[HorrorScience] Halloween H20 (1998)

Reading time: 11 minutes

Qualification

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later

Year

1998

Duration

86 minutes

Director

Steve Miner

Distribution

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

Script

Robert Zappia

We return with the cycle halloween in HorrorScience and this time we do it with its seventh installment, called Halloween H20 -which I always confused with H2o (the chemical composition of water)- because it takes place 20 years after the first two films in this saga.

I will begin by commenting that this film suffers from two kinds of crises. One that I call "crisis of the 90s", which applies to all horror films of the 90s and with commercial orientation, and that were "90sized" achieving a colorful aesthetic and including a strong protagonist willing to beat up the bad guy on duty. The second kind of crisis is what I'll call "I don't know how to go on, so I don't give a shit about continuity." Okay, that's a long name, but it's valid just the same since it clearly expresses what writers and directors were thinking when they did this kind of thing. You could also abbreviate by baptizing this type of crisis with the help of the world of American comics: "the great Marvel / DC."

And what is the above about? That Halloween H20: 20 years later -either halloween 7 for friends - takes place in one of the already famous cheap excuses that are the easiest way out to avoid complicating one's existence and which is called «alternative universe«.

This "alternative universe" is nothing more than that of the first two films, because Halloween H20 is the direct continuation of halloween and Halloween II, in which Laurie Strode, sister of Michael Myers, stars again, who supposedly had had a daughter and later died in a car accident. His supposed daughter was the protagonist in 3 films, which formed an internal trilogy within the saga and which I already talked about in this section. These are: Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, and Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers. Of course yes, we then consider that those 3 no longer need to be taken into account, we could then say that they are the ones that are in an alternative universe.

Various versions have also come out, many created by the fans of the saga themselves, who try to unite these two "universes" into one, explaining the inexplicable and wanting to give meaning to everything that happened in the previous trilogy so that it can be united with H20 and thus invent a continuity that was never broken. They are nothing more than theories without foundations, and in the end the truth is that what I have already said happened, a clean slate, or at least I delete what I don't like and follow the account from wherever I please.

This seventh installment begins with an old woman stabbing a pumpkin. Supposedly he is doing it to remove the top, empty it and then make one of the typical decorative Halloween pumpkins, but the truth is that the way he is doing it I don't think he is going to get very far.

The film clearly wants to have a certain atmosphere similar to that of the first part, at least in the first minute of footage. A woman dressed as a nurse arrives home on October 29, 1998, and as she approaches to open the door she notices that one of the windows is broken, and also visualizes that the inside of the house is in disarray. He immediately goes to the next house to look for help, and two of his neighbors, two teenagers, they decide to help her. One of them, Jimmy, calls the police to report that someone broke into the house, and then they all decide to go investigate on their own. Jimmy's partner stays outside with the nurse, while Jimmy ventures inside his neighbor's house to scare away whoever is still there, if there is anyone still there. What happens from that moment on is a disaster..

Jimmy enters the house and we see that it is a sunny day. He is there hanging around and looking at everything that happened in the house, scared when he hears any noise and hitting anything, and in the end he comes out at night (yes, it is already night) and the police have taken the matter of the robbery very patiently because they have not yet arrived. Apparently someone entered the nurse's office and threw all the papers and files on the floor, as if they had been looking for something in a hurry. Jimmy informs the nurse that he checked all the rooms and there is no one there, but that they searched his office and also broke things in his kitchen. Both Jimmy and his friend go home, and the nurse goes into hers. There is no electricity, so he decides to go check the fuses, but when he does so it seems that everything is fine. He enters his office and sees everything messy and lying on the floor. Conveniently focus the flashlight for a few seconds a photo of Dr. Sam Loomis, so that we can relate it to the Myers case, and then he finds Laurie Strode's file, sister of Michael Myers and protagonist of the first two films, and sees that someone has stolen its contents. Noises. A door that opens. The nurse is so scared now that she runs to her neighbors' house again, and breaks in.

Jimmy is sitting comfortably in an armchair, as if he were watching TV or something, except that he is actually dead, murdered in a rather original way: He has one of those ice skates going through his entire face.. The nurse sees him, screams, and when she opens the door to escape, the other teenager's body falls on top of her. Behind him is Myers.

Meanwhile, the police arrive at the house next door. They see that the window is broken, they call out loudly asking if anyone is there and go in to check. Through the window of the next house we see the nurse fighting Myers and screaming, but the cops are too focused on investigating the first house and don't hear anything. Or could it be that the window glass is too thick and filters out too much noise? The nurse clears us of doubts a few seconds later, when she easily breaks the glass of one of the windows and screams for help, but still no one hears her. Myers grabs her by the hair from behind, and cuts her throat with a large kitchen knife, in one of the worst done scenes in this movie. Moments later the police discover the crime at the neighbors' house.

Time must pass differently in Langdon, Illinois, because now it's daytime again and police are investigating the crime scene. That, or again they took the matter very calmly and waited until morning so they could go investigate after having breakfast. A couple of police officers walk through the scene, one of them commenting that the nurse was the one who had taken care of Dr. Loomis, who lived in that house and died a few years ago, and that he was obsessed with Michael Myers. He acts as a bit of a commentator for those who have not seen the previous films and thus brings us up to date at least on the basics of the Myers case. The other police officer suspects that Myers may be the author of all this., since he comments that they never found his body, and the first one, on the other hand, is skeptical, also arguing that 20 years have passed since then.

After a very interesting presentation and credits sequence and with a new instrumental arrangement of the classic melody of halloween created by John Carpenter, we witness a scene that turns out to be a nightmare, of whom we meet as Laurie Strode, who wakes up screaming while her teenage son tries to calm her down. Yes, here Laurie Strode has a son and not a daughter, as in the previous trilogy, in addition to not having died in a car accident, of course.

However, something is related to the previous trilogy, and also serves as an excuse to fill the 20-year gap between the story of the first two films and this one: Laurie faked death in car accident para proteger su identidad y su seguridad además de la de su hijo John. Ahora se hace llamar Keri Tate, y es la directora de la Hillcrest Academy High School, una escuela privada al norte de California.

Parece que Laurie, o Keri como se llama ahora, tiene una vida tranquila siendo directora de esa escuela, viviendo en una bonita casa en compañía de su hijo, y teniendo un amorío con un tal Will. Sin embargo, no sólo la atacan las pesadillas, especialmente cada 31 de octubre, sino que vive con el constante temor de que Michael la encuentre y le haga daño a ella y a todos sus seres queridos.

No quiero extenderme mucho más comentando la trama de esta película que ya de por sí es corta, así que resumiré diciendo que gracias al expediente robado Michael descubre la nueva identidad de Laurie y va a la escuela a acecharla. Lo que más preocupa a Laurie es su hijo, que debía irse junto con todos los demás a una excursión de fin de semana, y al final él, un amigo y sus respectivas novias se quedaron en la escuela para tener una fiesta de Halloween en secreto en el sótano del edificio escolar. Mala suerte para ellos, mala suerte para Laurie y su pareja, y mala suerte para el rapero LL Cool J que aquí interpreta a un guardia de seguridad que cumple el clásico papel de personaje cómico, ya que Michael se encargará de arruinarles la noche a todos.

Halloween H20 fue un éxito en cuanto a recaudación. También recibió buenas críticas en general destacando la labor del director y el guionista. Otros medios han reprochado su corta duración y varios huecos en el la historia. Personalmente considero que esta película está sobrevalorada, y parece más una secuela de Scream de Wes Craven que de las dos halloween de Carpenter. Es terror de los años 90 en estado puro, y puede que a mucha gente le guste, pero para mi gusto es demasiado comercial, colorido y hasta estúpido.

Some curiosities:

El título original que iba a tener la película era Halloween 7: The Revenge of Laurie Strode (y no sé al final cuál de los dos es peor).
La música de la película fue realizada por John Ottman. Sin embargo, Dimension Films no estaba del todo contenta con sus composiciones, así que encargo cambiar la música de varias escenas, incluyendo música del compositor Marco Beltrami, que fueron realizadas para Scream, Scream 2 and Mimic.
Varias escenas de la película tuvieron que volverse a filmar debido a quejas por la apariencia de la nueva máscara de Myers. Fueron usadas 4 máscaras diferentes en la película. Las escenas que no pudieron volverse a filmar fueron retocadas digitalmente cuadro por cuadro para reemplazar la máscara de Myers por otra.
Alrededor del minuto 42 se puede escuchar la famosa música de la película Psycho (Psychosis) de Alfred Hitchcock. Esta película fue una gran influencia para las dos primeras halloween, y fue co-protagonizada por Janet Leigh, la madre de la actriz Jamie Lee Curtis. En esta escena aparece justamente la actriz Janet Leigh, interpretando el papel de Norma Watson, para hablar con Laurie Strode (su hija Jamie Lee Curtis), y no sólo eso, sino que tras ella podemos ver un vehículo Ford Sedan modelo 1957 con patente NFB 418, que es el mismo que usó Leigh en su papel en Psycho.