Halloween: Resurrection (2002) Dimension/Horror RT: 89 minutes Rated R (graphic violence, language, brief sexual content, drug use) Director: Rick Rosenthal Screenplay: Larry Brand and Sean Hood Music: Danny Lux Cinematography: David Geddes Release date: July 12, 2002 (US) Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis, Busta Rhymes, Brad Loree, Bianca Kajlich, Sean Patrick Thomas, Daisy McCrackin, Katee Sackhoff, Luke Kirby, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Ryan Merriman, Tyra Banks, Billy Kay, Gus Lynch, Lorena Gale, Marisa Rudiak, Brent Chapman. Box Office: $30.3M (US)/$37.6M (World) Body Count: 10
Rating: *
Halloween: Resurrection, the final installment of the original series, is a lackluster entry that attempts to bring the legend of Michael Myers into the 21st century. The infamous boogeyman is now the subject of a reality show that’s going to be broadcast on the Internet on Halloween night. Right off the bat, that ruins it for me. Reality TV is the absolute lowest form of entertainment.
Before I get to that, I’d like to mention the first 15 minutes of Halloween: Resurrection is actually fairly decent. It would have been a decent premise upon which to build the movie. It opens in a psychiatric hospital where Laurie Strode (Curtis) has been committed after beheading the paramedic she thought was Michael Myers (it’s a long story) at the end of H20. She has the hospital staff believing she’s in a catatonic state. The truth is she hasn’t been swallowing her meds. She’s waiting for big brother Michael Myers to find her so they can finish their business with one another. Sure enough, he shows up and they engage in one last grudge match that ends when Laurie falls to her death (with a knife wound to the gut) from the roof of the hospital building, telling Michael that she’ll see him in hell.
Although it would have been a retread of Halloween II (also directed by Rosenthal), it still would have been more interesting than the one we have before us. Once Laurie is dead and gone, the scene switches back to Haddonfield where entertainment entrepreneur Freddie (Rhymes, Shaft) is producing a reality show about a group of college students exploring the old Myers house looking for answers about what led him to kill. They’re supposed to spend the entire night (Halloween night, of course) in the house outfitted with mini-cameras that record everything they see and do. It’s a typical assortment of young people- wanna-be celebrity Jen (Sackhoff, Battlestar Galactica), a good-looking, conceited horndog Bill (Nicholas, American Pie), a tough guy music major Jim (Kirby, Lost and Delirious) and the heroine of the movie Sara (Kajlich, Bring It On) whose admirer Myles (Merriman, Final Destination 3) is watching the broadcast on the Internet during a wild Halloween party. Naturally, there’s an uninvited and unexpected occupant in the Myers house (guess who?) killing the students as they explore the abandoned house. Ho-hum! It’s a lame idea that becomes irritating as the movie progresses.
For one thing, I don’t like reality television. The whole idea makes no sense. We turn on the TV to be entertained, to escape from our own reality. Why should we subject to somebody else’s “reality”? Halloween: Resurrection turns the plot into a show like Survivor or Big Brother. One character even says that somebody should be voted off the island. Also, this movie employs found footage (as in The Blair Witch Project), a filmmaking technique I loathe. These two things together negate it being a slasher movie, something I love. Additionally, the characters are extremely uninteresting. None of them really stand out; therefore, it doesn’t really matter who lives or dies. It’s simply a matter of killing time before the movie reaches the 90 minute mark.
There are so many things are wrong with Halloween: Resurrection, it’s difficult to know where to start. For one thing, Freddie is an annoying and unlikable person. He’s an opportunist who’s taking advantage of a small town’s misery by trying to make a fortune from exploiting a mass murderer. He and his partner Nora (Banks, Coyote Ugly) are completely ghetto; they don’t realize what’s really going on in the house until it’s too late. Even then, they stupidly believe the participants’ cameras are just malfunctioning. Adding to the confusion, Freddie dons a Michael Myers mask and enters the house to scare the participants. In one scene, Freddie-as-Michael yells at the real Michael Myers to stay out of his spotlight, something the killer actually listens to as he walks away from fake Michael.
Meanwhile, the real Michael Myers is killing off the students while Myles tries to help Sara, who doesn’t know he’s actually a high school freshman, by sending her texts on her cell phone. Who would have thought the old Myers house actually has good cell phone reception? It all culminates in the expected conclusion where Michael might not be dead even though he was in the house when it burned to the ground. I’m not providing a plot spoiler here; I’m merely affirming the expected outcome of a movie that is seriously lacking in creativity and/or originality.
Who cares about the performances? Even though there are some known actors here, I suspect they’re just collecting a paycheck and/or remaining on the celebrity radar. For example, Thomas Ian Nicholas hasn’t found much work outside of the American Pie franchise. It looks like he wants to do something outside of his comfort zone in the hopes that maybe it will lead to more acting gigs. It’s an early performance for Katee Sackhoff who would later show her mettle in TV series like Battlestar Galactica and 24. She may not be the most talented actress, but she is most certainly attractive and sexy. Rapper Rhymes and supermodel Banks do little more than oversee the action aside from his taking an active role in the goings-on.
The only actor who brings any life to the proceedings is Curtis. Like I said, it would have been more interesting to build the movie around her character and her incarceration at the mental institution. It might have brought the series full circle. However, I get the impression that Curtis wanted to be done with this character hence the quick exit. Who can blame her?
The storyline of Halloween: Resurrection is bad enough, but director Rosenthal doesn’t do anything interesting with it. This is the same director who made a decent first follow-up to the 1978 classic. He can’t do anything remotely interesting with the material here. It’s a really bad script that tries to capitalize on the success of reality television, the Internet and The Blair Witch Project (1999). None of these things lend themselves successfully to a Halloween movie. It quickly becomes an exercise in futility.
The nicest thing I can say about Halloween: Resurrection is that it’s marginally better than Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, but that’s tantamount to saying that life in prison without the possibility of parole is preferable to the death penalty. Either way, you’re completely screwed. One can only hope that somebody comes up with a script that successfully wraps up this franchise. In the meantime, I think it’s time to put down Michael Myers. He’s had his 15 minutes. His time on the big screen is over; there’s no story left to tell. Now it’s time to pass the torch to a new boogeyman whoever that may be*.
I originally wrote this review in 2011, seven years before David Gordon Green resurrected Michael Myers with another reboot of the series. It goes without saying it’s better than this abomination.
* = Why, it’s Art the Clown of the Terrifier movies, of course!
