Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Halloween H20


This is the movie that should have probably ended the Halloween franchise in the universe that it was set in. The movie has a good sense of closure and has a lot of talented actors in it and actors who would eventually be counted among the A-List of Hollywood. Jamie Lee Curtis, LL Cool J, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Josh Hartnett, and Michelle Williams make up the bulk of the cast. Williams and JGL are now considered to be two of the best actors of their generation while Hartnett and LL Cool J's careers have cooled down substantially in the past few years. This movie continues the story of Laurie Strode in the Halloween mythology and takes place 20 years after the events of the original. None of the other movies in the franchise are even referenced and that kind of makes the other movies not exist in a way.

The film takes place twenty years after the events of the original. It follows a still distraught Laurie Strode and still trying to adjust to her life after her brother tried to kill her twenty years earlier. The movie also focuses on her rebellious son and his friends who have a private party on the night of Halloween when they skill a school trip to Yosemite National Park. This movie follows the now standard Halloween formula except that there is no nudity or drugs in the movie and this is more of a revenge movie because Michael Myers is purely focused on wiping Laurie and her family from the Earth. The movie plays out predictably and there is nothing really noteworthy in the execution or the action in the movie. Even for a genre know for its inventive and gory kills, this movie has neither. The kills which are very limited are basic and restricted bring nothing new to the table and this hurt the movie in a way because it left viewers unsatisfied with the action of the movie.


This is a franchise that could have ended after the first two movies. Michael Myers lacks the demented charm of Freddy Krueger or the sheer brutality the Jason brings on a consistent basis. I understand that the original Halloween is an essential Horror movie for some people but this is not one of my favorite movie franchises. Myers is just a mindless killer and does not emote one ounce of personality and most of his victims are shallow stereotypes. With some character development and better kills this version of Myers could have been one of the greats. I actually think that Rob Zombie's version of Halloween is far superior because he actually takes time to develop Michael Myers as a character and doesn't just play him off as an emotionless killer. This was one of the remake's best qualities and raised it to a higher level of quality than the John Carpenter directed original. I will have a full review of the remake at another date but let it be known that the remake crushes the original and the original's sequels. I realize that this is a shorter review than normal but that is because this is a very mediocre film and there is neither anything great to say or bad to say. This movie simply exists to put an end to a long suffering franchise and it couldn't even do that effectively.

This is a very mediocre movie and is not essential other than if you have seen all of the other Halloween movies that preceded it. The acting is non-existent, there is not gore and no nudity. All of the things that generally make a good horror/slasher movie are absent from this film and that is why it ultimately fails. I'm not sure if this was a PG-13 movie when it debuted but in today's movie industry it would most certainly be. This is what happens when a studio tones down a horror franchise to bring in more viewers, they kill the movie accidentally. They take out everything that could have made it special and add a lot of generic pretty people and generic plot point and crush the life from the movie. This movie deserves a 4.5/10 because there is nothing special about and ruin the ending to what was a decent movie franchise.

No comments:

Post a Comment