Retro Review: Halloween H20 (1998)

Oh, here we are.  The Halloween series decides to pull a gimmick.  But, does it work?  It did not work for me.

Halloween H20, or 20 years later, is a sad attempt to bring Jamie Lee Curtis back to roots.  The movie centers around her and her fear of Halloween, makes sense. The only thing that works for me is the beginning credits.  Yep, that is it.

Synopsis:

Two decades after surviving a massacre on October 31, 1978, former baby sitter Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) finds herself hunted by persistent knife-wielder Michael Myers. Laurie now lives in Northern California under an assumed name, where she works as the headmistress of a private school. But it’s not far enough to escape Myers, who soon discovers her whereabouts. As Halloween descends upon Laurie’s peaceful community, a feeling of dread weighs upon her — with good reason.

Bringing Jamie Lee Curtis back for another movie was a smart move.  For me, it was not enough.  The story was not great and the characters were very forgettable.  There are some really nice moments in the movie, Laurie fighting back is one of them.  There is a moment when we see Janet Leigh and Jamie Lee Curtis are on screen together for a moment.  But for me, that is about it.  The movie is simply a turd.

The way the movie begins with Michael breaking in to Dr. Loomis’ nurse’s house and killing her and the two kids that helped her.  Meh, were has he been for the last 20 years?  What happened to him after the second movie?  Then Michael travels to California, from Illinois, in like 2 days?  Also, why in the hell did Dr. Loomis or Marion Chambers have the location of Laurie Strode?  Why in the hell would they have that information?  It just doesn’t add up.

With that aside, the movie is pretty boring.  It really brought nothing new to the series, well except LL Cool J and his trying to write a romance novel.  Then, then we find out that the Jamie Lloyd story line was completely ignored and skipped over.  That really bothered me, I feel like the death of Donald Pleasance and killing off Jamie led to this movie.  They bring back Jamie Lee Curtis to bring fans back or more money.  This was just bull shit to me.

I will be honest, I like this less than Resurrection.  Another big time issue was the inconsistancy of the mask, they used so many different masks during the production, even a CGI mask.  Wow, I just don’t have anything good to say about Halloween H20.  Well, I am just going to end this madness and move on to my review for Halloween 5, the revenge.  It’s better than H20, possibly the 5th best installment.

Halloween H20, out of the 10 Halloween movies, I would place it…7th overall.

IMDB.com has a rating of 5.7, which isn’t bad for all movies.

I give it a 5.6, just barely better than Halloween Resurrection.  This is based on a horror scale.

About Ray Marek III 699 Articles
I have been watching horror films since I was 6 years old. The story, one Saturday night, my mom and I were watching movies and she fell asleep on the couch. We had the channel set on HBO and the movie we were watching ended and the next one, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge. This was some time in 1986. I watched then entire film, I was sitting on the edge of my seat. When my mom woke, she asked me what just ended and I told her, “Freddy”. That was all I talked about for weeks and finally she broke down and rented more horror films for me. She rented, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre part 2, Re-Animator, Friday the 13th VI: Jason Lives and Halloween II. I watched all and fell in love with horror films forever. 5 Horror Films to Watch Inferno (1980) A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) The Beyond (1981) Friday the 13th VI: Jason Lives (1986) Horror of Dracula (1958)