Rob Zombie Revisited: Halloween II (2009)

Director: Rob Zombie (2009)

Starring: Scout Taylor Compton, Malcolm McDowell, Danielle Harris, Brad Dourif

Find it: IMDB

Revisiting Rob Zombie's Halloween, I was stunned to discover a newfound appreciation for this remake and its director, Mr. Robert Zombie. With his Halloween being much better than I remember it being, imagine my surprise when I found Halloween II to be much worse than I had remembered.

The action picks up immediately where the previous movie left off - Michael Myers is apparently dead, Laurie (Compton) understandably quite traumatised, and Loomis (McDowell) and Annie (Harris) are seriously injured from Michael's vicious attacks upon them. To the hospital, then, where Zombie proceeds to condense the events of the first Halloween II into the space of twenty minutes, sort of. It's a shame that it's all a dream sequence, then, because this is where Halloween II is at its best.

One year later, and Laurie is now living with Sheriff Brackett (Dourif) and fellow survivor Annie. Michael is presumed dead (his body missing in action after the meat wagon hits a cow in the road) and Doctor Loomis has become a media whore celebrity, selling his lurid Michael Myers murder book. Michael's not dead though, and as another Halloween rolls around, he decides to come home. Again. This spells disaster for poor Annie, who, for the second Halloween film in a row, is brutally stabbed full of holes by Mike while stark naked. It's Laurie's story, but Annie and Sheriff Brackett are the only characters you'll actually care about. Certainly more so than Loomis, who spends most of the film acting like an asshole and then being surprised when people call him out on it. It's a real waste of a good character and great actor, especially considering that his eventual redemption ultimately comes to nothing. Compton is good as Laurie, but, like Loomis, not given good enough material. The Bracketts are the only likeable characters in the movie. I found myself genuinely, surprisingly affected by their fates in this film. 

Meanwhile, Rob Zombie has a hot wife and he wants you to know it

Then there's Michael himself, transformed from a silent boogeyman into a bearded, furious (probably quite stinky) tramp. His physicality is still the most impressive thing about this Myers, who might just be the angriest psycho we've ever seen in a slasher movie. That's not always a good thing (his guttural screaming whenever he stabs or stomps a fool to death gets annoying fast) but it does make this iteration of Michael imposing, if not scary.

It's in Halloween II that we also see glimpses of the Rob Zombie who would go on to direct Lords of Salem. Some of the imagery is great. It's a shame that it doesn't actually gel with the film (Sheri Moon Zombie and her white horse never ceases to be ridiculous) since it's a really interesting direction for a sequel to take. Fair play to Zombie for not resting on his laurels and attempting to do something different with the story. It's awful, but a different kind of awful. Like Texas Chainsaw 3D awful.  

Better this than kung-fu Busta Rhymes, or the original Laurie Strode being murdered in an embarrassing, insulting manner in the first twenty minutes. Halloween II may have killed off the franchise again, but at least it did so with style.

Rob Zombie Revisited: Halloween (2007)

Director: Robert Zombie (2007)

Starring: Malcolm McDowell, Tyler Mane, Sheri Moon Zombie

Find it: IMDB

All the way back in the depths of 2009, I described Rob Zombie's Halloween as a "shit feast". You know how it is, when you first start blogging and reviewing things - you try to be edgy. You read a Charlie Brooker book, and you try to emulate that. Only you're 22, and your idea of being "edgy" is swearing a lot and saying that something sucks the balls of some various animal or other. Bad reviews, they say, are the easiest to write. With that in mind, I found Halloween very easy to review.

It's a bad film - I stand by that much. Is it a shit feast though? Well, while no-one ever needed to see Michael Myers sitting on a kerb crying while his mother pole dances to 'Love Hurts', I can confirm that it is indeed not a 'shit feast'. That whole review was a fuckin' shit feast. What is a shit feast, anyway?

The film kicks off in the depths of the 1980s, where young Michael Myers finds himself in the bosom of a degenerate stepfather, slutty sister and stripper mom (played, obviously, by Sheri Moon Zombie). One Halloween, after murdering a school bully with an exceptionally large stick, Michael gives in to his terrible urges and slaughters his dad, his sister and her boyfriend. The only survivors are his angelic mother (because if you were married to Sheri Moon Zombie, you'd put her in every film you made too) and infant sister. Here's the point where, in my original review, I wrote the phrase "some other stuff happens". Some other stuff does indeed happen, but still, shut up 22-year-old me. You're not nearly as funny as you think you are.

Skip to grown up Michael, now incarcerated in a mental hospital, under the supervision of Doctor Loomis (McDowell) and friendly nurse Danny Trejo. While I would have killed to see a Halloween movie in which Danny Trejo and Michael Myers duke it out for ninety minutes, that's not what we're getting. Instead, Michael breaks free from the asylum and returns to Haddonfield, to find his baby sister. There the story turns into a fairly close adaptation of Carpenter's original movie. In terms of the things Michael Myers does, anyway. Zombie's script turns Laurie (Scout Taylor-Compton) into a foul-mouthed little goon and her friends into foul-mouthed assholes. Everyone in Halloween is foul-mouthed, except for Michael (who doesn't speak) and Loomis (who is too classy for that sort of thing). While it hurts the film that Laurie isn't introduced until quite late into play, it works better if you view it as a telling of Michael's story and not hers.

Kill it, as they say, with fire.

This new, extremely vicious Michael Myers is an effective boogeyman, whether he's drowning Danny Trejo in a sink or stealing Ken Foree's overalls. I can't say I was pleased to see two of my favourite cult icons murdered in such a manner, but it does set Mikey up as a force to be reckoned with. I'd like to see kung-fu Busta Rhymes try to beat up on this Shape. Maybe get his leg torn off. I had, in my earlier review, called the acting in Halloween "bad, across the board." It isn't. It's fine. Maybe Malcolm McDowell does phone it in a little, but his performance is worthwhile for his 80s hair and trendy sunglasses alone. Sheri Moon is good too, although she does seem a little crowbarred in. Although if my mom was as sexy as Sheri Moon Zombie, sure, I'd have an Oedipus complex too.

Much to my dismay, revisiting Rob Zombie's Halloween (or Zombieween, as I hilariously called it back in the day) , I didn't hate the film at all. In fact, I actually quite like it. It's a crummy Halloween movie, but a decent offbeat slasher film. There's too much swearing, the characters are annoying and the depiction of young Michael is a definite misstep, but I can't bring myself to hate Zombieween as I once did. Who knows, maybe I'm finally becoming soft, in my old age. Well, that sucks. It sucks massive giraffe balls, is what it does.   

Halloween: a series retrospective

We (well, I) love to celebrate Halloween here at the horror review hole. And what better way than to review each and every Halloween - from John Carpenter's original masterpice, right up to this year's Rob Zombie sequel - back-to-back??

Halloween - "More than your average sleazy, stupid slasher movie - so well executed that it transcended its boundaries to become widely and rightfully acknowledged as one of the greatest horror movies ever made"

Halloween II - "The original Halloween sequel to not suck and be set in a hospital"

Halloween III: Season of the Witch - "The one where nobody comes home"

Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers - "a strong, above average entry to the series. A welcome return from a true horror icon."

Halloween V: Michael Myers' Revenge - "not really worth seeking out unless you're desperate or a completist. Or a desperate completist"

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers - "The one with Paul Rudd vs Michael"

Halloween: H20 -"One of the better sequels, H20 wisely ignores all of the stupid continuity issues that gathered up over the course of Halloweens 4-6 and gets on with telling a good old-fashioned slasher story"

Halloween: Resurrection - "The Batman & Robin of slasher movies, but with no Nolans around to repair it afterwards"

Halloween (2007) - "Worse than the stupidest of the Halloween sequels (yes, even more so than kung-fu Busta Rhymes), Zombie brings us irrefutable proof that he's a bad director even when working with other people's material"

Halloween 2 (2009) - "surprise surprise, this one's actually somewhat slightly good"

Happy Halloween!

Halloween (1978)

Director: John Carpenter (1978)

Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, PJ Soles, Nancy Loomis

Find it online: IMDB, Amazon UK, Amazon US

Haddonfield, Illinois. Young Michael Myers murders his family with a knife that’s as sizeable as it is sharp. Deciding that he’s evil, the doctors lock the kid up in a mental institution for the rest of his days. Or at least, they try to. All growed up, Michael Myers affects himself an escape and returns back to Haddonfield. Doctor Blofeld (Donald Pleasence) sets out hunting down his evil ex-patient, all the while telling everyone he meets just how evil Michael is. Back at Myers’ childhood home, nubile babysitter Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is looking after wee tot Tommy Doyle (who’d grow up to be friend-of-a-Friend Paul Rudd in H6). But as she’s soon to find out, Michael is pretty intent on murderising her.

Obviously, you knew that already. You don’t have to be a horror fan to like John Carpenter’s Halloween, which is the beauty of it. It’s more than your average sleazy, stupid slasher movie. It’s an exercise in tension, so well executed that it transcended its boundaries to become widely and rightfully acknowledged as one of the greatest horror movies ever made.

Inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s masterful Psycho and a few lesser slasher movies (such as the mightily underrated Black Christmas), Carpenter delivers what many would call the perfect slasher movie – one which has been often imitated but rarely bettered. Everything from the iconic theme tune down to his framing and use of the Shape’s POV is brilliantly done. Like the similarly influential Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the gore is sparse. The violence comes in bursts. But you know all this already, don’t you??

The casting is perfect. A young Jamie Lee Curtis appeals as babysitter Laurie, and PJ Soles brings her boobies to the proceedings. whilst Blofeld himself is a great foil for Michael. For a bit of synchromisticist fun*, note this: Donald Pleasence’s Blofeld directly inspired the Austin Powers movies’ Dr. Evil… played in turn by one Mike Myers. In this movie, Loomis faces off against Michael Myers. Coincidence? Yes. Look, shut up. I’m just trying to be semi-original here. D'you know how many people have reviewed Halloween over the years??

If there is a fault with Halloween (and horror-reviewing conventions requires me to say that there isn't) then it’s down to the many imitations that've come out since. Being one of the original slasher templates, the movie might feel slow and predictable to first-time viewers. You won’t have a hard time guessing what’s coming next, due to the fact that so many other works have done it so many times since. But such is the case with so many other significant works – such is the peril of being so influential. Still, Halloween stands up extremely well for a film of its age. Michael Myers is still an effective bogeyman – Carpenter largely hides him in the shadows and uses him wisely – and the tension is still expertly cranked. Anyone who ignores this seminal piece of work simply because of its age doesn’t deserve to be calling themselves a horror fan anyway.

* The word ‘fun’ is used here in a highly subjective context, and may not actually be fun.

Halloween 2 (1981)

Director: Rick Rosenthal (1981)

Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence

Find it online: IMDB, Amazon UK, Amazon US

The original Halloween sequel to not suck and be set in a hospital, Rick Rosenthal's Halloween II always faced something of an uphill struggle. How does one follow up what is widely regarded as one of the greatest slasher movies of all time? Well, the man himself didn’t really bother, leaving the relatively inexperienced Rick Rosenthal to carry on in his wake (although he did help on writing duties).

Like most sequels, Halloween II delivers up a hefty helping of more of the same, albeit with more gore and a higher bodycount. We return to the action mere moments after the first film ends. Laurie is off to hospital. Doc Loomis is still hunting for Michael Myers after shooting him six times and dropping him off a balcony. Dude’s the original 50 Cent (ah, but if only Curtis J was as silent as Michael). Michael gives him the slip and heads off to the hospital where he hopes to get all stabby with the already traumatised Laurie. Good luck with that, Mike. It’d take him a further twenty-odd years to finally get around to killing Laurie. So he might fail to kill Laurie, but he manages to off plenty of unsuspecting hospital staffers over the course of the movie.

So all the original surviving players are back. Jamie Lee Curtis is a bit too jumpy and traumatised this time around, robbing Michael somewhat of what could’ve been a great showdown. As before, Donald Pleasence’s Doc Loomis is the best of the bunch, obviously having a good time with the role and really selling himself as a badass psychiatrist completely obsessed with hunting down his most dangerous patient.

One thing that Halloween II does bring is the big revelation that Laurie and Michael are related. It’s a nice little twist, and really adds to the characters’ dynamic in a powerful way. There are very few franchises that manage to make two characters just fit in the way Halloween does; watch Resurrection or some of the lesser sequels to see just how pointless it all feels. Michael hunts down Laurie because, without her, he has nothing better to do.

Of course, Halloween II isn’t in the same league as its predecessor, but it never really could be. Michael’s given too much screentime, and the whole thing just seems a bit pointless and redundant – a rehash of earlier goings on, only set in a hospital. But it isn’t nearly as bad as many of the other imitators out there, either – or even its own subsequent sequels and remakes.

4/5 screaming Scream Queens!!!

Halloween 3: Season of the Witch

Director: Tommy Lee Wallace (1982)

Starring: Tom Atkins, Stacey Nelkin, Dan O' Herlihy

Find it online: IMDB, Amazon UK, Amazon US

No Michael Myers in this one, but plenty of Tom Atkins, which is a pretty fair trade-off. Maybe the upcoming Halloween 3D (Hallow3Dn? Betcha) will try and adapt Season of the Witch with an aged Atkins in the lead. Hm, perhaps not.

If Season of the Witch had been a better movie than it turned out to be, then maybe fans wouldn’t have been so offended at the lack of Michael in this movie. But, it’s shoddy stuff all around, so people were offended, and thoroughly hated the movie.

Having said that, it’s nowhere near as bad as Resurrection or 2007’s Zombieween. The plot, admittedly, does sound like it should have Robin Williams involved somewhere. An evil mask-making company is building nasty kids’ latex masks which kill the wearer by melting their faces whenever a certain TV advert shows (a positively epileptic image of a flashing pumpkin). It’s up to Doctor Dan Challis (Atkins) to save America’s kids from the evil Silver Shamrock company. Because nothing says Halloween like a shamrock.

Tom Atkins is awesome, which you already knew, whilst the story, shocks and overall style is in keeping with Carpenter’s aesthetic. It’s a lesser sequel, to be sure, and probably doesn’t deserve to be a Halloween title, but is definitely worth a watch sometime. Ultimately, your enjoyment of this movie will depend on your stomach for cheesy, naff 80s' horror. It's not as if it did any lasting damage, anyway - the Shape was back a few years later in his Return, which ended up being one of the better sequels.

And Season's tagline -the night no-one comes home - makes me smile every time.

2/5 screaming Scream Queens!!!

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers

Director: Dwight H. Little (1988)

Starring: Donald Pleasance, Danielle Harris, Rachel Carruthers

Find it online: IMDB, Amazon UK, Amazon US

After an unsuccessful (but not uninteresting) attempt to pull the series in a different direction with Season of the Witch, this third sequel gets things back on track by bringing back the Shape. And, just to let you know they were done with all that originality stuff, the makers advertised it in the title.

Doc Loomis is back too, but not unfortunately not Laurie. Because star Jamie Lee Curtis wanted none of this nonsense (too busy hanging around with Pythons and Fishes Called Wanda), she’s written out as having died in a car accident (on a personal note, I truly hate it when a series kills off a non-returning character in such an ignominious way. I was glad to see Curtis’ death retconned in H20). So in Laurie’s absence, Michael has a niece to hunt down instead.

Yes, trivia fans will be interested to see a young Danielle Harris (that’s right, Annie Brackett of the Rob Zombie remakes fame) starring as Jamie, Laurie’s seven-year-old daughter. Kinda makes you feel iffy about ogling those titties in Halloween ’07, eh? To her credit, she’s less annoying than your average child actor and was one of the few good things about Zombieween. Poor little bugger is bullied relentless at school as a gang of kids follow her down corridors chanting “Jamie’s an orphan” and teasing her about her psychopathic uncle. Harsh.

Obligatory Mike Myers joke

Talking of whom, Michael is catatonic in hospital at the start of his Return. But, after a doctor lets it slip that he has a niece, he immediately breaks free and sets out hunting her down. And you thought your relatives were bad. Before finding Jamie, he confronts Loomis in a roadside cafe. As bad a shot as ever, Loomis fails to kill Michael and instead blows up a small gas station. Being a creature of stubborn habit, Michael heads off back to Haddonfield and finds himself a freshly dirty pair of overalls and a new Shatner mask.

A very good little sequel that doesn’t besmirch the original’s name. The spared use of Michael and the building of tension throughout is excellently managed, whilst I thought Jamie’s hallucinatory dream scenes were well done (actually one of the things I liked in Zombie’s H2). The kills, whilst not overtly gory, are memorable and cool (one character is impaled on a shotgun. Nice). It’s let down somewhat by a slow, kinda predictable second half, but redeemed again by the time Michael takes on one of the teens in a fistfight. If you’re paying attention, you’ll probably see the ‘twist’ coming. I won’t spoil it, but it represents the start of the series’ greater stupidity that bloomed in episodes 5 &6.

H20 gets a lot of recognition for being not-shit, but Halloween 4 is actually a strong, above average entry to the series. A welcome return from a true horror icon.

3/5 screaming Scream Queens!!!

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers

Director: Dominique Othenin-Girard (1989)

Starring: Donald Pleasence, Ellie Cornell, Danielle Harris

Find it online: IMDB, Amazon UK, Amazon US

Well, so soon after his Return, Michael Myers comes home – again – this time with Revenge on his mind. And it’s little wonder. The movie kicks off with Michael being run over, splattered across a graveyard with an enormous shotgun and then chucked down a collapsing mineshaft. He’s washed down a hidden river and finds himself rescued by a hermit and his parrot. He then goes and has himself a coma for the next 12 months. This being one generous hermit, the fella cares for Michael for all that time. Maybe he hoped Michael would show him some gratitude and buy a copy of The Big Issue or something. But Michael did always have problems with his manners, and murderises the poor schlub. He then heads back off to Haddonfield in search of his family.

As you’d expect from a Halloween sequel, the production values are high and the action rarely dull (not particularly incrdible, but not dull either). Loomis is back, as is Michael’s niece, Jamie. This time she’s incarcerated in a Loony Bin for Juniors, unable to speak and seemingly tied with a tight mental connection to Uncle Mike.

Gory highlights include a dude getting a facial with a rake and much of the usual stabby business. There’s a pretty naff scene in which he tries to run his quarry down with a car, but fails miserably. The Shape’s mask looks terrible in this movie. Definitely one of the more boring Halloween sequels, it’s really not worth seeking out unless you’re desperate or a completist.

Obviously, the closing moments leave things open for yet another sequel. Worry not, one wasn’t far behind. And it was more batshit insane than anything we’d seen before…

2/5 screaming Scream Queens!!!

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers

Director: Joe Chappelle (1995)

Starring: Donald Pleasence, Paul Rudd

Find it online: IMDB, Amazon UK, Amazon US

The one with Paul Rudd vs Michael

Hurms, maybe watching the series backwards wasn’t such a good idea. Whereas the Friday and Nightmare sequels were largely stand-alone, the Halloween mythology at this point is strikingly dense. The latter episodes get a lot of stick, but at least they were trying something vaguely new. Watching the series back-to-back, you’ll realise that there are less legitimately bad sequels in the franchise than many of its ilk managed (there’s a Friday the thirteenth next month, by the by, so expect each and every Jason flick reviewed soon).

Jamie Lee gets a lot of credit as the star of the Halloween series, but many seem to forget that Donald Pleasence’s Doc Loomis was in more movies than Laurie. He’s sporting an awesome beard here, and is as a hoot to watch as ever, lending the flagging series a bit of much-needed gravitas. Pleasance’s performance here makes you realise just how much Malcolm McDowell has been phoning it in as of late.

Anyway, it’s been six years since Michael Myers’ Revenge, and most of the main players have been in hiding for this period of time. It’s revealed that Jamie – that’s Michael’s niece – was kidnapped by Halloween 5’s mysterious Man in Black (not Will Smith) who had her impregnated (a producers' cut later revealed that it was Michael who raped her - bugh). With incredible timing, she gives birth on Halloween Eve, under the watchful eye of the Man in Black (not Tommy Lee Jones either) and a cult or something. Later that night, a nurse helps Jamie and baby escape. Whilst poor Jamie ends up on the wrong end of Michael’s knife, baby finds his way into the protective hands of Tommy Doyle – played by ex-Friend Paul Rudd.

All the stupidity built up over the past few movies pays off here in what is arguably the most ambitious of the series. It may not work entirely – or at all – but it’s certainly interesting stuff, and one can see how they tried to tie it all into the original movie. In brief, screenwriter Daniel Farrands posited that the Myers family was under an ancient Celtic curse; one which drove the family’s young to kill all members of their bloodline. Uh-huh. Further proof of this sequel’s lunacy is evident in that it was originally to be called Halloween 666. It’s interesting how fans can turn on a franchise when it gets too ambitious. The results here are miles away from Carpenter’s Hitchcockian masterpiece, but it’s still no Jason X or Leprechaun in Space, that’s for sure.

The kills are decent enough, and Myers looks more menacing than ever before. Paul Rudd shows promise, playing tortured Tommy. The story, whilst daft, is intriguing enough to hold the viewers’ interest. Halloween purists might balk at the demystifying of Myers’ origins, but it sure beats Rob Zombie’s trailer-trash hickery any day.

3/5 screaming Scream Queens!!!

Halloween: H20

Director: Steve Miner (1998)

Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Josh Hartnett

Find it online: IMDB, Amazon UK, Amazon US

No, not Halloween Underwater, although that would be pretty cool. H20 ignores all of the suckier sequels, and is considered a direct sequel to Halloween 2. Everyone’s favourite hermaphrodite is back. Jamie Lee Curtis stars as Laurie Strode, and this time she’s got a son, played by Josh Hartnett. But it’s okay, because he’s not annoying in this movie.

We find Laurie working as a headmistress at an exclusive boarding school in Northern California. She’s faked her own death, is living under an assumed name and has her son and a boyfriend. It’s been twenty years since that fateful Halloween, but still she’s traumatised, a sweary alcoholic and living in fear. So much so that her son thinks of her as a nag, and is determined to sneak out after hours for a cheeky little Halloween party of his own…

But Laurie was right to be a nag. Michael decides to mark their anniversary by turning up at the college and murdering people; top of the list, his sister and his nephew. How cute.

One of the better the sequels, H20 wisely ignores all of the stupid continuity issues that gathered up over the course of Halloween 4-6 and gets on with telling a good old-fashioned slasher story, largely inspired in tone and look by the Scream movies (with Kevin Williamson working on the script too). It’s fun and respectful and pretty faithful to John Carpenter’s original vision. In stark contrast to some of the worse episodes, the violence is more slight, the gore less prominent. Bringing back Jamie Lee Curtis also adds a bit of authenticity and is a nice touch, making it feel a more legitimate sequel than most.

It’s not a perfect movie by any means. Due to years of overexposure, Michael’s no longer the imposing figure he once was. There’s no point hiding him in shadows anymore, since we all know what he looks like. And longtime horror fans might be a bit bored by the slight plot and run-of-the-mill slasher stereotypes.

So if you ignore the lesser sequels, Resurrection and Rob Zombie’s remakes, H20 stands as a nice little bookend to Halloween 1-2. The final showdown between brother and sister is certainly the most memorable, and the most definitively final of them all.

But of course, they had to go and fuck up all that goodwill with Halloween: Resurrection, didn’t they? Who would have thunk that following this, the franchise’s darkest days were harkening…

3/5 screaming Scream Queens!!!

Halloween Resurrection

Director: Rick Rosenthal (2002)

Starring: Kung fu Busta Rhymes, Jamie Lee Curtis

Find it online: IMDB, Amazon UK, Amazon US

Halloween: Resurrection AKA The one with Busta Rhymes starts, for some reason, with the death of the best thing (Myers aside) in it. Yep, Michael finally gets around to killing sister Laurie. Fella took his sweet time. There’s no mention of whether he managed to kill nephew Josh Hartnett. One would hope so.

Whereas H20 managed to revitalise the flagging series, Resurrection makes you wish they hadn’t started with this whole sorry sequel business at all. It also pretty much killed off the franchise for a good five years, leaving an opening for Rob Zombie to refuck it again in 2007. Resurrection is the Batman & Robin of slasher movies, but without any Nolans ro repair it afterwards. The movie opens with Laurie Strode incarcerated in a mental home, hiding there from Michael and growing her hair to unflattering lengths. With a terrible bit of retcon, it’s revealed that Michael managed to survive the events of H20. The unfolding of events in the hospital aren’t too bad, but everything else is.

When Resurrection came out, it was a time when the reality TV thing was just starting to kick off, with movies such as this and My Little Eye. Sadly, due to a general lack of quality, it didn’t really catch on. Resurrection is set in the Myers household, where an Internet reality TV show is filming there. It’s not an inherently bad idea, but the execution therein truly is. The action is boring and predictable, the tension lacklustre and the acting is awful. Busta Rhymes essentially plays himself, whilst everyone else is flat and unmemorable. Leading lady Bianca Kajlich doesn’t even have a profile picture on IMDB, and has done largely nothing before or since Resurrection. An ironic title, since it pretty much killed everyone’s careers (and the franchise) dead.

As you don’t need me to tell you, Michael turns up and kills everyone. He lops off some poor woman’s head, cuts a few throats and stabs one or two people, but it all feels pointless without Dr. Loomis or Laurie to root it down in Halloween history. But at least Busta Rhymes turns up and performs the now infamous kung-fu bit. Who needs good actors and likeable characters when you got kung-fu Busta fucking Rhymes?

By far the worst-received of the Halloween movies (at least until Rob Zombie turned up), Resurrection is a terrible way for the icon to bow out.

1/5 screaming Scream Queens!!!