Horror-A-Day: Halloween - H20

This month has been filled with peaks and valleys when it comes to my horror movie watching. I would like there to be more peaks, but I seem intent on watching as much junk as I can. I don't know at I am saving anything for, but I need to get over that issue right quick. Anyway, I have already taken a trip to Pinhead's realm, so I tout that perhaps I sold journey into the world of another long running franchise. Will it bring another peak or will it create a new valley? Perhaps something in between.



The story starts way back in 1978. John Carpenter brought us what would become the blue print for the slasher film. It was not the first, but it was the one that struck a chord with horror audiences. That movie was Halloween and it gave us our introduction to the embodiment of evil, a boy who kills his older sister, grows up on an asylum and escapes in order to finish the deadly job he started many years earlier. Oh what a movie this is, decades later and it still manages to hold audiences in its grip.

It spawned a series of sequels over the years and I just revisited the seventh film in the series, Halloween: H20. It was made to mark the twentieth anniversary of the original feature. It also marks the return of Jamie Lee Curtis to the series For the first time since the second film in 1981.

This outing, directed by Friday the 13th vet Steve Miner, opens fast with a few kills by The Shape prior to his journey to find his sister, Laurie Strode (Curtis). This movie ignores the presence of Halloween 3-6. Laurie has been in witness protection and currently runs a private boarding school, which her son attends (Josh Hartnett in his first movie).

Before too long, Michael Myers is on the seen, killing kids and tying to get to Laurie. There is some nice back and forth as he stalks his prey, but it is not a great movie. There are some pacing issues, the actin is a little sub par, but it is overall an entertaining entry in the series.

It feels a long way from its low budget roots. This is not to say it is a high budgeted film, but the cast makes it seem a little bigger than it really is. It is sort of like Halloween meets the WB. I

Halloween is not my favorite of the if slasher series, but i am sure that even fans of the series will not count this among their favorites. Although, I strongly suspect it will be counted before the subsequent Halloween: Resurrection.

Scream writer had originally done the treatment for this as well as ally drafts. I suspect a lot of what was there ended up in this as it feels like an amalgam of WB television and Scream, with Halloween thrown in during the final act. There is some nice work between Curtis and Hartnett as son tries to are for a seriously messed up mom. Still, the series does miss the presence of Donald Pleasance.

Eh, not the worst of the bunch, but certainly to among the best. It feels a bit watered down and characters seem to do even dumber things than usual, but it is what it is. We all know that any long running horror franchise is going to stumble and probably continue on past it's sell by date.