, so I can't really judge it on anything other than it's own merits. Really, the kindest things I can say about it is that it's competently shot and scored. (There's many points where there is no music/and there's not many overly loud jump scare stings.)