(1998) ****1/2
I call it The Jamie Trilogy: Halloweens 4 through 6, featuring Laurie Strode's orphaned daughter. While they aren't exactly demonstrating the sharp decline the Jason movies are inflicting on us at this point in slasher history, they're not exactly great, either. Then H20 happens, totally knocking one out of the park and through old man Johnson's window. And how did they do it? They pretended The Jamie Trilogy NEVER HAPPENED. Right the fuck on.
And why not? They've got Jamie Lee Curtis back, who's had a lot of acting experience thanks to her old scream queen days. She pulls off an engaging, layered performance as the grown up Laurie Strode. Twenty years after that bad night, her personal strength has earned her a postition as dean of a private school in California -- yet she is still terribly haunted, knocking back booze and pills and seeing Michael in every reflection. Her paranoia makes things difficult with her 17-year old son (Josh Hartnett, who I like), to the point where he is forced to tell her off about it. He's right, but she's more right, because Michael is on their trail.
This tale of Halloween night is a good, tight story with no fat at all. Josh and three friends (including Michelle Williams, whose appeal I completely don't get) sneak to a quiet corner of the school to secretly party while everyone is off on a trip. Laurie, who's been living under an assumed name, gets drunk with her boyfriend Adam Arkin and finally opens up and tells him who her brother is. Meanwhile, Michael is already stalking the campus.
Much like the original, this movie counterbalances a good, suspenseful buildup with an exciting endgame. Watching Laurie square off against Michael is perfect: at every step she flat-out refuses to commit any of the mistakes which sealed the doom of her countless imitators through the last two decades. There's a stellar moment when she opens up a closet as a possible hiding place, looks in it and says "shit!" Does she follow the same plan she did last time? I'm not telling.
H20 revitalizes a spent franchise to make a perfect bookend to the old story we loved so much, a lot like New Nightmare did for Freddy. I guess you'd call it the Jamie Lee Trilogy, which I realize sounds inconveniently similar to the other one. It's not my fault.
2 comments:
There is one plot point from The Jamie Trilogy they address, which is that Laurie Strode was reported killed in a car crash. In H20 she says she faked her death as part of her new identity. So it assumes that there never was a Jamie Lloyd, or that Laurie decided to abandon her daughter to the wrath of Michael.
I liked this one a lot. My only criticism is that it's too damn short! It's only like 88 minutes long. While it does keep things lean as you state, they could've done more with Laurie, I mean, what a coup getting Curtis to agree to come back! Of course, everything is negated by the first 15 minutes of the stupid, stupid, Halloween: Ressurection.
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