
Another bout of late night madness, another horror series under the belt. This time...appropriately...Halloween.
"Halloween": John Carpenter's pitch for this movie must have been great.
Carpenter: "It's about this guy who kills some babysitters."
Exec: "And...?"
Carpenter: "Oh yeah, and he's hunted down by his pyschiatrist."
Exec: "And...?"
Carpenter: "Err...it takes place on Halloween?"
It's an insanely simple premise and nowadays they'd be calls for "origin story!" arguing that the idea wont sell, but the seventies were a simpler time. The actual movie holds up pretty well, creepy in its simplicity and presenting a very effective mood, not least of which is helped by John Carpenter's own score which is electronic and almost as simple as the movie itself. The movie introduces us to three of the characters which will turn up time and time again throughout the Halloween series - in this case Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode, Donald Pleasance as Dr Sam Loomis and, of course, Michael Myers - the ominous presence who is played by a variety of people in this movie alone, one of which is rather curiously credited as "The Shape". Curtis creates the scream queen that she was to become in this movie, and gives a very convincing performance as the quiet girl in school (though why she is friends with two wild girls it's hard to tell), and of course Pleasance is fantastic as Loomis, the Cassandra of the movie who becomes a little more obsessive as the film goes on. Halloween is a wonderfully scary movie that stands the test of time well and essentially created the slasher film genre.
"Halloween 2": The first movie ended extremely mysteriously, with Loomis declaring Myers the boogey man and Myers himself disappearing, despite having been shot repeatedly. The second movie has assumed that that ending was not actually mysterious, but in fact a cliffhanger, and although Rick Rosenthal takes the director's chair there is a feeling that this movie was filmed at the same time as the original (it wasn't). Halloween 2 introduces us to the mythology of the Halloween film, retconning Laurie Strode into Myers' younger sister and revealing that the killer seems rather intent on wiping out his entire family. Both Curtis and Pleasance return, Loomis becoming even more obsessed with Myers, while Curtis cements her position as the archetypal slasher film heroine. That said, however, the movie is essentially a retread of the first film with nothing particularly new to offer, aside from a motivation for Myers, and a certain finality to the ending of Myers and Loomis. It's a good movie, and complements the first well.
"Season Of The Witch": Apparently John Carpenter intended each Halloween film to have its own idenity, and the third movie starts this practice with a film that has no relation to Michael Myers, Sam Loomis or Laurie Strode, but rather centers around a strange business that makes halloween masks, who intend to send a signal to the masks that will take control of the wearer and kill them. Apparently the film was written by Nigel "Quatermass" Kneale, although he was unhappy with the changes made to his script and so had his name taken off the credits, which is probably a good idea because the movie is pretty bloody ordinary, even thinking of it as a stand alone film. It has nothing particular to recommend it and the ending which suggests the villains may have gotten away with their plan doesn't really shock - Halloween had the same ending in many ways. Overall, Halloween III is a bit of a waste of time and isn't really notable at all.
"The Return Of Michael Myers": Ten years after the original, Michael Myers and Sam Loomis are back, surprisingly having survived their apparent cremation in Halloween 2, and following on from the film's ideas, Michael is hunting down his lone surviving relative, Laurie Strode's daughter Jamie Lloyd - the fourth important character in the film series. Dwight H Little directs this film, while Carpenter has no involvement whatsoever. I have to say that I adore this film. Jamie, played by Danielle Harris, is wonderful in her role, and Donald Plesance has turned Loomis into a true obsessive, almost as terrifying as Myers in his own way. Myers remains the dedicated killer, finding new and more entertaining ways to kill his victims, but the high point of the film is the ending which is one of the most disturbing endings to a film, played so well by Harris and particularly Pleasance. The idea that Myers is now dead and Jamie will follow in his footsteps is beautifully circular and a brilliant idea.
"The Revenge Of Michael Myers": Shame they didn't carry it through though. Dominique Othenin-Girard becomes the new director, and the ending of the previous film is referred to in passing but in such a way that it never becomes clear whether it actually happened or whether it was just a dream that Jamie had. Nonetheless Halloween 5 sees the return of Plesance and Harris, as well as some other characters who seem to turn up with the sole purpose of being killed off. Harris again brings her character a lot of depth, especially given she can now no longer speak, although it seems that neither Plesance nor Harris were particularly impressed with the decision to toss away the ending of the previous film. Halloween 5 suffers from the same problems of Halloween 2, not really giving us anything new, but still turning in a successful horror film. What is slightly interesting, however, is the decision to give a slightly more curious motivation to his killing, and introducing a mysterious "man in black" character that seems to abduct Jamie and Michael at the end of the film. It's a deliberate cliffhanger, but its effectiveness is questionable.
"The Curse Of Michael Myers": This is an absolute mess of a film, which is a shame because while Joe Chappelle taking the director's chair is uneventful, the fact that it was written by fan Daniel Farrands suggests the film should have been better than it was. The film attempts to explain the man in black from the previous film, while bringing us the return of Tommy, the little boy who Laurie Strode was babysitting in the first film, but there are a great number of problems with the film, kicking off with the return of Jamie Lloyd, but not portrayed by Danielle Harris, because the producers didn't want to pay her the amount she was asking for. From there we have the decision to radically refilm the ending, despite the fact that Donald Plesanace had passed away during the filming of the movie, leaving the ending very much up to the interpretation of, well, pretty much everyone. The other thing that disturbs me is the insinuation that Jamie was impregnated by Michael which is just wrong on so many levels. There seems to have been a really good idea behind this film, but it all just fell apart as the film was actually made. Shame, really.
"H20: Twenty Years Later": Twenty years after the original, Jamie Lee Curtis returns to the Halloween series as Laurie Strode (now calling herself Keri Tate for no really good reason), in a film written (uncredited) by the writer of the hour, Kevin Williamson and directed by Friday the 13th luminary Steve Miner. Overlooking the fact that this movie virtually ignores the previous three movies (though its not impossible to reconcile the films, fellow continuity freaks!), the main problem with this movie is that it's boring as shit. Everyone wanders around, wallowing in their personal problems; the kids are essentially Dawson, Joey, Pacey and Jen while Laurie ceases to even remotely resemble the character from the original films. If that wasn't bad enough, someone attempts to do what is easily the worst Donald Pleasance impression in the history of cinema. I recall enjoying this film a lot, but on rewatching I was astonished at how ordinary it was. By the end, I couldn't care less about Laurie and sort of hoped that Michael would finish her off. He didn't.
"Resurrection": Oh, I take it back, he did. Rick Rosenthal returns to the Halloween fold to direct the single worst entry in the Halloween canon. Oh dear lord there is nothing to recommend this film at all. Even the usually reliable Bianca Kajlich is below par on this film. The sad thing is that, on reading Daniel Farrands pitch for the movie, it actually seemed quite interesting; especially the idea of Laurie Strode actually being the killer. Instead we get the ending of the previous movie retconned to bring Michael Myers back to life to go killing, picking off Jamie Lee Curtis in the opening sequence. The problem is, though; having killed Laurie Strode, why does he keep killing??? Why wouldn't he bother to go hunting Laurie's son from the previous movie? None of the film makes sense, and most of it is just stupid. It's a devastatingly depressing way to end a series which was doing so well.
"Rob Zombie's Halloween": Having joked that if Halloween was to be made today it would be an origin story, it's a little depressing to see the prediction come true. The reboot of the Halloween series has a lot of things that strike you from the outset - a half hour sequence in which we discover that Michael is a troubled young boy with a horrible home life and Sam Loomis (now portrayed by Malcolm McDowall) is nothing more than a hippy. Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) is confirmed from an early point as Myers' sister, so the film remakes both Halloween and Halloween 2. However, the amount of nudity in the film is quite noticeable, particularly given there was so little nudity in the series to this point. On the casting front, Zombie's version brings Danielle Harris back to the Halloween series, this time playing Annie Brackett, but it's great to see her. Even more exciting is the ever offbeat Brad Dourif playing Annie's father, Sheriff Brackett. In spite of that, however, Zombie's version seems to feel more like Saw than the movie it is remaking and as a result it lacks that Halloween feel. Shame really.
My initial feelings about the Halloween series is that it is the most consistent horror series, up to a certain point (that being Halloween 6). From that point on it starts to go downhill rapidly, and its reboot is the worst of the horror reboots to date. Halloween, however, has a charm that wont die and given John Carpenter's notorious track record of hit or miss, Halloween is most definitely a hit.