Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) has been incarcerated in a mental hospital for the past three years after cutting a man's head off following a night of violence. This was because her serial killer brother, Michael Myers (Brad Loree), returned to confront her that evening, and she thought she had finally got the better of him and ended his reign of terror with the decapitation, but it turned out Michael had fooled her and swapped places with one of the paramedics, and it was he who Laurie killed. Now she sits alone in her room, never speaking, knowing that Michael is out there...
Don't get too used to spending time with Laurie, however, as she's only in the first ten minutes as Curtis asked to make this appearance as her most famous character her last. What Halloween Resurrection is really about happened when the filmmakers, seeing how much money the previous film made, decided to carry on regardless of the pretty final climax to that effort, and in the process discovered this newfangled thing called the internet. They also discovered a tiny budget phenomenon called The Blair Witch Project, and opted to combine the two sensations into one plot for their villain to wander about in.
Therefore Michael's old house in Haddonfield became the location for yet another turn of the millennium fad, and that was reality television, except this was over the net and not broadcast to the nation's TV sets. So a group of students are assembled by a company snappily called Dangertainment and let loose in the house, donning small cameras to go along with the others set up in every room, fully expecting at least some kind of media career to result. But our final girl, Sara (Bianca Kajlich), is a more sensitive type who is not sure she wants to get involved, and is only there because her best friend Jen (Battlestar Galactica's Katee Sackhoff) is so insistent, thus marking Sara out as modest and most likely to survive.
Frankly, the strong whiff of the cash-in pervades every frame which has led this last of the run sequels before the reboot to enjoy a terrible reputation amongst fans. However, if you can get past the fact that it looked so dated within five years of its release when you consider its media obsessions, and also admit that it's a very silly film, then it is possible to appreciate this Halloween as almost a spoof. Much of this is down to the unlikely casting of Busta Rhymes as the businessman behind the broadcast, not the most obvious choice, and yet more indication that the producers thought that hiring a rapper would bring in that all important youth audience, but he is quite funny.
Where else would you get to hear Busta goading Michael Myers with a hearty "Trick or treat, muthafucka!"? Whether you'd want to is another matter, but nevertheless it seems the scriptwriters were respectful of the series mythology what with all those references to the previous movies, it's just that the catchpenny framing leaves the production looking ridiculous. With Sara's internet pal Myles (Ryan Merriman) watching from a party, there's plenty of opportunity for those Blair Witch-style grainy images which in this case completely fail to make any of it remotely authentic-looking. In the meantime, the characters in the house are terrorised by Mike, who they think is part of the show at first, which might go some way to explaining the illogical, all in the service of the next setpiece behaviour that we're treated to here. Granted, you have to have a high tolerance for cheese, but Halloween Resurrection amused, if more because of its shamelessness than in spite of it. Music by Danny Lux.
Display comments