HALLOWEEN: H20
The Halloween franchise is so strange. Any horror franchise that has more than seven sequels gets pretty batty, but the Halloweens are top tier convoluted. There are plenty of infographics on the internet explaining how the different Halloween movies relate to the other Halloween movies; mostly in the way that they don't relate at all. For example, Halloween III is a complete standalone film.
The new Halloweens that are coming out at the moment follow on directly from the 1978 original and ignore the nine Halloweens that happened in between. The Rob Zombie remakes from the late 00s relate to nothing whatsoever and it’s best to pretend they never even happened.
Halloween: H20 – truly the dumbest title in the entire franchise, at least set it on a boat or something. Sure, it is 20 years since the first Halloween but nobody calls these movies H and there is very little water in this movie. It’s not even raining. Anyway, Halloween: H20 follows on directly from Halloween II and ignores 4, 5 and 6.
Halloween: H20 feels ahead of its time, very much of its time and completely behind the times all at once. It retcons the franchise timeline and brings back Jamie Lee Curtis for the first time since 1981 – which feels very 2019 of it. It’s also very 1998 by following the Scream, I Know, Urban Legend model of populating the cast with hot young stars like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michelle Williams, and Josh Hartnett. But it also feels so out of touch with the times by being such a straight forward slasher in the era of irony or whatever it was we called the late 90s.
As far as 90s slashers go it’s perfectly fine. It’s right down the middle. Jamie Lee Curtis is the headmaster of a private boarding school and over Halloweenweekend there are a few remaining teenagers who get picked off one by one until Jamie Lee comes face to face with Michael Myers for their final-ever this-is-it there’s-no-coming-back-from-this confrontation – until that gets reversed by a sequel, erased by a reboot, and revised by a requel.
But of course, we must get to the most important question of all, where would I fit into Halloween: H20? The reason the private boarding school is empty over Halloween weekend is because most of the school leaves for a trip to Yosemite National Park. Now, would I be on that bus heading to see the wonder of Yosemite or would I hang back with Josh Hartnett and Michelle Williams to party like it’s 1998?
IF I WERE IN 'HALLOWEEN: H20' I WOULD: QUIETLY ENJOY THE WONDERS YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK HAS TO OFFER BUT FEEL SAD THE NEXT WEEK AT THE SCHOOL ASSEMBLY COMMEMORATING OUR DEAD CLASSMATES.
