October Extras #20 - Halloween: Resurrection (2002)

OCTOBER 20, 2007

GENRE: SLASHER
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)
LAST SEEN: NOVEMBER 2002 (DVD)

For all the shit I give Halloween: Resurrection, it’s really not as horrible as I say it is. I once considered it to be the worst slasher film ever made, but I’ve seen many this year (many beginning with the word “Dark”) that are far worse. Where Resurrection fails is not as a slasher film, but as a Halloween film.

Offering the least amount of Halloween atmosphere in any of the films to date (even Zombie’s remake was more successful in this department) and forgetting its own goddamn history (the stuff Howard says at Smith’s Grove is almost entirely inaccurate) is almost forgivable, but the fact that the film is so far removed from what made the original film work is not. It’s even more insulting when you consider that, as far as Dimension is concerned, this is really Halloween 4, not 8 (since 4-6 are ignored and III is in another, well, dimension, entirely), and a direct sequel to one of only two films in the franchise that truly did try to live up to the standards John Carpenter’s film originally established.

Instead, this film is more or less a standard dumb kids slasher movie, complete with sexual hijinks in totally inappropriate situations, nonsensical deaths (there’s like 3 beheadings in this one), an almost total lack of suspense (though to be fair, they DO try a little near the end), and, ironically, a total lack of motive for Michael. Yes, he had no motive in the original and that’s part of what made it work. But that’s no longer the case. Now it is firmly established that he is just out to kill his family. So why, after killing Laurie in the film’s first (and best) 15 minutes, does he focus his attention on a group of college kids who are hosting what would otherwise be the world’s worst reality show in history? They are trespassing? Then why didn’t he kill the folks who spent so much time setting up fake skeletons in the basement and non-stale fennel (you got me) in the kitchen? Why wait until like 10 people were there? Was he just looking for a challenge?

Like all the sequels, there are some random elements from the other films in (mostly botched) attempts to tie it in thematically with the others. Our Final Girl talks about fate with her professor (played by Rick Rosenthal, who with this film became the first and likely last director to come back to direct another in the series); Howard wears a clown mask not totally dissimilar to the one Michael wore when he killed Judith; and the house actually does somewhat resemble the one in the original (a far cry from the gothic mansion in part 5). Well, B for effort I guess, but the rest of your movie still reeks of being written by a machine that read the Wiki entry for the original film.

And what the fuck is with the mask in this one? It looks it has makeup on. I guess it’s a step up from the one in H20, but otherwise, Christ. It’s funny how much people rag on the one in 4, it’s probably the 3rd best in the whole series.

Of course, no review of this film is complete without some making fun of Busta Rhymes. Well, he’s awful. Everyone knows that. He talks to himself constantly, making absolutely no sense half the time; he says mutha-fucka with just about every line (sometimes twice); and yes, at one point he even “pwns” Michael, in a scene so asschristingly idiotic I actually cheered it when I first saw the film in theaters (it remains the only midnight movie I ever attended in which I stayed awake for the entire thing – I was so aghast I could barely even blink), because I was amazed that anyone, even a goddamn soulless Dimension executive, allowed such trash to be shown to the public.

Of course, this movie was so bad that it literally ended the franchise as we know it, resulting in the remake. So you can either blame or thank Resurrection, depending on your feelings for Zombie’s film. Personally, I wish I could just forget that neither this nor the remake ever happened, and that the series ended on a relative high (or at least conclusive) note with H20, but I don’t have that bad of a memory. If Eternal Sunshine technology ever becomes a reality, you can guarantee that this thing will be 2nd or 3rd on my list of things to wipe.

(1st, of course, would be Dark Ride).

What say you?