by Mike Schoonveld:
Here at DarkMedia, 35 Years of HALLOWEEN has become more than just interviews and articles. It’s looking back at the most beloved franchise in horror. Sure, its had its ups and downs, but one thing has remained true: You Can’t Kill the Boogeyman.
In the coming months, starting today, we look at the films and how they’ve stood up in the years since their release. Today we take a look back at Halloween: Resurrection.
The black sheep of the family, the bad seed, the ‘nail in the coffin’ as people would call it. The list of fan reactions goes on and on. And, as time goes on, the hate seems to grow. I don’t think any horror sequel has been so dismissed as Halloween: Resurrection has.
After the success of Halloween: H20, the franchise received another entry with Halloween: Resurrection. Rick Rosenthal, director of Halloween II, which is still the best sequel in the franchise, is back. Unfortunately, he can’t do much justice for the series this time around and the film falls flat.
I wanted to like this film, going into it with high hopes, especially with Rosenthal and Jamie Lee Curtis back. Although Curtis was contractually obligated as a stipulation agreement when she made H20.
Released on July 12th, 2002, producers once again had us suspend disbelief and brought back Myers. Taking place three years after its predecessor, it is revealed that Laurie Strode (Curtis) beheaded the wrong man and is sent to a mental institution. Knowing her brother will return, Laurie sets a trap on the roof, spending many nights up there (staff thinks she’s suicidal) and waits. And just like clock work, Michael shows up. Laurie lures him to the roof and attempts to get rid of him once and for all. This is where the film starts to falter. Laurie, the ultimate ‘final girl’ becomes just another victim. Thanks to a flashback and a traumatic psychosis, she is the one lured to her own death. Yes folks, after 4 films, methodical survival and ass kicking, Laurie finally meets her end. And while it closes the chapter on the Laurie/Michael storyline, the writers could have come up with a better send then the one we got.
Now, up until the moment Laurie is killed, the film starts off promising. Jamie Lee is great and there’s a real sense of dread and uncertainty thanks to the directing talents of Rosenthal. The explanation of Michael’s survival is unoriginal and insulting, but the dynamic between Laurie and her brother remains intriguing, although waning. Producers knew that bringing Curtis back would generate a few more bucks at the box office, but Rosenthal should have known better and given Laurie the send off she deserved, with dignity and grace.
The rest of the film becomes reality television fair, with the story focusing on six college students who have been selected to spend Halloween night in the Myers house. Freddie Harris (Busta Rhymes), an entrepreneur for Dangertainment and his sidekick/girlfriend, Nora Winston (Tyra Banks), set out to create a live internet broadcast thanks to head camera’s and surveillance camera’s set up around the house. While this scenario is not totally unoriginal, it does become annoying after a while. As the college kids are left to explore the house, looking for clues into Michael’s madness, the masked psycho turns up and picks them off one by one.
A silly subplot involving an online relationship between one of the kids, Sarah (Bianca Kajlich) and one of the people watching the events, Myles/Deckard (Ryan Merriman) is used to keep the story flowing, but its executed in a way that it becomes lazy and effortless. All of the characters are interchangeable and forgettable, lacking the “like” factor felt by the characters in the previous films, and are merely here to be sliced and diced by the evil presence in the house. The audience begins sending text messages to the insiders about Myers whereabouts to help them survive.
The film has its good points, but ultimately the bad wins out.
The good: The cinematography is shot well and Myers is much more menacing than he was in H20,thanks to Brad Loree, a stuntman who dons the mask and coveralls this time. I met him a couple years ago and asked about is turn as Michael Myers: “It was great!” Danny Lux did the score this time which I enjoyed and gave it the Halloween feel that was missing through most of H20.
The bad: the acting is so bad you end up inevitably laughing when the one girl gets her head chopped off….with a butcher knife! Busta and Tyra’s (annoying) performances are in a class all their own. The moment we meet them feels like a slap in the face. Bianca Kajlich, whose screams had to be dubbed in because of her inability to scream, lacks emotion. As a final girl, your job is to get the audience to like you and want to help you. Instead its the other way around. I kinda hoped Michael would have gotten her in the end. And Busta Rhymes using bad martial arts to beat the crap out of Michael and then electrocuting him in his jewels with a live wire, is a scene I can’t get past. Even his “Trick or treat, muthafuckah!” line is embarrassing.
On the Halloween: 25 Years of Terror documentary, Miramax wanted a Myers-less film, but Moustapha Akkad and negative fan reaction prevented that from happening and insisted it be a Halloween with Michael intact. Apparently a lesson was learned because of the reaction to Halloween III: Season of the Witch. The original working title was called Halloween: The Homecoming. Producers however, wanted a title that stated Michael is alive, so it was officially changed to Halloween: Resurrection.
The original release date was to have been September 21, 2001. Dimension Films wanted the film to be stronger, so re-shoots took place from September-October 2001 and the release date was changed to April 19, 2002 and then to July 12, 2002.
Both Whitney Ransick and Dwight H. Little, director for Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, were approached to direct the film but turned it down. Rick Rosenthal was eventually chosen. During casting, producers considered iconic scream queen Danielle Harris for a role. Now this would have made an interesting story, and maybe even a better sequel would have followed. If she had been cast, the character of Jamie Lloyd could be played off as though she escaped from Smith’s Grove and went into hiding. Staff at Smith’s Grove begin to panic and brainwash another patient into believing she is Jamie Lloyd so Michael can continue his killing spree. Once the college kids are picked, we learn that not only is Jamie alive, but she is posing as a college student as a way to get into Dangertainment to kill her uncle.
Okay, okay. I know that scenario is a little far fetched, maybe even implausible. But it would have been more interesting to see and maybe bridge the gap between The Curse of Michael Myers and H20.
The film currently is the final installment in the original series. Although more sequels were planned, they were later replaced with a remake of the original Halloween directed by Rob Zombie in 2007, and a sequel in 2009.
Fan reaction is still mixed to this day. Some like it, others despise it. And while Halloween: Resurrection is undoubtedly the final nail in the coffin of the original series, lets hope producers for the next Halloween film, rumored to follow Rob Zombie’s previous two films, will not let it be the film that buries the entire franchise.
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DarkMedia contributor Mike Schoonveld covers mainly movies, and there’s nothing that gets his blood going like a good horror film, old and new. When he’s not writing or watching horror, you can find him catching re-runs of television shows like I Love Lucy, The Simpsons, and Reba, among many. Last year, Mike was able to flex his writing muscles by submitting a screenplay to the Shriekfest Film and Screenplay festival where he was a finalist for “Best Feature Screenplay.” While he didn’t win, that hasn’t stopped him from pushing forward to establish a screenwriting career in horror. You can follow Mike on Twitter at @horrorguy30, Stage32.com and you can check out his blog at horrorguy30.blogspot.com.
Mike is currently working on two scripts: Slicer: The Sauk County Massacre (formerly titled Hell Weekend) and The Haunting of Willow Falls Manor.
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