Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later and Halloween: Resurrection - The Ripoffs

 

After the debacle that was Halloween 6, the franchise did its first slight reboot. Ignoring the previous four films and just continuing the story of Halloween and Halloween II, Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later (yes, that’s the actual full title) was meant to be a return to form for the series. Perhaps it’s the inclusion of Jamie Lee Curtis or just the return to the relatively simple slasher formula, but people seemed to be into it. I was not.  

Maybe if I had watched this back when it came out I would feel differently. But I saw this for the first time a couple weeks ago, and all I saw was a Scream movie with Michael Myers in it. For some, that’s just fine. But I like my series to stay in its own lane, even if I’m not even sure what that lane is.

Identity is the constant problem of the Halloween series. It basically invented the slasher genre, yet it could never figure out what that meant. The copycats, like Jason and Freddy, at least seemed to have an idea of what those movies should be like (even though most of those movies suck, too). Halloween has gone from a nearly perfect model for a slasher movie, then a bit of a repeat with the second one, then they tried to ditch the slasher from their own genre, then brought him back and tried to explain why he’s a supernatural killer, leading the franchise into some truly goofy nonsense. 

So when the hot franchise of the time, Scream (which owes its own existence to Halloween), popularized slasher movies again, it’s easy to see why the Halloween franchise would start copying the copycat. I get why people would like it. There are plenty of familiar horror movie references (and so many Psycho references that they even felt the need to cast Curtis’s mom, Janet Leigh, in a small role), and there is a decent mix of comedy and horror. But I kind of like the stupid shit that came before this movie.

I know I’m in the minority on this one, but I would rather see a franchise grasp wildly at wacky ideas than just start trying to be like the latest trend. So even though H20 is actually one of the better made films in the franchise, it’s one of my least favorite. I would rather watch Paul Rudd play with magic rocks than watch Scream Featuring Michael Myers. 

I might not know what a Halloween movie should be, but I know I don’t want it to be like this. Though I will give it credit for attempting to wrap up the Jamie Lee Curtis storyline, but of course that wouldn’t last, which unfortunately led to the aptly titled Halloween: Resurrection.

Halloween: Resurrection is rightfully considered one of the worst films in the series. H20 seemed to truly end Michael Myers’s story, but this film revealed that Myers had switched outfits with a paramedic, meaning Laurie decapitated an innocent man at the end of that film. That infuriating fake out alone makes this one stupid, but apparently there was a series rule at the time that Michael couldn’t really die. This leads to Curtis coming back to essentially film an extra ending to H20 in which she’s in a mental institution, traumatized after killing an innocent man. But her trauma is an act, as she knows Michael will come for her. He does, and he kills her. 

I wouldn’t have a big issue with this turn of events if this segment had been the actual ending of H20. Sure, some might be upset that Laurie dies and Michael lives, but at least it would be a proper ending for one of the characters. Anyway, that segment placed at the beginning of this film is just an excuse to put Curtis on the poster, because it has nothing to do with the rest of the movie, aside from establishing that Myers is still alive.

After the opening, Resurrection turns into a Friday the 13th movie, which is what truly makes me hate this one. The basic plot is about a manipulative producer, Busta fucking Rhymes, for some reason, who has purchased the Myers house and is going to film a web reality show in which college students explore the house, uncovering the secrets of Michael Myers. 

This goofy concept feels more at home in a later Friday the 13th movie than a Halloween movie. I get that Michael has a connection to his childhood home, but there’s a dungeon in the basement? And I’m not talking about the fake dungeon Busta Rhymes made for the show; there’s an actual dungeon that is revealed to be Michael’s secret home for who knows how many years. That just feels like a Jason thing to me. 

Since he kills Laurie at the beginning, that means this film is still in the original, original sequel, and H20’s timeline. So Michael killed Laurie, fulfilling his mission or whatever, and then went back to the Haddonfield house and built a dungeon? And somehow he didn’t notice and kill the TV crew building a fake dungeon right next to his real dungeon? I guess I can accept that he would return home, but I don’t like the idea that he has nothing to do now, so he just builds a dungeon. 

But I’m getting too nitpicky with the series if I’m just arguing that a movie shouldn’t exist. I just wanted to point out that it’s too much like a Jason movie. Once I’m past that, if it’s done well, this movie could still work. But it doesn’t. It’s not scary or funny enough to justify its existence.

Some of the Busta Rhymes stuff is stupid enough to be enjoyable, but just like with H20, this just doesn’t feel like a Halloween movie. If I want to watch a Jason-type character killing random attractive young people, I’ll just watch that. And the focus on the early internet stuff just makes the movie laughably dated. 

Watching every one of these movies over the course of a week was definitely a bad idea, as I was very sick of it all by the time I got to this one. But it seems like everyone else was done with the series, as well, because they decided to jump on the remake bandwagon after this one, putting the keys to the franchise into Rob Zombie’s grimy hands.

Random Thoughts

H20

I never knew the phrase 20 Years Later was actually part of the title. As if H20 wasn’t clear enough. But we’re talking about a movie that thinks its audience is so fucking stupid that when it gives the date of “October 31,” the filmmakers felt the need to add “Halloween” to it. 

Why do I feel like I’ve seen Josh Hartnett wear a very loose, untucked shirt and loosened tie in five different movies? Was this look in his contract next to the “must have weird, shitty haircut” demand?

Two characters are straight up watching Scream 2.

There’s a Jason mask, and a dude dies while getting a corkscrew a la Crispin Glover in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter.

The mask looks like shit in this one.

Resurrection

Couldn’t all of these have this subtitle?

If H20 was the Scream version of Halloween, then Resurrection is the Friday the 13th version.

This is the second film in a row that he lowers himself down from an overhead pipe using one hand. It makes no physical sense, and it looks goofy.

The eyebrows are way too prominent on this mask.

What the fuck is going on here? 

Somebody apparently told Busta Rhymes that whispering his lines might mask his lack of natural talent. It doesn’t.

The emphasis on technology is hilarious. First off, an online only streaming show, while slightly predictive, would be worthless in 2002, when most people were still dealing with dial-up in their homes. 

I hope you like early 2000s webcam quality footage, because you'll be seeing a lot of it.

The house party that stops to watch this shit is the most unrealistic part of the movie.

So the dungeon is fake, but what about the dungeon behind the fake dungeon? Myers was clearly living there. So there's an actual dungeon under the house?

My feelings about Busta Rhymes in this are all over the place. His acting in early scenes is distractingly bad, but then he starts talking shit while dressed as Michael Myers and it’s funny. Then he somehow survives and saves the day, but then starts spouting off one liners like he’s Schwarzenegger. Okay, he’s my favorite part of this stupid fucking movie.

Halloween & Halloween II - The Originals

After burning through the entire Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise, I originally planned to take a break from horror films, especially long franchises. Then I realized Halloween Ends was coming out, and someone asked me what I thought about H20, a movie I had never seen. Rather than being sensible and planning on tackling the Halloween series next year, I decided to watch every one of these stupid fucking movies in one week. And I did it, but I’m not writing a full article on each film. Instead, I decided to break it down into segments:

• Halloween and Halloween II - The Originals

• Halloween III: Season of the Witch - The Outlier

• Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, and Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers - The Thorn Trilogy

• Halloween H20: 20 Years Later and Halloween: Resurrection - The Copycats

• Halloween and Halloween II - The Zombie Movies

• Halloween, Halloween Kills, and Halloween Ends - The New Trilogy

I learned from writing about the Massacre movies that there were going to be entries in this series that I just didn’t have much to say about, but thankfully the series is easily broken up, aside from the third movie. But before I get into the first two films, I wanted to comment on the series as a whole a bit.

This series isn’t sacred to me, so I’m not going to dwell on what a Michael Myers movie should be or anything like that. This is all going to be about my personal enjoyment of these movies, even if I might consider the vast majority of them to be technically “bad” movies. Even though I hadn’t seen a lot of this series before I started this, I still knew these were going to be easy watches (aside from the Zombie movies) because I find the slasher genre to be almost relaxing at this point. In other words, these articles are just my personal ramblings, and I’m going to be way too forgiving of some of these films, and I might be too harsh on others, but it’s all going to be my honest response based on what I want from these movies. Enough vague nonsense, here are my thoughts on the first two movies.

After watching all of these movies, I can safely consider myself a fan of the Halloween series, but before that, I truly did not care for these movies. And that goes for the sacred first film, as well. I kind of viewed it the same way I think about Citizen Kane, acknowledging that this was a groundbreaking film that changed future films for decades, but I personally wasn’t all that impressed with it. 

So this has always been a movie I knew I should love, but just didn’t. On top of that, I’ve become a huge John Carpenter fan over the years. How could I not love his most famous film? Because of this, I have watched the first film many times, and I’ve always just thought it was okay.

This time around, I appreciated how easy it was to rewatch this movie, and how creepy it is without being gory or going for cheap scares. I learned that I fucking love seeing Michael Myers in daylight. It’s so much creepier to see him standing behind some sheets or by a hedge than it is to see his face appear in the dark. It’s not that seeing his face in the dark is not scary, it’s just expected. Slashers are typically nighttime monsters. You might think seeing them during the day would lessen the effect or, worse, make them look downright goofy. But it works for Myers, and this is one of the main reasons why I’m not crazy about the second film, which takes place entirely at night. 

More than seeing a daytime monster, the original Halloween, and the series as a whole, is defined by its music. Carpenter’s score is iconic, at this point, and it still works. Usually, an effective score shouldn’t be noticed, but that’s not the case here as I find the score to be the star of the film. It does such an amazing job of taking what could be boring, long scenes and turning them into extremely tense moments.

Appreciating the atmosphere and pace of the film this time around also made me realize something that opened up my enjoyment of the entire series: I don’t give a fuck about Michael Myers. Don’t get me wrong, the outfit and ever-changing mask is synonymous with slasher films, but The Shape is really just a shell of a character. Later films, starting with the second, would attempt to expand on this character, and it’s been downhill ever since. 

I don’t care who’s under that mask. I’m fine with Loomis just telling me he’s pure evil at this point and must be stopped. Good enough for me. I need no motivation. There’s a killer out there, and he must be stopped. That’s the fucking movie. 

In defense of the films that followed, what else could they do? You can’t just have this dead-eyed fucker showing up for no fucking reason other than its Halloween and the local insane asylum has atrocious security and transport personnel. 

I’m not naive enough to say they should have stopped after the first film, but they truly had nowhere else to go with Myers as a character, which is why they added the Laurie-is-his-secret-sister element. Once I accepted that I would never like The Shape more than I did in the first film, it was easy to accept the increasingly goofy sequels. 

Speaking of sequels, the first sequel, Halloween II, is…okay. I already mentioned that I don’t dig the constant night of the movie, and the sister reveal isn’t great, but the story had to go somewhere. Aside from that, there’s another pet peeve I have with the setting: the abandoned hospital. Maybe things were different in the late ‘70s, but in my experience, hospitals are constantly well-lit and populated by more than three people. But maybe the ‘70s were different. Anyway, I just don’t like the setting of the sequel.

Beside that, Michael gets some fun kills (the crazy hot sauna comes to mind) and Loomis gets to run around spouting off cryptic nonsense (“You don’t know what death is!”), so it has its moments. 

By having Michael survive and seem fine soon after the events of the first film, Halloween II also reveals Michael to be so evil that he’s supernatural and possibly cannot be killed. I’m actually fine with this. If you don’t make these slasher villains supernatural, then these movies get too dumb. Because, come on, what normal guy can walk through a hospital door like Michael does at the end?

This brings up one of the common problems with this franchise: is Michael supernatural or just a really strong, evil fucker? The first film made it seem like it was the latter. Yes, he survived some seeming unsurvivable shit, but for all we knew, he was crawling in some bushes, barely alive after he disappeared. Halloween II, however, presents Michael as completely fine. In fact, he’s stronger now. Even though they do try to make it clear that he dies at the end, his ability to bounce back from his injuries in the first film make it clear that he is supernatural. 

This isn’t a problem in general, but the series either went too goofy explaining that he was supernatural (hello, Thorn trilogy), or he’s simply supernaturally strong because slasher villains are supposed to be (H20, Halloween: Resurrection). It’s just uneven. And this applies to the new trilogy, as well, with Michael going from man to supernatural evil killing machine back to man (which I’m actually okay with, as I’ll explain when I get to those movies). This is why I’m a bigger fan of the Friday the 13th series, which finally said, “Fuck it, just Frankenstein Jason’s ass and make him unkillable. Hell, make his evil into a butt worm that travels from person to person, who cares? Just keep making these fucking things!” The Halloween franchise never had that definitive moment because of the messy timelines and multiple reboots, making Michael Myers the most inconsistent villain in slasherdom.

I still kind of love these movies, which is a testament to the first film. Perhaps that’s the problem; the first film was too good to live up to, and the harder filmmakers tried to one-up the original, the more it became apparent that that was impossible. This is why John Carpenter was right about this series all along. After reluctantly writing the script for the second film, he decided the series should move on from Michael Myers all together. Season of the Witch is coming up next.