Age of The Nerd
Original movie slasher, Michael Myers will be looking to stalk babysitter Laurie Strode once more this year when the latest movie in the ‘Halloween‘ franchise hits theaters on October 19th, 2018. It will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the 1978 classic by revitalising the Myers/Strode narrative once more. However, this time there are a couple of twists. John Carpenter, director of the original film, has returned to oversee the project as well as create the score. Danny McBride and David Gordon Green wrote the script, and Green is set to direct with Jason Blum of Blumhouse Pictures producing the reboot.
But that is not all! Nick Castle, who played “The Shape” in the very first movie, will be putting the mask on one more time. With Jamie Lee Curtis also returning, it looks as if the upcoming slasher movie is pulling out all the stops to make sure it gives the fans a ‘Halloween’ picture that could replicate the style of the one that started it all.
20 years ago back in 1998, ‘Halloween: H20’ attempted to do very much the same thing. Jamie Lee Curtis pitched the idea to Dimension to get the ball rolling and the movie reawakened wide interest once more after the abysmal ‘Halloween: The Curse Of Michael Myers‘ just about stretched things as far as they could possibly go to keep milking an exhausted horse. But just how good of a job did ‘Halloween: H20’ do to honor Carpenter’s most known horror film?
Let us start with the positives.
Unsurprisingly, Curtis returning gave the movie–and the series as a whole–a major boost. Although it had been a few years since she starred in another classic, the action flick ‘True Lies‘ alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger, she was, and probably still will be, quite a considerable pull as far as movies are concerned, especially with a horror film. The return of Jamie is one of the things that the ‘Halloween’ films cannot top and she was welcomed with open arms.
Fans often voiced their remarks that Michael Myers had become some kind of Jason Voorhees imitation after he physically expanded from the fourth movie to the sixth. It is on record that then distributor, Moustapha Akkad actually took notice of the success of the Friday 13th pictures and wanted his most beloved slicer to cash in by “altering” his appearance so he no longer could be interpreted as evil incarnated in an average sized guy. Carpenter has often said that his vision for Michael Myers was to look somewhat ordinary but be internally otherworldly. In any case, ‘Halloween: H20’ did the right thing and “reshaped” Myers back to his archetypal form, a decision that pleased supporters everywhere.
In order to keep to the 20th anniversary theme, ‘Halloween: H20′ also ditched what was written into the series before and after ‘Halloween II‘. There was no mention of Thorn or a young niece. H20 was simply to tell of the climactic duel between Michael and his sister, Laurie. A plot point that was the main focus of the first two movies.
But while the movie had it’s strengths, unfortunately it had considerably more weaknesses.
The famous haunting theme tune has become synonymous and almost as prominent as the films themselves. However, for some bizarre reason, the filmmakers chose to put their own spin on it. Unfortunately, the end result sounds like something that came from a cheesy 1980’s badly made soap opera. Apart from the opening 30 seconds, it sounded unrecognizable. It is a good thing then that it was elected to play the original composed theme by Carpenter over the end credits!
Furthermore, the score, overall…well, the movie hardly had it’s own! Composer John Ottman was originally bought in to make one but his rendition was rejected by the studio. Instead of asking him to start from scratch again or drafting in somebody else, the score from 1996’s ‘Scream‘ was pretty much just injected into the movie. So, if you watched the flick and had déjà vu when trying to place where you heard it before, well, now you know.
The character of Michael Myers was previously played mostly by stuntmen in four out of the five films that were made featuring the knife-wielding maniac. So, it made sense to bring in another. And that is what they did when Chris Durand accepted the part. He has done stunts for many major pictures including ‘Armageddon‘ and ‘Transformers: Dark of the Moon‘. But while this formula worked well before–and to quote Halloween producer Debra Hill when criticising another former Myers actor–he did “not quite get it.”
Durand has been quoted on record stating that he did not study the character or watch any of the movies before taking on the role. And if you are a ‘Halloween’ aficionado then, you could tell. He lacked the graceful movements of Nick Castle, who played Myers in the one that started it all, and while the intention was honorable to “shrink” Myers back down to size from previous efforts he often looked like a 15 year old boy wearing that boiler suit. His performance is definitely at the bottom of my list of favourites who played the iconic slasher!
And then there is the mask. Oh, boy. Actually, I should say “masks.” Around four or five different versions were used throughout the film. And it is very noticeable. Even a CGI constructed one was used for two shots! Why did this happen? Well, the fine details on the matter are still up in the air, although director Steve Miner veritably only wanted one. The fact that the film went through reshoots probably had something to do with it. Whatever the case, it is very distracting and definitely removes one from being engulfed in the universe it wants to envelope you in.
‘Halloween: H20’ was not a bad movie, per se. But it does suffer from some major setbacks that could have been averted had better choices been made. And it only does a marginal job of being the worthy successor to the one that is owed so much by many imitators that came after it.
With that said, October 19th, 2018 will either be a day of reckoning or retribution for the new remake. With all the right things in place, ‘Halloween’ will hopefully be the ultimate tribute that ‘Halloween: H20′ unfortunately never turned out to be.
