Halloween 7

H20: Halloween, 20 Years Later (1998)

Directed by: Steve Miner

Written by: Robert Zappia, Matt Greenberg

Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Josh Hartnett, Adam Arkin, Michelle Williams, LL Cool J, Jodi Lyn O'Keefe, Adam Hann-Byrd, Janet Leigh, Nancy Stephens, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Chris Durand

I figured I might as well finish off the original Halloween series before going to see the remake - subject myself to seemingly endless sequels. It's a religious thing.

Anyway, this one, from the director of Friday the 13th Parts 2 & 3 isn't too bad - better than a lot of the other sequels, actually. In it, we find out that Laurie Strode was not killed in a car accident, she faked her death and moved from Haddonfield to a nearly identical town in California (smart one) where she now lives under the implausible name 'Keri Tate' or something. She is the headmistress of a prestigious private school and has a seventeen year old son (apparently she doesn't really care that her daughter was stalked and eventually murdered in parts 4 through 6). She thinks that she is safe. And then, when she least expects it, Michael Myers shows up to kill her son, and her son's friends, and his friends' friends, and his friends' friends' dogs, and the dogs' friends and so on. Apparently, though he seems to have supernatural locating power evident in part 6 (I am such a fucking nerd...), he couldn't find his sister until Jamie Lee agreed to do another sequel...

Moving on. The novel part of this movie is seeing Jamie Lee Curtis back again. Donald Pleasence was dead by this point, so they could hardly bring him back for another round. It would have been kind of cruel anyway.

And of course, Janet Leigh (Jamie Lee Curtis' real-life mommy and Marion from Psycho, just in case you're not familiar with her) and the many in-jokes that go with that.

Unfortunately, nothing happens for the first half of the movie (tension, sigh of relief, false alarm - sigh of relief is when the killer's supposed to getcha). Okay, a few random people get bumped off at the beginning (Joseph Gordon-Levitt gets an ice skate in his head, which was pretty good), but even then it takes them a while.

There are a few mildly spooky moments when Jamie Lee thinks Michael's coming after her, but it usually turns out to be her boyfriend (it's usually a bad sign when you start seeing a psycho killer every time you look at your boyfriend).

But generally not too bad. It's kind of satisfying to see Jamie Lee get her ultimate revenge, chopping Michael's head off with an axe (let's see him grow that back). It gives me a weird sense of closure. Although, there's a Part 8, so not that much closure...

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