Seven films into a franchise and the hits keep on coming, that’s what you will think of when you go back to watch this film, that and the fact that it was Josh Hartnett’s first major role. This 1998 slasher has everything you would want in a classic horror film with the exception of hardcore gratuitous nudity. Despite the many different installments, the producers wanted this film to be an alternative sequel to Halloween II and ignores the other films in a various ways. The movie, as the title says, is set 20 years after the original film and follows Michael Meyers and his sister played by none other than Jamie Lee Curtis. If you haven’t figured out what film I’m talking about, it’s none other than Halloween H20.
First and foremost, you have to just not think about the logic in this film. For being a unmerciful brute, Meyers somehow gets out of lock up, finds Laurie living in Northern California and starts killing anything that moves. This type of easy going writing plays well for the genre, but if you’re “thinking” about the film on any sort of intellectual level, you’re going to want to punch yourself in the face. Do not overthink the plot of this film, especially the part where LL Cool J loses all sorts of street cred when he decides to start writing a romance novel…sigh.
As the movie progresses we get all sorts of jump scares that aren’t scary at all, unless you’re wearing headphones and watching this in a dark alley somewhere. You can almost time the scare points, as they are so predictable, and lead to almost nothing. By the time Meyers shows up, you are ready for action and he brings it with brute force and slow movements. I never understood how this guy was so good, and moves so slow.
I was surprised by the fact that Joseph Gordon Levitt was in this film, and gets a hockey skate to the face! I always found it a bit taboo to kill kids, but I guess he was old enough to get hacked by Meyers. The movie seemed to mix episodes of Dawson’s Creek and 1980’s horror film gore, only to climax in the 80th or so minute. If you absolutely love the slasher genre, this one is a bit better quality than most. It is relatively short, but it has all the pieces (minus the nudity) that you’d expect from the genre in modern times. Halloween H20 still has some good points, and some major flaws, but what can you ask for from the franchise that had Busta Rhymes take out Meyers in the sequel that came after this one…. sigh.
I actually quite like H20. I pays tributes to the original in un-groan-worthy ways and still manages to add a bit of originality and humor. One of the best in the series in my book.
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