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Paul Greenwood reviews
- Cert:
- Running time: 94 minutes
- Year: 2002
- Released: 25th October 2002
- Widescreen Ratio: 2.35:1
- Rating: 2/10
Director:
- Rick Rosenthal
(Halloween II, Halloween: Resurrection)
Cast:
- Laurie Strode: Jamie Lee Curtis
Michael Myers: Brad Loree
Freddie Harris: Busta Rhymes
Sara Moyer: Bianca Kajlich
Nora Winston: Tyra Banks
Jen Danzig: Katee Sackhoff
Myles Barton: Ryan Merriman
Rudy Grimes: Sean Patrick Thomas
Bill Woodlake: Thomas Ian Nicholas
Donna Chang: Daisy McCrackin
You see, this is what annoys me– wheeling out a once great movie monsterin another cynical attempt to extort money from an undemanding cinema goingpublic. Whereas the likes of the Friday the 13th series was already a ripoff of Halloween to begin with, and therefore its sequels were just more ofthe same old rubbish (although I do have a soft spot forJason X – fun yousee, fun) we had the right to expect a little more from the Halloweenfilms, sinceJohn Carpenter’s masterful originalstill stands as one of thefinest horror films ever made. There is more menace in any one frame of itthan there has been in the entirety of its seven increasingly desperatesequels (save the blip that was the watchableH20).
Halloween Resurrection is an affront to its memory, an abomination of amovie that, if it weren’t forRollerball,would be the worst film of 2002.
The supposed hook for dragging us back for an eighth time is that it’s beengiven a dotcom spin by having some students spend Halloween night in theold Myers place for reasons of the utmost vagueness. Their every move isbeing broadcast on the internet by means ofAliens-styleheadcams and webcams placed around the house (any similarity to My Little Eyeisn’t really worth mentioning since that was rubbish too). What they don’trealise is that Michael is home and he doesn’t really like having visitors.
Meanwhile, a bunch of kids at a party watch the webacst, initially unawareof the danger the housemates are in. One of them, known as Deckard, has anemail link to one of these hand-held workpad thingies that the one we knowwill survive is carrying, which he uses to warn her of imminent danger.Treats here include the caution “Don’t scream”, and thepresentation-is-everything change of font to tell her to get out of thehouse. Glorious. Another gem is when, on opening the kitchen cupboards,they find some herbs that are still remarkably fresh after supposedly 40years, indicating that Michael likes to unwind after a hard day’sslaughtering by rustling up a nice lamb dish.
The cast of mostly unknowns play the usual band of stock characters andthey’re all fairly useless. There was one ungodly moment early on when Ithought we were going to have to endure a Matthew Lillard tribute act, butthankfully the guy only had one short scene. At least Curtis had the goodsense to bail out early, at the end of an occasionally decent prologuewhich sees Laurie in the nuthouse waiting for Michael to come back for herand finally finish her off. The high point of this is the hilariousexplanation of how Michael came to survive having his shoulders relieved ofhis head at the end of H20.
What it boils down to is that when a witless script is given to a directorwith no talent, it becomes very difficult to make a man in a boiler suitand a Captain Kirk mask frightening. The irony is, William Shatner himselfwould have been far scarier.
Review copyright © Paul Greenwood, 2002.E-mail Paul Greenwood
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.