Halloween H20: 20 years later
3 years after the enjoyable mess that was Halloween 6, on the 20th anniversary of the original film, Moustapha Akkad along with Dimension pictures and Kevin (scream) Williamson decided to give the almost totally broken franchise a new lease of life.
Not 2 years after part 6 crawled away screaming, hampered by a mess left by the previous director, Wes Craven had taken a script by Kevin Williamson called Scary movie (renamed SCREAM) and delivered a slasher picture that played the nostalgia card perfectly. Slasher movies, which at this point had gone past the point zombie cinema is slouching past now, were suddenly revived and all the studios were scrambling to put one out. Fortunately for Dimension they had one of the major ones under their belt, the only difficulty being 3-6 which left a whole bunch of troubles. Fortunately the idea that Williamson put forward, to forget that 3-6 had ever happened stuck. even better news Jamie lee curtis, whose character Laurie strode was supposed to be dead, agreed to come back and Steve Miner who already had some slasher experience under his belt agreed to direct and the project was good to go.
The film opens with Marion Chambers, the nurse from parts 1 + 2 coming home to discover a break in. she gets the boys next door (including an early role for Joseph Gordon Levitt) to check things out, all seems ok though Marion is disturbed to find the papers in her office have been rifled through and the details of the new identity of Laurie Strode are gone. Before she can raise the alarm Michael has returned and promptly kills both her and her bratty neighbours off before heading on a road trip to find his little sister.
Laurie meanwhile is teaching at a remote girls school, she lives there with her son, played by Josh Hartnett. It seems that Laurie has changed identities and is something off a mess. Her previous relationship (which I assume was with the creepy nurse love interest from part two Jimmy, who was all into romancing those attempted murder victims) was beset by drug and alcohol issues and she's pretty much a walking mess who is smothering her son from over-protectiveness. As most of the school is off on a trip, Laurie's son John along with her new BF played by Adam Arkin and her sons friends stay over at school. Before the partying can begin however Michael gate crashes the party and all hell breaks loose.
Considering the numerous production problems that H20 encountered, from Moustapha Akkad's tantrum at the suggestion of actually killing off Michael to the first score by John Ottman being abandoned as being too elaborate and unsuited to the material there were numerous issues with the film. The Myers mask was changed several times, from re-using one from part 6, to KNB designing one that then had to be re-shot to one being produced by Stan Winston studios. It's a happy miracle then that the final product actually works. Certainly ignoring 4-6 was a good idea from a narrative perspective. Its especially f**** up if you think of them actually happening, which means Laurie strode essentially faked her death and changed her identity leaving her first daughter a neurotic mess who almost kills a person before being abducted and forced to carry her uncles incest-baby through rape and then getting murdered. Even worse she doesn't see fit to let her new son John in on the fact he has a sister out there somewhere. But I digress, the film is well structured and suspenseful and actually gives more of a shit about the material than 5 or 6 ever did. There's no extravagant gore on display and a level of restraint is shown that the franchise has missed for years. Jamie lee curtis really delivers and the final act where she locks the gate and goes one on one with Michael in a bid to finally confront her neurosis is excellent. The film even manages to put in one final sting that draws a close to the franchise all together except....
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