I'm always surprised when I see horror fans diss this movie. To me, it's pretty much the only good sequel, the only truly well made sequel. Even though I could be accused of being biased, because director Steve Miner's two Friday the 13th sequels are two of my favorite movies of that franchise, he's come a long way since those movies -- H20 has a style and polish. People accuse it of being Scream-like, but...it has the gloss of that movie, the obnoxious kids-pulled-from-the-WB, but it's nowhere near as obnoxious and winky-winky. (It pushes the limits with the Psycho references, but those are mostly harmless. I could see people saying the recreations of bits from the first movie is too self-referential, but this was an anniversary movie, so some of those nods just had to be made.) My main problem with it is trying to ignore the idiotic retcon in Resurrection, and just trying to forget that dismal movie when watching this one, which is difficult.
The premise is simple, but good: we catch up with Laurie Strode after all these years, on the day of the year she most dreads. She tries to get by with numbing herself with drinks and painkillers, but as hard as she tries, the pain -- and Michael -- remains. And no matter how many times she tries to convince herself she's imagining things, she knows -- Michael is back and if she wants a shot at peace, she's going to finally have to settle things with him. The movie has a breezy running time, which makes me wonder if there's a lot of cut footage, but it wastes no time and doesn't bore you.
There are a couple of great moments in this movie, like when Laurie's trying hard to close her eyes and basically wish Michael away -- but, at some point, instead of vanishing as usual, his image keeps charging her way. Another of my favorite scenes is when her son and his girlfriend are pinned between Michael and a locked door, and as Laurie successfully opens the door, letting the two in to safety, she slams the door just in time from Michael, finally coming face to face with him and realizing her nightmare's come true. But my favorite scene is when Laurie sends everyone away from the campus, grabbing an axe, closing the gates and sealing herself in with Michael, with the Halloween theme song kicking on. It's such a badass moment, she's taking control of things, and there's such a finality to the movie from this moment on, it's a serious, damn, stinking, filthy, rotten shame that the horrendous diarrhea tsunami of a follow-up ruins it all.
If there's a weakness to the movie, it's that I often don't feel like I'm watching the past catch up with Laurie Strode. Instead, I feel more like it's Jamie Lee Curtis herself. (Like most Hollywood stars, Curtis reached a point where she just started playing a version of herself in most movies. Curtis is a cool, strong, gutsy lady, and that's what comes through most of her roles, and it's not a bad persona to have. She's a reliable performer.) I'll try to think of the Laurie Strode from the first two movies and just see Jamie Lee Curtis, and can't help but see her determination to be rid of Michael as representing Curtis' own ambivalence to the horror genre and its fans.
And it's this movie I was referring to before as having one of the stupidest decisions in a horror movie. Jodi Lyn O'Keefe's injured character decides to try to escape Michael by placing herself in a dumbwaiter. At least Jamie was just a kid when she made the stupid choice to hide in a laundry chute...
All in all, the idea for this movie is just brilliant, because things were looking grim for this franchise after ho-hum and flat out bad sequels, and this was a great way at getting interest and eyeballs back on the series. I have to wonder, though, if this movie would exist without Wes Craven's New Nightmare, as if Jamie Lee Curtis saw that movie and was like "Hey! For the 10th anniversary of Freddy, they got back the first movie's heroine and staff, let's do that with Halloween for its 20th!"
TO BE CONTINUED...
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