Halloween H2O - Twenty Years Later Halloween 7 (DVD)

...days shooting and $300,000 making Halloween we wouldn’t have had most horror movies, an example is Scream. However, in turn, Halloween H20 owes a lot to Scream as well. Scream made slasher movies profitable again; it drew in a whole new audience to the genre by updating its conventions and getting a new, sexier cast to play the victims and killers. In 1998 Halloween H20 hopped on the bandwagon hoping to cash in on the current craze. Their judgement ...
...making it the highest grossing Halloween of the series.

This Halloween is lacking in continuity in a big way. It totally ignores parts 3-6 (although part 3 doesn’t count because it was meant to be a stand alone film) not once in the movie is there mention of the events that happened there nor the fact that Laurie Strode had a daughter. It is worth pointing out though that there was a brief reference to the events, including Laurie’s ... more

Without John Carpenter spending around 20 days shooting and $300,000 making Halloween we wouldn’t have had most horror movies, an example is Scream. However, in turn, Halloween H20 owes a lot to Scream as well. Scream made slasher movies profitable again; it drew in a whole new audience to the genre by updating its conventions and getting a new, sexier cast to play the victims and killers. In 1998 Halloween H20 hopped on the bandwagon hoping to cash in on the current craze. Their judgement paid off and thanks to Jamie Lee Curtis reprising her role as Laurie and the supposed ‘final battle’ of brother versus sister, H20 it managed to gross $60m making it the highest grossing Halloween of the series.

This Halloween is lacking in continuity in a big way. It totally ignores parts 3-6 (although part 3 doesn’t count because it was meant to be a stand alone film) not once in the movie is there mention of the events that happened there nor the fact that Laurie Strode had a daughter. It is worth pointing out though that there was a brief reference to the events, including Laurie’s daughter, in a scene in the movie when a girl was doing a presentation on it, mysteriously it was cut. To leave out these events left some confused, angry and pleased. Leaving them out makes Halloween form a nice trilogy with probably the three best films next to each other. Leaving it out, however, strikes the hardened Halloween fan as lazy. The reason why they may have been left out may have something to do with wanting to keep the audience interested and going through a backlog of history wouldn’t have helped. However it does pick up the key points, small flashbacks from Halloween I and relevant conversations with people about Laurie’s past so as to refer to the most important points. Also, at the time of production, H20 was actually meant to be the final Halloween. It is all about Laurie and Michael (a working title was Halloween: The Revenge of Laurie Strode), to bring up past roots may have led to an open end for a sequel, something they didn’t want. Though thanks to the high gross of the film a sequel was green lit.

To be honest it would have been nice for the film to refer to past Halloweens even if it was just that girl recapping in a little montage near the beginning of the film. To leave all the parts out suggests that the producers themselves see them as inferior, which they were but were not all bad, and devaluing the series. However it does get rid of the silly Curse idea that the previous part implemented.

In this film it is 20 years after the events of Halloween night of 1978 when, a then young Michael Myers, tried to murder a young Laurie Strode. Laurie couldn’t cope with having a murderous brother in her life and so, as we found out in Halloween 4, she died. However like her brother she’s good at cheating death. Faking her own death in the car crash she set out to start a new life and with a new name, Keri Tate. She is now the headmistress of a posh, private and secluded school and has a son and one an ex husband. She also has the drink as well. Obviously when someone tries to kill you its not going to go away any time soon so she has drink and the occasional drugs to try and help her get on with life. She still has painful memories and therefore is very protective over her son, John (Josh Hartnett).

The Dimension logo pops up and the ‘Mr. Sandman’ theme tune plays away (used in Halloween II) never has a tune been so misplaced in a film, it’s really quite spooky when you think of it. The film doesn’t actually kick off with her or her son but the nurse of the now deceased Dr Loomis (Donald Pleasance died shortly after filming Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers). This does serve as the part of the film explaining how Michael knows Laurie is alive and where she is and it also explains how he gets there so it doesn’t just seem he magically arrives on her doorstep one morning for a quick stab, so points for that.

The credits are also a way of backing up the film with slight history, keeping you interested as the names go across the screen; it’s a good point for the film and also its first major blip. Firstly the blip, as the camera goes round Dr. Loomis’ office we are witnesses to the obsession that he had, with clippings and photos adorning the walls. Then we have the voice over of Dr Loomis. Well not exactly. It isn’t done too badly but it is still, noticeably, by a different person. This is confusing seeing that the lines are exactly the same as he said in Halloween I, why they didn’t use them is a mystery. However with that blip comes the realization that this could be a quality film. It manages to draw old and new audiences into the film and tries to raise Michaels now slightly tarnished image.

Laurie refuses to believe the fact, especially when she keeps on having visions of her brother, that he is dead. Her over protectiveness denies John to go to the school camp thingy (there was a proper word but its an American thing) at first he is angry but he then learns his girlfriend Molly (Michelle Williams) and two friends Charlie (Adam Hann-Byrd) and Sarah (Jodi Lyn O’Keefe) are going to have their own Halloween party of their own at the school. Ironically, and predictably, John’s mother allows him to go on the trip. Meanwhile Myers has tracked them all down and is ready to say hello to his sister after 20 years and his new nephew. Thus begins a bloody Halloween night.

A great help is the acting talent. Jamie Lee Curtis is simply amazing. Watch this and you will know why people still refer to her as the ‘Scream Queen’ and why Neve Campbell is just a modern day amateur. She puts a lot into this film; as well she should seeing as it made her a talking point of many moviegoers mouths and dispels rumours of her being ashamed of her part in Halloween. It is also sad to see her reprise the roll. The twenty years have not been kind and the Laurie we once knew, cool, calm and collected from Halloween, is gone and we are with a tougher and meaner form of her. Josh Hartnett a then relative unknown (apart from his lead role in The Faculty) also does a great job as her son. The on screen relationship between the two looks genuine enough, with each of them complimenting each other, though we don’t have a great deal of history to go on. Although he was probably cast for the drawing of young female fans he seems well placed. Michelle Williams also does a good effort in the film and doesn’t fall too far in the trap of ‘annoying screaming girl who doesn’t know any better therefore should die anyway’. The other main characters Sarah and Charlie don’t really get much screentime and really they are just fodder for Myers’ knife. However a mention does have to go to Jodi Lyn O’Keefe for an excellent death scene. Adam Arkin as Laurie’s secret boyfriend Will also doesn’t have a massive amount of lines but the effort is there and he puts in a solid performance. The comedy value comes from LL Cool J as the security guard Ronny. His effort at romantic novel writing is great and he is a kin to Dewy of the Scream films and, for only a rapper, he’s actually not too bad. Thanks to the relatively small main cast list the characters are a bit more padded and developed than other horror and Halloween films which means that we may sometimes actually care if they survive or not.

Michael Myers also looks better than the last films, his masked being improved a great deal since which made him look too dumpy; this is an altogether sleeker and meaner Myers. Yet, bucking the trend, his lust for blood is low. He actually has quite a few opportunities to kill people but leaves them alive. It may annoy people looking for gore and blood spurting from every bodily orifice but it works. It fits in with the film; he is after his sister and wants to as quickly as possible. He could kill loads of people but he wants to get down to the real business. Also having too many killings in a horror movie ruins the effect of the expected finale and the tension that it takes while the movie is creeping up to the ending. H20 does well to steer clear from that and delivers a quite tense feeling when it gets to the final act, similar to Halloween I which means the body count remains low, only a meagre six dead bodies, and the tension build up high.

There are a few ‘in jokes’ in the film as well to reward the hardened Halloween fan and horror buff. The Mr. Sandman tune and Laurie’s assistant Norma telling her ‘everyone is entitled to one good scare’ on Halloween (as said by the Sheriff to Loomis in Halloween I) And Norma is played by Janet Leigh, Curtis’ mother and also star of Psycho and she makes a great line of the girls showers being broken. Things like this show that Halloween H20 isn’t simply out for gore. Credit does have to go to horror veteran Kevin Williamson on co producing the movie and bringing his talent of Scream to Halloween.

However having Kevin Williamson on board and coming out in the Scream season does hold a problem. This film is polished to a high degree. The dialogue isn’t too bad and thanks to the directing shots remain spooky and there is always a sense of foreboding when anyone is walking alone through the school on a dark night. The main problem is that now Halloween is an imitator and not a trend setter and it does seem to be too squeaky clean like a Scream movie, complete with all the well-off and good looking teenagers and affluent lifestyles and sometimes the characters are displayed as too goody-goody. There is no complete raw terror in this film as in the first as everything is fine tuned. This is, of course, no bad thing as this just means that this sequels quality stands out.

Despite good directing and acting there is a vital part missing from this film. Donald Pleasance who played Loomis for all Halloween films involving Myers passed on after filming Curse. His presence is missed, even with the arrival of Jamie Lee Curtis, seeing both of them again on screen together would have been a sight to behold but unfortunately was not meant to be. The film is also quite short, kept under 90minutes, Halloween was quite a short movie, but you expect a bit more these days but going on too long may have upset the keen pacing. If you’re looking for gore and obligatory boob shots you’ll be disappointed, the gore is kept to a low, although the death scenes are brilliant, and there is not one sex scene. Another slight gripe is the then fantasic and conclusive ending is now worthless thanks to Resurrection which is a shame as the series could have ended on such a high and momentous point.

Halloween: H20 is a more than worthy sequel to the series and, this being the seventh part, it is certainly saying something. It isn’t perfect and some fans will be disheartened by some things left out from this sequel yet this should please the majority of old fans and is a great way to get into the series afresh for first-time viewers.

HALLOWEEN: H20 – TWENTY YEARS LATER IS

A great seventh sequel
Suspenseful
Classy

HALLOWEEN: H20 – TWENTY YEARS LATER IS NOT

Full of blood
Full of sex
Full of crap dialogue

Written for the HALLOWEEN SEASON 2002
 

...less