Back in 1978, a little film called "Halloween" scared the heck out of audiences everywhere, made a lot of money, and subsequently spawned dozens of imitator films -- some good, but most awful -- including its own extended series of sequels (six, including this one). With each progressively getting worse while simultaneously getting less and less scary, the series finally seemed deceased -- or at least brain dead -- after the release of 1995's "Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers."
Then in 1996 scribe Kevin Williamson sought to reinvigorate the genre -- tongue in cheek style -- with his film, "Scream." Not only did that Wes Craven directed film pay deep homage to John Carpenter's original "Halloween" (including the well-known, goose bump raising piano chords), but it also made tons of money and singlehandedly reestablished the genre.
That's a good thing since I personally enjoy such films (when they're done right) and because the genre has been around since nearly the dawn of celluloid, thus deserving more decent films. It's also a bad thing because it's going to inspire (and already has) many insipid follow up films, and the Dimension Films Studio (that did "Scream") is guilty as charged with this release.
Trying to resurrect the "Halloween" franchise from its cinematic tomb in hopes of drawing some blood -- or in this case, money -- from the box office, Dimension obviously didn't learn the lesson from the original "Frankenstein" monster that this picture briefly mentions. Sometimes it's best to leave things buried and dead.
The second horror film in a month to run mercifully less than eighty-five minutes (including credits -- the other being "Disturbing Behavior"), this one is nearly as bad and considerably pales in comparison to its slasher film ancestor. Director Steve Miner -- who helmed the second and third installments in the "Friday the 13th" series and later the Mel Gibson/Jamie Lee Curtis film, "Forever Young" -- smartly reintroduces those spine tingling ivory chords from the original. Those sounds, however, are about the only effectively spooky device deployed during the film.
Sure, there are the standard scenes designed to make you jump (people turn and suddenly run into others who weren't there a moment ago, etc...), but we've seen such scenes so many times in the intervening twenty years that we can see them coming from out in the theater parking lot (I know, I've used that phrase before, but hey, if they can use the same scare techniques, I can repeat myself).
Beyond that there's the standard hunt and kills sequences where a bunch of teens (who are certainly not as cleverly developed as in the "Scream" movies) try to scramble away from the masked, knife wielding killer. Such scenes are effective, but only at the most basic, subconscious and primeval level. And while they may scare younger viewers or those with low tolerance levels for such material, the scenes only prove to be predictably violent, bloody and -- happening rather quickly -- exceedingly mundane.
While the original "Halloween" had somewhat of a spooky aura permeating the proceedings (beyond the hunt and hide tactics), little of that can be found here. Everything is cut and dry (or in this case, cut and bloody wet) and, as in many horror films, often laughably bad.
When the film intentionally tries to be funny or clever like the new horror film benchmark, "Scream," its efforts are rather lame. It copies those films by killing off a celebrity in the opening scene ("3rd Rock From the Sun's" Joseph Gordon-Levitt) that's neither clever nor scary, and in another includes some footage from the first "Scream" movie on TV (obviously returning the favor that film paid to the original "Halloween"). The scenes with the most potential, however -- involving actress Janet Leigh -- fall short. She, of course, was the victim of the famous shower scene in "Psycho" and is the real life mother of Jamie Lee Curtis, but Steve Miner misses the opportunity for some clever "fun" by not having them interact more than they do.
While she does mention that the shower drains in the girls' showers are clogged and that she's had her share of bad things happen to her (I'd say!), Miner could have done so much more with this material. I kept waiting for either of them to be checking out the clogged shower drains when the other suddenly whips open the shower curtain, or something similar in that "vein."
Of course the rest of the film doesn't show much imagination, so my desire for such witty moments was obviously a mute point. As in many horror films, the characters appear in reside in "Stupidville" and do things -- like the little horror lemmings they are -- that everyone knows they shouldn't. And for those wondering about the title and what it's got to do with water (the H20 part), it simply stands for "Halloween Twenty" (for the twentieth anniversary of the first film).
Returning to the role that turned her into a scream star (and later one of the regular Hollywood variety with films such as "Trading Places" and "A Fish Called Wanda"), Jamie Lee Curtis does the best with what she's been given, but unfortunately that's not very much. The film works very hard at establishing her as still being traumatized from those earlier events (as should be expected), but not much comes from this other then us witnessing her seeing visions of Myers.
Beyond Leigh in her mostly cameo appearances, the rest of the cast is simply fodder for the meat grinder to come. Adam Arkin (TV's "Chicago Hope") is wasted in his small role, while Miner tries to give rap artist, turned actor, LL Cool J some funny material, but it's pretty lame. The quartet of teens who stick around on Halloween night are about as bland as they come and easily could have been lifted from any number of other slasher films, although newcomer Josh Hartnett tries to get more out of his character than he's been given.
Regarding Michael Myers, he's like the Energizer bunny that just keeps going and going no matter what you do to him. That, and the fact that he's a faceless, emotionless "monster" makes him extremely two-dimensional and consequently, not as scary as he should be. He's the boogeyman who's lost his "boogie."
In fact, that pretty much sums up the film. For such a short movie, it burns up an awful lot of time providing exposition when -- this being the 7th installment -- we're quite certain about what's going to happen. A bunch of people are going to be chased and killed. Big deal. Been there, done that.
Even going back to John Carpenter's early horror work, I always thought "The Fog" was much more frightening than even the original "Halloween" because it added a heavy layer of supernatural qualities to the work. A deranged killer on the loose can be exciting ("Silence of the Lambs"), but if there's nothing behind the mask other than a short-circuited brain, one quickly tires of the hunt, chase and slay scenes.
Not particularly frightening -- unless you're very young or have a low threshold for horror -- and certainly not very imaginative -- unless you consider some bizarre and unexplained character motivation at the end -- the only thing scary about this film is that it ever got released in the theaters. Looking to make a quick buck without much effort, "Halloween: H20" is a big disappointment. We give it a 2 out of 10.
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