Halloween: H20 - 20 Years Later (1998)

Starring - Jamie Lee Curtis; Adam Arkin; Josh Hartnett; Michelle Williams & Adam Hann-Byrd Director - Steve Miner MPAA - Rated R for terror violence/gore and language. Good old Michael Myers is back to instill his usual brand of terror on Halloween night. Unlike the previous 2 dozen sequels (at least it seemed like that many), this latest installment has some real actors involved. At the head of that list is Jamie Lee Curtis who became a star after starring in the first Halloween and its first sequel as Laurie Strode, Michael Myers' sister and the object of his obsession. Of course obsession in Mike's case means that he wants to kill her. Joining Curtis this time out are Adam Arkin (from TV's Chicago Hope) and Michelle Williams (from TV's Dawson's Creek). It must have seemed like a reunion of sorts for Michelle Williams, since the executive producer of Dawson's Creek, Kevin Williamson, also had a hand in the making of Halloween: H20. By now people are starting to realize that Kevin Williamson's involvement in a movie tends to mean that a quality project is going to appear on the screen. With such horror films as Scream, Scream 2 and I Know What You Did Last Summer under his belt, Kevin Williamson knows a little something about horror films. A fact that is fairly evident in the latest Halloween movie. Gone are the no-plot, mindless, badly acted sequels on the past few years, Williamson and company have managed to breathe new life into a very tired horror series that by rights should have been killed off years ago. It's a credit to all of those involved in H20 that it makes you remember just why the original is considered to be the classic that it is today. And speaking of classics, no review of H20 would be complete without the mentioning the inclusion of Janet Leigh in a small but memorable role in H20. For those of you who are less knowledgeable out there in movie land, Leigh starred in psycho and was the one who ended taking that ill-fated shower at the Bates motel. She also happens to be Jamie Lee Curtis' mother. I only mention this because most of the fairly young audience that I screened the film with completely missed the very clever psycho references that Leigh made. Anyway, on to the plot -- as everybody already knows, Michael Myers is the masked knife wielding psycho who seems to be on a fairly relentless quest to kill off all members of his family. (As a bit of trivia, the mask that Myers wears is a William Shatner mask painted white -- which may explain all of the bad acting in the past several sequels.) Although just how relentless that murderous quest is seems to be questionable. This latest Halloween film seems to ignore the events of the last 3 or 4 sequels where Myers has killed off half of the Midwestern United States. It seems to suggest that Myers hasn't been heard from since the events of the first two movies. But in other ways it doesn't, since Curtis's character supposedly changed her name and went into hiding sometime after the events of the first two movies -- giving way to explain why she wasn't around for the last 3 of these movies when Myers was trying to slice and dice her daughter. At any rate, good old Mike, after all these years has finally figured out where his sister Laurie's location and he is coming over for a family reunion. Since Laurie Strode and Mike last exchanged pleasantries (in the form of Laurie blowing him up in Halloween 2), Laurie has changed her name, and is a divorced mother of one son (which doesn't explain her daughter who Myers terrorized throughout Halloween 4 and 5) and she is a teacher at a private school in California. It seems that the majority of the student body is going off on a little field trip that will leave the gated campus largely deserted over the Halloween weekend. Gosh, that's convenient. Also hanging out on the campus are Strode's son and his girlfriend, as well as another young couple who are playing hooky from the field trip. Oh yeah, Uncle Mike shows up too, just in time to show off his own brand of trick or treating. You can probably figure out the rest. But let's just say that Jamie Lee Curtis shows us that even after twenty years she can still take on masked killers with the best of them. My complaints with this movie are small ones. Unlike the Scream films, the characters in this movie don't appear to have watched that many horror films, so as a result, when Myers appears wielding some large weapon, they tend to be your typical dumb horror film characters -- meaning they run upstairs as opposed to running out the front door. My next beef is the whole timeline thing. While I understand that the producers would love to forget the last few movies, it tends to be a bit confusing for those of us who actually sat through all of them. (What can I say? I have no life.) I guess my biggest disappointment was sadly one that could not have been prevented. Donald Pleasence, the only bright spot in all of the Halloween films passed away after the filming of the last Halloween movie, so Dr. Sam Loomis was not around to save the day as he was in the earlier 6 films. Although as a sort of tribute to him, they did use his voice in one of the opening scenes of the film as they were recapping the Halloween story for those that may not have seen Myers and company in twenty years. H20 is the best Halloween since the original. 7/10 Reviewed August 9, 1998 by Joe Chamberlain