# Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later (1998)

### reviewed by
Matthew Brissette

There are more classic lines in horror movies than in any other genre. "I'll be right back , don't start without me!" comes to mind. Or how about "Everybody stay calm!" and "Is somebody in there?" Classic lines of dialogue , but the the award for best line ever in a horror movie simply must go to Adam Arkin for his: "That's horrible! Take off your clothes."

Unfortunately , that little tibbit from Halloween : H20 is the only thing you'll remember about this movie years from now. Before going any further I have to get this off my chest , mostly because it's one of the few good things I have to say about H20 : if you can stand a full hour of bad acting , half a dozen false alarms , several cheap "it was just a cat , dog , bird , man , girl , car , bell , phone , door , window , glass...etc etc..." moments...then you can look foward to a thirty minute long cat and mouse chase between Laurie Strode and Mike Myers. Is it worth that long a wait? Yes. Barely.

H20's final half hour contains more truly scary scenes than during the entire length of Scream 2. No , that's not quite right : H20's final half hour contains more truly CREEPY scenes. There are no jump out of your seat scares but you will feel the hairs on the back of your neck rise up. Micheal is more frightening than he as been in years , this is definately not a guy you would want coming after you. Fans of the horror genre , I include myself in that clique , will get a good vibe from seing Jamie Lee Curtis once again in the genre that made her famous.

Luckily , she manages to hold the movie together for all the other actors. The actor playing her son does a decent enough job , nothing spectacular but at least I found him less annoying than the other teens. This brings up an important question : why is it that psycho killers always go after teens? As a teen myself , I find that pretty annoying. Why should they always pick on us?!

Once , just once , I'd like to see ol' Jason or Michael go wacko in a retirement home or one of those places in florida where old guys and gals go. Stop picking on us! Anyway , it's not really that much of a problem since you will want most of these teens dead anyway. People often complain that horror movie teens are way too dumb...that's the point! That way you don't feel too bad when they get chopped to pieces.

    However , the gal I really wanted dead gets to live at the end of the
    movie.
    Darn.

I'm speaking of Michelle Williams , of course. Will somebody tell me what's wrong with her cheeks? ( No , not those cheeks you perverts...) She looks like she swallowed a pair of balloons! And what's up with those eyebrows anyway? Yuck. Anyway , she is one of those Dawson's Creek kids. That should tell you enough about her acting.

Adding to the babe factor , an important factor in any good scary movie , is Jodi Lyn O'Keefe. I wanted to hate her but her character gets to die during H20's scariest scene , an exciting busboy chase , so she gets brownie points for dying in a cool way. Boy , I bet Nash is gonna drive the cuda right up Michael's butt when he hears what he did to Cassidy.

( If you don't get that one then you must not watch Nash Bridges. So don't think about it too much. Moving on...)

Adam Arkin is wasted in a thankless role , maybe he took the role because he wanted the chance to have Jamie Lee Curtis feed him some candy. ( You'll know it when you see it. ) LL Cool J provides a little comic relief , usually this type of character gets to die in some heroic way in horror movies. In H20? Ever hear of friendly fire?

H20's biggest weakness is it's lack of any real surprise and several plot holes. Of course the mother and her child don't get killed , children under the age of ten never get killed. See any previous Halloween or Friday The 13th. Of course Jamie Lee does not hide in the closet , that's why they showed us that flashback at the beginning of the movie.

Can somebody explain this to me : the producers asked us to forget any Halloween sequel after number 2 ( gladly! ) and told us that H20 is the only real sequel to Halloween 2. Here's my problem : in Halloween 2 , Doctor Loomis dies in a blaze along with Myers. Of course , Loomis was back in four-six with "serious burns" but 3 to 6 never happened according to the producers. Thus , since Loomis is in fact dead since number 2 , why does a police man in the doc's house , twenty years later , says that doc loomis died "a few years ago" and that he was living with a nurse?

How does it end , you ask? Badly. H20 does the unthinkable : it actually kills it's monster! No , no , no...for real this time! I doubt even ol' Mike Myers can repair a severed head. I actually felt bad for the guy. Sniff. Final analysis: I was fast feeling asleep near the end of the first house but my pulse was doing the rumba in my chest for the final confrontation.

Rating: Three and a half stars out of Six for the chance to hear that catchy theme one more time , a kick ass Jamie Lee Curtis , a thrilling conclusion , overwhelmingly bad acting by the supporting cast , one butt ugly blonde ( those eyebrows...those cheeks....ewwww....must...resist...urge to pop....her...cheeks...) and a "really big kitchen knife".

    Warning:
     The line "That's horrible. Take off your clothes." actually does appear
    during this movie.

                                    play safe and have a good time ,
                                                            mATTHEW

The review above was posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due to ASCII to HTML conversion.

Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews