Halloween H20: 20 Years Later - Film Review
Halloween H20: 20 Years Later is directed by Steve Miner and stars Jamie Lee Curtis, Adam Arkin, Michelle Williams, Josh Hartnett, LL Cool J, and Joeseph Gordon-Levitt.
Plot
20 years after Michael Myers' massacre in Haddonfield. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) faked her own death and traveled to California and took on the name Keri Tate. Michael finds out of Laurie's new identity and travels to California to kill his sister.
Review
This is the last good Halloween movie we've ever gotten, hopefully that changes with the new movie.
This movie makes the Thorn trilogy non-canon, which includes Halloween 4, the only good film in that trilogy, but I guess that's a small price to pay.
This is when they started bringing rappers into the Halloween series, they had LL Cool J in this and Busta Rhymes in Resurrection and then they stopped, for good reason. LL Cool J was good in this though.
This is where the series should've ended, but no, they had to make a sequel, but I'll talk about that in the next review.
This film is probably the shortest in the series, so this will probably be a short review because of that. That and I actually have things to do today.
So this movie is set 20 years after Halloween, hence the name H20, so they should call the new one H40.
One negative I have is that it relies on fake jumpscares, like the one where Laurie sees Michael walking toward her, closing her eyes, he's still there, closes them again, and it's just her boyfriend.
Also, for a film that's not even 90 minutes, it does take a while for it to get going, but it really starts to pick up when Michael gets to the school.
Also, Laurie's son John (Josh Hartnett) is supposed to go on a camping trip, but Laurie doesn't want him out of her sight on Halloween, but she then gives him a permission slip to go, but he planned dinner there with his girlfriend that night, so why was he asking to go in the beginning?
I guess they couldn't decide on a mask for Michael, as there's more than one mask in the movie, and one of them is CGI and it looks awful.
It's got some really good kills in the series, like when Michael stabs a girl in the leg, and then he drops the dumbwaiter on it, and she pretty much says what the audience is thinking. Also, seeing that Michael hung her and the light bulb shining through her multiple stab wounds is awesome.
This movie also has a really good opening, as the nurse from the original Halloween shows up, and her house is broken into and Joseph Gordon-Levitt goes to check it out and tells her that her office was messed up, and we see that Michael had stolen the file she had on Laurie.
And then she dies, and so does Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and his friend.
I love how they show that Michael probably doesn't have gas money, so he just steals another car.
It is a nice moment when Michael reaches his hand out to Laurie, and she does the same, but cuts his head off.
The end of the movie pretty much makes it easy to forgive the flaws earlier in the movie. When Laurie is sure that her son is safe, she goes after Michael with a fire ax and beats him with it. It's just awesome to see Michael take such a beating from his sister after 20 years. Also, LL Cool J survives! When they're about to load Michael's body into a van, Laurie steals it, slams on the brakes, sending Michael flying out the window, and then pins him to a tree. They have an emotional moment, then she kills him and it's awesome
This should've ended the series.
Let's talk about the characters, Jamie Lee Curtis is back as Laurie and she's great. It turns out after the events of Hallween II, she faked her death, moved to California, changed her name to Keri Tate, and works at a private school. That doesn't mean she doesn't think about that night though, as she's still traumatized. This is the first in the series where Laurie is truly hardcore and it's awesome.
Adam Arkin plays Laurie's therapist boyfriend who almost kills LL Cool J and is then killed by Michael, that's called karma.
LL Cool J is pretty good as the security guard, yeah.
Josh Hartnett is ok, so is his girlfriend, played by Michelle Williams, ok.
And everyone else is fine too.
Overall, this is a great sequel to Halloween, I mean it's not as good as Halloween or Halloween II, but I like it a bit more than Halloween 4.
I'm going to give Halloween H20: 20 Years Later a 9/10.
Come back tomorrow for a review of Halloween: Resurrection.
Previous review - Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers
Next review - Halloween: Resurrection
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