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Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
1998 | 87mins | dir: Steve Miner | starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Josh Hartnett | 11.35pm, BBC1, Friday 8 October
reviewed by
Lebby Eyres
uploaded: 03-10-2004
Jamie Lee Curtis returns for a superior addition to the Halloween franchise - set 20 years on
Okay, so it’s October and that means it’s time for the TV schedulers to start whacking on the late-night horror movies. As you know, bints like their slasher pics so it’s possible you’ll see a few choice ones appearing in this section in the coming weeks. Sadly, October isn’t opening with a classic like, say, Halloween - but there’s still quite a lot to be said for this ‘sequel’.
In fact, despite the many Halloween sequels that have been and gone since the original, this really is the only one to bother with. It’s the only other one to give the babysitting survivor from the original, Jamie Lee Curtis, something interesting to do. And it also attempts to move the story on, rather than just use the franchise name for an excuse for another teen slasher pic. Although, inevitably, a number of teenagers do lose their lives.
It’s set 20 years on from the time that Michael Myers ruined Laurie Strode’s life by dispatching her friends, one by one, on a chilly autumn night in their small American town of Haddonfield. In Halloween 2 we discovered that Michael Myers was actually Laurie’s insane brother. Now, two decades later, Laurie has changed her name, become headmistress of a posh Californian boarding school and is doing everything she can to forget her psycho sibling. Now she has a son (Josh Hartnett), a man (Adam Arkin) and an alcohol problem.
Inevitably, the approach of Halloween makes her feel a bit more nervous than normal. But this time she has reason to be worried, because ‘the Shape’ is back, and he’s coming after her and her son, who’s stayed behind at school with his friends rather than go on a camping trip with all the other students. A boarding school means corridors, spooky rooms and lots of hiding places – an ideal setting, in other words, for some truly scary stuff.
As is the way with almost every horror film out there (with the exception of Halloween) the set up is more sinister than the denouement, but there are enough shots of the masked psycho popping up just where you don’t expect, and solid enough performances from Jamie Lee Curtis and then newcomer Josh Hartnett, to lift this out of the ordinary. So give it a go, and get yourself in the mood for Halloween.
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| "Oh, we've got a psychotic serial killer in the family who loves to butcher people on Halloween, and I just thought it in bad taste to celebrate" John (Josh Hartnett) |
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| 7/10
They don't quite make them like they used to but horror fans should enjoy this Halloween... |
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