Of all the horror sequels from long-running franchises to come down the pipe since the heyday of the 80's, this eighth Halloween is arguably the least warranted, and in this reviewer's opinion, certainly the least anticipated. Whether you liked 1998's Halloween: H20 or not, it brought irrefutable closure to the saga, and the "big secret" of how Michael Myers managed survive the decapitation made most readers cringe when it was scooped on countless internet sites in the past two years. Add in a battery of abysmal advance reviews, and Halloween: Resurrection is pretty much dead in the water.
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What a joy, then, to find that it's actually pretty enjoyable, and certainly better in the scares department than the last several installments to come from the large ass--whoops, I mean largess--of Moustapha Akkad.
Most of the spoiler material is dealt with during the first ten minutes, probably the strongest portion of the film. Since one or two souls from the nether regions or Siberia may not have read how the masked one is still kicking after H20, the filmmakers indeed go with Myers' outfit switcheroo with a paramedic, who was Laurie Strode's actual (and unintended) beheading victim. But even this plays much better than it reads, with new footage interspersed with H20 footage during the exposition. The other question concerns Laurie's fate. Reportedly it was shot two ways, and in the final cut of the film the silly bitch buys the farm, unless a future Halloween sequel proposes that she survived a knife through the back and a fall from a tall rooftop. Maybe the next sequel can be subtitled Dude, Where's My Laurie?
The scene shifts back to Haddonfield, IL, where a group of college students have been selected to participate in a live webcast "reality" event. Their mission: to spend Halloween night in Michael Myers' childhood home. The brains behind this buffoonery is one Freddie Harris (Busta Rhymes), who runs Dangertainment Dot Com. The obvious female lead is a frowsy little waif called Sara (Bianca Kajlich), who has the heebie-jeebies about going through with these shenannigans. The rest are typical post-Scream teenaged twits, including the "Pale Ale" guy from American Pie. Sara is also in frequent e-contact with a nerdy high school freshman (Ryan Merriman) who has led her to believe he's a grad student while giving her online tech support, and who compulsively watches the webcast.
The Myers house has naturally been booby-trapped by Freddie and his crew with pranks and macabre props, designed to heighten the tension and allude to fictitious "clues" as to the origins of Myers' madness. But when the real Michael Myers (Brad Loree) crashes the party and starts making stir-fry of the cast members, it becomes a toss-up of what's real and what's not, at least to the webcast's enrapt audience. One couple investigating the positively Byzantine basement (thus far never shown in the series) of the Myers house happen upon a tableau of rotted human body parts, and they freak--until the guy (a dopehead music major) happens to read "Made In Taiwan" embossed upon a rotted leg. The chick he's macking on, by the way, has one of the film's best lines: "Screwing a music major is tantamount to lesbianism." Can you imagine what a cool bumper sticker that would make?
Director Rick Rosenthal, who had previously helmed 1981's Halloween II, eschews the glossy, hip sheen of H20 and directs in a more staccato and indie-looking fashion. Since the action makes frequent use of the webcast footage, the film is often given the claustophobic clusterfuck vibe of Blair Witch, and it does reach an intrusive pitch a time or two, especially in 2.35:1 widescreen.
Halloween: Resurrection plays more like one of the better latter-day slasher flicks than a typical Halloween sequel. Hence, you could remove the Michael Myers element from the scenario and replace him with a new generic killer, and you'd have just as decent a movie. But here it's a case of plugging in the Halloween values, and the final result is a Halloween film that doesn't really feel like one, except during the first ten minutes. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Whatever it is, it makes for a pretty damned entertaining ninety-minute watch.
