Review of Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) by Gimly M — 20 Oct 2017

The first Halloween is a classic, and I'm one of the few people who loves the Rob Zombie remake as much as that first one. However, all the sequels never match the status of the first. I've avoided the notably bad sequels in the Halloween (the ones that established the curse) but even the supposedly good sequels always make me feel lacking.

So I probably hated this movie right? Well...no. I hated things about it, but overall it's a pretty good slasher movie. The problem is Halloween should be better than "pretty good", but for what we have here, it's probably the fourth best Halloween movie.

The problems are pretty straightforward, and a lot of them are products of their time. It's weird enough seeing Michael Myers in a 90s setting, but it also falls to a lot of the slasher problems of that period. Michael himself looks really bad, he looks scrawny and his mask is cheap and laughable. He's just not intimidating. There's also a lot of pretty awkward moments of revelation that feel forced. The biggest problem by far though is the fake-out jump scares. I get that this came at a time when those hadn't quite been rammed into the ground yet, but godamn it, they're still really annoying. Not including the pre-credits scene, it's about an hour into the movie before we get to something that actually earns that "swham" sound.

The movies problems are clear, and they do detract the experience. But there is still some good stuff here, enough for a moderate recommendation. While it's never explained how Michael came back or why it took him so long, I do like the premise of him returning to a (at the time) modern setting, and the movie does a nice job of putting a cap on the whole series. The acting and dialogue are also pretty good, and there are some clever lines and the chemistry between actors is believable. Probably the biggest draw though is Jamie Lee Curtis. By this point, Curtis had really come into her own as a good actress, so her performance is miles ahead of the first two films. I also really liked seeing a stronger and more confident Laurie Strode. When she sees Michael again for the first time, she's believably horrified, but soon after she goes full badass and takes him on, and it was great to see that development of her character.

This movie is really a mixed bag. There were things in it that really annoyed the crap out me, but the premise is solid, the characters are good, and it's a nice conclusion to the series (ignoring Resurrection). If you just count the series as a trilogy with this one and the first two, it makes a pretty solid series. Not great, and nothing will ever match the first film, but for what it is it's pretty good. I can't call it great, and frankly I can only just barely call it good, but it's got a solid final act and as a series wrap it's worth checking out.