Yet another HALLOWEEN sequel, this one directed by Steve Miner, the guy responsible for Friday the 13th Part 2 and HOUSE. As to be expected, it's not much cop, following the modern horror conventions too closely and therefore failing to generate any surprise or thrills by the fact that we already know what's coming. The plot is terrible, with events which occur not being explained or explainable, and details being passed by or glossed over in favour of dumping the cast and the killer in a deserted school.
Watching this film, you will spot many take-offs of other movies (Michelle Williams looking out of the window and seeing Michael just like Curtis did in HALLOWEEN). The director would call these "homages", I myself call them "lack of ideas". Also, surprisingly, there are many continuity errors and mistakes. I wish they could have taken a little more time to polish things instead of rushing this out and leaving all the errors in, it really makes the editors look incompetent.
While no actor is particularly bad, nobody really shines in this film. Adam Arkin (in some medical television series I believe) is pretty bland as Curtis' grey-haired lover who wears jumpers just like my old grandad. LL Cool J lends some comic relief as he recites erotic stories to his wife on the phone, but this humour is out of place in a HALLOWEEN film and just doesn't fit. Can someone explain to me how he was shot seven or eight times (twitching as the bullets entered his body) and yet manages to survive? The last we see of him is his corpse, laying in a pool of blood and riddled with bullets, then he returns at the end to tell us that the bullets only 'grazed' him. Yeah, right.
The young cast are all pretty bad and sort of merge into one, nobody is memorable. Michelle Williams is in fact awful as a female token love interest, but to be fair she is given literally nothing to do in the story apart from run around. The only one who's at least partially adequate is Josh Hartnett who plays Laurie's tough son, he manages to be both believable and likable. Unfortunately he is in it too little, as Jamie Lee Curtis dominates the film. Much has been made of how Curtis puts in a brilliant portrayal of an alcoholic woman plagued by nightmares, but to be honest she wasn't that brilliant. Good, perhaps, but not brilliant, and her performance was definitely not enough to make this film into a classic.
Which leaves us with Michael himself. Once again he's played by a different actor and he's even more absurd this time around, with his spiky hair bushing around the sides of his mask. Excuse me? Not the Michael I know, get yourself a haircut man. Unfortunately the camera dwells on his eyes far too often, making him not in the least bit scary, for as they say, the eyes are the windows to the soul. The murders are all clichéd and generic, the only good bit being where a girl has her leg broken and nearly ripped off. Otherwise it's the typical slashings and stabbings which we've seen millions of in these past few years.
Leave it to Kevin Williamson to pepper the film with unwanted in-jokes. Janet Leigh has the PSYCHO music playing, while characters watch SCREAM and SCREAM 2 on televisions. These I could have done without; this is meant to be a horror film, not a comedy horror like SCREAM was. What an arrogant fellow that Williamson seems to be. There are other elements which are pretty nauseating too, like a poor actor doing an impression of Donald Pleasence (they dedicated the film to him, but managed to spell his name wrong in the process!). HALLOWEEN H20: TWENTY YEARS LATER is better than the previous sequel (thanks to a refreshingly short running time), but even so it's only average at best, marred by one too many false jumps and a lack of real scares.
Watching this film, you will spot many take-offs of other movies (Michelle Williams looking out of the window and seeing Michael just like Curtis did in HALLOWEEN). The director would call these "homages", I myself call them "lack of ideas". Also, surprisingly, there are many continuity errors and mistakes. I wish they could have taken a little more time to polish things instead of rushing this out and leaving all the errors in, it really makes the editors look incompetent.
While no actor is particularly bad, nobody really shines in this film. Adam Arkin (in some medical television series I believe) is pretty bland as Curtis' grey-haired lover who wears jumpers just like my old grandad. LL Cool J lends some comic relief as he recites erotic stories to his wife on the phone, but this humour is out of place in a HALLOWEEN film and just doesn't fit. Can someone explain to me how he was shot seven or eight times (twitching as the bullets entered his body) and yet manages to survive? The last we see of him is his corpse, laying in a pool of blood and riddled with bullets, then he returns at the end to tell us that the bullets only 'grazed' him. Yeah, right.
The young cast are all pretty bad and sort of merge into one, nobody is memorable. Michelle Williams is in fact awful as a female token love interest, but to be fair she is given literally nothing to do in the story apart from run around. The only one who's at least partially adequate is Josh Hartnett who plays Laurie's tough son, he manages to be both believable and likable. Unfortunately he is in it too little, as Jamie Lee Curtis dominates the film. Much has been made of how Curtis puts in a brilliant portrayal of an alcoholic woman plagued by nightmares, but to be honest she wasn't that brilliant. Good, perhaps, but not brilliant, and her performance was definitely not enough to make this film into a classic.
Which leaves us with Michael himself. Once again he's played by a different actor and he's even more absurd this time around, with his spiky hair bushing around the sides of his mask. Excuse me? Not the Michael I know, get yourself a haircut man. Unfortunately the camera dwells on his eyes far too often, making him not in the least bit scary, for as they say, the eyes are the windows to the soul. The murders are all clichéd and generic, the only good bit being where a girl has her leg broken and nearly ripped off. Otherwise it's the typical slashings and stabbings which we've seen millions of in these past few years.
Leave it to Kevin Williamson to pepper the film with unwanted in-jokes. Janet Leigh has the PSYCHO music playing, while characters watch SCREAM and SCREAM 2 on televisions. These I could have done without; this is meant to be a horror film, not a comedy horror like SCREAM was. What an arrogant fellow that Williamson seems to be. There are other elements which are pretty nauseating too, like a poor actor doing an impression of Donald Pleasence (they dedicated the film to him, but managed to spell his name wrong in the process!). HALLOWEEN H20: TWENTY YEARS LATER is better than the previous sequel (thanks to a refreshingly short running time), but even so it's only average at best, marred by one too many false jumps and a lack of real scares.