“He’s dead. Michael Myers is dead.”
Horror films are more interested in longevity than any other genre. This is a good and a bad thing; when done right, it can allow for unique approaches by new voices, as evinced in the two most recent Scream films. More often than not, though, at a certain point the franchise just devolves into something akin to fan fiction. Halloween II was designed as a definitive end to what was then just a two-film series, but of course we all know that didn’t happen, which is how we end up with Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, which was intended as kind of a victory lap for a franchise that over twenty years produced one great movie (Halloween), one decently good movie (Halloween II), one batshit movie (Halloween III: Season of the Witch), and two pretty bad movies (4 and 5). That’s, uh, not a great batting average, so it makes sense, in a way, that H20 is not a great movie.
The most dispiriting thing about H20 is that there’s really no reason for it to exist. It presents itself as a finale to the Michael Myers saga, except it would be retconned four years later for the abysmal Halloween Resurrection, at the insistence of longtime producer Moustapha Akkad, who explicitly forbade Michael Myers from being killed off, lest the franchise die with him. And then on top of that there’s the new canon established by David Gordon Green’s trilogy, which wipes out everything after John Carpenter’s original. So even if H20 were incredibly well-made – which it’s not – it would still feel unsatisfying, both at the time of its release and in the years since. Jamie Lee Curtis is game, and the cast is largely comprised of young actors about to hit it big, so H20 endures more as a curio than a necessary film.
By now the formulae of Halloween movies is well-established: Michael breaks out of wherever he’s held, kills everyone around him, and makes his way to Haddonfield to kill Laurie Strode. 20 Years Later breaks that tradition by starting post-breakout, and – get this – we’re not in Haddonfield! We’re in Landon, IL, a place that just looks exactly like Haddonfield. The only reason I can think of for this distinction is that the cold open takes place in Dr. Sam Loomis’s office, and even for a guy as obsessed with Michael Myers as Loomis, it would be crazy for him to live in Haddonfield. It’s here that Michael finds Loomis’s file on Laurie, which must be agonizingly detailed because it tells him her new name, address, and profession. Michael also kills a few people, including a baby-faced Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who gets an ice skate to the face. From there Michael makes his way west, at one point ditching a cherry Mustang for an incongruously old-fashioned jalopy that looks like something the Beverly Hillbillies would drive.
Laure is now going by Keri Tate, and is teaching English at a posh prep school in upstate California. She’s overly cautious in every aspect of her life, especially regarding her son, John (Josh Hartnett). This is understandable, but it does serve to make Laurie pretty one-note. (For all the faults of Green’s films, they’re at least interested in a more nuanced depiction of Laurie.) The movie could explore this, the debilitating effects of generational trauma, but this isn’t that kind of movie. This is the kind of movie that has a high body count while feeling oddly bloodless, with a pace that drags but still feels rushed.
H20 needs a reason to isolate Laurie and a few warm bodies at the school, which it does by sending seemingly the entire student body to Yosemite for the weekend. Unbeknownst to Laurie, John stays behind with his girlfriend, Molly (Michelle Williams), and their friends Sarah and Charlie. Writing all this out, H20 sounds not unlike The Holdovers, but I digress. Ultimately, none of this setup makes any real-world sense. John and Charlie sneak out to steal some booze (aided by a security guard played by LL Cool J, who of course is awful) and it seems like they’re gone for hours, but school is still in session. Classes are still going on, but John has enough time to plan a (ludicrously elaborate) Halloween surprise for Molly. I’m definitely thinking about this more than the filmmakers did.
Once Michael shows up and the killing begins, H20 comes (briefly) to life, pun not intended. There’s an inventiveness to the kills that isn’t present elsewhere in the film, so at least the movie knows what it’s made for. Of course, the paradox here is that Michael is the weakest part of 20 Years Later. The mask looks like absolute shit; there’s a vast gulf between painting a Shatner mask white and buying a Michael Myers mask at a Spirit Halloween. And that’s to say nothing of the performance. Obviously no one inhabits Myers as well as the original shape, Nick Castle (Halloween II’s Dick Warlock did an okay job, but ultimately was too short for the role), which is why Castle reprised the role in the newest trilogy of films. It would have been a nice full-circle moment if Castle came back here, but he didn’t, so the film is stuck with Chris Durand in the role. Durand is a skilled stunt person, but not a physical actor. There’s a difference between the two, and this movie really drives that point home.
That’s only one of H20’s missteps, the most egregious of which might be the repeated references to other, better movies. Psycho gets referenced a lot, down to Janet Leigh driving the same car that Marion Crane drove in Hitchcock’s film. At one point, we see Molly and Sarah watching Scream 2. I don’t think anyone involved in H20 thought they were making high art, but it’s bad form to remind your viewer of what they could be watching instead. If I drank a few thermometers and decided to start watching Fast & Furious movies, do you think it would be a good idea to include a bunch of references to Boogie Nights? No, because then I’d stop watching your dumbass movie.
It would be redundant to say that you can skip Halloween H20: 20 Years Later. It’s been rendered irrelevant by the newly-established continuity, and beyond that, it’s not very good. It’s an interesting time capsule, sure, but that’s about it. Come to think of it, of the twelve films in the Halloween series, there are only a few worth watching (the original, Season of the Witch, Halloween 4, and Green’s first installment). Is this a good franchise, or is just one that I like?
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