Halloween: Resurrection opened to bad reviews upon its unseasonable release in July of 2002. The critics who bothered to assess the sequel, despite there being no advance screenings, made sure to flay the film. “Spectators will indeed sit open-mouthed before the screen, not screaming but yawning,” said The New York Times, and Entertainment Weekly called it “comatainment.” The most telling review, however, came later from the Halloween franchise’s co-creator. When remembering “the one in that house, with all the cameras,” John Carpenter said in 2018, “Oh my god, oh lord, god.” So it should come as no surprise that general opinion on Resurrection has hardly changed over the years.
Nothing quite sets off horror fans like the killing of a legacy character, but the decision to bump off Laurie Strode was put in place before Resurrection was written. The late producer Moustapha Akkad stipulated Michael Myers could not be killed, so the original plan of Halloween H20: 20 Years Later being The Shape’s swan song was off the table, much to Jamie Lee Curtis’ chagrin. A creative workaround allowed both Laurie and the audience to think Michael was finally dead at the end of H20 — and no footage in the actual film could suggest differently — yet in the inevitable sequel, Curtis asked for her character to return and be killed off. So, that loathed opening sequence of Resurrection was always going to happen.
Putting aside the much-hated explanation for how Michael survived that cathartic decapitation — Laurie killed an innocent man wearing Michael’s mask — his and Laurie’s final confrontation is not even the worst part of Resurrection. Curtis intended for Laurie to have a darker story when she first contacted Carpenter and Debra Hill about the 1978 film’s twentieth anniversary. The studio eventually dialed that darkness down in H20, but some of what Curtis originally had in mind found its way into the sequel. The opening scene puts a new slant on survivor’s guilt, and those first fifteen minutes account for Rick Rosenthal’s most coherent direction in the whole film. There is a good idea here about the eternal struggle between final girls and their enemies, and the unavoidable aftermath of said battle. The outcome here is not desirable from a fan’s point of view, although it is a conclusive, if not controversial, way of passing the torch from one generation to the next.
The big challenge after such a risky undertaking was making the audience still feel invested, even if Laurie was out of the picture. And Resurrection thought going back to the origin of evil would do the trick. The story severs the personal connection to Michael altogether, and in place of some other ill-fated relative, the sequel offers random fodder who mistakenly enter the old Myers house as part of some macabre attempt at entertainment. Michael hacking up various people who wander into his ancestral home and other haunts sounds a lot like something in the Halloween young-adult novels, but Resurrection adds a modern touch.
Despite all its apparent failings, Resurrection achieves a sliver of success with its unusual setup. Following the prologue, a year after Laurie’s demise, the film shifts focus to an internet stunt set inside Michael Myers’ childhood home. On Halloween Night, six college students along with the producers of “Dangertainment” are then picked off inside Haddonfield’s most infamous house. And from behind their computer screens, audiences watch in both pleasure and fear, asking themselves if this is real or not.
By 2002, reality television was well on its way to becoming a permanent, not to mention detested, part of people’s daily lives. Not enough outlets were willing to openly contest the format’s possible harm, but horror was on the frontline, emphasizing how some reality TV is deceptive and sadistic. While Resurrection was surely beaten to the punch by the indie slasher Kolobos, its inclusion of the fad-turned-fixture is noteworthy, especially in a big-studio production. The film was also well ahead of the true-crime obsession of more recent years, and the digital cameras worn by characters could be revisited if Halloween ever wants to make a found-footage entry.
Unfortunately, once inside the house, it becomes abundantly clear Resurrection has neither a sense of identity, nor a convincing reason to exist aside from making easy money off a popular IP. One after one, caricatures meet their ends at the hands of Michael before the last one standing, the uncompelling Sarah (Bianca Kajlich), has to take charge. She is of course not alone; help comes in the form of the high-school catfish (Ryan Merriman) who provides her a cyberlink to the outside world, and Freddie’s (Busta Rhymes) character steps far outside his producer role to live out his martial-arts fantasy. The rapper-turned-actor gets plenty of flak for his character, but in all sincerity, Rhymes’ performance is the one thing this film has going for it.
Halloween has gone on to become a “choose your own adventure” franchise; the story of Michael Myers has been revised enough to where a chart is almost necessary to keep everything straight. Of all the continuity branches, though, this duology is the most uneven. And between the two installments, H20 was the better made and better received; and had it been self-contained, Steve Miner’s direct sequel to Halloween II would have been a grand way to finish Laurie and Michael’s story. In spite of any minor flaws and the prearranged retconning, H20 at least felt like a Halloween film. Resurrection, on the other hand, lacks heart. All across the board, Michael’s journey has always had some sort of destination. Meanwhile, Larry Brand and Sean Hood’s script indiscriminately stabs away in the dark, hoping to finally hit something.
Time and reappraisal can turn over-hated horror films into cult classics. Not everything will resonate the first time around, and a lot of critical failures have become more liked and relevant later on. Reevaluation has certainly done wonders for some of the most lambasted horrors, but Resurrection will likely not be enjoying a major critical turnaround anytime soon. The needle on this contentious sequel has barely moved an inch in the positive direction after two decades.
Horror contemplates in great detail how young people handle inordinate situations and all of life’s unexpected challenges. While the genre forces characters of every age to face their fears, it is especially interested in how youths might fare in life-or-death scenarios.
The column Young Blood is dedicated to horror stories for and about teenagers, as well as other young folks on the brink of terror.
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