Halloween: Resurrection (2001)

A Review Written by: Joshua Bozeman on February 6, 2003 at 1:45 P.M. CT.

Where do I start with this pile of steamy dog poo? This is by far the worst of the entire series (well, maybe not worse than Halloween 3, but it's close!) It all starts a mess, and it ends a mess. We start out seeing Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) in a mental hospital, looking comatose, staring out the window with a blank look on her face. Two nurses that just entered her room were talking about how she got in here. The young nurse asked the older nurse what she did. She killed a man. Cut his head off with an axe, she tells the girl. Remember the other crappy film in the series, Halloween: H20 from 1998? Well...this is what happened. It wasn't Michael that she killed! Gasp! No way!? Wait, wait wait...here is how the story goes with that-

we see an EMS worker kneeling over Micheal's body in H20, and Micheal grabs him, chokes him, then we see Micheal walking out in the EMS uniform...STILL HOLDING A HUGE KNIFE covered in blood, but hey, EMS workers do that sort of thing and go unnoticed. Duh! Okay...a few problems here. And a note, if the movie starts off with ridiculous plot holes like this, you know the rest of the film will probably be total crap as well- don't worry, it is.

Anyhow...first off- why would an EMS be standing over Michael totally alone? The place would have been swarming with police and emergency medical teams (seeing as how so many people were killed and some wounded!)...so, how a lone EMS worker finds himself with Mikey in private...it defies logic. Then, when Myers grabs the guy, and the guy screams out...why didn't anyone hear him? So many police, yet they have all lost their hearing, I guess? Now, how did Micheal have time to change out of his clothes and mask, undress the EMS worker, then switch them all? Don't you think someone else (say maybe the police or the medical examiners or some crime scene investigators) would have wanted to find the body as soon as possible? Make sure he was REALLY DEAD maybe? Apparently, no one cared...and they just let the lone EMS worker take care of all of that, huh? Secondly- how would Micheal have walked out in the EMS uniform without anyone noticing, 'hey, that's not bill, or bob, or whatever the guy's name was?" Did no one know the EMS worker? Did no one recognize that this surely wasn't him!? Did no one recognize the fact that a stranger was wearing an EMS uniform...a stranger who no doubt was burned badly (think the end of part 2, and the fire...and the explosion...Micheal BURNING!) No one noticed the odd looking, badly burned, stranger EMS guy was walking out of the building and into the woods holding a very large knife? No wonder Micheal reeks such havoc! With police like this...geesh!

Okay, now we're in the van...the one Laurie stole so she could take Micheal away and kill him. Make sure he's dead and all. So- if you'll remember, Mike rises up in the back of the van, then starts attacking Laurie. He nearly kills her, the van wrecks, Mike is trapped by the van...he is reaching out towards Laurie, then she takes his head off with the axe. Now...think about that. If it wasn't really Myers, but the EMS worker in Michael's clothes and mask, WHY ON EARTH DID HE ATTACK HER? Why on earth did he cause her to wreck the van, nearly killing them both?!! The young nurse asked the older one why the EMS guy didn't just scream out that he wasn't Micheal- the older nurse says that Micheal crushed his larynx. Now, I'm no doctor, but would that really cause you to never be able to speak again? Forget that- let's say he couldn't talk and tell her..."hey, it's me, the friendly EMS guy!" Why didn't he...oh, I don't know, TAKE OFF THE MASK?!! Then, maybe, JUST MAYBE, she would have seen, oh say...HIS FACE, and she wouldn't have killed him! That would have been too easy for the EMS guy, I guess?

Okay...so we're back to the present day, Laurie is given her pills, and the nurses leave. She hasn't spoken in years, the nurse mentions. Laurie takes the pills, spits them out, and stuffs them in the doll she is holding...clearly, she has never taken any of the pills she has been given. Laurie stands up, and she sees Micheal outside the window (she's on a higher floor), and he's staring up at her.

Next, we see the cliched bumbling security guard- I know a few security guards, and trust me, they're only this stupid in horror movies. So, we see this guy outside and he's sort of patrolling the area...he runs into a patient who has gotten outside, so he takes him back inside to his room. We see Micheal too...he gets into the grounds of the building.

The bumbling officer goes to the security HQ and talks to another officer. The other officer sees the patient he just took inside in the basement...we both have to go get him to his room he says. So, they leave, and we see Micheal walk thru the hall on a security camera monitor, the monitor the guards JUST missed as they walked out the door.

Mr. Bumbling security guard skipped dinner, so he gets something from the vending machine, while the other guard goes to find the patient. The fat, dinner skipping, guard hears a scream, so he goes into a big room with washers and driers to inspect. He hears a weird sound in the washer, so he opens it up, and he finds a head...THEN, he trips over the decapitated body surrounded by a big pool of blood lying RIGHT BEHIND HIM. Now- BIG problem here. The security guard might be bad at his job...but is he blind too? He walked into a room and didn't see the headless, bloody body lying 2 feet from him? That's odd. Well, Michael kills the guy, and that's that. He goes upstairs and into Lauries room...Laurie is hiding behind the door, she hits him, then she runs up to the roof where Michael follows. She tricks him again! She makes him think she jumped off the building, then she hits a button and it brings up rope lying under one of his feet...it starts to lift his body up, he drops his knife, she walks to him...

It gets stupid here again.

Laurie asks if he's scared, and says some other nonsense that is so silly it should have never been in any horror script. She has his knife, and she's going to kill him. BUT- she says she has to make sure...so, she walks up and starts to take off his mask. He grabs her arm, then he ends up stabbing her, then throwing her off the building. Now...WHY DID SHE TRY TO TAKE OFF HIS MASK? Why?! Like we all didn't know he was going to suddenly grab her? Why didn't she say...hey, you- take off the mask. Now, there's a genius idea!

Cut from the darkness of night to the light of day, where we see a sign for Haddonfield University. Wow! Haddonfield, the tiny little quiet town in Illinois has a large university? That's just too funny! We meet some dumb characters that no one in their right mind would like...so, right off the bat, we don't care about any of them. They're all token this...token that characters. The token black guy...the rebel who thinks he's a bad ass...the crazy girl with the shy, quiet friend...the guy who is halfway normal, but constantly talks about sex and stuff...the rebel girl who doesn't go with the herd...there you have the cast! Oh, I forgot to mention Busta Rhymes (yes, good choice for a character in a movie- a terrible actor who raps for a living. GREAT idea!) Then, we have the always annoying Tyra Banks, who is in the movie for maybe 5 minutes? Most of that 5 minutes is her shaking her ass to some music while making an espresso or a latte or something that is related to that coffee stuff.

The above mentioned characters have all won a chance to be on dangertainment...an idea by Busta's character. The 6 of them will spend one night in the Myer's house, with cameras mounted all over the house and on their heads. It will all be one big live, Halloween night webcast online.

I forgot to mention another character- some guy we meet before they even get to the house...some college kid who talks to one of the girls (Sara- the quiet shy one) online. They are friends or maybe more than friends? Who knows...she writes e mail to her and she gets it on her palm pilot throughout various points in the movie. He promises he will watch her tonight online. He also promises his buddy he'll go to this halloween party with him, but he ends up sneaking off to a room with a computer with a big monitor on the wall- other partygoers join him later on.

Anyhow...where was I? Okay. They arrive at the house and the fun begins...they're just supposed to snoop around and that'll be it. Stuff happens, more stuff happens, and yet more stupid stuff happens, most of them end up dead and good wins out over evil, blah blah blah...but I will just go thru some various parts of the story along with various plotholes.

plot points and plotholes

• As Sara rides her scooter to the dangertainment place...we clearly see moutains in the background. There are no mountains of any kind in Illinois. Nor are there any areas with hills that might look like mountains.
• All the trees lining the road in front of the Myer's house where they are all to spend the night are filled with green leaves. It's supposed to be October 31 in upstate Illinois...the leaves wouldn't have been green...IF there were even any left on the trees.
• When we get a shot from inside the window of the house- looking outside, we see crunch leaves blowing in the air...yet there were no leaves off the trees, and none of them were brown or crunched.
• When Micheal kills Bill...how come no one in the house heard him scream?
• Micheal kills Bill by coming thru a wall AND a big mirror hanging on the wall...how did he break thru both of these...and, why didn't anywhere hear him go thru the wall or hear the breaking glass?
• Two of the characters go into the basement to look around and they find a hole in the floor that leads to a chamber of sorts...a circular area with chains on the wall. There's a hidden chamber undeath the basement in an average house in suburban Illinois? Umm, yea...Okay!
• When the wall falls down in the chamber, the female character goes thru the wall and into a vast expansion of tunnels...looks like a sewer system. First off- I don't think sewers are really that big. I don't think there are actually huge tunnels running under an entire city like in this movie and many others. Not only that, but why would a weird chamber under a house lead to these tunnels? And why are there lights in the tunnel?
• When Micheal comes in and walks up to Busta's character who is also dressed up like Micheal (he's going to try to scare the kids) Busta thinks it's Charlie, one of the crew members for the dangertainment thing. He starts screaming at him to go back outside...HE was playing Micheal, so get. How come no one upstairs heard him screaming at the guy? I guess they're ALL hard of hearing.
• When Michael kills Jenny, he does so with a kitchen knife. A big kitchen knife...but still, a kitchen knife. Funny thing- he easily decapitates her. Here's an idea- go out and try to decapitate ANYTHING with a kitchen knife. Good luck, and call me in a few years while you're still working on it, and the knife is nearly broken in half.
• Back to a problem in the start of the movie- when Michael leaves dressed as the EMS worker, where did he get his new, identical set of clothes...and where did he get his new, (somewhat) identical mask? Would they even sell a mask they know is worn by some maniac killer?
• In the movie, they claim that Michael has been living in his rundown house for the past twenty years...under the basement, I guess? The token black guy who happens to be a chef in training, smells one of the spices and mentions to Sara that it smells fresh. Weird. Yea...what are they trying to imply?? Michael cooks with oregano and thyme? That's just too stupid to answer...
• Near the end of the movie, the character at the party is sending messages to Sara's palm pilot, but how? She has a wireless connection somehow? She's getting his messages how? How is he even sending them? There is no mail program open on either characters screen, nor any IM program...I guess they have a special setup that links them up directly without the need of any program, huh? Impossible!

Well, as you can guess...Michael is defeated in the end, and all is good in the world...then, while lying on the coroner's table, his eyes suddenly come open. Gasp!

Now...about the movie- of course, the story is terrible. It is so full of holes, I'm embarassed to even like the original film in the series. Rosenthal, who directed part 2 as well, has no idea what he's doing. He does this thing where he keeps switching back and forth from the normal camera view, to the camera view atop the character's heads, to the view from the cameras mounted in the house...it's annoying, and he missed the bus. The whole webcasting thing is old by now, and so is the reality tv/horror thing. They both fall flat on their faces, but with this script, who even cares. The look of the film is ruined by the nonsense that takes place in the story and the back and forth with the different cameras...the acting is subpar overall, but a few of the actors do a decent job. The only thing to even get close to liking in this hunk of garbage is the score, which is nicely done...and we get Carpenter's original theme every now and then. With all of that said, avoid this movie like a number of other crappy horror movies. It's a shame that Moustapha Akkad (producer of the series) has run this franchise into the ground. Unlike a lot of people, I love Halloween 6, and we should have continued from there...but no, they went and make crappy movies with parts 7 and 8. I'm afraid to say, I don't think anything can save Halloween. It was fun while it lasted, but the magic is gone. It doesn't even seem like the same movie series...Michael doesn't even see like the same Michael. We've gone to pointless silly scripts to plotholes you could drive aircraft carriers thru. This is not what Halloween was about. If they make Halloween 9, which I think there are plans for, please, let them go back to the original vision Carpenter had. Please!

My rating: .05/10

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