Halloween H20
This summer, terror won't be taking a vacation.
Year of Release: 1998
Also Known As: Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, Halloween 7
Genre: Horror
Rated: R
Running Time: 86 minutes (1:26)
Director: Steve Miner
Cast:
Jamie Lee Curtis ... Laurie Strode / Keri Tate
Josh Hartnett ... John
Adam Arkin ... Will Brennan
Michelle Williams ... Molly
Adam Hann-Byrd ... Charlie
Jodi Lyn O'Keefe ... Sarah
Janet Leigh ... Norma
LL Cool J ... Ronny
Joseph Gordon-Levitt ... Jimmy
Chris Durand ... Michael
Steve Miner ... School Financial Advisor (uncredited)
Summary:
Now the headmistress of a private school, Laurie Strode is still struggling with the horrifying, 20-year-old memories of the maniacal killer Michael Myers... when he suddenly reappears with a vengeance!
And this Halloween, his terror will strike a whole new generation! Laurie's rebellious son, his girlfriend, and the school security guard will become Michael's newest victims unless Laurie can conquer her greatest fears and put evil in its place once and for all!
Review:
Halloween H20... well, at least they tried to warn us. A lotta folks think the "H20" stands for "20 Years Later," but I'm pretty sure that was just some kind soul's way of tellin' us it's seriously watered down.
An speakin' of sequels that get inexplicably worse with each installment, I swear to God - this is the last time I'm gettin' involved in Skunky Hernandez' Sage Maze shenanigans. I mean, if I was to pitch these stories to Lloyd Kaufman he'd laugh in my face an throw me outta his office on the basis that they aren't plausible enough to be movie plots for Troma Entertainment. I TOLD Skunky this was gonna happen, but he an those refried brains of his couldn't see reason if it was tattooed to the inside of his eyelids. Evenin' started out alright, the big dullard even let me pick the flicks at the Grime Time before it was time to open up the Sage Maze (I went with Night of the Living Dead and House by the Cemetery), an all the kids trick or treated car to car durin' the first flick before everybody's windows started foggin' up durin' the second. Juanita deep fried a big batch of candy an even figured out a way to turn nacho cheese red so all the bowls looked like little buckets of blood. Least I'm pretty sure she did. I did see this one chip in mine that bore an uncanny resemblance to a fingernail an chucked it just to be on the safe side. I guess if I'm bein' honest, I was actually havin' a pretty good time up to that point, even though some little bastard fed Apollo a buncha Milky Ways an gave 'im the Hershey squirts. Course, my hopes of a crisis-free holiday were dashed about half an hour after Skunky opened up the Maze, ya know, once the first reports of the Abominable Sagemen started tricklin' in. After this many years of those guys terrorizin' the patrons, they've pretty much become the main attraction of the Sage Maze, an I think people've gotten to the point where they they don't even see 'em as dangerous anymore... least they didn't before their kids started gettin' snatched up an carried off. In all the years since those guys got lost out there we'd never seen anything like this; normally they'd just sexually assault your ankle or try chewin' your fingers off, but this was different... they'd gotten *organized*. Weirdest of all, mosta the reports comin' in to Tetnis explicitly mentioned *little ones* in coyote skin papoose backpacks attached to 'em.
"You hearin' this?! It's turnin' into Clan of the Cave Bear out there, dumbass!" I calmly explained to Skunky as we made what's become our annual pilgrimage into the Maze to investigate the disturbance. Course, we took Sadie Bonebreak with us for protection, borrowed one of Bambi Pankins' triplets for bait, an sure enough, the one who wears the athletic cup over his face like a nose guard sprung out from behind that old rusty VW Bug we been meanin' to haul off an grabbed ahold of the kid. That was a mistake, cause between that kid's gnarly teeth an Sadie's chokehold he couldn't wrestle his way free before I managed to knee-cap 'im with a tent pole, an we were able to follow his gimp-legged tracks until... cripes, what a sight. These guys'd built a cage outta old fence posts an various other garbage they'd scrounged up from the dump, an they musta had a coupla dozen kids in it. Scarier still, there were SEVEN of 'em now instead of just three, an they seemed to be reportin' in to one guy in particular. A few minutes later we finally got a good look at the guy an I was shocked to see Fraggle, that scruffy, shiftless, hippy punk we dumped out on Bearcrack Mountain back in June after Mack's daughter tried usin' 'im as nuptial leverage to force 'er dad into turnin' Mack's Stacks of Manly Snacks into a vegetarian dive. Then, all the sudden, they stopped gruntin' at each other an raised their noses to the moon an I knew we'd been made, so I told Skunky to get his hinder to town an get Creedence Mack out there quick as he could before we got turned into caveman kabobs. Didn't hafta tell Skunky twice - I hadn't seen 'im move that fast since last call at last year's rattlesnake barbecue, but The Lost Boys caught up with Sadie an me pretty quick, an it wasn't until they'd pitched Bambi's progeny into the cage an plopped us down next to their fire that I realized three of 'em were actually Lost GIRLS, an even more horrible; one of 'em was my old conjugal visit flame from the Soggy Valley Women's Correctional Facility, Phyllis "the Nutcracker Suite" Jablonski.
"Seriously?! This is what you replaced me with?! This ain't good for my self esteem, Phyllis!" I objected, more than a little insulted. She just shrugged an said "Least they've got a little fight in 'em."
Apparently the three original troglodytes'd found their way over to the fence surroundin' the yard at Soggy Valley an been lured into the conjugal visit trailers by these skanks, an the wolfen babies they were luggin' around were the result. I guess after that they musta walked off from a work detail or somethin' an met up with The Wild Bunch in Skunky's Maze, but I'm only guessin', cause around here when Sheriff Hardassian loses an inmate he normally just sweeps it under the rug. Evidently, he'd rather let a thousand guilty men go free than chase after them.
Anyway, that's when Fraggle finally turned around, quieted everybody down, an said to us: "That was pretty cold dumpin' me out in the woods like that, dudes. You guys realize there's not a single 7-Eleven out here? I had to eat my own hacky sack to stay alive, you inbred rubes! Butcha know what? It's cool. Society never really understood me anyway. These guys though? They get me. Totally saved my ass from a pack of coyotes one night, and we've been runnin' together ever since. So I figured it was about time I gave somethin' back after all they've done for me, and the way I figure it, all these mouth breathing kids of yours should keep us fed all winter long."
"Sounds good, glad to see you folks're gettin' along so well. Guess we'll just get outta yer...", that was as far as I got before Sadie slapped the taste outta my mouth. So much for diplomacy.
"Yeah, no. You two are the main course. We only let the other guy go because, well, we do have *some* standards."
Thank cripes Skunky finally showed up with Creedence before things got outta hand. She grabbed that little weasel by the earlobe an started layin' into 'im about where he'd been, who the three "bitches" were, an explainin' that when they got home she was gonna burn his entire marijuana crop an make 'im watch a la Clockwork Orange. I think there was more, but my attention was suddenly diverted to the commotion inside the kiddie cage where Bambi's little hellspawn'd rallied all the other prepubescent prisoners an incited a riot that ended with the cage bein' overturned an the remainin' throwbacks gettin' run off by a battalion of P.O.'d preteens wieldin' flaming sage limbs like some kinda redneck Lord of the Flies.
Coulda done without the whole attempted spitfire entree thing, but... well, nobody died, so I guess I owe Billy Hilliard $5. How'd everybody else's Halloween go? Anybody score some Cadbury Scream Eggs? I love those.
I really gotta think about movin' someplace safer, like Chicago. But anyhow, as Gandalf would say: I've delved too deeply an too greedily into the depths of the Halloween franchise, an awakened a terrible evil, cause this year we've got Halloween: H20 on tap. Now, I got nothin' against Jamie Lee Curtis returnin' to the series after 17 years, matter of fact - I think that's damned admirable. Trouble is, with Jamie comes her newfound mainstream movie goin' public, an the instant the writers whip out that cheap hockey mask scare, you know immediately who this movie's targeted audience is, an it ain't knowledgeable Horror fans. I'm gonna try to stay positive though, an if nothin' else, I managed to extract a few nuggets outta this canary corpse infested coal mine, so why not humor me an pretend to enjoy these bits of cinematic chicanery. First, anything with the word "dumb" in its name is a terrible place to hide. Second, if you don a chalk-faced fright mask an carry a kitchen knife while pumpin' your gas, there's literally zero chance the attendant's gonna raise a stink when you leave without payin'. An third, never let a Friday the 13th guy direct a Halloween movie.
This is kinda interestin' though, an I hadn't really noticed it before now, but I was reminded by the miraculous returnin' to life of LL Cool J in this flick, that us white male an black female types're gettin' seriously discriminated against when it comes to survivin' Horror flicks. Now, I think we're all pretty well aware that the attractive, virginal white girl has, since the dawn of time, been the best-equipped person to survive a Horror movie. On that, I'm sure, we've got nearly unanimous agreement. However, there's another personality type that fares *almost* as well, that you never seem to hear much about, an that's the cool, likable black male. That said, "cool" is an absolutely critical component of the archetype, so don't go thinkin' you can act like Steve Urkel an survive a coma on Elm Street, cause that ain't gonna fly. Matter of fact, bein' the cool, personable black guy, in certain situations, is actually preferable to your standard innocent, hot white babe, an the reason I say that is cause Halloween H20 is at least the third movie I've seen where the hip black dude ends up most assuredly dead, but then miraculously returns to life at the end of the movie. This phenomenon first appeared in Jaws 4, when Mario Van Peebles (who we'd just witnessed bein' chomped on by the only fish in the known world who carries a people finder around with 'im) resurfaces relatively unscathed after the demise of the shark. Then, three years later, a pattern begins to emerge when the ultra-cool Ken Foree gets buzzsawed through the skull by Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, only to come traipsing up to Kate Hodge at the movie's conclusion. So by the time Halloween H20 hits theaters, co-starrin' Mr. "Mama Said Knock You Out" himself, we know instantly that the six rounds he takes directly in the brain're no match for his charisma. I mean, the guy's got "Cool" right in his name, he's basically invincible in a Horror flick. Jamie Lee Curtis better hope LL never dons the Shatner mask, cause if you think Michael Myers is hard to kill now, you've got no idea what kinda havoc Cool J's capable of wreakin' under that thing. So yeah, we got some pretty serious racial/gender inequality goin' on here... I just haven't figured out who needs to be held down an by whom to fix it yet. I'm gonna need a little time on this one, but rest assured, I'll get to the bottom of it.
The movie begins with this nurse comin' home to find 'er house broken into an havin' to go next door to get Joseph Gordon-Levitt to go inside an make sure there're no aliens squattin' in 'er attic, even though all he really does is steal 'er beer an commit the most egregious high sticking penalty since Wayne Gretzky mashed in Doug Gilmour's nose in Game 6 of the 1993 Western Conference Finals when he beats the crap out of 'er pot rack. Turns out this nurse was actually Donald Pleasence's assistant from way back in 1978, but fortunately, about all that's wrong with the place is 'er filin' room now looks about like the DNC Headquarters after Nixon's goons got through with it, an somebody's gone an stolen Laurie Strode's medical file so they can sell the photos to Bob Guccioni. So Joey heads home an the nurse starts tryin' to come up with fraudulent possessions to include in the insurance claim, only she don't get too far before one of 'er doors swings open an she hasta haul 'er little paper hat next door where she finds Joey sittin' in an armchair watchin' Plan 9 From Outer Space with a lethal case of athlete's face after havin' his hockey skates embedded in it. Course, you know how Mike feels about hospital staff, so when he finds 'er tryin' to snitch 'im out to the cops he makes for the kitchen utensils an shows 'er how the sausage is made. The next day (Halloween), in California, Jamie Lee Curtis is reclaimin' 'er scream queen moniker in the midst of a nightmare, until Josh Hartnett (her son) wakes 'er up an reminds 'er that Marilyn Burns hadn't done diddly squat since 1985 an that she ain't got nothin' to prove. Then they stand around the breakfast table bickerin' about her refusal to let 'im go on his senior trip to Yosemite an Jamie hasta constantly resist the urge not to give 'im five across the eyes while he talks down to 'er about how Halloween is so '70s it's pathetic, an that the boogeyman got his number retired by Donald Pleasence when he blew 'im up in that hospital. Next thing we got Josh an all his Hugh Hefner smoking jacket clad classmates gatherin' inside the auditorium of some hoity-toity private school where Jamie's standin' at the podium railin' against sex, drugs, an rock 'n roll to all the kids goin' to Yosemite, an when Josh's friends (Molly, Charlie, an Sarah) find out Jamie won't sign his permission slip for the trip they all start comin' up with excuses to stay home so they can throw a party an get all the things not to do in a Slasher movie checked offa their bucket lists.
Then Josh an Charlie go scare the crap outta LL Cool J while he's readin' the home brew erotica novel he's been workin' on to his wife over the phone, an beg 'im to open up the security gate so they can go steal some imported Mongolian champagne from the liquor store. Unfortunately, they end up runnin' into Jamie, who's out havin' lunch with the guidance counselor (Will), an she ends up comin' uncorked about what an ungrateful little fetus he's grown into for refusin' to behave 'imself on the day of 'er everlastin' mental dysfunction, til he returns fire an tells 'er he's tired of havin' to check 'er psychological baggage every Halloween an that she needs to get over it cause Mike's been fried like a Waffle House hashbrown goin' on 20 years now. Meanwhile, Mike's gotten whacked out on caffeine pills an hijacked a 1956 International Harvester to remain inconspicuous durin' his 24-hour nonstop drive from Illinois to California, an by the time he makes it to town Jamie's in the middle of 'er English Lit class listenin' to Josh's girlfriend (Molly) tell 'er about how Dr. Frankenstein needed to get with the program an do the Monster Mash before it went an destroyed everything he held dear, while Jamie fires off these "just what've you told this little bitch?" looks at Josh. Then Jamie starts feelin' bad an decides to let Josh go to Yosemite, only by now he's already planned this big romantic shindig in the school's kitchen pantry, so he hasta fake gratitude so Jamie won't know he's really plannin' to grab 'imself a midnight snack in Molly's panties. Elsewhere, Mike ditches his wheels out in front of the security gate so Cool J'll hafta come out an write up a citation for the 215 California pollution ordinances it's violated, while Mike walks right past 'im so he can start showin' up in the peripheral vision of everybody in the cast. Jamie's havin' 'er own party at home, cept it's one of those really awkward parties where only one person shows up an you spend the whole night tellin' 'im your real name an how you're the sister of the most famous mass murderer in American history while tryin' to hold out hope that he'll still wanna get drunk an steam clean yer carpet. Cept while she's spillin' 'er guts to Will about all the guts 'er brother's spilled over the years, she happens to notice the birthday card that Josh's deadbeat dad sent 'im in the mail an realizes he's exactly the same age as she was when Mike first escaped the quack shack, an next thing you know she's got this look on 'er face like she's about to build Devil's Tower outta mashed potatoes.
She immediately checks Josh's closet for his campin' gear an sure enough, there it is, complete with the special air mattress known affectionately as "Lola," an she an Will go boltin' out the door to find the kids before Professor Myers gets ahold of 'em an gives 'em the best deaducation money can buy. But while that's goin' on, Charlie's ridin' the dumbwaiter up to the second floor to find a corkscrew for his bottle of Bombay Select, only when he reaches the top he runs into Mike an ends up gettin' gutted like the StarKist spokesperson of the same name. It's just as well, he was prolly a deadfuck anyway. Then Mike sends the dumbwaiter back down an sneaks up behind Sarah just to see the look on 'er face when she discovers what's become of Charlie Spleen, an he ends up havin' to chug it back up the stairs while she takes the dumbwaiter an gets dribbled on by the corpse of 'er dead boyfriend. At that point you've got what's known in the business as a "meat an greet," which is where the visiting lecturer auditions to become Hannibal Lecter's personal grocer. Then Josh an Molly decide they'd rather go look for their friends than have sex in the meat freezer since that might offend the sensibilities of their corporate masters at Disney, an they end up findin' Sarah hung from the ceilin' with 'er gut bucket lit up like the inside of a jack-o'-lantern, which is quite possibly the biggest pooping of a party in the history of mankind, an forces the kids to haul hinder before Mike starts playin' Alice Cooper's "School's Out" on air guitar. Eventually they make it to the dorms, only Molly drops 'er keys on the outside of the house gate where Mike's swingin' his Ginsu at 'em an comin' within inches of turnin' 'em into Oscar Myers lunch meat, until Jamie opens up the door an they go spillin' in like hurricane preppers into a Stuckey's. Then Jamie locks the kids in the janitor's closet for safe keepin' while she an Will go skulkin' around the halls to see if their bullets work any better than Donald Pleasence's did, an next thing you know LL Cool J's taken 14 Shots to the Dome after he comes around the corner huntin' for Mike. So much for that whole "good guy with a gun" theory, although he could've at least hollered "Around the Way, Girl" so Jamie coulda stopped Will from blowin' 'im to bits. Anyway, Mike uses the distraction to gut Will like a mud cat while Jamie grabs Josh an Molly an sends 'em down the block for help like old times, before closin' the security gate, grabbin' a fire axe, an headin' back to the school to suspend Mike's vital functions. I'm gonna stop now, cause frankly, I'm hurting myself.
Alrighty, well, I think the best way to sum up this, the 6th sequel to an ever-diminishing series of once great flicks, is that it owes more to Wes Craven than to John Carpenter. Even if you were to look past all the winks and nods to the Scream series (including a clip from Scream 2 appearing on a TV set), H20 literally *feels* more like an entry in the Scream series than that of Halloween. Now, that's not to say it doesn't also have its share of homages to Carpenter's original Halloween, it absolutely does (as well as multiple references to Psycho, including the casting of Janet Leigh as Jamie Lee Curtis' secretary), but to put it simply: this flick is completely and utterly soulless. I get the same feeling watching Halloween: H20 as I get watching the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, despite the fact that H20 doesn't come anywhere close on the sacrilege scale. The slickness present in the theatrical cut of Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers has been amplified exponentially for H20, and every ounce of charm present in the earlier flicks has long since been mined and exported. Matter of fact, they show you everything you need to know within the first five minutes of the flick in the first scene with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, clad in full hockey gear. This is intended simultaneously as an homage to Steve Miner's previous work in the Friday the 13th series (including Part III in which Jason first dons his trademark hockey mask), and as a jump scare for the mainstream audience. No genre fan will so much as blink at the hockey mask jump scare, because you know the moment you see it that this prop is out of place, and from here on out you've got a movie that follows this same path of trying to balance the job of appealing to its fans, while also trying to reassure the general public with its flawless mainstream Hollywood presentation. I suppose that makes me sound like an elitist turd, and who knows, maybe I am, but I've really had it with studio executives resurrecting my cherished childhood icons and watering them down to make them palatable for the general public. I mean, for cripes sake, this film (and the one preceding it) were produced by MIRAMAX. You know who owns Miramax? DISNEY. I've got no problem with filmmakers trying to make money, that is the name of the game, after all. But when they start propping up an existing commodity that was originally produced on the cheap (and which succeeded based entirely upon the creativity and talent of the cast and crew who labored on it) with tens of millions of dollars to make a "bigger and better" version, or to "bring it into the next decade/century," yeah, it kinda hacks me off, because it's artificially flavored and phony as a three dollar bill. Props to Jamie Lee Curtis for signing on just the same, as I don't doubt for a moment that she meant well and wanted to do something for the fans of her earliest flicks (nearly all of which were Horror films), but good grief is this hard to watch.
There. Glad I got that outta my system; now I can feel free to vent my displeasure in a more focused manner. The plot completely ignores the existence of Parts 4 - 6, and while that in and of itself is not completely damning, what really gets me is that there was absolutely no reason why H20's plot couldn't be congruent with the previously established story in those earlier sequels. In fact, the writers did indeed have such a scene in the original script, which tied this new entry together with the Jamie Lloyd plot from Parts 4 - 6. Nothing that was going to change the overall aesthetic of the movie, but it would have acknowledged them and given the series a cohesive story arc, and they ended up cutting it... because apparently, the 86 minute running time (80 if you exclude the end credits) was too long, or something, who knows. That's an example of giving the fans the finger to appeal to the general public, who may very well not be familiar with the story arc and might be confused by such a speech. There was also a subplot involving the two detectives that appear in the nurse's house after the opening murders, which was also dropped for some reason. That's not as big a deal, but then, if you're gonna drop everything else, why bother to leave *that* scene? My guess would be to pad out the runtime, which could have been achieved just as easily, and to much better effect had they left the Jamie Lloyd explanation in. There're some little things too, like: why does Jamie Lee Curtis assume that the kids are hanging out on campus after hours when she discovers Josh Hartnett's camping gear in his closet?, but I think I've already made my feelings on the plot clear enough, so let's move on. The acting is probably the high point, even though it's carried primarily by Jamie Lee Curtis, and shored up a bit by LL Cool J's comic relief character. Honestly, the best parts of the movie (outside the ending, which is admittedly pretty good) are the scenes where LL Cool J's reciting lines from the seedy romance novel he's writing to his wife over the phone. It's just so random and weird that you can't help but find it funny. The rest of the cast (which stars a statistically implausible number of up-and-coming actors) are up to the task, but there's so little character development that one struggles to really give a damn about anyone but Jamie Lee Curtis and LL Cool J. They're all talented enough, but the script is so generic and bland when it comes to the supporting cast that there aren't many memorable performances.
Here's who matters and why (less Jamie Lee Curtis, Josh Hartnett, Janet Leigh, LL Cool J, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who all saw fit to attach themselves to this shell of a flick): Adam Arkin (Lake Placid, Full Moon High), Michelle Williams (Timemaster, Species), Jodi Lyn 'O Keefe (Out for Blood, The Crow: Salvation), Branden Williams (Mystery Men), Nancy Stevens (Halloween 1978, Halloween II 1981, Escape from New York), Beau Billingslea (Star Trek: Into Darkness, Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood, Silent Predators, The Blob 1988), Matt Winston (A.I., The Core, Galaxy Quest, Wes Craven's New Nightmare), John Cassini (Se7en, The Possession 2012, Final Days of PLanet Earth, Catwoman, Man's Best Friend, The Girl From Mars), Jody Wood (Mimic 2), LisaGay Hamilton (Twelve Monkeys), Chris Durand (Timemaster, Class of 1999 II, Uncle Sam), Rachel Galvin (The Haunting of Whaley House, Elixir), Steve Miner (Lake Placid, Friday the 13th Part III, The Last House on the Left 1972).
Sadly, even after filtering out all the biggest names, there's still a pretty sickening overflow of mainstream credits, so if you're the kinda person who enjoys a good cringe, feast your eyes on this: Adam Arkin (Josh in The Sessions, Ted Earley on Life, Dr. Aaron Shutton on Chicago Hope), Michelle Williams (Dolores in Shutter Island, Cindy in Blue Valentine, Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn, Lucille Angellier in Suite Francoise, Wendy in Wendy and Lucy, Alma in Brokeback Mountain, Jen Lindley on Dawson's Creek), Jodi Lyn 'O Keefe (Dr. Jo Laughlin on The Vampire Diaries, Gretchen Morgan on Prison Break, Cassidy Bridges on Nash Bridges), Branden Williams (Kile in Mean Creek), Beau Billingslea (the voice of A the Fourth Raikage on Naruto: Shippuden, the voice of Jet Black on Cowboy Bebob), LisaGay Hamilton (Rebecca Washington on The Practice).
The special effects are really tame, with the violence kept to an absolute minimum (presumably to keep the ghost of Walt Disney from returning from the grave to haunt the Weinsteins, who, knowing what we know now, could use a good haunting, the bastards). Admittedly, the original Halloween wasn't very explicit in its violence, but Halloween II sure as heck was, and Parts 4 & 5 weren't shy about showing it either, and I would cite this as further evidence that H20 has been watered down for the mainstream audience. I really don't even see why this flick got an R rating, unless, for some counter-intuitive reason, the producers wanted one, because it's skimpy as all get-out with the blood. The only real special effect is the demise of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, whose hockey skates get embedded in his face, but even then, all you're seeing is the aftermath, not the actual insertion. I guess there is the scene where Jodi Lyn 'O Keefe is hung from the ceiling with the hole through her guts, but you can't see anything gory, and it doesn't look very good besides. Beyond those two scenes it's literally just a splash of blood here and there, so don't expect the effects to help bail it out much. The shooting location isn't too bad, though with so big a place it seems like they could have done more with it. The building wasn't actually a school (though it certainly looks like it could be a private school in many of the exterior shots), and is actually just an extremely posh mansion built in the style of many European structures, particularly ones of Spanish heritage. Several different rooms are utilized for different purposes (the auditorium, the kitchen storage area, Jamie Lee Curtis' residence, various dorms, etc.), but the vast majority of the flick takes place inside the one building, and it's a pretty good location. The soundtrack, for the most part, does not have the feel of a Halloween movie. It does have its moments (The Chordettes' "Mr. Sandman" plays twice, and pays homage to its original usage during the credits of Halloween II), but there're only three or four instances where the main or secondary themes are utilized, and when you listen closely to it, it's got almost as much Friday the 13th flavor as it does Halloween. This would have been an extremely easy place to score points with fans of the original flick, but they couldn't even get that right. Even the tweaked versions of Carpenter's original theme are pale imitations (Parts 4 & 5 had excellent variations, by contrast). I'm not saying the soundtrack is *bad*, it's not, but it's another instance where the modern update does not lend itself to the idea that the film is a spiritual successor to Carpenter's original story. Bottom line: cut the "middle of the road" compromising nonsense with Horror movies. If you wanna produce cookie cutter crapola capable of attracting folks who might not ordinarily flock to a Horror flick, that's fine, go nuts. If you want to make legitimate Horror films for Horror fans, that's fine too, but you CANNOT have it both ways.
Rating: 46%