THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
When Hollywood makes a new set of good after a batch of bad, they can’t help making a mistake making bad shit again for the sake of the dough. Their finest example is Halloween Resurrection.
PLOT
The 2002 film takes place four years after the events of H20. Michael Myers turns out to be alive due to swapping clothes with a paramedic before Laurie Strode presumed she had killed him. As a result of her killing an innocent man, she got institutionalized in Grace Anderson Sanitarium. Despite preparing for his return, she gets herself stabbed by her brother when wanting to mask him and ensure he would be done for. He escapes after giving his knife to a mental patient named Harold (Gus Lynch), who is a serial killer fanatic, which in turn would frame him for what happened. His next list of victims are a group of college students who have won a competition to appear in the Internet reality show, ‘Dangertainment’, directed by Freddie Harris & Nora Winston (Tyra Banks). The group includes: Sara Moyer, Bill Woodlake (Thomas Ian Nichols), Donna Chang (Daisy McCrackin), Jen Danzig (Katee Sackhoff), Jim Morgan (Luke Kirby) & Rudy Grimes (Sean Patrick Thomas). He chooses to go after them due to the show being hosted in his childhood home in Haddonfield. The goal for the students in the show is to spend the night in the house and figure what led to Michael becoming a killer (since this timeline ignores the Thorn arc). Sara is the only one not as interested because she doesn’t seek fame compared to the others, but Freddie encourages her to give it a chance since her being different will make the show better. Before the show starts, cameraman Charlie (Brad Sihvon) sets up said cameras around the house, only to get killed by the returning Shape. Once the show gets going, Sara’s online friend Myles aka Deckard (Billy Kay), who is unaware that he’s a high school freshman, watches the live broadcast at a party. Once he tunes in, Michael resumes killing by breaking through a bathroom wall to stab Bill. When Donna & Jim split up from the others, they try to have sex in the basement only to fall for a prank of displayed skeletons planted by Freddie. Sara even falls for a planted white mask in a bedroom closet. Myles sees Bill’s kill and discovers it to be real, whereas the other partygoers mistake it to be staged as well. Only after realizing the show is a setup does Donna also get killed by Michael, impaled by a gate. He also finds Freddie in the house dressed as him intending to scare the competitors. With the latter mistaking him to be Charlie, he instructs him to go to the garage to help Nora. He goes there to kill her too but after he leaves, the remaining group find Freddie in costume who confesses to the scheme but insists on them to roll along with it as he promises to compensate them all if the show is a success. Just when he departs to stage the next jump scare, the boogeyman returns and beheads Jen with a knife. Off of that and finding Bill’s corpse, they realize the new set of danger is real. He then stabs Rudy with multiple knives and crushes Jim’s head. With Sara on her own apart from Freddie, who also realizes what’s happening after finding Charlie’a body, Myles texts her where to avoid Myers and also calls 911 to save them before it’s too late. Once Freddie & Sara temporarily deal with the slasher by kicking him out a window and hang him with a camera wire, they plan to escape. However, the boogeyman quickly regains momentum and injures Freddie to the point of Sara retreating on her own. She takes a tunnel from the basement that takes her back to the garage where Nora is found dead. Michael catches up and their confrontation starts a fire. Luckily for Sara, Freddie recovers and saves her by getting the boogeyman electrocuted. Once they escape, they are tended to by an arriving ambulance. Sara thanks Deckard on the news for saving her life and Freddie expresses regret on his attempt of exploiting the murderer for entertainment, but the film ends with Michael’s body being taken away to a morgue only for him to awaken in front of a coroner.
THOUGHTS
You know, we're in a generation to accept slasher sequels are not guaranteed to be amazing the way they are the first time around and it can get messy the longer they stick around. Halloween is sadly one of those franchises because this whole film was jumping the shark compared to the Thorn arc. At every chance possible, director Rick Rosenthal, who directed Halloween II, doesn't really deliver in being entertaining of an experience in comparison which is already disappointing to say aloud. I can still give credit to actor Brad Loree in his efforts to keep the infamous boogeyman an imposing figure with a decent designed mask, but this is the only time it feels to formulaic to deduce because we don't really care for the majority of the cast which is not good at all. Admittedly, I felt this thing was already doomed once writers Larry Brand & Sean Hood chose to kill off Jamie Lee Curtis' Laurie and undo her redemption in H20 as the cold open. I got nothing against rapper Busta Rhymes since I love his music, but the role of Freddie is a miscast compared to his other previous roles. The character is supposed to represent how fucked up it is to exploit real life murders, the pointlessness of reality television, telling us to leave history alone as is and the character does come to his own in converting from selfish to selfless when he saves Sara, but it's forced like having to still show compassion towards a family relative even when they grave mistakes. Speaking of which, Bianca Kajlich makes the final girl the only one likable since she was never into being the center of attention the way everyone else around her does. Once that is made clear, I just knew she was gonna get out of this fine. I don't want to exaggerate as I go on, but her platonic relationship with Deckard is so damn bizarre because for someone as smart as her, it'd be crazy for her to ask for a picture to know who she's talking to. And with everyone being one noted, I didn't feel phased at all once the bodies pile up which is not what we're supposed to feel in these movies. I would've called this movie decent if Michael died for good, but keeping him alive is stupid because it goes nowhere. Again, a lot of these characters are so unlikable because they make many pointless decisions that ruin the suspense the original film was known for. Now that we know there was only one paramedic that tended to Michael in H20, why the hell would he go alone? He can't guarantee he was done for, so he should've waited for backup to help him and that would've saved Laurie and prevent this whole mess of a movie from happening. It is mentioned that Freddie was looking for Charlie, but why wasn't Nora? It may be her job to check the monitors, but her lack of concern after being pleased of a camera angle Michael made with his death was unsettling. I know the joke is that she wasn't paying attention, but it's odd she doesn't ask about him at all after. I know Sara was nervous that she started to think she was seeing before going in the house, but it would've not been a bad thing for her to say something to properly continue the expected suspense. And honestly, why would Freddie think Charlie would want to dress up as Charlie? He's the cameraman who would not be interested in playing a character role. Freddie even messes up in planting the props have labels on them. I mean that's asking to get exposed. Also, why would Donna go to the tunnel alone? Even if she found out Freddie was staging the show, she can't doubt the danger is gone forever. I don't even like the fact that Myles' friend Scott (Billy Kay) put him on blast by saying aloud to the party guests watching along that he's Deckard. Their relationship was private and he knew that because that put more pressure on him to do something when he didn't need it. Lastly, why the fuck didn't Michael finish off Freddie before chasing Sara? I don't want to root for this villain despite being the star, but that's asking to have a disadvantage. That's dumber than not dying of rabies when he had to eat rats in the basement. To get this over with, Halloween Resurrection is the franchise's absolute worst for not trying hard enough with capitalizing creativity. The fact this is the last to be produced by the late Moustapha Akkad, who had been with it since the original film, does not make it any better of a sendoff either. As a fan of this franchise, avoid this and stick with the Blumhouse trilogy as a better conclusion in comparison to this bullshit.
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