Halloween H20: 20 Years Later

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Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
Theatrical release poster
Directed bySteve Miner
Written byScreenplay:
Robert Zapia
Matt Greenberg
Story:
Robert Zapia
Uncredited:
Kevin Williamson
Based on Characters Created by:
John Carpenter
Debra Hill
Produced byMoustapha Akkad
Malek Akkad
Bob Weinstein
Harvey Weinstein
Paul Freeman
StarringJamie Lee Curtis
Adam Arkin
Michelle Williams
Jodi Lyn O'Keefe
Adam Hann-Byrd
Nancy Stephens
Janet Leigh
as 'Norma'
(Introducing)
Josh Hartnett
with LL Cool J
and Joseph Gordon-Levitt
CinematographyDaryn Okada
Edited byPatrick Lussier
Music byJohn Ottman
Distributed byDimension Films
Release dates
August 5, 1998
Running time
86 min.
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$17 million
Box office$55,041,738

Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later (or Halloween: H20) is the seventh film in the Halloween film series. Initially released in the United States on Wednesday, August 5, 1998, it was released in several European countries as well as Singapore, Israel, Australia, and Mexico in the months that followed.

This is the first film about the Michael Myers character to not feature Donald Pleasence. Pleasence had died shortly before the release of Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers thus off-setting one of the key components of the series. This chapter is meant to be a direct sequel to Halloween II. The "H20" in the title refers to the film taking place in continuity (as well as the sequel and having been made) twenty years after the original. This is evident in the "20 Years Later" subtitle, not to water as some may think. Identifying films with abbreviations in marketing has been common since Terminator 2: Judgement Day (T2) in 1991.

The original working title for the film was Halloween 7: The Revenge Of Laurie Strode, due to this being a sequel to Halloween II, the title was, however, changed to Halloween: H20.

Plot

The movie features the return of Curtis's character from the first two Halloween films, Laurie Strode, now revealed to be living under the assumed name "Keri Tate". As Tate, Laurie has a seemingly perfect life with an intelligent son and a boyfriend, a great career (as a head mistress at a private boarding school in Northern California); however, Laurie is far from happy. The tragic events from 20 years previous still haunt her mind, and strongly take effect on her parental capabilities. To everyone, this is "just another Halloween," however Laurie still lives in constant fear.

But this year is different. Marion Chambers and her neighbours are murdered by Michael after he steals a file on Laurie Strode. Michael leaves to find Laurie. To mark the 20th anniversary of the happenings of 1978, her psychotic brother, serial killer Michael Myers, appears, and starts killing off her co-workers and students one by one. And for the first time in two decades, they meet again. Laurie manages to escape, but instead of leaving, chooses to go back, in an attempt to restore her life, to the school to challenge Michael in a fight to the death. She finds him and attempts killing him several times. She finally pushes him off a balcony, causing him to apparently fall to his death, similar to the first film.

The police come and clean the mess and put Michael's corpse in a body bag, and in an ambulance. Laurie steals the ambulance with Michael's body in the back, but Michael is still alive and escapes the body bag, and again tries to kill her. She slams on the brakes, throwing him through the windshield. She then tries unsuccessfully to run him over. The vehicle tumbles down a cliff but she escapes, while Michael is trapped between it and a tree. He reaches out to her. She reaches for his hand, then pulls back. And while remembering everything he's done to her, she chops his head off with an axe, seemingly finally killing him. Michael's head then rolls down the hill.

Cast

Director Steve Miner also has an uncredited cameo as the School Financial Advisor.

Production

John Carpenter was originally in the running to be the director for this particular follow-up since Jamie Lee Curtis wanted to reunite the cast and crew of the original to have active involvement in it. While it was believed that Carpenter, himself, opted out because he wanted no active part in the sequel this is not the case. Carpenter agreed to direct the movie, but his starting fee as director was 10 million dollars. Carpenter rationalized this by believing the hefty fee was compensation for revenue he never received from the original Halloween. A matter that was still a bit of contention between Carpenter and Akkad even after twenty years had passed. When Akkad balked at Carpenter's fee Carpenter walked away from the project.

Writer/Producer Kevin Williamson was involved in various areas of production on this particular sequel including coming up with the treatment that the film was based on. Although not directly credited, he provided rewrites in character dialogue, which is seen heavily throughout the teen moments. Miramax/Dimension Films felt his involvement as a co-executive producer merited being credited.

Music

The original music score was composed by John Ottman, but some music from Scream was added to the chase scenes later on during post-production. John Ottman expressed some displeasure about this action in an interview featured on the Halloween: 25 Years of Terror DVD released in 2006. Ottman's score was supplemented with Marco Beltrami's scores from Scream, Scream 2, and Mimic by a team of music editors as well as new cues written by Beltrami during the final days of sound mixing on the film. Dimension Films chief Bob Weinstein demanded the musical changes after being dissatisfied with Ottman's score.[1]

The song "What's This Life For" by hard rock band Creed was featured in the movie during a party sequence and is also heard during the credits of the film.

Masks

As said on Halloween: 25 Years of Terror, Halloween H20 had scenes re-shot due to complaints of the Myers mask used in the film. Scenes that could not be re-shot had a cgi mask replace them frame by frame. Four masks were made for the film, and they used the only Michael Myers mask which did not look like the original.

Reception

In terms of total gross, Halloween: H20 is the second biggest box office hit in the Halloween series behind the 2007 Halloween remake directed by Rob Zombie. It was released on August 5, 1998 in the US and later in many other countries. H20 cost $17 million to make and made over $55 million in domestic box office sales.[2] As for DVD/Video rentals, the film made over $21 million.

The critical reception for H20 was a "rotten" rating of 49% with the general consensus being that it was the best of many sequels but still paled in comparison to the original.[3]

Continuity

As originally conceived, the plot device in which Laurie had faked her death was written explicitly to account for her reported "death" in Halloween 4, and the original story treatment for H20 featured scenes in which Laurie's daughter, Jamie Lloyd, was mentioned and mourned. However, the filmmakers ultimately chose to ignore the continuity of the previous three sequels. Although Laurie's faked death remained in the script, the scenes mentioning Jamie were removed from the story, and the film's dialogue was adjusted to indicate that Michael Myers had not been heard from in the twenty years since the night depicted in the first two films.

The movie also features the return of Nurse Marion Chambers-Wittington, who appeared in the first two films as an associate of Dr. Loomis. In Halloween, she was the nurse who drove with Loomis to the asylum when Myers made his escape, and she returned in Halloween II.

The Halloween comic book series, published by Chaos Comics in 2001, attempted to bridge the continuity between Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers and Halloween H20, but in doing so made the plot of Halloween: Resurrection (unreleased at the time) impossible.

Allusions

  • Jamie Lee Curtis' mother has a role in the movie as Norma, the secretary of Curtis' character. Originally the character, Norma Watson, was to be played by P. J. Soles, who was featured in the original Halloween as Lynda. Soles also played a character named Norma Watson in the film Carrie, and the role was conceived as an in-joke referencing the two films. Nevertheless, Soles (or her agent) never accepted the role, and instead the *producers brought in Janet Leigh. The name "Norma" also worked as a nod to Leigh's role in Psycho. In Norma's final scene in the movie, the theme from Psycho can be heard as she walks over to a car which is an exact duplicate of the car she drove in the Alfred Hitchcock film.
  • When Laurie picks up the boys when they get caught off campus she turns on the car to leave and Mr. Sandman is playing (a reference to the earlier Halloween films). She then shuts it off quickly, though.
  • There are various homages to the Scream trilogy throughout the film, such as the music from Tatum Riley's death scene in Scream can be heard while Laurie, John and Molly are running from Michael to their car. Also to Scream 2 playing in Molly and Sarah's dorm room. The scene shown is Cici, played by Sarah Michelle Gellar, talking to the killer on the phone thinking it's her boyfriend. Another homage to Scream is the name Keri Tate, the alias that Laurie Strode is living under and the fact that she is called Mrs. Tate several times through the film. Mrs. Tate is the name of the teacher in the scene of the first Scream when Sidney Prescott is called to the principal's office for questions regarding the death of Casey Becker.
  • In an early scene a collection of newspaper clippings relating to Michael Myers can be seen in Nurse Marion Chambers-Wittington's office. Among them is a black and white version of the image that appears on the cover of the 1998 Pulp album, This is Hardcore.
  • During the credits in the prologue, Dr. Samuel J. Loomis' dialogue from the first film about Michael's incarceration is heard. The studio, instead of recovering the original audio from the original scene, decided to use a sound-alike actor named Tom Kane to provide the voiceover.
  • During the dedication message, Donald Pleasence is spelled incorrectly as "Pleasance".

References

  1. ^ Halloween: H20 score at Filmtracks
  2. ^ Halloween: H20 at Box Office Mojo
  3. ^ Rotten Tomatoes' Critical Reception Synopsis w/Pull Quotes

External links

Template:Box Office Leaders USA

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