The WTF? Worst Films Extravaganza Presents: Halloween: Resurrection (2002)

DIRECTED BY
Rick Rosenthal

STARRING
Jamie Lee Curtis - Laurie Strode
Brad Loree - Michael Myers
Busta Rhymes - Freddie Harris
Bianca Kajlich - Sara Moyer
Sean Patrick Thomas - Rudy Grimes
Katee Sackhoff - Jenna Danzig
Thomas Ian Nicholas - Bill Woodlake
Ryan Merriman - Myles "Deckard" Barton
Tyra Banks - Nora Winston

Year - 2002

Score - 0.5 Howls Outta 4

In 1998, Dimension Films revived the HALLOWEEN franchise with the series' 7th film, HALLOWEEN H20. Riding the success of SCREAM and I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, HALLOWEEN H20 brought Jamie Lee Curtis back to the franchise as the iconic Laurie Strode to face Michael Myers for one last battle after 20 years. With great performances and a very final ending, the film grossed over $55 million at the box office and a lot more in VHS/DVD rentals and sales. The franchise was back in swing and the story of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode was finally given its satisfactory ending. Or was it?

I guess after seeing the massive box office receipts of the film, Dimension and executive producer Moustapha Akkad felt that there was more juice in the HALLOWEEN franchise. It didn't matter that Laurie had murdered Michael Myers at the end of H20 by chopping off the guy's head. Michael Myers equals big bucks and he needs to be milked until he's not profitable anymore. So like a bunch of greedy f'ers, the HALLOWEEN producers brought back Michael Myers and made some idiot excuse as to how he was still alive for 2002's HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION. The final sequel of the franchise's 1st volume of films brought back Curtis for a cameo to wrap up her Laurie story with Michael. It also introduced some personality-challenged college students to film themselves in The Myers House for an internet reality show ran by Busta Rhymes [good God] and Tyra Banks [good God x 2]. While the film made over $30 million at the box office, the film was just terrible and showed that the improvements made in H20 meant nothing as the franchise became a joke again.

PLOT
Three years after HALLOWEEN H20, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is in a mental institution waiting for Michael Myers (Brad Loree) to show up. Apparently, she didn't murder her brother back in 1998. It seems [and smells like B.S.] that Michael had switched places with an unsuspecting paramedic [who did NOT share his body type] and crushed his larynx so he couldn't speak. So as Michael escaped looking like a paramedic, Laurie killed the real paramedic instead. Michael arrives at the mental institution to kill Laurie [why it took him 3 years, who the hell knows?] and the two face off one last time. Any guesses who dies this time? Hint: It ain't the guy with the mask. So after killing Laurie, Michael gives up his hunt to murder his kin and returns home to Haddonfield.

There's a problem though. A year later, it seems some entrepreneur named Freddie [Why did they have to use my name?] Harris (Busta Rhymes) has plans to run an internet reality show putting six college students inside the home of Michael Myers for scholarship money and publicity. Since this is a horror movie made for financial purposes and not to please the fans who made the franchise what it is today, these six personality-challenged students suffer bad luck at the hands of Michael Myers, who is back inside of his house and does not want to be bothered. If only he had killed the producers of this film, the world would be a better place.

REVIEW
HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION sucks. That's all there is to it. It's an unneeded sequel that adds absolutely nothing positive to the franchise. I was watching it again tonight and I kept asking myself, "Why was this film even made?" Seriously...H20 ended the franchise PERFECTLY. Michael Myers was DEAD! DEAD! DEADDEADDEADDEADDEAD...DEAD!! That's the ending all us fans wanted. We wanted Laurie to get her revenge on this guy. Good triumphed over evil. It was an ideal ending for a franchise that started great and ended quite well. But NOOOOOOO! Movie executives are greedy bastards who don't give a hell about the public they're catering too and only want to fill their pockets with more cash. How many times can the HALLOWEEN producers cheat us out on ending the franchise? HALLOWEEN II SHOULD have been it. But it wasn't. HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS could have led into a different chapter of the franchise. But that was taken away from us fans. And then we get HALLOWEEN H20, which was FINAL. How can these producers keep doing this to us!? It's hard for me to write bad reviews for this franchise because I love HALLOWEEN, Laurie Strode, Sam Loomis, Jamie Lloyd, and Michael Myers. But when people insult my intelligence by giving me B.S. like HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION, I get pissed off! And I paid to see this in the theater out of curiosity and came out totally disappointed! And it still hasn't changed.

Before I rant on and on about this piece of crap film, let me at least state what's good about the film. The first 15 minutes of the film involving Laurie and Michael are well-done. Not needed, but watchable. It's the only time in the film where it actually had that HALLOWEEN feel and I appreciated that. I hate that Laurie died at the end of it, but I don't blame Jamie Lee Curtis for wanting out of this sinking ship. She was led to believe that H20 was the perfect end to the character that made her famous to begin with, and was given the shaft by having to do this film just so Michael Myers can keep on living. It's a betrayal of character. We've grown with Laurie for so long that we feel cheated that Michael kills her. Is that supposed to make me want to watch more HALLOWEEN films? It sucks! Laurie deserved better and Jamie Lee Curtis deserved better. While I did enjoy the scene, it still upsets me at the same time. But at least it's a lot better than the rest of the film that appears afterwards.

And the direction was good. Rick Rosenthal, who also directed HALLOWEEN II, does a good job here flawlessly mixing the camera POV angles of the students with real shots of the actual film. The picture is beautiful, with blue and purple hues, and he handles the action well with low angles and dark shadows. The slow-motion shots were also very well done and there was some tension in certain scenes. While HALLOWEEN II is a WAY better film than this one, at least Rosenthal had decent pacing and great camera work to keep the film moving.

And then there's everything else. Gosh, where do I begin? What about that really boring and uninspired opening credit sequence? Names on a black background. Veeeery "original" and the WORST HALLOWEEN opener ever. At least the theme song is nice.

What about that script? You know...the one a 4th grader could do a better job on? There's no plot here. There's no more story to tell. Loomis is dead. Jamie Lloyd is dead. Laurie Strode is dead. Who else is there for Michael to kill? Brainless college students who are touring his house? Save that kind of crap for FRIDAY THE 13TH! This is a HALLOWEEN film! Michael needs a purpose for his murders. So they entered his home. Wow, neat. Colored me intrigued. Who gives a crap? If this was a parody like the much better JASON X [which came out a few months before this one], I wouldn't be so hard on this film. But it's taken seriously and we have no choice but to see the film in that light. What could have been a film that was aware of itself turns into a straightforward, cliched horror film that I wouldn't even use to wipe my ass even if I ran out of toilet paper!

What about the whole reality show, POV concept with the cameras inside the house? That's a cool idea --- if we're still in 1999! THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT did a helluva better job with the whole concept than this film and it was made for a lot less. At least there were some chilling scenes in that film. HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION has none and seems dated because of the whole BLAIR WITCH-vibe.

And the whole SCREAM-like dialogue and stereotypes of the characters has been played out too. It's no longer fresh. It's no longer fun. I'm tired of watching characters in modern horror films that are still stupid, horny, annoying, or all three wrapped up in one. But here we got them! In full force no less! People actually wanted to have sex in The Myers House, knowing that people got butchered there! What the hell!? And that bong scene...whatever. The characters were one-note and added NOTHING to the story or the film. Hell, I wanted Michael to kill them all! And the fact that he didn't succeed pisses me off too! I've seen smarter people in FRIDAY THE 13TH films! How sad is that? They knew a killer was inside the house, yet NONE OF THEM tried to jump out of a window to escape [the doors were locked]. Were these people stupid? Is Haddonfield University a college for "special" people? You can't relate to anyone in this film. The only person you have related to was murdered 15 minutes into the film. Now we have to relate to Michael Myers? He's the damn killer! And relating to the killer doesn't make him scary anymore. And Michael Myers is NOT scary in this film, especially when he has no one suitable to play against.

Speaking of playing against Michael Myers, who the hell hired Busta Rhymes to be in this film? I like his music and he was good in SHAFT, but he has no right being in a HALLOWEEN film. At least LL Cool J was charismatic and didn't have much of a serious role in HALLOWEEN H20, making him tolerable. But Busta being a LEAD? That's just unacceptable. Especially the fact that Michael Myers actually seemed scared of him. Why? The fact that Busta did stupid kung-fu poses and actually KICKED MICHAEL MYERS' ASS is an insult to every HALLOWEEN fan out there. I still remember when I first saw that. I wanted to walk out on the film and the theater right then and there. Laurie couldn't hurt Michael but Busta could!? Man...

And the rest of the actors. Except for Sean Patrick Thomas, who was actually likable and so interesting that I wish he were in a better film, everyone else can suck on my fat you-know-what. Bianca Kajlich as "Final Girl" Sara Moyer [Is she related to Michael? He seemed really fixated on her?] did absolutely nothing for me. She looked hot. That was about it. And Kajlich couldn't even scream, so she had an actual "Stunt Screamer" to do her screams in the film. How pathetic is that? I wish she was killed, but she wasn't. And her "romance" with the more talented Ryan Merriman was lame. Yeah, it was a cool plot device for the end chase scenes, but it didn't add anything else to the story. Too bad. Katee Sackhoff, who's better known as Starbuck on BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, was okay but seemed like she was trying too hard to be funny and sexy. I found her mostly annoying but at least her death was cool. Thomas Ian Nicholas from the AMERICAN PIE films played the same role here that he does in those films. Whatever. Go back to crying over Tara Reid, you wuss. Brad Loree was an okay Michael. He didn't scare me but he wasn't bad. One of the better Shapes I thought. And Tyra Banks...oh my God. Who in the hell hired her fine untalented ass in this film? All she did was shake her booty [which I actually enjoyed...thank you for that, Tyra]. I've seen fruits and vegetables with more emotion and acting talent than this woman has in her weave. What was her purpose in this film? And why was her death scene cut out? This whole film doesn't make sense. Why was it made? Why did I waste 90 minutes of my life watching this? Screw you, HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION. Screw you straight to movie hell where you belong! As much as I hated the idea of a HALLOWEEN remake, this film made me glad it happened. At least that film was good!

And finally, the ending. Oh what an ending it is. Michael's eyes open and the coroner screams after he's burned alive AGAIN [what is it with Rosenthal and burning Michael Myers?]. Wow, I'm so scared and excited. So cliched. So boring. So tacky. So unnecessary. Just like this entire film.

THE FINAL HOWL
HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION should be avoided at all costs. I own it just to complete the collection...or for a coaster. If you want to rent this and see why we got a HALLOWEEN remake to begin with, then be my guest. But expect to be bored, frustrated, and eager to press the stop or fast-forward button on your remote. This film should have never been made period and even the most loyal of HALLOWEEN fans will agree with me. Just a waste of 90 minutes that I'll never get back.