Halloween: Resurrection (2002)

The only controversy that really surrounds Halloween: Resurrection is whether it is the worst or second worst movie in the franchise. Occasionally, a brave soul will come out of the woodwork and admit that they “kind of” liked it, but otherwise it’s greeted with absolute disdain from the fans.  I admit, while I find the movie terrible, I am compelled to watch it every now and again, but more on that later. The main reason for the hate is that it completely negates  the ending to the previous movie, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later –which saw Laurie Strode beheading Michael Myers with an axe. Halloween: Resurrection retcons the ending of the previous film, so that instead of beheading Michael Myers, Laurie Strodie mistaken decapitated a paramedic wearing the Michael Myers mask – he pulled the old switcheroo on Laurie. Laurie, haunted by the guilt of killing an innocent man, spends the next few years in a psychiatric hospital, convinced that Michael will come for her.  When audiences heard this explanation, they let out a collective groan. It is revealed that Michael crushed the man’s larynx, so he couldn’t cry out for help.  Okay, but then, why didn’t he just take off the mask?  A policeman does so later on without any effort – so why couldn’t he?  Granted, the filmmakers needed to find away to bring Michael Myers back, but this is so stupid that it is completely insulting.  

The only thing more cringe worthy is the unceremonious death of Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis).  Laurie successfully snares Michael in a trap and is about to drop him to his death, when doubt begins to creep into her mind – she has to make sure that this is the right man.  She’s about to remove the mask, when Michael stabs her in the back, and then drops her to her death off the hospital roof.  Pretty pathetic!  This scene also undermines Laurie’s character arc in Halloween H20; in that movie Laurie has spent her adult life running away from her past – she fakes her death in car accident, relocates to Northern California, and changes her name to Keri Tate. After Michael has found her, and has killed a few people, Laurie chooses to stay behind and face him head on; her character becomes stronger as the movie progresses and she emerges victorious at the end.  Of course, that was until the filmmakers of Halloween: Resurrection said, “Too hell with Laurie’s character arc! Let’s have her institutionalized at the beginning!”  It was all a ruse!  

Oddly enough, the opening scene is rather superfluous to the actual movie itself; it exists solely to establish that Michael is still alive (and because Jamie Lee Curtis was contractually obliged to appear in it).  The movie could have easily opened with Sara sitting in her college lecture and no one would have batted an eye. Sure, someone in the audience might have wondered how Michael is still alive, but the filmmakers could have easily bullshitted their way through it. After all, in Halloween 4, the filmmakers made no effort in explaining how Dr. Loomis survived the explosion in Halloween II, or, for that matter, how Michael not only survived the same explosion, but also got back his eye sight (Laurie shot out his eyes in that film). 

I mentioned before that I am compelled to watch Halloween: Resurrection every once in awhile and that’s because I can easily imagine the thought process of the (original) screen writer as he typed up his script: 

This isn’t going to be your standard Halloween movie – it’s going to be a scathing satire on reality TV, man. Even though it claims to be real, it is completely fake. Well, I’m going to turn that on its head, dude. The participants are going to be on a fake reality show, only to find that the horror is real. Everything is staged, except the murder. Oh, the irony! 

Then, the screenwriter saw the actual movie and was horrified by what director Rick Rosenthal did with his concept.  The movie actually has an intriguing premise – six college students win a competition to appear on an internet reality show in which they will spend the night searching Michael Myer’s childhood home for clues that might explain homicidal tendencies. They are all equipped with head cameras and there are cameras stationed throughout the house as well; this gives the viewers the option of which point of view they want to follow.  I’ll give Halloween: Resurrection this – it accurately predicted the supernatural reality show; it was released two years before Syfy launched the TV show Ghost Hunters. Like that show, and many copycats, the characters spend most of the time scaring the living shit out of each other.  It turns out that many of the “clues” in the house have been planted by the director, Freddie Harris (Busta Rhymes), who also dresses up as Michael Myers at one point to scare the contestants.  Of course, everyone remains oblivious to the fact that the REAL Michael Myers is in the house until it is too late.  

What exactly went wrong? Well, despite the interesting premise, the movie doesn’t do anything interesting with it.  The only thing Rick Rosenthal can come up with is to cut to different camera angles; the point of view seems to shift every ten seconds. This, in theory, should ratchet up the tension, but it quickly becomes a distraction, not to mention redundant, and is simply irritating. Also, it’s amazing that, given the number of cameras in the house, Michael Myers is able to glide through the house undetected. It also interesting that not once, but twice in the movie, characters manage to look away from the TV monitors at just the right (wrong) time – at the psychiatric hospital, a security guard is called away from the monitor, which allows Michael to sneak in undetected. Later on, Michael kills a crew member, with the tripod of a camera, while Nora, Freddie’s producer, makes herself a Cappuccino.  She sings and shakes her booty to a song on the radio, while making her Cappuccino, meanwhile Michael is very slowly dragging the corpse out of the house. Simply amazing! It should be noted that Rick Rosenthal also directed Halloween II, where he was content in aping John Carpenter’s style. This is not a bad thing, considering that Halloween II directly picks up where the first one left off, so at least, visually, it is consistent with the first movie.  In Halloween: Resurrection, he seems to take many of his visual cues from The Blair Witch Project; he even references the most famous moment in that movie – the close up of the girl’s eyes and nose as she apologizes to the camera.  

Then there’s the characters, oh boy, the awful, awful characters. Let’s take a look, shall we?

Sara - The poor man’s Laurie Strode. She is a fairly pretty, but socially awkward girl.  She isn’t the worst leading lady, just forgettable. It’s hard to distinguish her from all other attractive, but bland attractive women that have dominated modern horror films; the movie is set in the Midwest, yet Sara looks like she’s wandered off the set of Dawson’s Creek. Sara is, supposedly, the movie’s protagonist, but too often she gets lost in the shuffle.  Hell, she even botches her one true heroic moment; she comes after Michael with a chainsaw, but gets it tangled up in wires hanging from the garage ceiling and it dies on her. Luckily, Freddie arrives in the nick of time to save her. 

Jen – Sara’s best friend and complete smart ass. She specializes in annoying the shit out of other people, which means, her time on earth is fairly limited.

Rudy – Sara’s other friend and gourmet enthusiast. He talks about food nonstop and his good for a few laughs, but that’s about it.

Bill – The most obnoxious character in the entire movie. It doesn't help that he is played by Rookie of the Year (and American Pie) star, Thomas Ian Nicholas. He is slightly nerdy, but, more importantly, a complete pervert. He constantly throws all sorts of stupid innuendos at Jen. Thankfully, he only has about ten minutes of actually screen time.

Jim – He is a horny musician with a morbid sense of humor. He spends most of his time trying to bed the attractive red head, Donna, and nearly succeeds. 

Donna – The flakiest psych major in movie history.  She spends the entire movie putting down Jim, but then, rather unexpectedly, throws herself at him in the next scene. There is literally no transition – one minute she finds him disgusting, then seconds later she wants to have sex with him. Hmmm….. I wonder if she’s going to survive the night. Her main function is to provide the gratuitous nudity (we get a brief flash of her breasts).  

Freddie – The flamboyant reality show director. He is a kung fu enthusiast and provides much of the comedy relief.  He utters the catchphrase, “Trick or treat, mother fucker!”  He is one of two characters that are given a character arc – he learns that it is wrong to sensationalize a serial killer like Michael Myers.

Nora –She has no real narrative purpose. She is just there.

Myles – Easily the best character in the entire movie. Myles is Sara’s online chat buddy; he never actually meets her and they only interact through online messaging. Though, in an alternate ending, he does show up and save Sara. In fact, it is better than the actual ending that was tacked on for the theatrical release. He is the other character that is given an arc - he goes from being a complete outsider to the life of the party (literally).  

The subplot involving Myles (his screen name is Deckard) may be the only part of the movie that actually works for me.  He is at a Halloween party, but separates himself from every one else so he can watch the broadcast, in a study room, on a big TV screen. As the movie progresses other party goers begin to trickle into the study room to watch the broadcast with him. When the bodies begin to pile up, the other party goers thinks it is all a hoax and laugh it off. Myles, on the other hand, believes the murders are real and even tries to contact the police.  When Sara is the only survivor left, she uses her Palm Pilot to contact Myles and helps navigate her through the house, using instant messaging.  It is the one moment where Sara actually displays common sense – using modern technology to her advantage. Though, I’m still confused as to why Myles needs to change the font every time he messages Sara. 

The movie lacks a proper foil for Michael Myers; Sara is too dull and Freddie is a living cartoon. Busta Rhymes is clearly having fun with the role, but he is just silly. Laurie Strode is killed off early on and, sadly, Donald Pleasence passed away in 1995, so there’s no Dr. Loomis to liven up the proceedings.  One of the few positives you can say about Halloween: Resurrection is that it makes you appreciate Donald Pleasence’s performance in the earlier entries.  Dr. Loomis was a unique character and really is what separated the Halloween series from all the other Slasher movies

The bland cast would be forgivable if Michael Myers was scary, but that is simply not the case. In the original Halloween, there was a childlike simplicity to Michael Myers – he viewed everything as one big game; he dresses up as a ghost to trick Lynda and constantly plays dead to fool Laurie. Here, he is just another superhuman psychopath that stumbles through the scenery, while butchering attractive people in gruesome ways.  The original Halloween was innovative, Halloween: Resurrection, other the hand, is pretty indistinguishable from all the other Slasher movies that were popping up in the early 2000s.  

Credits

Cast: Busta Rhymes(Freddie Harris),  Bianca Kajlich (Sara Moyer),  Jamie Lee Curtis (Laurie Strode), Brad Loree (Michael Myers), Ryan Merriman (Myles Barton), Sean Patrick Thomas (Rudy), Katee Sackhoff (Jen),  Luke Kirby (Jim), Daisy McCrackin (Donna), Thomas Ian Nicholas (Bill), Tyra Banks (Nora),  Billy Kay (Scott),  Gus Lynch (Harold), Dan Joffre (Willie), Haig Sutherland (Aron), Natassia Malthe (French Maid), Lorena Gale (Nurse Wells), Marisa Rudiak (Nurse Philips), Brent Chapman (Franklin), Kyla Labine (Teen Party Guy), Rick Rosenthal (Professor).

Director: Rick Rosenthal
Screenplay: Larry Brand, Sean Hood.
Running Time:  86 min.