Review of Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) by John P — 18 Oct 2013

During this point in time, The Halloween series was a broken mess. The first two were great, the third brought a fresh new idea to the series but failed miserably in the public eye, the fourth brought back Michael Myers along with its seeds of absurdity, the fifth brought new heights of ridiculousness, and the sixth shat all over the series. There was no were to go after that because it was ruined. As the nineties came around the whole Slasher genre was pretty worn out at this point. The movie Scream parodied the whole thing with Halloween references bringing the meta-horror craze onto the big screen which everyone dug. I was eleven years old when I started getting into horror movies and wanted to see a Halloween sequel at some point in theaters. Well as my father would say, "Ask son and ye shall receive" and he told me about the upcoming twentieth anniversary of Halloween H20. So he bought me a ticket and we both went down to watch this movie together and boy did it scare the crap out of me at the time. The occasion was right, it was the twentieth year since the first Halloween movie and they announced that it would go back to basics and ignore all of the sequels that came after part two. So with Donald Plesance out of the picture, Jamie Lee Curtis came back to the series as the main protagonist. Re-watching this again brought back a lot of warm memories, but it also made me question some stuff.

For one thing the main title H20 looked pretty lame. I mean I know it was the twentieth anniversary and all, but why did it have to be the chemical compound for water? It just doesn't make any sense. Apart from Jamie Lee Curtis coming back to the franchise, there was also Nancy Stevens as the nurse who was a minor character in the first movie. I also love the tribute they had to Psycho when Janet Lee was driving the same car she drove in the original movie. Rather than taking place in Haddonfield, it takes place in a prep high school in Northern California which makes this a nice change of pace. So Jamie Lee Curtis reprises her role as Laurie Strode, who is now in charge of this school, but changed her name to Carrie Tate. She has a son name John, played by Josh Hartnett who acts like a bit of a dipshit in this movie, and boyfriend played by Adam Arkin. She plays her character off as a pretty stable person except when the Halloween holidays roll around bringing back old memories that are haunting her. Michael Myers looks similar to how he looked in the first movie rather than being built like a football player. I am glad they got his physique right, but you see his eyes a little too much. Michael spends most of his time stalking John, his friends, and the security guard played by LL Cool J. That is right, one of the cleanest hip hop artists from the eighties and nineties going toe-to-toe with Myers? How do think that is going to end? There are some moderately suspenseful moments but most of the film relies on cheap shocks like when the music builds up to someone touching Laurie and she freaks the fuck out. I mean why can't they just say "Hello" to her? This movie belongs to Jamie Lee Curtis because she beat the shit out of Michael Myers and it goes on for awhile. Although sadly it is not even scary anymore, but more like a comedy from an episode of Itchy & Scratchy. It wasn't scary as much but it does have a triumphant feel because after all these years Laurie dishes out a lot of payback. One of my favorite parts is the false ending where they think Myers is dead but Laurie decides to hijack the paramedics van because she already knows what is going to happen. Overall this movie certainly does make up for the last three shitty sequels and gives us horror film buffs what we really wanted out of Michael Myers. And as I said before, Jamie Lee Curtis owns this film as she delivers a can of whoop-ass. It was great when I saw it in the theaters then, but doesn't hold up in today's standards. However it is still an okay flick to watch on a dark and gloomy night or if you have friends who haven't seen this yet. No major complaints or no praises either, but just alright which is why I give this a solid three star rating.