I’ll get the compliments out of the way first, since there won’t be very many.  Ever since the birth of the horror/slasher movie sequels (which ironically, the original Halloween started), one of the challenges for writers and directors who bothered to put thought into it, was how to keep regenerating their heroes without reality taking too much of a hit.  Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees became simple, because they just made them superhuman monsters.  But Michael Myers has always seemed to retain a human side to him, well as much as possible in these kinds of films.  In the beginning of Halloween: Resurrection, we are given an explanation as to how Myers could have survived the end of Halloween: H20, 4 years ago.  Before I criticized, I went back and watched that film (which is much better than this one) and can now laud my kudos upon the makers.  The scenario presented is possible, maybe not plausible, but hey, Silence of The Lambs pulled it off, why can’t they.    In Halloween: Resurrection, director Rick Rosenthal tries to breathe new blood into things by mixing in the Internet and society’s fascination with reality and shock entertainment.   The end result rarely works, save an online chase scene involving web cams and palm pilots and a character who can quote serial killer stats like they were baseball cards.  But the majority of the film still falls victim to the typical horror movie ploys.  There are sex-starved teens, token and stereotypical characters and gruesome violence, all wrapped around a semi-interesting story.

This time around, Michael is going home.  It almost seems like they are trying to close everything off and give some sort of finality to it all.  You see, as I stated above, Michael survived his beheading via a little Silence of The Lambs bait and switch (watch the last movie as I did, it is possible).  He tracks down his sister who has now been institutionalized for the events of the previous movie.  From there, we are introduced to 3 young college students (re: victims) who are chosen to take part in an online Halloween stunt by an Internet promoter (Busta Rhymes) and his sultry business partner (Tyra Banks, who must have needed the money) One is a highly energetic, image conscious airhead, one is a moody, psychology major, and one is a cooking obsessed token black man.  They are paired together with a rebellious artist type, an oversexed male (Thomas Ian Nicholas who could easily have wandered in from his American Pie escapades) and a mysterious, gothic looking girl with an attitude. Did they miss any stereotypes? The proposition is this; they will spend Halloween night in the house where Myers killed his sister 24 years ago.  The house and the teens are rigged with cameras and the whole thing will be broadcast on the Internet.  This setup is mildly interesting at best, tapping into the public obsession with reality and shock entertainment.  Where the story goes from here, of course, is its downfall.  You see, the house isn’t empty, and the teens are going to get more than they bargained for.  

Rosenthal and company failed to inject the same creativity in their beginning, into the rest of the movie.  It becomes a series of revelations, bad decisions, supposed discoveries, and of course, the 8^th different way that people think they’ve gotten rid of Mr. Myers.  I think there may have been an interesting idea here, and the last film showed that the franchise is not completely dead.  Unfortunately though, the film resorts to the very tactics that have failed the predecessors, which it originally inspired.  None of the performances are memorable, few of the lines are insightful or funny, and of course the violence is too excessive and unnecessary.  Films like Scream and The Blair Witch Project have shown that scares, humor and thrills can come from natural occurrences, and sans a lot of hacking and gross-out antics.  Rosenthal didn’t pay attention to these films, and we become the victims for having to endure a good idea, cut to pieces by stupidity and gore.

Agree? Disagree, Questions? Comments?

Tell Me Here