Halloween 8: Resurrection

Starring Busta Rhymes, Sean Patrick Thomas, and Jamie Lee Curtis (as the cover suggests)

Rated R for terror, violence, gore, nudity, language, drug use, and “scary moments”

Horror/Suspense/Action

89 minutes

2002

So there I was in Blockbuster today being rushed by my mom (since she dreads going to that store) and I had two movies in my hand (Gacy and Gangs Of New York in case you are wondering) and I had to pick another movie out (since we got a free rental…yay!) and I was in a tough decision between three crappy movies that I wanted to watch to see how crappy they were (a new hobby of mine) and they were Jason X (no relation by the way), Shark Attack 3, and Halloween: Resurrection (and you now know which one I picked). I was interested in the movie mainly because I hated the latest installment, Halloween H2O and I wanted to see if this pile of crap “surpassed” the aforementioned one and it did—totally.

I’ve loved the Halloween movies ever since I saw the first one when I was a little kid (1995) and people agree with me when I say that the series has gone downhill after the masterminds behind the masterpiece, Debra Hill and John Carpenter, left. Hollywood is really milking this franchise for all it is worth and with this latest movie in the series, it really makes a stinker with its budget gone to Busta Rhymes and Tyra Banks mainly instead of going into good use for props, better extras, and just better actors in general.

What they did with Resurrection (I will not call it this anymore mainly because I hate spelling it and because I can’t get the thought out of my head that there will be another resurrected Michael Myers movie in a couple years so the movie will now be named rightfully Halloween 8) was replace all of the surviving good elements of the series with cheap knock offs. Instead of seasoned teen actors, they use horrible ones from teen movies like Cruel Intentions and American Pie and instead of having the nostalgic, nasty slasher-style killing that I became too accustomed with in the other ones, you get cheesy, cliché kills that are pitiful to watch. Another thing that they screwed up was their not-so-good-anymore name by soiling it with “reality TV”.

Reality TV is everywhere now invading the precious television stations and it has taken the last straw with me by taking over the movie industry with crap-a-delic films such as The Real Cancun (which missed the list of crappy movies I wanted to see today) and is even in Halloween 8.

Here’s what happens, m’kay? Three college peeps get selected to participate in a special internet show that takes place in Michael Myers’ house (a mass murderer/serial killer who butchered his sister and spent most of the rest of his “movie career” chasing his other one, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, for no apparent reason) eventually joining three other kids to hang with in the evil house, but something’s a stirring in the pot when Mikey shows up to give the kids a tour of his beloved house with a bloodstained knife at his side. All the people watching on their computers think that the people being slaughtered in front of them are part of the show, but they don't care except this internet nerd named “Deckard” (or something) who has a little “internet girlfriend” who’s in the house with the mass murderer. So now it’s Deckard’s job to be the eyes and ears for his girlfriend by checking out all the camera angles to know where Michael is at all times (while he’s searching for her) and it’s her job to get the fu*k out of that goddamn house.

The plot is pretty dorky to begin with and none of the characters are well developed and are predictable. They are boring to watch and as I was watching the movie I got this strange voyeur vibe…too many cameras. The whole movie is a big cliché, which you keep hoping will end. Plus, none of the scenes are scary or hold as much as an impact as the ones that were in the original Halloween (and the unforgettable sequel). I got more scared watching Ernest Scared Stupid then I did with Halloween 8.

The scenes or parts where those idiotic college kids were killed were unimaginative and really staged and under-acted. Something else that was very stupid was the manner of how they were killed. These Hollywood chums are running out of ideas and are copying ideas from movies. How many times can a guy get three knives in his chest going through his torso and the door in the process so that he hung from the knives that were implanted in his chest (did that make sense?) and another this is that it’s not possible to hang from a door with knives protruding inside you. It’s physically impossible.

The predictability is astounding. I’ve seen many crappy movies that are predictable, but this one takes the cake. Halfway through the film during a slow part I was thinking of all the ways that Michael Myers was killed in the other movies and one that hadn’t come through my head was electrocution. He had never been electrocuted! Then the ending came near and he got electrocuted and I said to myself, “you have to be kidding me!”. Not only that, but the setup of how people were killed was horrible. The classic “head in the spinning dryer” that was in a past Halloween film returns along with the “guy being held up by his head with blood dripping from his eyes and getting his brain smashed by Michael’s actual hands”.

Is it just me or is it that in every new-age horror film there is one sex or drug scene? Well, this tradition returns in classic Halloween format. Two of the kids are in the Myers’ basement getting it on with her breasts present (which leads me to my next point: you don’t have sex with someone that annoys you or that you just met. It’s totally unrealistic!) and something spoils their little act of love and the guy goes upstairs, while she sees a hole in the wall and so she follows it and while finding a secret room…well, the saying “curiosity killed the cat” works well…

Another thing that was unrealistic was that Michael Myers’ house. Okay, first of all, if everyone knew that a serial killer was loose and the place where he hung out the most was his house, wouldn’t you not have this little Internet party there? And how would they get a permit to film the inside and to be on the property in the first place? And another this is, wouldn’t that place be torn down already? I mean, after a crapload of people being killed in that house since 1978, wouldn’t you have it torn down? Wasn’t Jeffrey Dahmer’s apartment torn down after they discovered all the bodies? And what about John Wayne Gacy’s love palace? They were torn down weren’t they? Plus, these kids are destroying and dare I say it “castrating” the house in every way. You don’t do that to someone’s house, and plus it wasn’t even their property to begin with and it is a resting home of one of America’s most notorious serial killers (in the fictional world).

“I loved working with Jamie—the one who started the Halloween movies in the first place. It’s such an honor! Hee Hee!”…Lady, she was only in the movie for three seconds and you weren’t even in the scene!

I have to get this itching Jamie Lee Curtis thing out of the way. First of all, I really respect her as an actress and is in some of my favorite movies like True Lies and the original Halloween and is truly the scream queen of horror flicks, but she made a huge mistake with this movie (and H20 for that matter). Her name is listed in the credits and on the cover of the box and I was excited to watch the movie mainly because of her and to see what happens next, but surprisingly she gets killed off in the opening scene. WHAT A BUNCH OF SHI T. I’m so mad about that and she was killed off so easily. After the events that happened in H20, she goes to an asylum and Michael finds her there and gets his vengeance, but something that was never answered (to my knowledge) why he was chasing her after all of these years.

All of the kids that were in the house the whole movie were boring and stupid but there was a particular character whom I really enjoyed watching and that was this crazy kid in the beginning. He’s first introduced (and is probably in the movie for a total of one minute) wearing a clown mask in the middle of the woods outside the asylum (since he escaped) and said that he was John Wayne Gacy, Jr. Afterwards when Mike killed his big sister, he walked into that kid’s room and handed him the knife that he killed his sister with and the crazy dude was repeating all the information about Michael Myers that he had collected over the years and memorized them. Before that, he was obsessing about Ted Bundy. This character fascinated me mainly because I was once like him, obsessed with serial killers. After I got into this death metal band calling themselves Macabre (check out both of my reviews of their albums) who screams about serial killers and after I watched a couple films, I memorized a lot of weird facts that no one would know. This guy was genuinely good hearted and funny and offered the best acting of the whole flick.

Ah…Michael Myers. He is my favorite horror movie villain mainly because of his menacing mask, which strikes fear in most peoples’ hearts including mine. If I saw his face staring back at me through a window, I would totally crap my pants and I’m not joking with you. In Halloween 8, you see a gentler side to the man infected with a “disease” that made him kill his sister (as told in one of the many crappy sequels) and a side of him with a lot of emotions that weren’t evident in the past films. He’s kind to that guy obsessed with serial killers as I told you, and he hesitates sometimes before killing somebody but there was one part that I really didn’t get. When Busta’s character dressed up as Michael Myers (making it so that two were on screen), Busta confronted the real one and yelled at him thinking he was an extra in the Internet series and Michael looked flabbergasted by this and turned around and didn’t kill the man but walked away. Uh, that’s not the serial killer you and I know. Michael would have cut Busta down in an instant.

And something that I’m really getting sick of are his stupid disappearing acts. He’ll be seen staring in a window at somebody while that person stares back and when that person blinks then he’s gone yet when the victim is running away from Michael, he’s walking instead of running after his potential prey. Why couldn’t he do one of his vanishing acts? And he doesn’t do this ever couple of movies, it’s in every Halloween movie that this crap happens and I am sick and tired of it. Plus, he has no motive to kill some people. What I think is with his character is that he kills for pleasure and lust instead of for a reason.

Tyra Banks…one of the hottest and most beautiful women in modeling and acting is in the movie and she is gorgeous as ever—for the five minutes that she is in the movie. She too is on the cover and supposedly a big cast member but was barely in the movie. She helped Busta’s character set up the whole Internet reality thing and she was the last dead person that the two remaining members of the group found murdered by Mike. Her character is flat and lifeless and not really fun to watch on screen since she had no enthusiasm for her part. The Scream Trilogy is famous for doing this type of crap like having a big leading lady on the cover of the box but with her in only one brief scene like what they did with Sarah Michelle Gellar and Jada Pinkett Smith.

Busta Rhymes is the biggest dork I’ve ever seen but does a so-so job. His character is completely stereotypical and cliché (someone that you’ve seen a million times and again) but is pretty badas s on the homefront. He’s obsessed with classic martial arts films so when he comes face to face with Michaelangelo, than he does some kickboxing crap and it’s really pitiful to watch, but hilarious at the same time. I haven’t laughed that hard since…well…yesterday and I kept thinking, “how much did he get paid to do this?”. He does have some awesome one-liners and is really macho in the film. Okay, so he doesn’t get an Oscar and isn’t a really good actor in the most part, but he did a much better job than fellow pop artists like Mariah Carey, Britney Spears, and Marshall Mathers.

Did you have any questions about what happened after H20 or about how Mike knew when people were in his house? I have to spoil it for you right here. In H20 when Jamie cuts off Michael’s head, she made a mistake and cut off this security guard’s head (Whom didn’t say anything since his voice box was pulverized) and was sent to a nut house and the other secret that I need to tell you is that Michael Myers lives in a secret room in a tunnel in his basement and lives off of eating rats and stuff. The people in the movie thought he had been living down there for years without being detected. Ohhhh….

An end to the series?

As long as there is a person in Hollywood that will fund these lacking horror mockeries of classic films, then these terrible Halloween movies will be made. The next film that they make (What will it be called…hmmm…Halloween 9: Reincarnated?) will bomb even more than this one did. I think this was released a little before Halloween of last year and was out on video by Christmas. I’m not positive but I’m pretty sure. Is this movie worth renting? Not at all unless you are really bored or you have the same hobby as I have (seeing crappy movies just to see how bad they are). If you do rent it or borrow it from a pal, be warned that you won’t jump in any of the scenes like you did in the previous installments and that this is a really lazy effort of a movie on the director’s part. Don’t expect a great storyline, just expect plenty of knife slashing fun—since that’s all this movie offers.

Jason

P.S. How many times has this guy been killed? Isn’t he a regular dude? Will he ever truly die? My guess is no and I have no idea what they are going to do with the next one but if it involves a really horrible plot like MM being cryogenically frozen in bird shi* and being sent into space and meeting H.R. Giger’s Aliens and taking over a spaceship with the help of those creatures, then everything has been done and I rest my case.


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: None of the Above
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older