HALLOWEEN H20: 20 YEARS LATER (1998)

I don't really see how anybody involved with this movie could be proud of it. Completely ignoring Parts 3 - 6, Part 7, excuse me, I mean Part H20 picks up 20 years later and explains that Laurie faked her death and is now the dean of a elite private school in California. Nothing wrong with that really, just as long as Michael is an ultimate badass...and he's not. Instead, his mask looks like he's auditioning for a Slipknot cover band and he has zero personality. I've read that the actor who played Michael had never seen a HALLOWEEN movie before so he just decided "to tackle the role blindly". Well, he had about as much success tackling the role as Helen Keller would tackling that chicken from ROCKY II.

On top of the Shitty Michael aspect, the script is weak as fuck with zero scares. Laurie has a 17 year-old son who attends the school. All of the students are suppose to be on a school trip, but the boy and three friends ditch and hide out in the bowels of the school to par-tay. That's a good idea and it could have been used for some real scares.  Instead, Mike shows up, quickly kills a few of them, then Laurie suddenly decides she's fucking Ripley from ALIENS and goes after Michael. I guess this is seen as some kind of closure for Laurie's character, but I would have been happier with some kind of entertainment for the audience.

Worth watching, I guess, if you're a fan, but I was really disappointed. Zero nudity, zero gore, only a few drops of blood, multiple annoying jump scenes, low body count without any memorable kills, Janet Leigh's talent wasted and the ending was foreshadowed way in advance. Boring. Also why didn't Michael kill the people at the rest stop? What a pussy!

Part 1 - Halloween (1978)
Part 2 - Halloween II (1981)
Part 3 - Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
Part 4 - Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
Part 5 - Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)
Part 6 - Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)
Part 8 - Halloween: Resurrection (2002)
Remake 1 - Halloween (2007)
Remake 2 - Halloween II (2009)
Sequel to Original - Halloween (2018)
Direct Sequel 2 - Halloween Kills (2021)
Direct Sequel 3 - Halloween Ends (2022)

Article incorrectly states the original massacre happened in 1968.

HALLOWEEN (1978)

Haddonfield, Illinois. Halloween night 1963, six-year-old Michael Myers kills his older sister with a large knife. Why? Because he's pure evil. He's sent off to a insane asylum and does nothing but stare at the wall. Then 15 years later, right before Halloween he busts out and heads straight back to his hometown to raise some H-e-double-l.

Unlike Jason who literally kills everybody he sees, Michael is a little bit more thoughtful and only kills those he deems unworthy of being alive. Exactly what this criteria is, I'm not sure, but I think it has something to do with being friends with Jamie Lee Curtis (her role in his life is explained in Part 2) and/or being in possession of something he wants. Anyway, Jamie is babysitting some local kids and hanging out with her friends when Michael crashes the party and starts killing people. Sounds exciting, but it's actually pretty slow going as far as the actual violence goes. Where HALLOWEEN shines is the slow-boiling tension.

Even though I love the film, I don't think HALLOWEEN has fared as well over time as other horror films of the 70's. TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE would be the best example of this. If you were to have a double-feature of TCM and HALLOWEEN to a bunch of first time viewers I think TCM would still get some scares whereas HALLOWEEN would probably get a lot of yawns, because it's based more on a Hitchcock kind of suspense with only minimal blood and zero gore instead of an actual attack on the audience.That's just my worthless two cents.

That said, HALLOWEEN is a landmark in cinema history and I still love watching it.  Michael is a great villain and outside of Part 2 he's never really, even to this day, given the respect he deserves. Jason at least had 4 excellent movies before Hollywood decided to shit all over his character. Michael wasn't so lucky. Maybe one day a savior will come along a resurrect the HALLOWEEN franchise to the level it deserves, but I'm not holding my breath.

Nice slow pace that builds the tension, two extremely short topless scenes, THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD and FORBIDDEN PLANET shown on TV, teenagers doing dumb shit, awesome 70's fashions, very little blood, zero gore, a large house with the washer and dryer in a completely separate building in the backyard...I'm sure that's a lot of fun in the dead of winter.

HALLOWEEN is dated, but still mandatory viewing for horror fans.

Part 2 - Halloween II (1981)
Part 3 - Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
Part 4 - Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
Part 5 - Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)
Part 6 - Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)
Part 7 - Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)
Part 8 - Halloween: Resurrection (2002)
Remake 1 - Halloween (2007)
Remake sequel - Halloween II (2009)
Sequel to Original - Halloween (2018)
Direct Sequel 2 - Halloween Kills (2021)
Direct Sequel 3 - Halloween Ends (2022)