I just caught up with the remaining 'Nightmare on Elm Street' entries that I hadn't seen and am doing the same with the Halloween series. Last year, I tackled 4-6, which was not a whole lot of fun.
Halloween H20 (1998) - 5/10 - 20 years later, Myers comes once again for Laurie Strode... and her son and his friends. This was obviously inspired by Scream, tone-wise and story-wise, so much that it often felt more like an entry in that franchise than the Halloween franchise. I didn't really mind that, though, since I like the Scream movies enough. It's not very scary, but at least it's watchable. It was nice to see Jamie Lee Curtis back and it had a strong ending.
Halloween Resurrection (2002) - 2/10 - Where to begin? It starts with a ridiculous retcon of the end of the last movie to explain why Michael didn't actually die and which basically ruins that ending for future rewatches. It follows that up by ruining the Laurie Strode character that's central to the franchise. Next, it changes gears completely and moves to the meat of the plot, which involves a bunch of attention-seeking young people who win a competition to be on a live internet reality show and spend a night in the abandoned Myers house, with cameras rolling, coincidentally the same night that Michael decides to return to it. Believe it or not, it actually gets even stupider from there, such as Busta Rhymes trying out kung fu against Michael and a room full of young people watching online and cheering when Michael "dies." This had to be awful in 2002, but it's aged even worse with its early internet/reality show fascination and desperation to be modern and cool. By the end of the movie, your intelligence has been thoroughly insulted in a way that even the other worst entries in the franchise don't do.
Halloween (2007) - 4/10 - This remake of the original wasn't quite as bad as I thought that it would be. It's unnecessary, it takes too long to get going, it feels like two separate movies (a prequel and remake in one) and it's nonsensical in places, but at least it feels a bit like the original in look and tone and tries to add a little explanation and thoughtfulness. Unfortunately, because of that, the execution and knowing how it ends, it's not very scary or even all that creepy. It doesn't compare to the original, but it's not one of the worst in the franchise and isn't the insult to it that the entry 5 years earlier was.
Halloween II (2009) - 3/10 - Where to begin? It's 30 minutes too long, most of it due to pointless dream and fantasy sequences. It has almost no story. It has little style. Nearly the whole thing takes place at night. No character is likable, not even Laurie Strode, who was an adorable babysitter worth rooting for in the last one and has become a slacker party girl with psychological and anger issues. Finally, it's not fun and, unlike the previous one, has nothing to try to say or evoke, yet feels remarkably pretentious, anyways. I'm starting to think that what Rob Zombie got right with the remake was due more to riding on the original's coattails and that this is the mess that happens when that's gone and the film is fully his own.
The only entry in the franchise left to see is last year's Halloween. I may save that for Halloween night, though, and didn't want to wait that long to put down my thoughts on the previous four.
