Halloween (Box Set) (DVD)

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Liked it
Story	Good
Characters / Performances	Good
Special Effects	Standard
How does it compare to similar films?	Good

Advantages:	The John Carpenter original, and H20
Disadvantages:	The Curse storyline

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

The godfather of knife weilding horror first slashed his way onto screen in 1978, aged 6. Michael Myers, now 105 years old, was slicing and dicing long before Freddy or Jason were even concieved. Originally called "The Babysitter Murders", some clever cookie involved thought that "Halloween" had a great ring to it. The first film is a sharp terrifying blueprint to the perfect horror. Virtually plotless, the film takes place on Halloween 1978, 15 years after a 6 year old killed his sister. The madman has now escaped from the asylum, donned a creepy mask, and headed back to the town of the original horror. Jamie Lee Curtis is Laurie Strode, the resourceful teenager who is stalked over the course of Halloween night by the masked man. Donald Pleasance turns up as an eerie doctor who has to try and bring Myers in alive. The performances are above average for a horror film, and the direction by John Carpenter is flawless. He uses the camera and the dark shadows to the films advantage, playing havoc with the audience's sensibilities.

Carpenter screenplayed much of the sequel, which turns out to be a mish mash of hit and miss horror. Taking place on the same evening, but filmed nearly 3 years later, Laurie has now been taken to the local hospital, which by the way has few nurses, no doctors and very little in the way of patients. Michael eventually tracks Laurie down and its revealed that Laurie is in fact Michael's sister. Its a plot point that will come in handy, and be more believable in later sequel's, but here its just a stupid lazy way to draw out the horror. Jamie Lee Curtis couldn't be further removed from her original character if she had taken a sedative and slept her way throught it, which is what she virtually does by the way. The direction is effective, and although not as good as John Carpenters, Rick Rosenthal does a decent job of it. Its just a shame that the script allows the main character to do very little and the killer to run havoc on the main streets of Haddonfield where before he hid creepily in the shadows. The film goes by the premise that the horror will stop here, but as everybody knows the box office just wouldn't let this monster stay dead.

The third film is not really part of the series. Entitled "Season Of The Witch", Dan O'Herily stars as a mad toy maker who wants to restore the true horror routes of Halloween. He, and his team, create a mask that will coincide with a catchy theme tune that will in turn cause the children wearing it to have horrible hallucinations and most likely die. Its a clever premise, given that the previous two films were old fashioned slice and dice yarns. The problem is that the direction is by the numbers, the acting is hammy, and the story runs out of steam a good 40 minutes before the credits roll. The only appearance of Michael Myers is a scene from the original Halloween that subtly plays on a screen in a bar.

It wasn't long before Michael returned though. After spending 10 years in a coma, he is now waking up for Halloween. After all, he wont be happy til everybody in his family is dead. We still dont know why though. What we do find out here is that Laurie Strode died in a car crash, and has left a child who now lives with over protective foster parents. She knows nothing about Uncle Michael, but starts to have the odd hallucination that leaves her with clues that probably dont make any sense. The film is a virtual rehash of the original, although is unforgivable in its use of a child to put its horror back on the screen. The child in question, Danielle Harris, is oddly impressive as the terrified child who must try and stop her uncle from killing everybody she cares about to get to her. The finale is a shocking twist that leaves this film open for another sequel.

That sequel comes in the guise of "The Revenge of Michael Myers" which has him swim (yes you heard it - he spent 15 years catatonic, and 10 in a coma, but he can drive and swim) down the river after being blown to smithereens, and takes refuge with an elderly tramp. A year later, and the ungrateful swine wakes up from his year long sleep, finishes off the old tramp and goes after his neice once again. She, meanwhile, has developed a telekenetic link with her murderous uncle, but has trouble relaying it to anybody as she hasn't muttered a word since her last family reunion. Dr Loomis (Donald Pleasance once again) is barking mad by now, and chases Michael all over Haddonfield in what is ultimately a sad and desperate sequel. There is also some unrevealed plot introduction of a strange man in a black cloak and a tattoo on Michael's arm. By now, most were tired of this weary ride. But the film was left open ended for another tacked-on sequel.

After the box office disappointment of H5, it was 6 years before anybody could be bothered to tie up the loose ends that the previous film left open. Just who was the man in the black cloak? And what about those markings on Michael's arm. Well Michael's niece Jamie disappeared along with Michael at the end of Halloween 5 and now its revealed that she has been held prisoner at some desolate sanitarium that now plays home to the cult of thorn, a cult that has a chosen one to kill all his blood relatives. The mad carnage kicks off with Michael dispatching his niece who now has a baby (who might or might not be Michael's). The film is every bit as ludicrous as it sounds, and the performances are completely unbelievable. Paul Rudd is the only saving grace, playing a wide eyed Tommy Doyle (the boy from the original Halloween) who lives in terror of Michael turning up. Thrown into the mix is a family who are distantly related to the foster family of long dead Laurie Strode, and you get an idea of just how disjointed this film is. Donald Pleasance turns up one last time, and died shortly after the film finished filming.

It took H20 and the return of Jamie Lee Curtis to restore any kind of order to proceedings. Set 20 years after the original, Laurie Strode is very much alive and hiding. With a change of name and a plum job as headmistress at a secluded private school in Northern California, she lives in fear every year that her brother is still alive and is coming after her. Her 17 year old son (Josh Harnett) is trying to break free from the reigns, but Laurie is overprotective, and also relies on drugs and alcohol to get through the day. Laurie is a tortured soul, one of life's battered down human beings, but her suspicions are aroused when Michael turns up once again looking to finish her off. This film is the best of the series, it has a great back story, the performance of Curtis' career, and some well executed scares. It takes the series back to its routes and has a crowd pleasing finale that will have you routing for the heroine once again. Its nice to see an actress show some loyalty to her beginnings too, and respecting the audience that gave her her career.

Jamie Lee turned up one more time in the last of the Halloween films. Resurrection starts off with a guilt-ridden Laurie locked away in a sanitarium. Still fearful for her life, her brother isn't as dead as everybody first thought. When he finally turns up to kill her, she is waiting on him, and so begins a fantastic opening section which see's the end of Laurie. Its sad to see a character who the audience have really travelled the distance with given such a disrespectful ending, but Resurrection really is a film of 1 and 2 halfs. The subsequent story has a wisecracking film maker lure some wannabe teen's into the Myers home complete with product placement as they go on a journey of discovery. What nobody discovers til its too late is that Michael himself lives under the house, and promptly goes about dispatching them. Add to that a modern-day big brother style subplot about a webcam production and what we have is a pretty decent thriller with moderately decent scares, and an attempt to bring the dying series into the new millenium.

Halloween really is a mixed bag of films. Halloween, and H20 are superbly acted and deftly directed, which isn't always the norm for horror films. The other sequels seem to suffer from the loss of John Carpenter and Jamie Lee Curtis, although Steve Miner and Rick Rosenthal are pretty decent on direction skills. Halloween 4 is worthy of a mention for the fact that its still relatively scary and attempts to keep a beefed up Michael in the shadows. Most notably bad is Halloween 5's Michael, who looks like he could be in need a good feeding, and of course H666: The Curse Of Michael Myers is risible in every sense. The more recent crop of films were pretty decent though, but any future sequels seem unlikely in the wake of Rob Zombie choosing to restart the franchise with a much protested remake of the original film.

The extra's are a mixed bag with most of them seemingly attached to the original film, and very little dedicated to the films that follow.