Halloween H20: 20 Years Later

"Halloween: H20" makes an obvious effort to return to the franchise's roots and recapture the qualities that made the first one so good. It doesn't come close to succeeding, but it does manage to become, in my opinion, the second best of the series, though that's pretty faint praise.

There are some creepy scenes early on in this film (the one in the deserted rest stop bathroom, most notably), but this movie really exists for the sole purpose of having Jamie Lee Curtis kick Michael Myers's ass, and the catharsis in watching her do so is worth the price of admission. There are some obligatory killings, but they go for gruesome rather than frightening, which was not John Carpenter's approach. But when Laurie Strode takes matters into her own hands and comes after Michael with guns blazing (so to speak), hold on to yourselves--violent tendencies seem to run in this family.

The producers of this movie use a bigger budget to add some modern "scary" sound effects for atmosphere and fill out John Carpenter's original score with a sweeping orchestra--it's like John Williams' version of the Halloween theme. The whole thing feels like it's running on an I.V. drip of pure adrenaline. But fans of the series, or at least of the first two films, should enjoy it.

LL Cool J is totally wasted in the token black character role, and Janet Leigh makes a pointless appearance as well, but listen for the brief strain of Bernard Herrman's "Psycho" score in one scene with her.

Grade: B