Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)

HALLOWEEN H20: 20 YEARS LATER

WRITERS: Screenplay by Robert Zappia and Matt Greenberg
Story by Robert Zappia

DIRECTOR: Steve Miner

STARRING: Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode/Keri Tate
Adam Arkin as Will Brennan
Michelle Williams as Molly
Adam Hann-Byrd as Charlie
Jodi Lyn O'Keefe as Sarah
Janet Leigh as Norma
Josh Hartnett as John
LL Cool J as Ronny

QUICK CUT: It’s Halloween time in Summer Glenn, California, and John just wants to go on vacatiuon with his friends! When his uncle shows up to reconnect with the family though, John has to stay in town, and hijinx ensues!

THE MORGUE

Laurie - The original returns! She’s been through some shit, and while she’s dealt fairly well with the trauma of the first two movies, she still gets twitchy on Halloween. Which is understandable, and aside from a bit of a drinking problem, she’s fairly well put together.

John - Laurie’s son, and your typical 17 year old. He gets into trouble, he sneaks around, and he just wants to hang out with his friends. He also is well aware of his mom’s damage, and the stress of having to be the adult sometimes is wearing on him.

Charlie - John’s partner in crime, and I would argue more of the cause for the antics than John is. He gets them into trouble, John gets them out.

Molly and Sarah - The love interests for John and Charlie, respectively. They don’t have much beyond that, but Sarah does at least have a sarcastic streak to her.

Michael - As we know by now, Laurie’s brother, and single minded Myers murderer.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Happy Octoberween, Triskelions! The leaves are changing, the pumpkins are carving, and Michael Myers is awakening from his long summer nap. So you know what that means, it is time for Halloween H20. But instead of Haddonfield, we are heading to the sunny shores of California.

We open up in Haddonfield at least, at the old home of Sam Loomis, and the nurse who now lives there, coming back home. She finds a smashed light, and the house seemingly broken into. She finds some local kids and they give her a hand by calling the cops, and Jimmy goes to see if the house is safe.

Jimmy finds the study a mess, and aside from a jump scare, he finds nothing there. He lets Mary know the house is clear, and the kids head off.

Nurse Mary pokes around and finds the Laurie Strode casefile is empty, and she starts to get a sneaking suspicion of what's going on. And so do we, as we catch glimpses of Michael in the background.

She gets spooked again and runs over to Jimmy's house, finding him with a skate buried in his face, and then his friend stabbed in the back. Before I can complain that they died off screen, Michael shows up to at least slit her throat, to give me a little murder, as a treat.

Before Mike can have too much fun though, the police show up at Mary's house, and completely miss what's going on next door.

Now we know the real reason why Cobra Commander needed a mask.

More cops show up the next day to exposit most of what I've already said, but they do add in that Michael has not been seen in 20 years, so hello giant retcon reset button. Spoiler, this is a rough draft of Halloween 2018.

We then jump to California, and swoosh around a classroom, with a bunch of fun references to the first few movies, and things to come, eventually finding out it is all a nightmare of Laurie's, now going by the name Keri Tate. It's a nicely atmospheric scene.

She gets woken up by her son John, and they get ready to head to school. She's the headmistress at his school, and he's a student, and he's rebelling like any good 17 year old. He wants to go on a school trip over the weekend, but she says no, what with it being Halloween and all.

There is also a moment when John gets some pills for mom, to help her with the nightmares, and he pauses and looks in the round mirror. This is a wonderful bit of recurring imagery that pays off well towards the end. In fact, reflections in general are used to good effect in this movie.

We head to school, and meet John's canon fodder friends, and none of them really want to go to Yo-Semite, so they start to plan their own mischief for the weekend.

Speaking of mischief, we cut to the middle of nowhere as a mom and child find a rest stop so her kid can use the facilities. They run into Mikey, but fortunately, he just steals the mom's keys and her car.

I really like how focused Michael is in this. If you're not his target, and not in his way, he's not gonna kill you. He's not mindless. He has a goal, a single mindedness of purpose.. And he leaves these two completely unharmed.

We next meet Laurie's love interest, the school guidance counselor, and also Norma, a role played by her mom, because why not? I see what you did there.

Because we don't have enough characters I guess, we meet the school security guard, LL Cool J, who is also an aspiring writer. He's reading his latest prose over the phone to his girl, and she is not pleased with the sexualisation of it. She better watch out though, or LL gonna write you out.

John and Charlie show up to sneak out of school, which is a no no, and Ronny has been warned about specifically from momma Strode. But the kids convince him and they sneak out to pick up some stuff for the party.

Meanwhile, "Keri" meets Will over lunch, and she dances around telling him the truth, even asking if he thinks something so tragic can happen that a person never recovers. Well, let's find out in another 20 years!

And wouldn't you know it, Laurie runs into John, really lays into him, but he gives as good as he gets. He's sick of this, dealing with his mom's damage, and asks a very good question; if he was still out there, why hasn't he come back before now?

Once we're back at school, and John half-jokingly tells his girlfriend about the serial killer in the family, we get a scene of Jamie teaching some kids, and a lot of talk about the novel Frankenstein. The discussion of the monster is not very subtle. SYMBOLISM!

Also, mom decides to allow John to go on the field trip, which interferes with sexy party time. And the plot. So he crumples up the permission slip to keep things on track.

The buses drive off, and that's when Mike pulls up to the gate. When Ronny goes out to check, the car is empty, and he opens up the gate to take a closer look. Mike sneaks inside, and after some fun cat and mouse games, Ronny actually survives.

CAP: I'm telling ya, man, this security guard gig is gonna look great on my resume when I apply at NCIS!

Laurie thinks she sees Michael, and she's probably not wrong, but if anything was about to happen, Will interrupts as he goes around to check on the kids who didn't go on the trip.

Meanwhile, those same kids gather some food for their feast, and Charlie ducks out to find the alcohol and a corkscrew. Quick, ask Crispin Glover where he left it.

And while that's going on, Laurie comes clean to Will, and I like that the Haddonfield murders were so huge, he's heard of them.

Watching a better movie on the tv, I see.

In the midst of that revelation, she realises John is the same age she was when Michael last terrorised her, and I guess that's reason enough? She tries to call him, but the phones are dead. She finds his camping stuff and knows he didn't go on the trip.

She heads to the door and runs right into Ronny, almost getting shot. Dude has had a lotta close calls. They group together and make a plan to find the kids.

Back with the John and friends, Charlie finds the corkscrew and knocks it into the garbage disposal. We get some tension, but surprisingly, they don't go for the easy mangling. Instead, he turns around, finds Mike, and gets killed off camera.

Which is happening altogether too frequently in this movie.

Sarah gets tired of waiting for Charlie, finds his corpse, AND Michael, and she escapes in the dumbwaiter.

Mike gets in a quick slash, and we at least get a bit of a chase.

As she climbs out on the floor above, Mike cuts the rope, cause the thing to rush down, catching her leg, and probably breaking her ankle, before she wriggles free.

John hears the commotion, so he and Molly go to see what they can find. What they find is blood. A lot of blod. A whole freakin' lot of blood. I think too much. I mean, I LIKE a lot of blood, but this is an unrealistic amount, maybe.

They also find Sarah dangling around, and see Mike in the shadows. John recognises him, and they beat feet outta there.

Mike catches up with them outside, and he grabs Molly. Before he can stab her, John gives one heck of a good punch right into his face. I know there's fights in these movies, but I don't remember anything quite so directly confrontational.

Also...hilarious thumpy foley work with the punches.

Before they can get away, Mike gets a good stab into John's leg, and then Molly makes him eat rock. While he's down, the kids run away some more.

They get to another part of campus, get behind the main gate just in time before Mike gets there, and he struggles to stab them through it. Unfortunately they dropped the keys and can't get in the house, and Mike tries to unlock the gate.

Mom finally opens the door, and the kids all duck in just as Mike gets the gate open.

Like I said, a decent pay off to the round reflections.

It's also funny with the reflections, how much of that and parallels between Laurie and Michael, to the point where they are almost in reverse roles, is more played out even more in Halloween 2018. It really is almost like this is a rough draft of that movie, to the point of where I can see this Laurie EASILY evolving into that Laurie. If not for a few obvious plot points, this movie could easily have been included in the canon.

Mom gets the kids upstairs, shoves them into a room, and tells them to barricade the door, while she and Will go Myers hunting.

A figure walks into view, and Will shoots wildly five times. You fool! Michael can only be stopped if you shot him six times! Six times!!

But oops, he actually shot at Ronny. What a way to go out of a movie, friendly fire. But as they're looking over the body, Mike does show up to backstab Will, and with his great upper body strength, hoists him into the air on the knife.

The role of Michael Myers will be played by William Fichtner

On that subject...Mike looks REALLY lean and wiry in this movie, and...it doesn't work for me. He doesn't feel imposing or threatening. I feel like I could tackle him.

Laurie and the kids get to the car, drive off, but when they reach the gate, she gets out to open it. She tells John to drive off, and leave her to take care of things.

So that brings us down to Laurie and Michael, all alone, and we get to the point in the movie where people wander through hallways shouting names. But...this one hits different. This isn't about trying to find people who have gone missing. This is about finding her brother to get some vengeance.

Laurie gets a good axe stab in, and runs off, hiding under a table in the mess hall. There is a fantastic bit of cat and mouse as she tries to stay out of sight, until tables go flying.

She gets him with a flagpole in the gut, and Mike still keeps coming. They end up in the kitchen, and she drops an entire drawer of knives on the floor, and flings them at him. Silly! That just gives him more toys!

But Laurie grabs a knife, runs off, and when Mike catches up, she stabs him a good number of times, knocks him off the balcony, and he lands on a table.

She stumbles downstairs to make sure he's dead, but Ronny shows up before she can give him a few more stab wounds. Yay, he was only grazed! He lived! That makes me genuinely so happy.

Michael gets loaded into the coroner's van, but since Laurie remembers the second movie, she steals the van, drives off, and drives like a bat out of Hell.

Unsurprisingly, Mike is Not Dead Yet, and when he claws his way out of the body bag, Laurie slams on the breaks giving us a vehicular defenestration.

The new Michael Myers hood ornament, get yours today!

She waits for him to stand up, hits the gas, and sends the van careening off a hill with Mike attached to it.

The pair stand face to mask for a bit, Laurie tries to talk with him, but her brother always has been the strong silent type.

But they do have a brief touching moment where they ET touch fingers...before Laurie whacks his head off with the axe.

Knowing there's one more movie in this cycle...I uh...I'm curious to see how we're gonna retcon that?

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: Looks decent enough, as I’d expect from a big franchise studio movie.

Audio: Same deal here.

Body Count: A fine average amount of bodies.

1- 7:30 minutes in, Jimmy is found with an ice skate to the face.
2 - Other kid topples in stabbed.
3 - Nurse Marion gets her neck slit.
4 - Charlie gets his neck slashed off screen
5 - Jodi gets knifed good.
6 - Will gets backstabbed
7 - Mike gets decapitated

Best Corpse: The nurse getting her throat slit was a pretty solid effect.

Blood Type - B-: A few stand out scenes of some knife gags with decent makeup, and streaks upon streaks of blood boost the score.

Sex Appeal: Kept pretty tame.

Drink Up! Every time you catch a Psycho reference.

Movie Review: After the entertaining mess of Halloween 6, my expectations for H20, as well as 20 years of mocking that name, left me with low expectations. I can’t say I hated it though. In fact, I quite enjoyed it, if I’m being honest. It’s a well made movie, it’s a decent sequel to the first two movies, and the acting is good. It’s a great return for Laurie, and aside from a few lingering plot questions, it comes off pretty well. Four out of five CGI masks.

Entertainment Value: Again, not much in the way of ‘so bad it’s enterainment’ here, but the acting is solid, the kills, when we see them, are fun with some good scares and tension. Even the ones we don’t see, have some great effects work. A treat seeing so many familiar faces who would go on to bigger and better things. All in all, a solid movie. Three out of five stolen keys.