This year Michael Myers has come home. Yes Michael Myers, the crazed masked killer, is back once again with his head firmly attached and is going to scare us all just in time for the Halloween season of 2002.

As much as I love the Halloween series I was dubious about an eighth instalment. What made me concerned was, for me, Halloween went out on a high with a fantastic ending in H20. It was final (nothing its much more final than the killer getting his head chopped off), it wrapped it up even if it didn’t address some of the sequels, and it was a polished effort. Now an eighth sequel comes along with is propelled mainly by greed, though Halloween 4 also was and that turned out okay, and totally discredits the great ending of the previous film. Rick Rosenthal, the director of Halloween II, returns to direct this instalment and though he really wasn’t my favourite Halloween director at least he knows some ropes also the sequel wasn’t set in space which was another plus point and its premise of a web-cast did try to inject some kind of difference into the film to set it apart so it wasn’t all bad. However with the countless re-shots and setbacks only time would tell if Resurrection should have stayed dead and buried.

Meanwhile, back in Michael’s hometown of Haddonfield, the old Myers house is now in media frenzy once more. Thanks to the recent wave of reality entertainment the ‘Dangertainment’ company fronted by Freddie Harris (Busta Rhymes) is set to send six young men and women, Sara (Bianca Kajlich), Jenna (Katee Sachoff), Donna (Daisy McCracken), Rudy (Sean Patrick Thomas), Jim (Luke Kirby) and Bill (Thomas Ian Nicholas) into the home of Michael Myers for the night of Halloween where they must stay in order to win the nice cash prize. All their movements would be recorded live via web cam all around the world. However what the young people didn’t bargain on was Freddie’s determination to make Dangertainment a hit by setting up all manner of little tricks and scares around the house. However what the both the young people and Freddie didn’t bargain for was Michael Myers himself turning up at his house to rid them all from it.

The films primary downfall is the characters in it. Where as the previous Halloweens always tried to have at least one link in character, bar Laurie, there are none in the main cast. This would not be so bad if there were a small number of them but six of them being introduced into a 90-minute film (or 75 when the opening is out of the way) doesn’t leave much room for development. Most of the screentime is dedicated to the Sara character that is portrayed as the millenniums version of Laurie Strode. It doesn’t work. She is devoid of any sort of character other than an ever so sweet and innocent wide-eyed little girl which has been seen a hundred times over. It doesn’t help that all the other characters are presented each in their one-dimensional fashion. We have the friend who is the polar opposite to Sara, the horned up young lad, the resident psycho guy who is also horny, the ‘weird’ girl who is still just as horny and the token black-guy, devoid of apparent horniness. With this one dimensional feeling to the characters the actors don’t have much chance to excel on screen but merely do a passable job performing and, while none of them stands out, not one of them really ruins it. One person that does ruin it is Busta Rhymes. Why Hollyood films these days need a token rapper in their films is beyond me. H20 had LL Cool J that I actually didn’t mind he was funny and he didn’t take up too much time. Busta is different. His character isn’t meant to be liked, he is a man bent on the success of his business and money after all, but as an ‘actor’ he doesn’t cut it at all and for a main character that isn’t good. He goes over the top many times, he hams his role him to huge amounts and his facial expressions are the silliest ever seen. He has minimal talent and proves he cannot carry a film off. His presense may have worked to draw in the crowds in America but in the UK I doubt it’ll have the same pulling power and will make a lot of people angry at the fact he was cast. Next to him all the young people seem likeable and you really will be wishing for his character to snuff it.

There is another problem with Myers, however, that goes beyond cosmetics and is another main bone of contention of the film. That is, why? Why would Michael Myers go after a bunch of young kids at his house? Wouldn’t he want to try and track down his nephew? Has he nothing better to do? It just seems that the film is at a major loss; Lauire Strode is only a cameo and Dr. Loomis was no more after The Curse of Michael Myers. The film had to build up a satisfying story to follow on from there but doesn’t. It could have carried on with Laurie’s son John, but there is not even a mention of him in passing. It could have tried to link in the many surviving characters of Curse, including Tommy Doyle, but doesn’t. Instead it relies on a bunch of un-charismatic new people and a threadbare storyline focussing on Michael getting his house back.

Although the web cast angle doesn’t offer much new we are treated to a quarter screen point of view at some points during the film. Also an outsider viewpoint is presented with a few kids at a Halloween party which works quite well also, with the use of a palmtop computer, it does add an interesting aspect to the final stalk chase which does show some nice inspiration. The web cast will really come into play with the DVD release, which is rumoured to include all web cam footage of the young people in the Myers house.