I was thinking about Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) while watching a podcast about the upcoming "Halloween Kills". Curtis deciding to give Laurie a "more fitting" story to close out her character's story arc than "H20". I still think "H20", despite its many flaws and "errors in judgment" by those who made it, feels as right as any close to the Laurie / Michael story. The head comes off, those eyes open, Laurie with the heavy breathing once heard by Michael twenty years earlier in Haddonfield. That this film never has a single scene in Haddonfield seems odd and perhaps a bone of contention with Halloween fans. I can see why "H20" is often rejected by fans of the franchise. Its glaring flaws, "mask issues", "Scream music", "Williamson 90s flavor", "Hartnett hair", how Michael doesn't look burnt up at all (it would seem to follow "Halloween II" but I'm not so sure how much...) considering his injuries would obviously show that if followed directly from the hospital explosion, among other problems give plenty of ammunition to the film's harshest critics.
To me, though, when I look at "H20" as a "Laurie Strode film", I think it is successful. Because I think Jamie Lee Curtis has never been better than in this film in that role. I like how she portrays the trauma, what 20 years of dealing with the baggage of her brother has done to her in regards to being reclusive and paranoid. With two films of Michael killing and pursuing her, it made sense Laurie would be on edge for so long as opposed to one single film...though she did lose two dear friends.
As a Michael Myers film, "H20" isn't all that great to me. I just didn't find the actor behind the mask all that scary or menacing. He is just another stuntman suited up, a bit boring and lacking the presence I often associate with the character. It didn't help that those damn masks never seem to stay the same appearance to appearance. This go-around, I noticed that Laurie really brings the pain. She bonks him on the head with a fire extinguisher, lands an ax right into the left shoulder, stabs him multiple times with butcher knives, and impales him with a flag pole...Michael kept coming. The "off with his head" and the sound effect from the first film, and that iconic Carpenter score taking us out of the film, "H20" felt as final as any film should closing that chapter on this "sibling rivalry". Still even this evening, the kills of Miner's film, how they are staged, the impact of what little Michael does when active; "H20" isn't really any better or worse that your average "Scream" film. In fact, "H20" feels like a relative to "Scream". That will always leave some Halloween fans burned.
I started thinking about watching Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) right around the beginning of July. Of all the Halloween films, within the convoluted Multiverse, "H20" feels the least like it happens in October. Setting a majority of the film in a private school with a security guard and "protective gate and wall" in Summer Glen, California, it just doesn't have that iconic atmospheric feel when Halloween 4 (1988) starts up. Immediately where Dwight Little lets us know in his film that his film feels as if we are right in the middle of the October season, Steve Miner's team relocate their Halloween story to California, avoiding even having to put in the effort Carpenter's did in their own 1978 film. So watching "H20" in the summer doesn't feel as if its out of character. In all honesty, "H20" feels as if it could have been any time of the year if the screenplay (and whatever additions Williamson made) doesn't add Halloween markers around dorm rooms and in the nearby town where Laurie Strode goes to lunch with guidance counselor lover, Will Brennan (Adam Arkin), and dialogue. After watching the film, my daughter asked me, "Was that Michael a fake?" I got shivers being reminded of "Resurrection", throwing up a bit in my mouth. I looked over at her and told her, "As far as I'm concerned, "Resurrection" doesn't exist." I took a deep breath and started up this little bit of a followup to all the "H20" blog posts of the past.
The film has Arkin hoisted up by a butcher knife while shaking after shooting hysterically at LL Cool J, believing he was MM...his conversations and chemistry with Curtis is a nice change of pace for this franchise. Intimate, emotional, adult moments where Curtis is vulnerable, struggling with demons, selectively giving Arkin information, eventually letting him know everything. This was a sound relationship between middle-aged, academic intellectuals, and so for a Halloween movie, I think it stands out. LL with his wife on the phone in the guard shack, also a nice little break from the norm. This was just enough difference from what we typically saw.
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