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HALLOWEEN:
H20
PLOT
It's been 20 years since Michael Myers was burnt to death and
Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) has changed identity and started
working as a teacher at the same university her 17 year old son
now goes to under the name Keri Tate. It's Halloween once again
and Laurie is almost certain that Michael Myers will come back
to destroy her life once again, just as she has gotten everything
back together. Her son, John (Josh Hartnett), desperately tries
to convince her that Michael is dead, once and for all... But he
doesn't know how wrong he is. Now, four students are trapped
inside their own school, with a killer of pure evil after them.
REVIEW
H20 is the most hated sequel of all by Halloween fans. Now, I
love this movie, but I do understand why Halloween fans don't
since it's nothing like the previous movies. This time it's a
teen slashermovie, and it resembles more to Scream than to
Halloween. I guess that it's a good thing for me that I like
post modern teenage slashers for I enjoyed the hell out of this.
I was a bit let down by the new mask though, it doesn't look
anything like the original mask. Another thing you might notice
is that this movie ignores the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th sequel...
Well, I guess all movies ignore the 3rd one, but that's why
the title is 20 years later, cause this came out in 1998, which
was exactly 20 years after 1978 when Halloween 2 took place.
And Jamie Lee Curtis claims that he died in a fire, but that
was also in the second sequel, this means that this movie
claims that the other sequels were just unnecessary, and in my
opinion they were. I think this should've been Halloween 3
instead of that dreadful 3rd movie that came out, about a
company who designs Halloween masks, which kill people, come on!
The entire acting crew in this movie is great, I told you in
my Deep Blue Sea review that I think that LL Cool J is a great
actor and that I'm happy that he stopped making crap music
and dedicated his time with bringing us quality films like
this. Jamie Lee Curtis is, despite the age, a great looking,
well acting, scream queen and she gives us one hell of a
performance in Halloween: H20 aswell as in almost all other
slashers she's been in. Not to mention that this was Josh
Hartnett's big break through, and he deserved it, he's
definitely the best actor in this movie... after Jamie that is
ofcourse. After H20, Josh Hartnett starred in big movies like
'The Faculty' (1998), 'Pearl Harbor' (2001), 'Black Hawk Down' (2001),
'O' (2001) and in the comedy '40 Days and 40 Nights' (2002).
Steve Miner, who also directed Friday The 13th part 2 and 3,
gives us a very nice directing, with curtains blowing in
the wind, some flashy flashbacks and some killer chase scenes.
It's not often that you see a slasher with such a nice directing,
and I can say that I didn't have too much faith in Miner as I
don't think that he did the best work in the Friday the 13th
sequels that he directed so I have to say that I'm impressed...
Although, I'm sure that it must be easier to do a better work
when the production budget is higher.
Even if I liked this movie a lot, there was one thing that I
never got... when, and how did Michael learn to drive? Ok, he's
good with his knife, but how clever can he be? He hasn't even
gone to grammar school for god's sake, it would be a miracle
if he could write. And also, I remember that when I watched
Halloween: Resurrection, the fake death made total sense, but
now I couldn't figure it out... There was no cop nearby to replace
himself with, and there was no time to do it. Let's just say
that I don't think that the directors and writers of Halloween 8
thought that too many people would rewatch Halloween: H20.
GORE
The slashers these days have a huge lack of gore, in the 80's
you only watched this kind of movies because of the gore, cause
there really isn't much of a story now is there? All we get is
a head chopped of with an axe, a quite gory broken/shredded leg,
some bloody stabbings, some blood running out of one's mouth,
two slit throats, and the very original skates in face murder.
SOUNDTRACK
In the soundtrack department I was happy to hear that they brought
Mr. Sandman back, he brought me my dream. We also get a very
updated version of the Halloween theme, which seems to drown the
melody rather than bringing it out. If you listen very carefully,
you might also notice that they used a short bit of the theme
from Psycho (1960) in a scene, but you really need to pay attention
to notice that as it doesn't play for very long or very clear
for that matter. Then we also get some R'n'B/Pop music in one
scene, but that's really nothing to get very excited about as
the track played is quite crap.
BOTTOM LINE
I wouldn't suggest anyone who's a fan of the Halloween series
to watch this, but since I only think that the whole series
is ok, and considering that Halloween 6 sucked, I thought that
this was a pretty damn good movie. But I didn't really think
of it as a Halloween movie as it is more of a teen slasher than
anything else. This is one of those movies that will feel so
90's in a couple of years, as it isn't timeless as many of the
80's slashers are, this is more of a Rush Week slasher in that
matter. I am proud of having this in my collection and I think
that you should watch it with an open mind and try not to think
of it as a sequel to Halloween, then you might like it just as
much as I did, I say, give it a shot!
Review
By: AnthroFred
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