HALLOWEEN H20: 20 YEARS LATER

    It had been almost 18 years since Jamie Lee Curtis had came face to face with Michael Myers. With the confusion of the latest sequels, Jamie Lee returned to the series and rebooted the series to a fresh new start. Halloween this time around, would not deal with thorn cults, druids, Michael chasing after little girls, or anything the previous sequels had to offer. Jamie Lee Curtis was back.

    I can remember back in 1998 when I ran a very old site, HALLOWEEN: A TIME OF EVIL, and all of the fans that emailed me so hipped about this movie. I too, was excited that the orignial Scream Queen would return to horror and reclaim her crown.

    As I made my way to the aisles of the theater with my sister (who is somewhat a fan of the Halloween series), her husband, my parents, and my best friend, we eagerly awaited the return of Jamie to the screen. My parents, who got me into the Halloween movies from the 80s, joined me this time around. Dad was a fan of the orignial and after viewing part 4 he gave up on the series claiming the stories were becoming ridiculious and not staying true to the darkness of the first. My best friend, loved them all and was eager to see Michael one last time. My sister was  fan of the sequels and was eager to hear Laurie mention Jamie and her reasons for not having her with her.

    So there we all were. Family horror fans. I was 18 at the time and was my senior year and was considered then the horror man at school.

    The DIMENSION logo ran as "Mr. Sandman" played over the speakers. Chills ran up my spine! Wow! Mr. Sandman had not been heard since Halloween II. The opening scene teased us a few minutes showing the Halloween themed neighborhood and kids getting ready for Halloween.

    Marion Chambers, shortly drives up in her car. Marion Chambers?! the nurse! Man i was really excited then! "Mr. Sandman" faded as Marion made her way to her house. While trying to taking her keys from her purse and is gathering her stuff to go insude her home, she looks up and sees her street light is broken as well as the door a bit open. Scared to death, Marion runs over to her neighbors. She asks her neighrbors, Jimmy and his friend, to call the cops. Jimmy, a rebelious High School teenager, runs over to the house to try and investigate. While in the house, Jimmy knocks over a few pots and pans and finds nothing.

    Jimmy returns outside to tell Marion everything is safe inside. Marion, still suspicious, returns to inside her house. She sees that her office has been trashed big time, as well as her kitchen. Walking through her trashed office, she notices the file of Laurie Strode is missing. Marion walks around the house trying to get things in order. Still suspicious and scared, Marion notices one of her doors open in the back and runs again to her neighbor. She opens the door....and calls for Jimmy only to see his face has been smashed with an ice skate.

    Marion screams in panic as she runs to the door only to be knocked down by the body of Jimmy's friend and Michael, who is standing in the doorway. Marion screams in terror as she runs to the living room. Enter Michael Myers. Michael grabs  a knife from the kitchen and follows Marion in the living room, where they fight for a few minutes. After minutes of struggling and fighting off The Shape, Marion's throat is sliced as her body drops to the floor.
    Later police investigators return to the crime scene to learn Marion had been taken care of Dr. Loomis. Loomis died of reasons unknown, but in his last days, lived with Marion.
    ENTER HALLOWEEN H20.

PROS

*Return to basics-Michael Myers a member of a cult? Ha! Not in this movie or this series. Halloween H20 relaunched the series into a different timeline and a different story. Jamie Llyod and Dr. Wynn being the Man in Black that was in H4-6, did not even exist in this world. The story returned to this basic short simple story. A evil maniac man after his sister. The plot did not go very very deep and thats good. Its like John Carpenter said, "You know what a man with a knife is going to do..."

*Good acting-Jamie Lee Curtis did the best acting job in the series since the orignial. She did not overreact in her scenes. She kept it mild and the times she was in fear you could tell. She sold the movie with all her reactions. Although some complain the opening scene, I thought Jamie did very well in the scene.
*Return of Laurie Strode- No matter how much you like Jamie or Stephen, Laurie is Michael's best victim and prey. Laurie Strode was a charcter we all cared about in the first two films after all she had been through. Laurie had courage and stood up to the Shape to keep her life. Her past demons of being adopted and having a long lost brother had tormented her. Her will to keep going we respect. In this film, instead of defending herself like all her past comfrontions with Michael, she stops running and she becomes the stalker and hunts Michael down. She looks for him. She tired of this and her emotions and courage come to her head as she faces Michael head-on.

*Michael is Michael, not Jason-In Halloweens 4-6, the men that played Michael was way too big. Michael is just an average slim man. He is no Hulk. He is not muscular. He is not overweight. He is not a gory killer. Michael just simply gets the job done with a knife to the gut or the throat. He does not kill violently like Jason. In H20, Michael returns to his simple kills. A girl is stabbed while laying on the floor. The nurse has her throat slashed. This is Michael. Michael does not make heads explode (see H6 for details).

CONS

*No Dr. Loomis-Oh Loomis. The #1 enemy of Michael Myers. Laurie the victim, Loomis the enemy. In this series, it is never clear what Loomis does the rest of his life after the events of Halloween II. Perhaps he recovers and Marion helps out. Although the rest of the sequels after 2 and before H20 were not even decent, Loomis was. Loomis delivered the film. Even if the story was horrible, you had Loomis to fall back on. His charcter was the driving force in the series for a while and his charcter, next to Laurie is probably the best in the series. Donald Pleasence IS Dr. Loomis. Donald is a superb actor and his "evil" speeches and his talent is definately missed and noticable in H20. If only he were alive, we could have had a Laurie and Loomis reunion. Rest in Piece, Mr. Pleasence.

*Scream music- Pop in your Scream dvd or vcr copy. Turn to the part where the chick is getting killed in the garage. Ok turn Scream off. Pop in H20. Turn to the part where Laurie hits Michael over the head while he tears down the closet. Notice something? THE SAME EXACT music! This made me mad. While John Ottman's version of the Halloween theme is somewhat enjoyable throughout the film  you are constantly craving that Halloween theme. It is missed and is replaced by orchestra Scream type music. It was noticable and it needed to be in the flick.

*Too Short- The movie itself was slow paced, but even it felt rushed. Miner acted like he was in a hurry to do this movie. The charcter development and the relationship with Michael Myers and Laurie could have been touched upon a little bit more I think. The ending could have went into more detail. After the decapitation at the end. I walked out of the theater feeling cheated.

*Sleeper- Definately a sleeper. The movie's pace was very very very boring in the end. While the story concept, like I mentioned earlier was short and simple, the director could have thrown in a few kills to add to the spice. Something at least interesting. The movie instead showed the teen soap operas of John Tate and Molly and their hormone parties. Instead it showed more of a life at the private school than a Halloween film. Boring. Sleeper. I can remember one guy in the theater saying "COME ON DAMNIT!" out loud as the audience laughed.

*Michael and Laurie short meeting- It has been 20 years since these siblings have met....and they battle for LESS than 5 minutes. They see each other a total of maybe 10. Pure crap. While it is true, the formula of keeping the two apart for a dramatic meeting towards the end, after Michael fell of the balcony in the school, I was like..."uh 20 years for this?".  Even in the end. It was like "Oh hi michael. asshole" NAM head off cut to black. With a short and simple story, maybe you do not need a long drawn out ending. But I felt after 20 years, the siblings could have had some more interaction than 5 minutes.

*Not at all scary-The orignial Halloween was based on audiences around the world getting the crap scared out of them. Halloween II did have some very frightful scares as well. The stinger was missing, which I loved in previous Halloween movies. The atmosphere did not even seem scary at all. I can remember talking to everyone after this film and they said "that wasn't scary at all.." or "...that seemed like a dark drama instead of a horror film.." It was not scary. Michael Myers is supose to be scary. If not, a man walking around in a silly white mask is going to look very stupid and ridiculious.

Conclusion: I walked out of the theater with veteran fan, Dad, and series' fan my sister and best friend. We all were dissapointed all together. While it was rather entertaining to see Laurie and Michael fight once again, it lacked. Halloween H20 did not seem like a Halloween film.

OVERALL GRADE: C-