Halloween H2O / Resurrection

 

 

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There are many pop culture icons for the masses to feed on these days,depending on ones bent.But there are three names,in more recent times,that rate high for those who like horror movies like I do.They would be,in no particular order,Freddie Kreuger(my personal fave),Jason Vorhees and the "star" of these two movies,Michael Myers.The original Halloween created a sensation back in the day,co-created and brought to the screen by famous director John Carpenter.This DVD brings us the 7th and 8th installments in the franchise and hearkens back to the first three movie storylines and beginnings(the 4th-6th movies are not considered true off springs of those that came before).
The first movie we have is H2O-20 Years later,aka Halloween 7-The Revenge of Laurie Strode(released Aug/98).The movie stars Jamie Lee Curtis who reprises her role as Laurie Strode,the only one to survive her brothers original terrible rampage.This is 20 years on and she is a single mother with a teenage son John(Josh Hartnett).She is a teacher at a private school(Hillcrest Academy-the same name given funny enough to an institution in the original "Invaders"TV program that was being used by aliens)and though she is far away from her childhood home,she is still haunted by the traumatic events of years earlier.It is now October 31st and she is again,for the umpteenth time,stressed out as the day wears on;and she has every right to be.Her brother Michael has indeed tracked her down and is intent on her death.Things start to move after all the students but four,two girls and two boys(her son included),go off on a field trip.Michael starts his rampage but her sister isn't giving in with terror as she did before.She starts to fight back and eventually she manages to push Michael off a balcony,with two embedded knives,and down into the cafeteria.The police and coroners office come to clean things up and take him away.However Laurie knows he isn't dead and commandeers the meat wagon with Michael inside.As he sits up and starts his inevitable approach she drives the vehicle off the road and down a very steep embankment.She is thrown clear while Michael is pinned by the vehicle against a thick fallen tree branch.He reaches out for her but raising an axe she delivers the coup de gras,decapitating her brother.
This film does a nice job throughout of building the tension at just the right moments and Jamie Lee is a delight back in her role as Laurie;it is as if she never left it.This is Josh Hartnetts first major role and rapper LL Cool J is on hand as a security guard.Watch for Jamie Lee's real life mom,legendary Janet Lee,in one of her very last roles ever,as Jamie's secretary.I give it four stars.
The second film is the 8th installment,Halloween-Resurrection,aka Halloween-The Homecoming(released July /02).This film starts out where the last one left off.Laurie(Jamie Lee)has been in a psychiatric facility for some time.From the dialogue of two attending nurses we learn that Laurie did not kill her brother.It seems in the last film the man who was putting Michael into a body bag was incapacitated by the maniac and put into the bag himself;so the man she decapitated was an innocent man! Laurie has been given sedatives over the years but has never taken them as she lays in wait for her brother to appear,and now he does.Within the first 20 minutes of this film Laurie has her last close encounter with her brother.She lays a trap and has her brother dangling upside down over the rooftop held by a rope.As she starts to cut it she makes the mistake of trying to check to see whether it is indeed her brother under the mask.The rope breaks,he falls and pulls her down too.In his clutches he fatally stabs his sister,sending her to the ground and her death.
The scene switches to a high school in the hometown of Laurie and Michael.It seems a local reality internet show host(rapper Busta Rhymes)is recruiting students to spend time inside the home of Michael Myers.He gets his cadre and the group enters the home which has been rigged throughout to scare the group at appropriate times.However the real gets mixed up with the unreal as un beknownst to all,Michael has been living underneath his home in a section of sewer which enables him to come and go into his home as he pleases.It is of course Halloween but as the saying "curiosity killed the cat" goes,so does Michael;as he kills MOST of the cats present,one by one.What saves the two lone survivors in all this(the show's creator(Rhymes)and a female participant) is the females' boyfriend who has been watching all along on a computer.He manages to send messages on a blackberry to her which tells her where Michael is at various times.Michael and the show producer duke it out a couple of times;the last being in the house garage where the show was being produced and sent out from.Michael apparently dies in a fire there.However in the morgue as a coroner is unzipping the bag and starting to examine him,his eyes opens,film cuts to black.
While Jamie Lee is on screen in the first 20 minutes,the film is full of excitement and tension.Her final death comes as a kind of shock we don't expect.This whole sequence could have been added on to the first one quite easily,but then we wouldn't have gotten an 8th installment;or would we? The film slows quite a bit as the students stumble their way around the"empty" house and some succumb to their teenage flaring "hormones";a seeming prerequisite in such movies.There are a few nail biting moments but the tension is not properly maintained when it is needed as in "H2O" and it devolves into the usual slasher,blood and guts movies.The movie turns out to be just an average entry in the series.I give it just three stars.
Both movies have been transferred nicely to DVD,both are on ONE disc(no two sided demon to worry about) and they are in their original a/r of 2:35:1.There are NO special features whatsoever.
However considering the nice price of this film duo these two are worth grabbing,if not for H2O alone.Recommended.

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