Summary:
Michael Myers terrorizes a reality TV show that has set up in his old house.
My Thoughts:
What is this movie?
I feel, for the first time in this series, as if I’ve been tricked into watching a “Halloween” movie. The “Halloween” series has had plenty of lesser entries, but even “Halloween VI: The Curse of Michael Myers”, the film which I would consider the worst of the series (besides this one), at least felt like a “Halloween” movie, providing some decent atmosphere and cool kills; this movie provides none of that.
“Halloween H20” was a soft reboot of the series, and this film follows that film’s timeline, but, like every other “Halloween” sequel ever made, it reworks the last five to ten minutes of the previous movie so that Michael is still alive and at large (if you remember correctly, at the end of “H20”, Laurie Strode killed Michael with an ax).
So, this film starts with Laurie in a Psych Hospital after the events of “H20”. It’s revealed that Laurie actually beheaded some random person instead of Michael Myers, and since she murdered someone, she’s been kept locked up and she seems totally traumatized. So far so good, thought I. While not wholly original (“Halloween II” has Laurie in a Hospital, every entry with Laurie after the first one has her wrestling with some form of PTSD), the way this film was set up led me to believe I’d get another hour and a half of Laurie VS Michael. At this point in my life, I’ve seen almost all of the “Halloween” movies, and I can admit that watching Michael Myers rampage through Illinois is my idea of a good time (I like my slasher movies). I settled in for the slaughter, but within the first fifteen minutes, Michael kills Laurie. I sat forward, my eyes brightened, my ears perked up. Michael killed Laurie. This was new, so… Where do we go from here? Thought I.
Well, apparently, the producers behind this film had the same problem: they didn’t know where to go with the Michael Myers story after they killed Laurie Strode. This first fifteen minutes of this movie are the only acceptable minutes, after that the film devolves into mindless garbage.
The bulk of the plot revolves around a reality TV show that is being filmed in Michael Myers’ home. Producers Freddie Harris (Busta Rhymes, “Shaft (2000)”) and Nora Winston (Tyra Banks, “Tropic Thunder”) toss a bunch of idiot college kids in Michael Myer’s house and ask them to spend the night while they tape them. The house is rigged with a few spooky tricks, but little do they know that Michael Myers himself waits for them in the dark.
This film is the definition of ‘Jump the Shark’. I feel like the producers took a look at pop culture in the early 2000s, took a look at the tired product they were schilling, shrugged, and said “You know, I think reality TV is big with the kids right now.” This movie doesn’t feel like a “Halloween” movie, it feels like a very cheap rip off of “Scream”. “Scream” had a brilliantly devised script that was both creepy and an incitement of the slasher genre, and this film tries to replicate that tone by picking apart certain details that happen throughout the film. However, Larry Brand and Sean Hood (the writers) are nowhere near as skilled as Wes Craven, and instead of making good points about the shortcomings of the genre, the film succeeds in only highlighting its own shortcomings. This movie is a train wreck.
Verdict:
I’ve seen every “Halloween” movie ever made except for Rob Zombie’s “Halloween II”, and I’m telling you right now, this is the worst of the bunch (Though “Curse of Michael Myers” is pretty stupid too). Unless you’re a horror nut like me, who, for some reason, decided to watch through every Halloween movie, then there’s no reason you ever need to see this. This film is like a time capsule of bad things from the early 2000s, and it should’ve just stayed buried.
Review Written By: