Reviewed by Geno McGahee
I recently watched HALLOWEEN H20: 20 YEARS LATER and it was so bad that I decided to give the follow up a second chance. I watched HALLOWEEN RESURRECTION in 2002 when it first came out and I wasn’t too happy with it. I know that they try to appeal to the young but the continual inclusion of rap stars into horror films is sickening. In the last movie, LL Cool J was placed in a role and now we have Busta Rhymes as an Internet reality show producer named Freddie Harris. Maybe I could deal with that if that was the only problem, but there are far more things to deal with this 2002 entry.
If you remember H20 and I wouldn’t blame you if you erased it from your memory, you will remember the conclusion when Michael Myers was beheaded by Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis). There, the series is over…the boogeyman is dead, BUT there is money to be made and they brought him back. Well, they had to explain how he survives a beheading. Apparently he crushed the voice box of an EMT and then dressed him up in the mask and jumpsuit. Strode drives off with the EMT and kills him, not Myers, while he slips into the night, planning on an eventual return.
Now, the EMT deserved to die no matter what as he escaped the body bag and attacked strode, carrying on the evil work of Myers. Why did they put the EMT in a body bag when he only had a destroyed voice box? Wouldn’t it have been easier to say that Strode imagined the beheading? She is standing there with the axe and thinks it before the cops come up and take her away and then pry Myers away from that tree and he lives on. Why did they go with the EMT angle? If you saw H20, you have to scratch your head over this one. If I made Resurrection, I would say: “H20 is shit. Fuck H20. Ignore it,” and start where number six left off.
HALLOWEEN RESURRECTION begins at a nuthouse where Strode is being held. She has a picture of her son hanging on the wall and her hair has grown long. She isn’t any less manly, in my opinion. Well, Myers got the memo and appears at the asylum and plans to kill his sister, but she is ready for him. She knows he will show up and plans to kill him. She traps him and has him hanging upside down and he is helpless, but she wants to take off his mask before killing him. She has to make sure that it’s not another EMT gone mad.
You would think that she would rule out EMT when she witnessed Myers stormed right through a door, breaking through it. Then, you would think that the butcher knife and his silence would verify it, but Strode wants to make sure so she approaches him…but she is too close and we finally see the death of Strode. She gives him a smooch on the lips and tells him that she will “see him in hell,” before she passes. Why does she think that she will be going to hell? Why? For that EMT? Come on! He tried to kill her! And why did she kiss her own brother on the lips?! Well, incest will send you to hell, won’t it? I haven’t been to church in 20 years, so I’m not sure, but I think that incest may be the angle there. If you were dying, would you kiss your relatives on the lips? You would? Sicko.
We got Strode out of the way and now we can focus on the plot. Harris and his partner, Nora (Tyra Banks), have put together an Internet reality show where kids are locked in the Myer’s house, with live feed to anyone that logs in. This is 2002, the Internet and reality shows were super popular and of course voyeurism is VERY popular. Americans like to peep.
Harris and Nora plan to make a bundle by scaring the people inside the house by planting scary things like highchairs with chains attached, body parts, and things like that. It works. Harris even dresses like Myers to freak out the people and get hits from the viewers, but then the real Myers shows up and begins his killing spree.
Although there are some very decent actors in this movie like Sean Patrick Thomas and Thomas Ian Nicholas, it doesn’t really matter. All of the characters are interchangeable and forgettable, merely there to be mowed down by the evil force in the house. You don’t care about the people inside or the people outside of the house viewing. The audience begins sending text messages to the insiders about Myers to help them survive. It’s a new approach to Myers and the series, and it’s got its good points and bad points.
The good is that the producers made sure to give the fans enough Myers. In H20, you hardly saw him until the end. Also, this film was shot much better than its predecessor, using many different shots that really created tension and just looked cool. Myers is much more menacing than he was in H20 and the film does keep your interest.
The bad…the big bad, is that this doesn’t feel anything like a HALLOWEEN movie. It feels more like a SCREAM or a I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER. When you watch the first, the second, the fourth, the fifth, and the director’s cut of the sixth, you are watching the growth of the character and the continuation of the same story. In H20 and this one, you don’t have that. It’s just a different feel of movie.
I was able to get beyond the different feel. After all, variety is the spice of life, but I couldn’t get past Busta Rhymes using bad martial arts to beat the hell out of Myers and then jolting his cock and balls with a live wire, screaming “Happy fucking Halloween,” as he leaves him there to die. Myers is the biggest badass there is and the producers think that Rhymes kicking the shit out of him is a good idea? That really lost it for me.
In the end, HALLOWEEN RESURRECTION is a good, not great horror movie. I appreciate what they were trying to do with it, hitting the legend from a different direction and attempting to make a good and original horror movie. The end result is a mixed bag, but I recommend it. Watch H20 first though…you’ll appreciate this one much much more.
Scared Stiff Rating: 6/10. Decent but doesn’t feel like a HALLOWEEN movie