H20 (Halloween: 20 Years Later) - Movie Review

H20 which stands for Halloween: 20 Years Later was another attempt at jumpstarting the horror franchise as the audience and fans were asked to dismiss Halloweens 4, 5, and 6 and to think of this film as the official continuation of the story.


Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis; True Lies, Halloween) has moved away from Haddonfield, Illinois to a small city in Northern California and has changed her name to Keri Tate. She is now the headmistress of a prominent private school and suffers from post traumatic stress disorder caused by the tragic events from two decades ago. She still sees Michael around every corner, in every window reflection.

With her at the school is her seventeen-year old rebellious son, John (Josh Hartnett; The Faculty, 30 Days of Night). John knows all about his uncle Michael, and what he did to his mother and their family.

It is Halloween night in California, and the students of the school are being transported to a party being held at Yosemite that evening. Laurie is looking forward to a romantic evening alone with her love interest and school staff member Will Brennan (Adam Arkin; Sons of Anarchy). That night she tells Will her secret, and in doing so is stricken with a gruesome epiphany. John is seventeen-years-old, the same age she was when Michael escaped the asylum and hunted her, killing her friends. Laurie feels the chill within her bones once again and needs to walk the school grounds herself, armed with a revolver. While inspecting the school she discovers that John, his girlfriend, and some of their friends ditched the trip to Yosemite so they could have the school to themselves. They picked the wrong night to stay in. Michael Myers has found them, and he still wants Laurie dead.

H20 provides a few decent scares but nothing to jump out of the chair for. Most of the fright tactics used are intentionally overblown and provide no real mystery or suspense, not until Myers starts stalking his prey in the school’s hallways. The story was conceived by Kevin Williamson of Scream fame and his underling Robert Zappia, and was written by Williamson’s underlings Zappia and Matt Greenberg. They injected Scream-flavored, 90’s teeny bopper lacquer all over the movie and I really couldn’t wait until the killings started. Teenagers are such intolerable menaces and Michael had the right idea. Steve Miner (Lake Placid) directed it; he’s another one of Kevin Williamson’s go to directors, mostly for television.

The beginning was a nice treat. It brought back Nancy Stephens as Nurse Chambers from the original Halloween, and there is also a cameo by Jamie Lee Curtis’ mother – Janet Leigh whom people know best from the infamous shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. H20 is actually the second film that the two have appeared briefly together in. They also appeared in one of John Carpenter’s other creations – The Fog.

Chris Durand, a professional stuntman, has the honor of playing Michael Myers in this version. He seemed stiff, his movements were overly mechanical; no fluidity at all, and in the quiet moments – those parts when the mere blink of an eye can mean as much as a shout, or a head nod can be as creepy as a slithering hand, Durand overdoes it, particularly when Michael and Laurie meet eye to eye for the first time in the movie, but further along into the action he seems to settle into the role. He even seemed tiny, which was interesting because it did make Myers seem more human in a way, but Durand’s congealed movements didn’t help the situation.

The largest piece missing was Donald Pleasance as Dr. Loomis. Sadly, he had passed away before the movie began to get off the ground. The character is acknowledged in a voiceover by Tom Kane, unfortunately it is a lousy impersonation of Pleasance.

With the original Halloween and the other horror films she frequently made in the 80’s, Jamie Lee Curtis became the original Scream Queen, but in H20 the Scream Queen was more like a warrior and I enjoyed seeing her go toe to toe with her psychotic brother. H20 is worth at least one watch. Depending on how die-hard of a Halloween fan someone is, I think most of them will enjoy it more than I did while others can probably live without it all together. There was too much bubble gum in this version for me, Michael Myers didn’t feel threatening, but it made Laurie’s character relevant again and that’s really why I still bother with it. Besides, there are worse things out there – there’s still Halloween: Resurrection.