IMDb RATING
5.8/10
86K
YOUR RATING
Laurie Strode, now the dean of a Northern California private school with an assumed name, must battle the Shape one last time, as the life of her own son hangs in the balance.Laurie Strode, now the dean of a Northern California private school with an assumed name, must battle the Shape one last time, as the life of her own son hangs in the balance.Laurie Strode, now the dean of a Northern California private school with an assumed name, must battle the Shape one last time, as the life of her own son hangs in the balance.
- Awards
- 2 wins & 12 nominations total
Featured reviews
when i went to go see this movie at the theaters, i was scared to death. But when i first watched it on VHS a couple times, i had no clue that it ignored what happened in Halloween 3-6.
Halloween h20 picks up 20 years after the happenings of the first Halloween. Keri Tate/Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) has gone into hiding and working as a teacher at a private school in California. But it's getting close to Halloween and she is unaware that Michael has now relocated his sister. Sooner than later, Lauri fights back, not wanting to live a life a fear and preying that her brother will not find her. The ending **spoilers** was great how Lauri fights back. At the end**spoilers** it showed how Lauri would kill Michael once and for all, but that was messed up in the next Halloween movie "Halloween Resurrection".
Halloween h20 picks up 20 years after the happenings of the first Halloween. Keri Tate/Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) has gone into hiding and working as a teacher at a private school in California. But it's getting close to Halloween and she is unaware that Michael has now relocated his sister. Sooner than later, Lauri fights back, not wanting to live a life a fear and preying that her brother will not find her. The ending **spoilers** was great how Lauri fights back. At the end**spoilers** it showed how Lauri would kill Michael once and for all, but that was messed up in the next Halloween movie "Halloween Resurrection".
H20 was the twentieth anniversary that features the return or I like to call it revenge of Laurie Strode.
Jamie had realized during lunch that twenty years had pass since the original film and wanted to do a follow up film. She wanted to get the whole crew back and John Carpenter to direct. He refused after divorcing himself after his anthology idea was ruined. I consider Halloween, the fog, season of the witch, Prince of darkness and the thing his true series.
Williamson wrote a script that was quite different from the finished project yet Jamie didn't want her character to be seen as a bad mother.I don't blame her. Who wants to look bad?
The supporting castes were all fresh faced and did fine. The Halloween theme and scream score mix well together.
The only problem is Donald Pleasence passed away before It was even dreamed of.
It truly was the final Halloween in my opinion.
Jamie had realized during lunch that twenty years had pass since the original film and wanted to do a follow up film. She wanted to get the whole crew back and John Carpenter to direct. He refused after divorcing himself after his anthology idea was ruined. I consider Halloween, the fog, season of the witch, Prince of darkness and the thing his true series.
Williamson wrote a script that was quite different from the finished project yet Jamie didn't want her character to be seen as a bad mother.I don't blame her. Who wants to look bad?
The supporting castes were all fresh faced and did fine. The Halloween theme and scream score mix well together.
The only problem is Donald Pleasence passed away before It was even dreamed of.
It truly was the final Halloween in my opinion.
Back before Lions Gate (now Lionsgate) held the monopoly on mainstream genre pics, Dimension Films was the go-to place for horror and suspense of the 'indie' sort. In 1998, with Wes Craven's 2 "Scream" films maintaining the public interest to great financial success, Dimension decided to put their acquisition of the "Halloween" franchise to good use (especially after the atrocious "Curse of Michael Myers") by making a sequel to end all sequels (at least until the atrocious "Halloween: Resurrection" turded up multiplexes).
In addition to being one of the most instantly-recognizable titles in all of horror, "Halloween: H20" came to screens with an added incentive: it marked the series return of original protagonist/victim Laurie Strode (played with cat-like veracity by Jamie Lee Curtis). Curtis' presence, in addition to the reliable skill of director Steve Miner (who cut his teeth on two "Friday the 13th" sequels), plus a story that wisely disregarded the incidents of all the sequels past "II," set "H20" up as the series payoff I was so eagerly awaiting. After leaving the theater, I was more than satisfied with the end result.
Years go by. Dimension becomes a notorious den of re-cuts, re-shoots, and re-castings (just ask Wes "Cursed" Craven) still trying to mine the 'Fresh-Faced-Teen' demographic that doesn't seem to exist anymore. Upon re-examination of "H20"'s box/poster art, I noticed a recurrent motif (from "Scream" to "Phantoms" to "Nightwatch" to "Rounders") in design: the proliferation of airbrushed faces looking Deeply Concerned about something, in addition to an over-reliance on bold, exclamatory blurbs from dubious sources (WWOR-TV, anyone?).
But I'm not reviewing the marketing tactics of a company whose former glories (namely Tarantino and Rodriguez) are now its only source of revenue.
"Sin City" notwithstanding, "H20" might have been the last good movie to come out of Dimension. At its core, it is a surprisingly compact (86 minutes, including credits) horror-thriller that moves so briskly we are never able to get too cozy with the characters. Miner goes for the subtle compositions that marked John Carpenter's original, and is fairly successful: the film refrains from the obligatory sex and self-referential attitude that would have been profitable at the time. From frame one, "H20" feels like a continuous, flowing set-piece...but the way it sidelines its characters leaves a hollow echo when it's all finished. Also unfortunate is that the suspense is so heavy-handed it seldom creates tension; this might be attributable to Chris Durand's overly self-conscious portrayal of the menacing Michael Myers. The relationship between Curtis, her son John (Josh Hartnett), and Myers is the film's intriguing familial triangle, but is disappointingly underdeveloped (though for the sake of the series, it wraps things up well enough).
In the end, "H20" is Curtis' show. She imbues her character with as much straight-faced commitment as she did in '78, in addition to a toughened exterior bent on preserving family values at any cost. The denouement, which contains a moment as touching as it is creepy, gives new meaning to the phrase, "tough love."
In addition to being one of the most instantly-recognizable titles in all of horror, "Halloween: H20" came to screens with an added incentive: it marked the series return of original protagonist/victim Laurie Strode (played with cat-like veracity by Jamie Lee Curtis). Curtis' presence, in addition to the reliable skill of director Steve Miner (who cut his teeth on two "Friday the 13th" sequels), plus a story that wisely disregarded the incidents of all the sequels past "II," set "H20" up as the series payoff I was so eagerly awaiting. After leaving the theater, I was more than satisfied with the end result.
Years go by. Dimension becomes a notorious den of re-cuts, re-shoots, and re-castings (just ask Wes "Cursed" Craven) still trying to mine the 'Fresh-Faced-Teen' demographic that doesn't seem to exist anymore. Upon re-examination of "H20"'s box/poster art, I noticed a recurrent motif (from "Scream" to "Phantoms" to "Nightwatch" to "Rounders") in design: the proliferation of airbrushed faces looking Deeply Concerned about something, in addition to an over-reliance on bold, exclamatory blurbs from dubious sources (WWOR-TV, anyone?).
But I'm not reviewing the marketing tactics of a company whose former glories (namely Tarantino and Rodriguez) are now its only source of revenue.
"Sin City" notwithstanding, "H20" might have been the last good movie to come out of Dimension. At its core, it is a surprisingly compact (86 minutes, including credits) horror-thriller that moves so briskly we are never able to get too cozy with the characters. Miner goes for the subtle compositions that marked John Carpenter's original, and is fairly successful: the film refrains from the obligatory sex and self-referential attitude that would have been profitable at the time. From frame one, "H20" feels like a continuous, flowing set-piece...but the way it sidelines its characters leaves a hollow echo when it's all finished. Also unfortunate is that the suspense is so heavy-handed it seldom creates tension; this might be attributable to Chris Durand's overly self-conscious portrayal of the menacing Michael Myers. The relationship between Curtis, her son John (Josh Hartnett), and Myers is the film's intriguing familial triangle, but is disappointingly underdeveloped (though for the sake of the series, it wraps things up well enough).
In the end, "H20" is Curtis' show. She imbues her character with as much straight-faced commitment as she did in '78, in addition to a toughened exterior bent on preserving family values at any cost. The denouement, which contains a moment as touching as it is creepy, gives new meaning to the phrase, "tough love."
After so many poor follow ups, H20 serves up thrills and spills, with the franchise managing to go bigger, and yet get back to basics.
It's well acted, very well paced, and entertaining from start to finish. It's also nice to see the hunted become the hunter, great to see Laurie get revenge on her sadistic brother.
Curtis is great, Hartnett is cool also, although why's he wearing a shirt six sizes too big for him?
Some great moments, it's very suspenseful, kind of builds on the success of the Scream franchise, it very much has that vibe as opposed to it's predecessors.
One of the best. 8/10
It's well acted, very well paced, and entertaining from start to finish. It's also nice to see the hunted become the hunter, great to see Laurie get revenge on her sadistic brother.
Curtis is great, Hartnett is cool also, although why's he wearing a shirt six sizes too big for him?
Some great moments, it's very suspenseful, kind of builds on the success of the Scream franchise, it very much has that vibe as opposed to it's predecessors.
One of the best. 8/10
"Halloween H20:20 Years Later" made by Steve Miner("House",the second and the third part of "Friday the 13th" series)is quite good,especially if you liked John Carpenter's classic "Halloween".The film disregards Parts 4-6,which is not necessarily a bad thing.Luckily it has plenty of suspense,and a good amount of scares-especially the prologue is quite terrifying.There is only a little bit of gore,so gorehounds will be disappointed.Jamie Lee Curtis is pretty good as a Laurie Strode,but the other characters played by the supporting cast are shallow and empty.The score by Marco Beltrami sounds exactly like the one from "Scream" and this is surely big mistake.All in all I enjoyed this one and you should too if you are a fan of "Halloween" series.7 out of 10-a solid horror flick!
Did you know
- TriviaJamie Lee Curtis considers the film a thank you note to her fans. She stated that "Without that early career, I truly don't think I would have been an actor."
- GoofsThe newspaper clip shown during the opening credits, which states that Laurie Strode died in a car accident, says that she was a survivor of the "Halloween murders" of 1968. They took place in 1978.
- Quotes
Tony: Hasn't anyone ever told you that second-hand smoke kills?
Nurse Marion: Yeah, but they're all dead.
- Alternate versionsAn early workprint version had a different score and an altered opening credits montage, as well as a slightly different version of of the dorm room scene, where the girls have "So I Married An Ax Murderer" playing on the TV instead of in the final version where they have on "Scream 2."
- ConnectionsFeatured in 2nd Annual Mystery Science Theater 3000 Summer Blockbuster Review (1998)
- SoundtracksMr. Sandman
Written by Pat Ballard
Performed by The Chordettes
Courtesy of Barnaby Records, Inc.
By Arrangement with Celebrity Licensing, Inc.
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Official sites
- Language
- Also known as
- Halloween: 20 ans après, il revient
- Filming locations
- La Puente, California, USA(town: Summer Glen)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $17,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $55,041,738
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $16,187,724
- Aug 9, 1998
- Gross worldwide
- $55,041,738
- Runtime
- 1h 26m(86 min)
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1
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