Back in the golden days of my youth, well before I discovered my passion for European horror, I was a slasher film fan. I grew up on the slashers—and John Carpenter’s Halloween had the distinction of being my favorite slasher film for a number of years (it’s still near the top even today—it’s a film that never gets old). Say what you will about slasher cinema, but Halloween was different. It was one of the first American slasher films, it was made by a young filmmaker with an incredible talent, and it had a surprisingly good cast. Halloween was, and is, a magical film.

Because of that, I’ve always followed the series. Yes, it’s gone downhill, rapidly, over the past few years—mostly thanks to Moustapha Akkad and his greed that knows no boundaries. Akkad killed the franchise by sequelizing it into oblivion—with each subsequent installment becoming more outlandish and stupid than its predecessor. Now, with the release of Halloween: Resurrection, he’s not only driven the final nail into the coffin of John Carpenter’s vision, but I think he’s killed cinematic horror as well.

A bold statement? Perhaps. However, as I walked out of the theater today, I came to a bitter realization: Halloween: Resurrection and most of today’s horror films simply aren’t made for me. There was a time when horror films appealed to horror fans in general. Now, though, they’re simply marketed to a young demographic who hasn’t yet developed a discerning sense of taste. Halloween: Resurrection highlights everything that’s wrong with modern horror movies—from a penchant to make evil slashers into iconic anti-heroes all the way through to pulling a cinematic fast one on the fans to get the plot where it needs to be.

For proof of the latter, look no further than the opening sequence. In the first of many poorly crafted scenes of pure exposition, we learn that Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis in a cameo appearance) didn’t actually kill her evil brother Michael at the climax of H20. No, instead, Michael conveniently switched places with a paramedic—and he was the guy who got his head lopped off while what should have been a horribly disfigured maniac (he was, after all, severely burned at the end of the second film) just slinks off into the forest without anyone noticing. This is just the first piece of lazy plotting in the film.

After that, the movie makes sure to kill off Laurie Strode, thereby eliminating the last link to the original film. I have a new rule that should be implemented for all horror films: once you’ve killed off everyone (aside from the bad guy) from the original film, you can’t make any more sequels. Think of all the crap we could have avoided. Blair Witch: Book of Shadows? Doesn’t exist if the Bracken Rule is in effect.

From there, director Rick Rosenthal (who helmed Halloween 2 and has the dubious distinction of being the only man to direct two films in the series) gives us an homage-laden film (he borrows the tripod killing sequence from Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom as well as aping shots and set ups from Carpenter’s original film and his own sequel—just how ballsy does one have to be to pay homage to yourself? I’m guessing pretty ballsy.) that borrows its premise from The Last Broadcast--an indie film from a few years back that had a fraction of the budget of Halloween: Resurrection but was infinitely more entertaining.

Freddie (Busta Rhymes: Higher Learning) runs Dangertainment, some sort of internet media company that can only exist in films. Freddie’s brilliant idea is to get a group of local clichés—I mean college students—to do some ‘investigative journalism’ inside the old Myers house on Halloween night. The whole thing will be broadcast live on the internet—meaning anyone with a good DSL connection can log in and see the cast of the show get slaughtered in real-time. It’s a slasher film crossed with MTV’s The Real World…only not as interesting.

And that’s it—that’s all this movie is. Take one half formed idea, pull out your handy dandy list of slasher film rules, mix together, cook for an hour and forty minutes, and voila! Another crappy Hollywood horror film.

As anyone who’s even remotely familiar with slasher cinema knows, there’s a paradigm that these films follow. Rosenthal and screenwriter Larry Brand know the paradigm and never deviate from it—except in an agonizingly slow second act where they try to develop the ‘characters’, of course. Everything else is par for the course—virginal heroine? Check. Dead promiscuous girls? Check. Lots of actors who are clearly in their 30s trying to pass themselves off as college kids? Check. Unstoppable killing machine that murders for no apparent reason? Check. Brand didn’t so much write a film as he made a checklist and kept writing until he’d marked everything off…

Simply put, there’s nothing redeeming about Halloween: Resurrection. While fellow slasher icon Jason Voorhees made a return to the big screen earlier this year in the campy but generally fun Jason X, the Halloween series is still trying to take itself seriously—and failing miserably in the process. Honestly, this film is completely interchangeable with any of the other slasher franchises to emerge in the Scream era—keep the cast and change the killer and this could just as easily be the next Urban Legend or I Know What You Did Last Summer. That’s what’s wrong with these films—they’re all exactly alike.

At any rate, I’m sure any of you who are reading along can tell that I was incredibly disappointed by Halloween: Resurrection, which is no small feat since my expectations were pretty low going in. After the late, great Donald Pleasence died back in 1995, I stated that I’d never see another Halloween film unless Jamie Lee Curtis came back. Now that her character’s dead, I can safely say that I’ll never have to subject myself to another one of these films again…unless John Carpenter returns to direct. I sincerely hope that never happens.


Recommended:
No

Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older