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Halloween:H20 Dir: Steve Miner Stars: Jamie Lee Curtis, Adam Arkin, Michelle Williams, LL Cool J. With inventive new variations on the horror genre like Wes Craven's New Nightmare and Scream hacking their way through the box office and the rental shelves, slasher movie fans have come to expect more than just arterial fountains from their knife-wielding heroes. At least the ones who can get into the movie without their parents. In that respect, Halloween: H20 may not be a disappointment. It doesn't have the cool of Scream, but it makes a solid attempt at character development - something most movies of this genre neglect altogether. Not that there isn't a lot of blood in H20. Hemoglobin-thirsty viewers will get treated to plenty of fun ways to kill teenagers - ice skate to the face, corkscrew, the good old stabbing flurry, and so on. But the story is this movie's blood. It chooses to focus on the protagonist rather than on how hip it can make the killer. The story begins twenty years ago with John Carpenter's original Halloween. Michael Myers, who lost his marbles at an early age and killed his sister, escaped from the mental institution to finish off the rest of his family. His sister Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) was the only one to make it out of that now classic movie alive. The white-masked Michael continued to go on killing sprees on Halloween through the next four movies (except Part III), but he never did get his grubby hands on Laurie. Now, twenty years after her original nightmare, Laurie teaches at a private school in California under a different name. But even after trying everything, she was never able to completely get over the horror she experienced in the first movie. This led her husband to leave her, her son to resent her overprotectiveness, and Laurie to hit the bottle. What impressed me most about H20 was the way it presented both Laurie and her psychopath brother as people with issues to resolve. I love the way it upholds Carpenter's original characterization of Michael as a guy who's just plain whacked and needs to kill. He won't stop until Laurie's in more than one piece. Laurie, however, can't get on with her life until she knows for sure that Michael is dead. The family reunion is intense and somewhat touching, especially since only one can come out of it alive. It's not Shakespeare or anything, but it's a big step for a genre movie. The chills and thrills of H20 certainly don't match up to the original movie (e.g. the classic closet scene) or the early Friday the 13th installments, as some critics are saying. Even in the obligatory Big Chase Scene, audiences may find themselves yawning instead of clenching their fists in fear. It would have been nice to complement the plot with the same visceral intensity of the original Halloween, but it seems the only directors who can accomplish that are John Carpenter and Wes Craven, so I guess we'll just have to wait around for them. In the meantime, H20 should keep the horror fans occupied. -Jay |
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