Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)

Director:  Steve Miner

Writers:  Robert Zappia, Matt Greenberg

Composer:  John Ottman

Starring:  Jamie Lee Curtis, Adam Arkin, Michelle Williams, Adam Hann-Byrd, Jodi Lyn O'Keefe, Janet Leigh, Josh Hartnett, LL Cool J, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Chris Durand

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  It's going to be one hell of a family reunion.

Plot:  Laurie Strode, now the dean of a Northern California private school with an assumed name, must battle the Shape one last time, as the life of her own son hangs in the balance. 

 

My rating:   6/10

Will I watch it again?   No.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Wait, I thought Laurie Strode was dead.  How silly; no one ever really dies.  It's a movie and you can do whatever you want.  For this series, I've learned to check my brains at the door and just go with it.  On one hand, this feels more like a Halloween picture because Jamie Lee Curtis is back but on the other, it's less of one.  That's not to say I don't like it.  It's fine I suppose and I kind of like it.  One big departure from the rest of the series is the music, this time from the wonderful John Ottman.  Gone are the synth vibes from twenty years earlier.  Ottman's score has a SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991) vibe and I LOVED it!  There are some fun kills but the film has too many jump scares.  The only one I dug was this one.

Nice!  The ending was great.   When Michael was pinned down and unable to escape, I was thinking that one sure-fire way to put this fucker down would be to decapitate him.  And then Laurie goes and does just that.  But just before that she and Michael seemed to share a moment when he reached out to her.  I found it a little touching.  It would've really tugged hard at my heart strings if Michael had groaned a bit in a sad way like a wounded animal.  It was a nice touch...you know, just before the beheading.  While there was a lot here that played by the numbers, there's enough here to like to at least give it a watch.  Watching it again?  I can't see that happening.  The way this series is going, I'm probably going to stick to re-watching the first and third films.