Entries Comments


Movie Review: Halloween: Resurrection

hallres.jpg
Halloween: Resurrection (Dimension, 2002)
Directed by Rick Rosenthal
Written by Larry Brand and Sean Hood based on a story by Brand

Usually in my reviews, I use the first two or so paragraphs to give you a bit of a buildup without actually saying whether or not I like or hate the film. I even might go into the plot a little bit for a few more paragraphs before I offer up an opinion of any kind. However, I already stated in my review for Halloween II that this is the worst of the sequels, so since the cat is already out of the bag, let’s just get this over with. I REALLY FUCKING HATE THIS MOVIE!!!

Halloween: Resurrection is not only a bad movie compared to the other Halloween films. Halloween: Resurrection is a bad movie compared to other bad movies. When you’re watching a film, and the idea of watching some horseshit like Kangaroo Jack or Tank Girl sounds more appealing, then you know something isn’t right. And the sad thing is this is the fourth or maybe even fifth time I’ve watched the damn thing; don’t ask me why.

Some diehard fans of the series will defend the opening sequence of the film as being pretty good. Fuck that! It sucks from the beginning to the end like very few films have ever sucked before. We learn in the opening minutes that Michael Myers duped us in the last installment by taking out a medical tech’s larynx and putting the mask on him, so Laurie actually cut the head off of the wrong person. Laurie is now in a mental institution where Michael shows up three years later to kill her once and for all, and in the first of many very stupid scenes, Laurie hesitates when she has Michael literally hung and out to dry. He turns the situation around in his favor and kills her once and for all, proving yet again that no one can survive this series for long.

Curtis has said that she agreed to this small role in the film so the character could be done with. However, if she did the last film for the fans, then why would she come back to bastardize the ending of H20, which was the best part of the whole thing? And to top that, her death scene is done so poorly. After getting Michael hung from a rope and ready to drop him to his death, she decides to take his mask off to make sure she’s not making the same mistake. Seriously, honey, get a clue.

We also learn in this series of events that apparently Michael now has superhuman strength, which he displays by crashing through a concrete door. Michael also has picked up a little legal consult along the way as well because after killing Laurie he plants the knife in another mental patient’s room that has a fascination with serial killers. What? Why would Michael give two shits if they suspect him or not? I’m surprised we didn’t get another scene after this of him skipping down the hall and chuckling.

So, now that Laurie’s out of the picture, Michael has completed his saga, right? Oh, you’d be wrong. He returns to Haddonfield to find that his former home is being taken over on Halloween night for a live web broadcast with a bunch of reality star wannabe’s searching for clues to who Michael Myers really was and why he became a killer. The original title for this film was, and I shit you not, Halloween: Michaelmyers.com. However stupid that may sound, it is a much better title than the lame and overused Resurrection moniker.

The web broadcast is being done by a company called Dangertainment, which is run by Freddie Harris (Busta Rhymes). Freddie likes to talk in the third person and has a fascination with kung-fu flicks, and Busta disproves the theory that all rappers can act. His partner Nora is played by Tyra Banks, who further proves the theory that no models can act.

The reality show stars are a ragtag group of slasher film stereotypes, but calling them that gives a bad name to better stereotypes in other films. It is kind of fun to see cutie Katie Sackhoff (Battlestar Galatica and Bionic Woman) in an early role. Our survivor girl, Sara (Bianca Kajlich from Rules of Engagement), at one point seems to have some kind of psychic connection with Michael, but that plot line is dismissed as quickly as it is introduced.

Early on into the web broadcast, the stars realize that Freddie is setting them up. He has planted various props like a highchair with handcuffs attached to it to amp up the scare factor. And in possibly the dumbest scene, he dresses up like Michael Myers and confronts the real Michael Myers. Freddie thinks this is one of his cameramen trying to rain on his parade, so he scolds him profusely, and Michael actually turns around and walks away. What the fuck?

Another subplot involves Nora’s high school web buddy, who is at a costume party watching the event on the web. When he realizes that Nora is in real trouble, they start texting each other back and forth, so he can try and help her escape. No one will be sitting during the exciting texting sequences.

The funniest thing about the whole retarded mess of a film though is the Myers’ house itself. In the first film it looks like a fairly normal sized house on the outside and even what they show you from the interior. It’s two stories, probably has three bedrooms, maybe four. In Resurrection we find out it also has an attic that appears to have multiple rooms in it, and even a freaking dungeon. A dungeon. I tell you, I really couldn’t make this shit up if I tried.

Rick Rosenthal returns to the directing chair, he also directed Part II, and he’s got to take some of the blame here. He showed in his first outing of the series that he could at least maintain some of the atmosphere that Carpenter created, but not here. There is nothing in this film that even remotely resembles the Halloween world with the exception of a guy by the name of Michael Myers running around.

The finale is ludicrous with Busta Rhymes karate chopping Michael, who all of a sudden forgot how to fight back and also lost all of his superhuman strength. If he could bust through a concrete structure, then how is Busta still standing after a few punches to the face? There’s another fire as well, which Rosenthal did a much better job with in the finale of Halloween II. Michael even cowers away from the fire, like all of a sudden the writers decided to throw in a fear of flames, but the juvenile script doesn’t even attempt to set this nuance up for us. Go figure.

There are bad films, and then there is Halloween: Resurrection, a film that has absolutely nothing resembling a successful sequence in its entire 90-minute runtime. Seriously, there is nothing here to recommend. It’s not scary, the story isn’t interesting, the actors all give awful performances, and even Michael is a shell of his former self. Awful, I tell you, truly awful.

Follows: Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later

Next: Halloween (2007) (review by The Projectionist) 

samloomis1.jpg

Sam Loomis

Comments

Comment from The Projectionist
Time: October 24, 2007, 1:09 pm

That seems to be a recurring thing with the latter Halloween films; introducing a psychic connection and then going nowhere. It began with Halloween 4 and all the studio and creative changes lost a lot of continuity. I think I hated this more than Halloween III. Those two are definitely the most ridiculous of the series, but I guess you can have more fun with the third installment than this one.

Comment from Sam Loomis
Time: October 24, 2007, 5:08 pm

Until I watched all these back to back, I had never realized the “Psychic Connection” story thread throughout the latter films. If I had to rank them; the Original would obviously be 1st and then 2)Halloween 4, 3) Halloween II, 4) Halloween III, 5) Halloween 5, 6) Halloween H20, 7)Halloween:Curse of MM,8) Halloween (2007), 9) Halloween: Resurrection. But understand, Part 4 is a distant second from the original, and the only reason I stick the remake ahead of “Resurrection” is because the remake didn’t have Busta Rhymes doing karate. So, not a whole lot seperating these babies.

I think the lesson I’ve learned is that really watching past the original can just lead to mental illness. I’m going back to sit in my corner and draw stick figures with afros and knives now. Good bye.

Write a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.