Halloween: Resurrection




Released: 2002

MPAA Rating: R

Genre: Slasher

Nuts and Bolts: A group of college students armed with camera head-sets decide to host a live internet version of Fear inside of the old Myers house. Are they brave enough to stand up to the cleverly designed scares while studio execs try to frighten them with Michael Myers spook masks? What about when the REAL Michael Myers shows up to put HIS two cents in? You won't see THIS on Fear Factor.

Summary: What's this?" you say? "ANNUDDA Michael Myers film?" you say? "Didn't Jamie Lee Curtis lop off Michael's melon in Halloween: H20?" Well, the answers to your questions would be "Yes" and then "No". Ole Mikey's back and he's looking for a little ass to whup.

Now when we last saw Michael, it appeared as if his sister Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) had him trapped between two tree trunks at which point she took his head off with a machete, right? Well, now we come to find out that NOT everything is exactly what we thought it to be. Apparently, Michael pulled the ole switch-a-roo on us at the end of Halloween: H20. As the medics were canvassing the campus, Michael gets up and finds one wayward medic wandering the halls of Hillcrest Academy. He crushes the guy's throat and leaves him for dead. Mikey then switches uniforms with the guy and puts his spook mask over the medic's face. So the remaining medics believe it is Michael Myers that they are loading into the back of the ambulance when in fact its one of their own guys. The real Mike (Dressed as a medic) skips away unnoticed into the background. However, Mike didn't realize that the guy wasn't quite dead yet. He awakens in the back of the ambulance and tries to get Laurie to pull over. However, the poor guy's larynx is crushed and he can't TALK! So Laurie, believing it to be Michael chops the fucker's head off.

Now we flash forward three years. Apparently this incident has driven Laurie over the edge and she has been confined to some loony bin in California. Her history with Michael as well as the realization that she murdered an innocent man has made her quite the cuckoo. According to the attending staff, she hadn't spoken a word in three years (Sound familiar?). 

But after three years, the REAL slim-Mikey finally figures out where his pesky sister is. He stalks through the hospital indiscriminately doing away with a few errant security guards who (as per horror movie custom) prove to be about as effective as a Swiss cheese tampon. Laurie, meanwhile is faking catatonia and hiding all of her medication inside of a cheesy little doll that she owns. Apparently the hospital staff are about as inept and brainless as the fat fucking Devil-Dog eating security guard that had his throat sliced open. But I digress.

Now its show time! Michael finds Laurie in her bedroom but Laurie baits him into a trap (The ole pillows-under-the-blanket-on-the-bed-formed-in-the-shape-of-a-sleeping-person bit. Gets them EVERY time). While Mike is distracted, Laurie brains him with a lamp. The two carry their fight out on to the roof where Laurie has set a trap for him. She snares Michael with one of those pulley-hoist thingies used for moving grand pianos onto the rooftops of buildings. (Because deep down inside, we ALL need a grand piano on the roof of our private mental asylum, don't we?) Anyway, she snares Mike around the leg and he is suspended upside down. She even manages to get his knife from him. But now Laurie wants to actually see the face of her brother. She goes in close to try and tear the mask off, but Mike grabs her and the two topple over the edge of the building. But don't worry; they're still suspended by the pulley thing. He manages to get his knife back from Laurie and stabs her in the back with it. With her dying breath, Laurie kisses Michael on the lips and falls to her death. We have now finally closed the book on Laurie Strode.

Michael is very peculiar when it comes to his victims. Sometimes he carves them up toot-sweet, other times he just stands and stares at them for a while as if he were deciding which would be the most colorful and creative way to twist a hunting knife through somebody's spleen. And sometimes, he leaves people alone entirely. While perusing the psycho-wing, Michael meets this squirrelly little whack-job who is a walking encyclopedia of serial killer lore. Michael (In a rare moment of charity) even gives the whack-a-loon his own trusty blood-crusted stainless steel kitchen knife. Give till it HURTS, that's what I always say. I'm not really sure what this scene is meant to imply. Maybe he saw a kindred spirit in this sloppy little Ted Bundy wannabe (Although he's more like AL Bundy by the looks of him). I'm hoping to god we don't see this pimply little freak pop up in a sequel.

Let's flash ahead one year later to Haddonfield Illinois (If I have to explain to you the significance of Haddonfield by this point, then I suggest that you stop reading now and go rent the first seven films).  An entertainment producer named Freddie Harris (Busta Rhymes) hires six students from Haddonfield University to participate in a reality-game show that is being broadcast live via the Internet. Along with his assistant Nora Winston (Tyra Banks), he tells them that they must spend the night inside of the legendary Myers house in the hopes of divining what made America's most famous serial killer go completely nutters. Each of them will be outfitted with a personal head-camera and there are micro-cams rigged up all throughout the house. Among the chosen victims….uhh…err…students are: Sara Moyer (The prude),  Jenna Danzig (The cum dump), Rudy Grimes (Culinary student), Jim Morgan (The rebel), Bill Woodlake (The virgin) and Donna Chang (the bitch).

Now while all the kids are sent over to the Myers house, Busta and Tyra sit in the backyard tool-shed monitoring all the camera work. Almost immediately however, trouble starts a' brewing. One of the camera crew guys begins setting up his x-cam equipment throughout the house when Michael comes upon him. He backs the guy up against the wall and spears him with a sharpened camera tripod stand. Why a tripod stand has sharpened legs is beyond me, but it makes for a fairly unique murder weapon if nothing else. Mike manages to kill and drag the guy away while being filmed the entire time. But Tyra Banks (who is supposed to be minding the TV monitors) is too busy making Cappuccino and shaking her ass to the delight of pre-pubescent viewers and ultimately  misses out on all the fun. By the time she gets back to the monitor, Michael has already slipped back into the shadows.

The kids begin inspecting the house and they realize immediately that this place hasn't known the touch of a can of Lysol in over thirty-eight years. The paint is chipping, the windows are boarded up, the popcorn ceiling is de-kernelling etc. However, they begin to notice a few things that seem a bit out of place. Now this is the part of the movie that I like to refer to as the pre-cum stage of the film. That is to say: This is the part where we are first introduced to all of the niggling incidentals that seem insignificant at first, but become integral plot devices later. Professional film watchers can usually spot the pre-cum elements with relative ease. Sara dicks around a bit with her palm pilot, Rudy notices some fresh fennel on the spice rack, Jim finds a ball-n-chain height chair and another student finds a kitchen knife that appears particularly sparkly where it should otherwise look corroded.

So the kids continue to cock around for a bit until they come upon this big round slab of stone lying on the floor in the basement. Detective Jimbo realizes that the key on the height chair upstairs will unlock this stone door revealing whatever it is that lies beneath. It's a huge bomb shelter with chains and manacles hanging from the walls. Just the sort of thing that makes ya randy ain't it? Anyway, Jim and Donna decide to get funky and swap stink fluids down in the basement. A wall crumbles down on top of them and a heap of decaying body parts washes over them. Pretty cool eh? But the gruesomeness is alleviated when Jimbo discovers that they are actually just fake latex body parts. Apparently Busta and Tyra rigged the place with a bunch of fake scares in order to heighten the anxiety.

Jenna decides to play a trick on everyone and belch out a 'fake' scream of terror. Everyone comes a'running to see what is up and Sara and she trade "Bitch" and "Slut" quotes. Billy is REALLY pissed off at Jenna and takes off for another room. He's staring through a mirror when Michael pops out from the other side driving a knife into the top of the little punk's skull. Dumb kid shoulda stuck to making those American Pie movies. His headset falls off before the final shot though so no gets to see the kid get axed.

Oh…I guess this is a good time to let you in on one of the more boring plot elements of the film. Apparently the character of Sara Moyer is set up to be the heroine of this flick. Which is to say, they focus on her quite a bit. Well Sara's got this Internet boyfriend named Miles whom she communicates with via her palm pilot. Her boy toy is across town at a Halloween party where some friends and he are watching the entire affair on the Internet.

In the next scene, we are found gasping as we see TWO Michael Myers' walking about the house. The first one is actually just Busta wearing a Michael Myers mask in an effort to play up the Myers legend. The REAL Michael Myers steps in and confronts Busta. But Busta thinks its one of his crew members horning in on his action. He tells the guy that only HE can be Michael Myers and then proceeds to tell Mike where he can find MORE victims. Eerily enough, Mike leaves Busta alone (for the time being). Mike goes out back to the garage where Tyra is stationed. Her death takes place off-camera but we see a bloody pool of slop later on in the flick.

Let's get back to Donna in the basement shall we? After the post-pork finale, Jimbo decides to go upstairs to confront Busta. Now knowing that the place is rigged, he's pretty pissed off about the affair. Donna however, remains behind and finds a crumbling secondary wall set behind the fake one that had been propping up all the plastic body parts. She pulls the thing down to discover a tunnel that connects to the sewer. Sure. That makes sense doesn't it? ALL homes from 50s had bomb shelters with sewer access didn't they? As she wanders about the sewer tunnel, Donna finds a little alcove containing a bed and a half eaten rat. She sees a photo of Laurie Strode from 1978 tacked to the wall and realizes that Michael has been using this place as his secret grotto of love for the past 24 years. Yeah, yeah…I know. It's a continuity fuck-up. But this is the Post-Thorn timeline so we just gotta suck up and deal (More on that later). Michael meanwhile heads down into the basement to see who's been eating his porridge and sleeping in his bed. He finds Donna rooting through his plate of rat l'orange and decides that this simple ho has to die. He impales her on a rusty metal spike sticking out from an access grate. Now Mike goes back upstairs to kill some more wabbits. The party nerds across town witness her death, but most of them think that it's a fake death. That wiley Miles however suspects that he may have actually witnessed a real live murder. He begins to get nervous.

Jim and Sara confront Busta and give him shit for rigging up the fake body parts and stalking around in a Michael Myers costume. He whines and complains about trying to make a buck and asks them not to reveal his secret to the others.

Shortly thereafter we find Jenna and Rudy upstairs getting stoned. This doesn't make a helluva lot of sense to me. These kids are paranoid to begin with, and I highly doubt that twisting a doob is going to go a long way towards alleviating that paranoia. Anyway, Jenna gets the munchies and decides to go outside the room into the hall. Michael comes upon her and chops her head off with one swift stroke of his kitchen knife. Her head bounces down the staircase like a blood-soaked slinky (And yes, it even makes a slinkety sound!). This is the first death that the net nerds across town actually get to see. This scene pretty much sets up act 3 of the film as the characters are all now fully aware that the real Michael is in the house. Miles tries calling 9-11 but to no avail.

Rudy tries to fend Michael off with some kitchen knives. He's a brave kid, but no match for our Mikey. Mike pins him against the wall and then stabs him with his own knives. There is a lesson to be learned here kiddies. If you are going to do drugs inside the house of a mass murderer, then imbibe something a little more intensifying than marijuana. I think that had Rudy been on some coke or maybe some meth, he would have fared a LOT better. Ya gotta love these cautionary tales.

So now the only ones left are Sara and Busta Rhymes. From here on out, everything is fairly formulaic. Michael chases Sara around the house, while Busta waits for the most opportune moment to do his macho number. Just as Michael is getting ready to send Sara off to Heaven, Busta pops up and talks the talk. He delivers a few karate kicks to Mike's jaw before Michael puts him down with two stabs to the shoulder (Remember kiddies, shoulder wounds do not equal death). He then takes off again for Sara. Now Sara's net-penis Miles has been watching the whole thing on TV. He emails her palm pilot and tells her where to go and warns her as to which part of the house Michael is in. The two play cat and mouse for a while longer, giving Busta time to get his dander up. Oh…there's also this ridiculous chainsaw scene, which is too mind-numbingly stupid for me to even address here. If you're renting this movie, just be sure to fast-forward or chapter-skip past this part. The two carry their fight out into the back yard tool shed where all the monitor equipment is. As the two wrestle about, a fire is started. Just as Sara is about to become a filet o'fish for the second time around, Busta busts up into the shack and runs interference. He grabs a handful of live electrical cables and shoves them into Mikey's man-snake. Michael steps back a few feet just as Busta sets the wire to the floor igniting even more flames. Sara entangles Michael in some cabling keeping him rooted to the spot as the flames begin to engulf him.

Sara and Busta escape from the shed as the whole thing goes up in flames. Paramedics and police arrive to drape those necessary blankets around the survivors. Note: It is cinematic dogma that decrees that police and medical teams serve no other purpose in films than to put shock blankets around people. Mike's a crispy-critter by this point and he is slapped onto a truck and taken to the morgue.

As an epilogue, we see a nurse at the morgue unzipping Michael's body bag. Just as she pulls the melted plastic mask off of his grill, he opens his eyes. The film fades to black and we hear her screaming. That's right my little chickadees, Michael Myers lives on! You can slice him, you can dice him, but you can't keep the big man down for long.  He's kinda like Kenny from South Park that way.

Acting/Dialogue: Pretty decent all around. There are no award winners here, but no one's acting proves to be god awful either. Busta and Tyra do what they do best. Busta talks tough and belts out the macho one-liners while Tyra smiles and flexes her assets. If nothing else, this movie proves that one need not acting talent to get a major gig like Halloween. A swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated or a successful career as a rap artist can go a long way. Kinda makes my mouth water to think about whom we'll see in Halloween 9. I'm taking bets on either Kid Rock or Eminem making an appearance before the year 2005 (Heavy sarcasm implied).

Gore: The gore is moderately decent, but nothing to write home about. The deaths are a bit more compelling in this movie than in the previous installment, but after seven other films there is nothing here really that we haven't seen a dozen times over. Detailed deaths include: Impalements, gut-stabs, crushed skull, crushed throat, death-by-fire and a beheading. Hmm, now that I think about it…that description sounds an awful lot like what I would prefer to do to the cast members of Survivor. There is an amusing bit with a squealing half-eaten rat, but as gruesome as that may sound, it comes off more humorous than terrifying.

Guilty Pleasures: There's a slight bit of nipple slippage during the Jim & Donna love scene. Nothing real impressive though. I've seen better tits on episodes of South Park.

The Good: When I first saw the ending to Halloween: H20 I had great reservation about how they might continue the series. After all, Michael looked pretty fucking dead didn't he? When I heard that Halloween: Homecoming (As it was called at the time) was in the works, I rolled my eyes and said "Shit on a Popsicle, they're going to make him a snot-sucking zombie aren't they?" Fortunately, they didn't completely zombify Saint Michael.

The Michael concept is a vast improvement in this film over the last one. Brad Loree wears the mask this time and he is a lot better at this gig than his predecessor Chris Durand. Brad actually fills out the suit a bit and lets you believe that this guy can actually manage to kick a little ass. They've also fluffed out Michael's hair making him look a bit more intimidating. He's kind of a demented Ronald MacDonald. Resurrection shows that there is indeed a brain inside of Michael's head, and you can certainly see the gears turning in certain scenes. Just before he kills Laurie, you see Michael making wild gestures with his hands. He's trying to fool Laurie into thinking that maybe this isn't REALLY him. Considering the hatchet job she did on the guy in the last film, you can see how this would actually play along Laurie's psychosis. All in all, the death of Laurie Strode was handled pretty well. I really dig the little kiss and the "See you in Hell" line before she falls to the ground. The producers gave Laurie a nice send-off.

The remainder of the film proves to be a fun romp through the park. Nothing overly cerebral and the story elements are practically absent. It's pretty much just a daisy chain of gimmick-laden hi-jinx from this point forward. This is ideal for fans that look for little more than to sit back with a ice bucket of suds and a bag of Cheet-Oh's. No character really endears themselves to you for too long, and you pretty much root for Michael every step of the way.

Rather than take any risks, Rick Rosenthal goes with the tried and true methods of horror movie directing. Pretty much each scene is telegraphed from a mile away and you can predict the pecking order of who is to die next with alarming accuracy. I like the idea of mocking these so-called reality TV game shows. I hate them fuckers. Some shots in the film are shown through the characters' head-cameras. Now while this is an amusing gimmick at first, it is the kind of tool that can quickly and easily become a nuisance if abused. But then, that's what this movie is primarily concerned with; providing us with gimmick after gimmick. Now that may sound like a criticism, and I suppose that to a lesser extent, it is. But slasher movies are meant to titillate our more visceral taste buds. It's about light, sound and fury. Don't bother getting wrapped up inside of thematic structure or trying to second-guess what may be going on inside of the director's head. Just take this movie for what it is.

In comparison to previous films, I would say that Resurrection is leaps and bounds superior to H20. But it doesn't hold the texture or panache supplied but earlier episodes.

The Bad: Okay, many viewers are probably a little confused by the obvious dilapidation of the Myers house. After all, we have seen the Myers house shown throughout several of the films, haven't we? Here is where I attempt to clarify the issue of continuity in regards to the Halloween series. It should also be noted, that details which appear to be errors on behalf of the producers are actually not errors at all. They are done deliberately. The official stance is that only the films Halloween, Halloween II, Halloween: H20 and Halloween: Resurrection are part of the canonical authoritative Michael Myers story. This timeline completely disavows the existence of the Jamie Lloyd saga (Also known as Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers, Halloween V: The Revenge of Michael Myers and Halloween VI: The Curse of Michael Myers). Now while H20 ignored the existence of these three middle films, it did nothing to totally contradict them either. Resurrection however, forever cements the fact that the events in chapters 4-6 never happened and are considered apocryphal. For some, this may be considered a good thing, for others…a travesty. Some people really dug the whole Curse of Thorn concept and are saddened to see it swept under the rug. Others think the Curse of Thorn robbed Michael of his mystique and it is better that it has been done away with. Depending on which camp you belong to, these details may affect you judgment of this movie.

Now let's start with the nitpicking. The worst thing about this film is that it is the swan song for scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis' character Laurie Strode. Laurie has been with us from the beginning and her actions have had a dramatic affect on the entirety of the series (Even chapters 4-6 in which she did not appear). Now while I feel that Laurie's death was extremely well done, it still saddens me that this element of the Halloween mythos is gone for good. I really wish that Laurie had been able to pull Michael's mask off to see what he looks like. Even if the viewer couldn't see his face, it would add a sense of closure knowing that Laurie got to see him before drawing her final breath.

But what's more aggravating than that is that the Laurie Strode segment was shoehorned into the beginning of this film as a prologue. If anything it is more of an epilogue to Halloween: H20. I would have preferred had they devoted an entire moving towards Michael chasing Laurie around the insane asylum. Her death should be the climax of the film not the appetizer. Be that as it may, aside from some little niggling details, I really don't have great issue with the way Laurie was killed off. Gosh, I bet her son is gonna be pissed right? What's that? Oh…you forgot that Laurie had a son named John Tate didn't you? That's okay, director Rick Rosenthal did as well. At no point is there any reference made to John at all. This strikes me as strange to say the least. But if nothing else, it at least leaves a little something to explore in future installments.

There's a subtle yet visible phenomena that seems to be shaping the future of the horror genre. At one point, being a horror enthusiast was akin to membership in an extremely exclusive club. It had a small yet viable underground cult following made up of those who are usually scorned in modern society and forced to lurk in the shadows prostrating themselves upon the gruesome glee of their dark and blood-soaked pastime. But now, it appears that mainstream producers want to take the horror genre away from us and propel it into the hands of the so-called 'normal' people of the world. This bold new direction heralds both positive and negative repercussions for the afore mentioned horror enthusiast. The up-side of this over-ripening of cult horror is that the mainstream audience (bless their saccharine laden little hearts) succeeds in shoveling dollar after dollar into the coffers of movie execs thereby enabling them to keep our favorite horror icons on the big-screen and far away from the hands of the 'Direct-to-Video' consultants. This also helps in yielding not only continual big-screen features but higher budgets as well (Or so the theory goes). And if this is what it takes to keep people like Jason, Freddy and Michael in movie houses, then so be it. But at the same time, there is the evil side of pop culture commercialism my friends. Now as we all know, it is a Herculean task to keep modern movie audiences attentive to one thing for more than ten minutes at a time. "Keep the action going!" you can almost hear the director saying. After all, strong story telling is not enough to affect the idle masses these days. No, instead the only way to keep these N'Synch loving, Carson Daley wannabe MTV fuckwads grounded is to make sure there is at least ONE rap star and big name WB celebrity or super model inside of every movie. Halloween: Resurrection is no exception. You can pretty much set your watch to calculate the amount of time it take before the audience begins to nod off. Just when they can no longer keep their attention focused and their darling little hands begin sweating and going through 'game-paddle' withdraw, in walks Busta Rhymes just in time to show us the TRUE reason why we watch these films. After all, we can't let a film go by without having the flavor of the week bust up into the crib ready to start some shizat, yo yo yo!  I half expected to see Vin Diesel show up in a black leather jumpsuit ready to execute a slow motion Matrix-inspired swan kick. This is the point in the film when Busta says something goofy like "Happy Halloween mutha-fucka!" and begins kicking Michael in the jaw. The crowd goes wild. Not because they think it's a genuinely cool scene, but because superfluous hip cool drivel is the only thing that keeps these deficient little jizz-lobbing mongatards from slipping into a coma. It's about this point in the movie watching experience when I lower my head in shame and realize that the horror genre is not 'ours' any longer. It's as if the Laurie Strode prologue to Halloween: Resurrection was the scrap of bone thrown to the die-hard fans while the remainder of the film catered to the navel pickers of the world. Sad but true.

Now if you (the reader) happen to be one of the so-called navel pickers of the MTV generation that I have chosen to spit upon, don't feel bad. I'm sure you're not ALL suffering from A.D.D. But like any stereotype worth its salt, even YOU have to admit that there is some gnarled ugly truth to this matter. Then again, I guess it really doesn't matter much. Ten minutes from now, you'll probably forget that you were even on this site.

What does all this have to do with Halloween: Resurrection you ask? Is this flick REALLY the bastion of super star commercialized monoculture that I accuse it of being, you ponder? Not really. It's just representative of a trend that is not only growing throughout the horror entertainment industry but is strangling the shit out of it while we the true fans cling desperately to the ass of raw horror sensationalism like a sticky turd refusing to give up its place in the bung of life. The writing is on the wall. And it is written in crayon.

Great Lines:

"Are you afraid to die, Michael?"  --Laurie attacking Michael at the sanitarium.

"I'll see you in Hell."  -- Laurie's final words before plunging to her death.

"Hey Mikey, happy fucking Halloween!"  --Busta talking the macho-talk as he prepares to fuck Michael up.

Overall Rating: 5 out of 6 severed heads.
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