Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)

Review

Twenty years ago Laurie Strode barely escaped the murderous attention of her brother Michael, who was presumed killed in a fire. Laurie is now the Head Mistress of an exclusive private school in Northern California where she has assumed a new identity as Keri Tate. While she is a functioning alcoholic her teenage son John doesn't want to live under the shadow of Michael anymore and is showing strong tendencies toward independence. Laurie still sees Michael everywhere, has nightmares about him, and downs a whole host of prescription drugs. With the school body heading toward Yosemite national park for a camping weekend John along with his girlfriend Molly and friends Charlie and Sarah have conspired to stay behind and have a Halloween party. Laurie is naturally on high Michael paranoia alert.

Meanwhile Michael decides twenty years is long enough to remain out of the public eye and raids Dr Loomis' nurse's house which leads the Psycho to discovering Laurie's new identity and address. Naturally he leaves a trail of bodies in his wake as he heads toward Northern California. With Halloween breaking Laurie and John each have their own plans, along with Mikey, who wants to celebrate the 31st Myers style! Can Laurie find the spark to face her brother one more time or will the big fella finish off what he started 20 years ago? The best movie in the series since the original ensues.

Naturally the first thing H2O got right was forgetting about the previous three movies and taking up the story as the third part of a trilogy following on from the first two movies. This is a return to what made the franchise, the Shape killing for no reason, no need of Celtic runes, family shenanigans, or any other artificial sweetener in this bad boy. The movie is simply Michael going after Laurie again, anyone standing in his way becoming collateral damage. Anyone got a problem with this, I'm all up in it yo, the Shape is back baby!

I was also grooving to Director Steve Miner referencing other slasher classics as the movie unfolded. We get Friday the 13th, Miner of course directed Parts II & III, Psycho, references galore, the original Halloween, and a number of others that the sharp eyed viewer will pick up on. Miner isn't afraid to dig into the grab bag of slasherdom as his movie is strong enough to rank against the best of breed. Two thumbs up for throwing a part to Janet Leigh, who of course was Norman's first onscreen victim in Psycho, the infamous shower scene, and of course she is Jamie Lee's mom in real life. Yes I noted the car and the reference to Halloween Janet sends our way, outstanding!

Right from the start of the movie Steve Miner is telling us there's going to be a lot of false scares, tension laden sequences, and false climaxes. The dude sure has learnt his craft since tossing a cat through a window in Friday version 2. A nurse arrives home to find her front door is unlocked; yeap Mikey is making house calls as he tracks down his errant sister. She enlists the aid of the two stoners next door, insert Friday the 13th reference. Naturally one of the stoners decides to check out the house prior to the cops arriving, yes surprisingly someone thought of calling the cops in a slasher flick! Anyways stoner one trashes the kitchen and pockets a couple of beers, so coast clear, or at least that is what Miner wants us to believe as he cackles quietly in the corner. A few tension filled moments later the Nurse is stampeding next door as evidence mounts that this ain't no empty nest she's living in. Naturally when she gets next door the stoners are toast and oh look its Mikey and he's got a large kitchen knife and aims to put that to some good use. Naturally it's about this time the cops arrive at the nurse's house not noticing her banging on a window next door before smashing it prior to Michael doing what he does best. Okay so that's sort of amusing in a dark humour fashion, especially as Michael sedately drives off as the cops start counting up the death toll.

Effective, with a number of tense moments, I was rocking out to this scene and had high hopes Miner was going to do the impossible and deliver a decent Halloween sequel. The Director didn't disappoint and as H2O unfolded I was simply having a good time as Miner cruised up to the tropes, toggled them a bit, then left them alone to go to far more interesting places. There's chills coming at you, the almost deserted school is actually quite eerie, good themes, Laurie realising like Doctor Frankenstein she needs to take her shot at redemption, and of course a couple of false endings. Think Miner got a real buzz from replicating a certain scene from the original Friday the 13th as Laurie finally seizes control of her life.

Surprisingly for a Friday the 13th alumni Steve Miner is keeping the gore off the main stage, with at least four of the kills happening off screen, no I'm not kidding folks. Miner seems to have worked out Mikey's thing is to scare the crap out of people rather than slaughtering them willy nilly as Jason has a tendency to do. There are a couple of characters in the movie who have close shaves with Myers but live to tell the tale, albeit needing a change of undies prior to relating how they were "this close to the shape". I'm actually cool with this; Miner has enough shocks coming at you without clobbering you over the head with needless victim counts. Michael mows through the people he needs to get out of the way, but doesn't waste his valuable time on incidental characters. Remarkably constraint by the Director and Writers, something no other Halloween outing can claim as an asset.

Wow this review has pretty much written itself and I've got a butt load of more stuff to talk about. Two thumbs up to the score team, nice inclusion of John Carpenter's original theme music and mood pieces. The cast is excellent, no T&A, and the gore is kept to a minimum.

Toward the end of this movie Laurie pretty much underlines there will no further sequels but naturally there is at least one more, and I'm not counting the Rob Zombie schlock here. As a standalone movie H2O rocked the house down, though I can understand committed slasher fans being slightly miffed that the "gnarly kills" thing isn't prominent in the movie. I'm giving a full recommendation on H2O, it's the best Halloween outing since the fourth movie and underlines exactly what should have been happening in this franchise. Pity that Moustapha Akkad couldn't leave well enough alone and allowed the travesty that is Resurrection to happen and then simply dragged things through the sewer with Rob Zombie proving he had no idea what made the franchise work at its best. If you haven't seen it, or haven't seen it in a while, grabbed a copy of H2O and see how a Halloween movie should be made.