Halloween: Resurrection (2002) - Myers returns to turkeyville

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A new troupe of young stars back franchise cornerstone Jamie Lee Curtis on this ominous poster for Rick Rosenthal's Halloween: Resurrection

Michael Myers irrevocably kills his sister, who is in a mental hospital, where she feigns to be sick (...), and then he throws himself at a group of young fools who are doing an Internet reality show in Michael's dilapidating childhood home.

 

Halloween: Resurrection is written by Larry Brand (Paranoia (1997)) and Sean Hood (The Legend of Hercules (2014)) and directed by Rick Rosenthal (Halloween II (1981)). It is the 8th and final film in the original Halloween franchise, before it was rebooted in 2007 and then again in 2018.

It begins fairly decently but gradually gets worse until a point where it is almost impossible to sit through the stupidities on-screen. There are no-one to root for, and several of the film's grisly murders are involuntarily comical, as when a murder gets cross-cut to Tyra Banks (Glee (2013, TV-series)) making a Milo while dancing in her editing trailer, (don't ask why.)

The very small light points in Halloween: Resurrection are Busta Rhymes (Narc (2002)), who brings a likable energy to the turkey, and Billy Kay (L.I.E. (2001)), who is regrettably only in the film a very brief time. Every one else is at best undistinguished in this horrible film, which even suffers from enormously ugly credits.

 

Related posts:

 

2002 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Halloween franchise: Halloween (2007) - Zombie's remake is a bloody stinker  

Halloween H20/Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) - Myers spreads fresh terror in Miner's fine sequel 

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989) - Precious few cuts from rock bottom 

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988) - Myers returns for dull slasher 

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) - Evil masks ravage in Wallace's under-appreciated horror 

Halloween (1978) - Carpenter's haunting slasher classic

 

Curtis candidly explains her troubles with Halloween H20 (1998) and Halloween: Resurrection in this video

 

Cost: 15 mil. $

Box office: 37.6 mil. $

= Even (returned 2.50 times its cost)

[Halloween: Resurrection premiered 1 July (USA) and runs 94 minutes. Jamie Lee Curtis (Love Letters (1983)) was paid 3 mil. $ for her performance. Shooting took place from May - June 2001 and September - October 2001 in British Colombia, including in Vancouver, and in Los Angeles, California. The film opened #4, behind holdover hit Men in Black II and fellow new releases Road to Perdition and Reign of Fire, to a 12.1 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it left the top 5 in its 2nd weekend and grossed 30.3 mil. $ (80.6 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 2 mil. $ (5.3 %) and Mexico with 1.1 mil. $ (2.9 %). Michael Myers returned in Rob Zombie's reboot Halloween (2007), now without Curtis. Rosenthal returned with 11 TV and short credits prior to his theatrical return with Nearing Grace (2005). Curtis returned in Freaky Friday (2003). Halloween: Resurrection is rotten at 12 % with a 3.50/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Halloween: Resurrection?

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989) - Precious few cuts from rock bottom

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A child in Halloween costume is set against a giant hunting knife on this dark poster for Dominique Othenin-Girard's Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers

 

Michael Myers again goes on a murderous rampage, despite the fact that he should be dead. His niece Jamie somehow can sense his wrongdoings, and the now mad Dr. Loomis uses her as bait to catch the man he should now already realize is immortal.

 

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers is written by Michael Jacobs (Certain Fury (1985)), Shem Bitterman (Peephole (1993)) and co-writer/director Dominique Othenin-Girard (After Darkness (1985)).

The 'plot' of Halloween 5 is wildly ludicrous, as it attempts to precisely reproduce successful sequences from previous Halloween films. There's an embarrassingly bad and tasteless mickey-mousing cop subplot; sudden, unexplained sex, terribly unengaging 'characters', terrible sound work and noise, and futile violence. The only alleviating elements are really the copy-paste scenes of domestic terror.

Poor Donald Pleasence (Eye of the Devil (1966)) and children involved here. Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers is really an execrable film.

 

Related posts:

 

Halloween franchise: Halloween (2007) - Zombie's remake is a bloody stinker  

Halloween H20/Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) - Myers spreads fresh terror in Miner's fine sequel 

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988) - Myers returns for dull slasher 

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) - Evil masks ravage in Wallace's under-appreciated horror 

Halloween (1978) - Carpenter's haunting slasher classic

 

Watch a short clip of an instance of the 'mickey-mousing' effect used in the film's police subplot here

 

Cost: 5.5 mil. $

Box office: 11.6 mil. $ (North America only)

= Uncertain but likely a box office success (projected return of 2.72 times its cost)

[Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers was released 13 October (USA) and runs 97 minutes. Production was rushed, following the success of Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988). Shooting took place from May - June 1989 in Utah. The film opened #2, behind Look Who's Talking, to a 5 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it left the top 5 in its 2nd weekend and grossed 11.6 mil. $. The international gross numbers are regrettably not made public, so it is impossible to say for sure, if the film was a success: But a small international reception to the tune of a 15 mil. $ final world gross would result in the film being a box office success. Othenin-Girard returned with Night Angel (1990). Pleasence returned in Casablanca Express (1989). Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers is rotten at 12 % with a 3.70/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers? 

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988) - Myers returns for dull slasher

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The white mask of Michael Myers makes up most of this poster for Dwight H. Little's Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers

Michael Myers is getting moved after ten years in the slammer, but he escapes, and again Dr. Loomis has to alarm the Haddonfield community, who nevertheless go through a raging bout with evil!

 

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers is written by Alan B. McElroy (Tekken (2010)), with Benjamin Ruffner, Larry Rattner (Horseplayer (1990)) and Dhani Lipsius (The Greed of Men (2013, executive producer)) contributing story elements, and directed by Dwight H. Little (KGB: The Secret War (1985)).

Formally Halloween 4 may not be too bad, but it bores and fails to affix new relevance to the franchise with a plot that's lacking in surprises, and which doesn't find new scares to compare with John Carpenter's 1978 original.

 

Related posts:

 

Halloween franchise: Halloween (2007) - Zombie's remake is a bloody stinker  

Halloween H20/Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) - Myers spreads fresh terror in Miner's fine sequel 

Halloween (1978) - Carpenter's haunting slasher classic

 

Watch a 3-minute clip from the film here

 

Cost: 5 mil. $

Box office: 17.7 mil. $ (North America only)

= Big hit (returned 3.54 times its cost domestically alone)

[Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers was released 21 October (USA) and runs 88 minutes. After the lukewarm reception to Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), the only Halloween movie not to feature Michael Myers, it was decided to bring him back for the following sequel. Shooting took place from April - May 1988 in Utah, including in Salt Lake City. The film opened #1 to a 6.8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another weekend at #1 and one more in the top 5 (#5), grossing 17.7 mil. $. The film's international gross numbers are regrettably not made public. Little returned with Freddy's Nightmares (1989, TV-series) and theatrically with The Phantom of the Opera (1989). Donald Pleasence (Killers of Kilimanjaro (1959)) returned in Paganini Horror (1988). Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers is rotten at 29 % with a 4.10/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers?

Halloween H20/Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) - Myers spreads fresh terror in Miner's fine sequel

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Returning star Jamie Lee Curtis and an assortment of the fresh young faces against the ghoulish face of killer Michael Myers adorn this poster for Steve Miner's Halloween H20

It has been 20 years since Michael Myers' escape from a mental hospital and subsequent murderous spree on the fateful Halloween night of 1978. Laurie, his sister, has faked her own death and now works as the leader of a private school in California, as Michael strikes again.

Halloween H20 is written by Robert Zappia (Thunder Alley (1994-95)) and Matt Greenberg (Grey Knight (1993)) and directed by Steve Miner (Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)). It is the 7th film in the Halloween franchise, although it retcons [effectively ignores] the plots of the preceding 3 films.

It has a nostalgic value to me due to the time it came out and the time that I first saw it, but it also simply just works, although its plot setup is extremely simple. - Yet that is the case with Halloween right from the first one by John Carpenter, - a boogieman out to slay you, - and the simplicity doesn't diminish its effect.

Jamie Lee Curtis (Queens Logic (1991)) makes all the difference, because it is so palpable that she wants to be this character and support this universe, and that that's why she's there. She also has a wonderful exterior scene here with her real-life mother Janet Leigh (Prince Valiant (1954)), which in a beautiful way brings these two biologically and generically related horror queens together in the same film, - and gives it an added quality in the process.

Halloween H20 is well-made, elementarily exciting and mostly tasteful in its effects, (SPOILER perhaps cute teen Josh Hartnett (O (20021)) with a hockey ice skate through his face is on the edge but besides that.) It is a terrific, compact screamer.

 

Related posts:

 

Halloween franchise: Halloween (2007) - Zombie's remake is a bloody stinker

Steve Miner: Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) - Miner debuts with solid if formulaic first sequel

 

 

Watch a short TV trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 17 mil. $

Box office: 75 mil. $

= Big hit (returned 4.41 times its cost)

[Halloween H20 premiered 27 July (USA) and runs 86 minutes. Carpenter was in talks to direct but insisted on being paid 10 mil. $ and getting a 3-picture deal, which the Weinstein brothers of Dimension Films turned down. Shooting took place from February - April 1998 in Utah and California, including Los Angeles. The film opened #3, behind holdover hit Saving Private Ryan and fellow new release Snake Eyes, to a 16.1 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it left the top 5 in its 2nd weekend and grossed 55 mil. $ (73.3 % of the total gross). The 20 mil. $ international gross comes from a 1999 Variety article. Roger Ebert gave the film a 2/4 star review, translating to 2 notches under this one. Myers returned with Curtis in Halloween: Resurrection (2002) by Rick Rosenthal. Miner returned with Lake Placid (1999). Curtis first returned in Virus (1999). Halloween H20 is rotten at 52 % with a 5.60/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Halloween H20?