Halloween: Resurrección

What can I say? If I've seen a film worse than this, it certainly doesn't spring to mind right now. I managed to get to the first screening in the local area and, even though the audience was fairly small, I still counted eleven people who walked out at various points in the movie and never came back. Now either Michael Myers slashed them up on their way to the lavatories or, like me, they were bored stiff by this absolute CLUNKER of a flick.

The plot, or what little semblance there is of one, is simple yet completely ludicrous. An organisation called Dangertainment, headed by the entrepreneurial Freddie Harris (Busta Rhymes), gets together a group of six students (!) to spend the night in serial killer Michael Myers' childhood home, in the hope that they will "find clues" as to what drove Myers to kill and kill again. Quite why, 25 years on from the murders, they think they will achieve anything by sending a group of teenagers into a house that, in the real world, would probably have long been demolished, is beyond me. Surely it is the job of police psychologists to dissect the minds of serial killers anyway? The film conveniently forgets the previous five sequels (with the exception of "H20"; this gets an irrelevant reference in the gratuitous opening scenes which serve merely as an excuse to waste Jamie Lee Curtis' talents in some customary 'running around' antics) and throws us almost immediately into the environment of the house, where each of the six kids are given a little handy-cam to strap to their heads and told to go searching for clues... You with me so far? Well, that's pretty much all there is to it. Needless to say, Myers himself shows up at the house about 10 minutes into the movie (how? why?) and decides he wants to kill everybody one by one, in the style we've now become accustomed to.

This paper-thin tale is told so badly, it's almost hard to believe what you're seeing on screen and that anyone was dumb enough to spend time and money filming it. I suppose you could almost see it like a series of noisy soundbites strung together randomly. It keeps things simplistic to the point of being nonsensical, presumably to avoid confusing its target audience of dribbling inbreds. I think I could've written a better, more entertaining and reasonable script myself on the back of a beermat. Nothing is ever explained or justified, no matter how implausible and ridiculous things get, and yet, bogglingly, the film still seems to take itself fairly seriously. It tries desperately to shock with a series of boring but bloody knife murders (nothing we haven't seen ad nauseam in any of the previous films) and innumerable 'false' scares with flashlights and toys falling out of cupboards. It's all so by-the-books and done-to-death that you'd have to have never seen a single horror film in your life to find it even remotely tense or scary.

I think what bugs me the most about the film is just how terribly made it is. Even forgetting the GAPING plot holes, there are loads of obvious continuity errors and a sad, desperate style of direction that seems to drag every scene to the point of agony in a desperate attempt to pad out the already-short running time of the film. The cast do nothing to help things - all the characters are cardboard stereotypes and the ugly, plastic teens seem to be having a battle to see who can be the most skin-crawlingly irritating. I think it ends up as a tie between Katee Sachoff's hyperactive, squeaky airhead and Bianca Kajlich's jitterbug 'heroine', who spends the entire movie simpering and screaming loudly every time someone drops a pin. Oh, for the record, Busta Rhymes is absolutely ATROCIOUS in this. His entire purpose in this movie seems to be to deliver the worst examples of wisecrack-by-numbers dialogue I've ever heard (ie: "Trick or treat, motherf**ker?") and he plays his role as a cross between Eddie Murphy and Vin Diesel, but without the charm or charisma of either.

I'd like to say John Carpenter would be ASHAMED to see such a horrible mess made out of his characters, but when you consider the maestro himself is making films almost as bad as this these days, he probably couldn't give a toss so long as the money keeps rolling in. I think this fact in itself proves just how much horror movies have changed since the first "Halloween" was made and, to its credit, "Halloween Resurrection" would be a perfect example of an "of its time" product you could stick in an 'early 21st century' time capsule for future generations to balk at. It is every bit as throwaway and pointless as the culture that spawned it. It is loud, crass and in-your-face constantly, despite having absolutely nothing to say when it gets there - it's like the movie equivalent of an annoying little brat screaming at you, desperate for attention. "Look at me! Look at me! I'm being noisy and irritating!"... I would highly advise, for your sanity's sake, that you don't look since, like that annoying child, you'll only encourage it and I, for one, don't think I could cope with another sequel this bad... This film is utter garbage and I fail to think of a single way in which they could've made it any worse. A resounding 0 out of 10.

It's a complete disgrace to the franchise. It didn't even attempt to be scary. It's like a 2 hour long running joke and they only one that is amused is Busta. Skip it altogether.

I want to start by saying Halloween H20 is my favorite movie in the franchise... That being said, it is only NATURAL for me to not like this one. It retcons the ending and all the characters are bland. If you are thinking "How bad can it be?", my answer is "I'd rather have Myers stab me than watch this movie again".

Nothing about this movie made any sense, from the lame attempt to connect to the series in the beginning, to the mock Blair witch shaky cam horror show, with people watching at texting?! The dialogue and storyline were poorly written, the acting was terrible, and the leading lady totally useless.

Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is now in an asylum, where she awaits the inevitable return of Michael Myers. Myers, after visiting her, returns to his childhood home and makes a nightmare for a group of kids who have decided to film a reality show inside the house.

First of all, this film pretends that Halloween 4 through 6 never happened, creating the possibility that the Myers house has been abandoned for decades, rather than lived in by other families. This reboot is a result of the writing on H20, but it was still a bad idea no matter who started it.

Second, one would think that bringing in Rick Rosenthal would be a good idea. He made "Halloween 2", which was probably the last solid part of the franchise. But Rosenthal is clearly not the horror directing master we might have thought, as he approaches this film with a weak vision and sense of style, more emulating MTV than his own work. A quick glance at his credits will explain this: he has spent the last twenty years making teenager-based television rather than horror films.

Next, add Busta Rhymes. Like its previous installment with LL Cool J, this is the point in the series where a rapper is added to the mix. Much like how many horror franchises ultimately ended up in space, many started adding rappers to the cast. Why? I do not know. But it does nothing to help the credibility of the picture. Busta Rhymes and Tyra Banks do not have the appeal for horror fans that other actors would have.

The POV camera thing is a mess. It looks bad and is more or less a bad idea. Yes, it has worked in such films as "The Blair Witch Project" and more recent excursions. It does not work here. Had they cut that aspect out entirely, this film would have been a bit better instantly.

No horror franchise took as big of a nosedive as "Halloween", with this being the final crash landing. Reviews of this film were so poor, and viewer appreciation so weak, it's very unlikely they will ever make another one in the series. Yes, they made the two Rob Zombie films after this, but I just like to pretend that never happened.