We're down to the final three, and today's entry is the movie that took Michael back to the mainstream. We're looking at
Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, a solid movie, but probably the biggest underachiever in the series.
Concept: Michael, having decided to branch out beyond his family, tracks down Nurse Marion Chambers (now going by the last name Whittington), because, well, she was someone from the first movie who he hadn't killed yet. After killing her and two neighbors, he goes through her papers and discovers that his sister Laurie is still alive. And she's got a kid! Naturally, he sets off to correct things. Meanwhile, Laurie has changed her name to Keri Tate, and is the headmaster of a private school in California, where's she's raising her seventeen-year-old son.
Body Count: Six, not counting Michael. Although the TV version apparently makes it hard to keep track of, as two of the on-screen deaths aren't shown, one off-screen body is never revealed, and one character who lives in the theatrical cut appears to die in the TV cut. And if you accept the retcon in Resurrection, you can bump the count to seven.
Really Bad Kills: None.
Really Good Kills: Well, who wouldn't want to see Joseph Gordon-Levitt (of
Third Rock From the Sun "fame") take an ice skate to the face? The death of Nurse Marion (ironic, as the cops are right next door), is also nicely played, although I'm not a fan of the fact that Michael hunted her down.
Celebrities: Other than Jamie Lee, this was full of people who barely hit the B-list of fame. Her son is played by Josh Hartnett, who at the time was a near-unknown. His girlfriend is played by Michelle "the chick on
Dawson's Creek who didn't bonk Tom Cruise" Williams, and her best friend, in turn, is played by Jody Lyn O'Keefe, known at the time as Don Johnson's daughter on
Nash Bridges, and later for her role as the bitch in
She's All That. Her boyfriend, in turn, is played by Adam Hann-Byrd, best known as one of the two brothers crushing on Christina Ricci in
The Ice Storm. We also get LL Cool J as a security guard who writes romance novels, Adam Arkin as Jamie Lee Curtis's doomed and annoying boyfriend, and a cameo by Janet Leigh.
Denouement: Laurie stabs (with a flag!), beats, and otherwise hurts Michael, in the end throwing him off a balcony. She then prevents the paramedics from taking him, instead choosing to make sure he's dead (after a moment in which he almost seems to be reaching out to her with tenderness), and eventually, we end up with a decapitated Michael.
Miscellany: We get a nice scene in which Molly, just like Laurie did twenty years ago, looks out the window of her classroom and catches the briefest glimpse of Michael, not realizing what that signifies. It's one of the more impressive subtle touches here.
People seem to think that this movie was written by Kevin Williamson. That's largely because the producers wanted us to think that, since his name added a certain pedigree to the movie. He wrote the initial treatment for the movie, but the final script was so far removed from his treatment, he doesn't even get a story credit. He's only listed as executive producer, which was so that they could use his name to market it. His original treatment is
here. The first adapted screenplay (which is much better, even if it's too obsessed with the body count) is
here. One thing that both have in common is making Molly (Michelle Williams) much more sympathetic, and also killing her off.
The movie is directed by Steve Miner, whose specialty in guilty pleasures gave us
Friday the 13th Parts
2 and
3,
Warlock, and
Forever Young (written by JJ Abrams and co starring Jamie Lee), as well as
Lake Placid and
House, two top-notch flicks. He's also done tons of TV work. The latter included directing Arkin in
Chicago Hope and Williams in
Dawson's Creek.
The original treatment mentioned Jamie, Laurie's daughter from the previous three films, but none of the shooting scripts kept any mention of her (although there were rumors that they'd considered filming such a scene).
For those wondering about the title, no, it doesn't have anything to do with water. The producers just thought that it would be clever to use "H20" to represent "twenty years of Halloween," and then they added the "twenty years later" when they realized how stupid the "H20" thing was.
Overall: This was a solidly crafted, but uninspired, film. It's certainly leagues better than the movies that it follows. But it could have been so much more. Williamson was suffering burnout at the time, but if he'd been able to write the full screenplay, something much better would have come out of this. As it is, we got better acting than we'd had for a while, including a virtuoso performance by Jamie Lee Curtis, and lots of good in-jokes. Of those, casting Janet Leigh was the high point. Gorehounds won't love this one, as the body count is the lowest of the sequels, but since the point of this movie is to focus on the characters, that's okay. And there are actually some good characters. Aside from Laurie/Keri, both Molly and John are actually interesting teenagers, and it would have been nice to see more of them during the climactic moments (although the purpose of this movie, clearly, was to set up a brother/sister showdown). Definitely worth watching, probably even worth owning if you're a fan of the series. But oh, for an alternate universe in which this movie was allowed to reach its full potential.
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