Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #77125 in DVD
• Released on: 1999-10-19
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 86 minutes

Amazon.com
Halloween is one of the great modern horror films, but as a franchise its track record has been spotty at best, painfully bad at worst. Halloween H2O: Twenty Years Later, directed by horror vet Steve Miner (Friday the 13th parts 2 and 3, House), won't displace John Carpenter's original but it might help you forget the films in between. Miner certainly has: the film begins as if sequels 3 through 6 never happened. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis, reprising her role for the first time in almost two decades) faked her death and is now a single mom and headmistress of an exclusive California private school. She's also a secret alcoholic who lives in fear of her homicidal brother-bogeyman Michael Myers. Guess who decides to show up for a family reunion? The film begins with classic horror-movie exposition (the deserted college campus, Michael's escape, Laurie's waking nightmares) accomplished with some humor and style, but it's all setup for the second half, a driving roller coaster of stalk-and-slash thrills. There's little of the self-conscious genre referencing of Scream and at times the film is a little far-fetched--it is a slasher movie about a knife-wielding homicidal maniac who won't stay dead, after all--but Curtis transforms Laurie from a shrieking victim into an empowered, determined horror-movie heroine who's learned a thing or two from the previous films. Adam Arkin, Josh Hartnett, and TV cutie Michelle Williams (Dawson's Creek) costar, and the script received uncredited polish from Scream writer Kevin Williamson; Curtis's mom, Janet Leigh, pops up in a cameo. --Sean Axmaker

From The New Yorker
The title of Steve Miner's new film raises hopes that Michael Myers, everybody's favorite bogeyman from "Halloween," might return to Haddonfield, Illinois, and spend the whole of the movie in public swimming pools; sadly, it refers to nothing more outré than the twenty years that have passed since John Carpenter's original shocker. Most of the innumerable sequels were tripe, but this one has a freshness-even a kind of wit-mixed in with all the blood. It also has Jamie Lee Curtis, who was always the mainstay of the "Halloween" saga at its best. Her character, Laurie, has now found a job as the headmistress of a school in California. Myers tracks her down, wasting a few disposable teen-agers on the way; finally, Laurie and her nemesis come face to face, or, at any rate, face to mask. The movie is not the exercise in undiluted fright that Carpenter gave us; nor, perhaps, should we expect it to be. Viewers of this stuff are less innocent than ever before, and Miner trades efficiently on their knowing glee. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

THE REAL HALLOWEEN 3!
When it comes right down to it, like it or not, this is the true Halloween 3. We all know that the original Halloween 3 had nothing at all to do with the first two films. The other sequels 4 - 6, began branching off the main characters as extended family of the Laurie Strode character who was supposed to be dead. With Halloween H20, the sequels 4 to 6 are basically tossed out the window and erased from accepted Halloween Canon. The good news is that none of those films were particularly great and other than the inclusion of Donald Pleasance as the avenging Dr. Loomis, they are most forgettable.

Not that this film is perfect mind you..it takes some awfully big leaps in logic. It's supposed to be 20 years later and Laurie Strode is now the head-master of an exclusive private school. Years ago she faked her death and took on the alias of Keri Tate in order to hide herself from her brother Michael. But when papers of Dr. Loomis that reveal her true identity come up missing, the Shape is once again on her trail, bent on finishing the job he started 20 years earlier.

Josh Hartnett plays Strode's son John who is supposed to leave with most of the rest of the kids on a trip, but instead stays in the almost emply school grounds with his girlfriend and several other kids to have their own private party free from adults. Naturally they are the first to encounter Michael Myers who manages to slip past the worlds worst security guard played by L.L. Cool J.

Despites some of the implausibilites of the script, it's the most effective thriller in the series since Halloween II. The scene where Laurie manages to lock a door before michael can get her, but they still come face to face due to a window is a genuinely creepy scene. Add to that is the fact that H20 Director Steve Minor was a far more experienced and accomplished director than the three guys who did the previous sequels and you have a far more effective film.

All in all, when if comes right down to it, this is the true Halloween 3!

Can Laurie Strode finally turn the tables on Michael Myers?
It is rather amazing that the reputation of the original "Halloween" has not been tarnished by all the sequels that have come down the road in the last quarter century. Whatever eloquence the first film had was replaced by as much explicit bloodletting as possible in "Halloween 2" and the fun has been continuing ever since. "Halloween: H20" is an attempt, of sorts, to get the series back on track. The idea is that the fourth, fifth and sixth films in the series never happened and we are now twenty years after the original bloodletting in the first two films. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is back, all grown up with her own teenage son, only now she is running a private boarding school and calling herself Keri Tate. This is not just because she is trying to escape the notoriety of being the sister of Michael Myers but also because she knows deep down inside that her brother is still out there somewhere trying to kill her. Of course she is right; just do not ask what he has been doing for two decades, wandering around the country wearing that William Shatner mask painted white.

From a historical perspective "Halloween" was the first film where the slasher kept getting up every time he was put down. Hard to believe that once upon a time this was a "new" idea, because certainly it has been done to death (pardon the phrase). We are actually at the point where we are surprised in a film where the killer is killed and is actually dead. The killer who cannot die has become such a commonplace it has gone well beyond the slasher genre. What this means is that by the time we get to this film there is nothing new regarding his ability to survive knife slashes, blows from an ax, a rock being pounded on his skull, and other substantive physical assaults. We have seen it all before and whether the slasher's name is Michael Myers, Jason, or whatever, it does not matter anymore.

That means the success of this film has a lot more to Laurie's end of the story than Michael's, and in that is the regard in which this film falls short. It is made clear that Laurie has been thinking about this day (okay, this night; he always comes out at night) for two decades. Given that she is running a private school (and recalling her answer regarding fate in her English class back in 1978) we also know that this is a smart person. Surely in all that time she has come up with hundreds of plans on how she will stop her brother from driving a big knife into her body. I mean, come on, remember what Nancy was able to put together in one night for Freddy Krueger. Laurie Strode cannot do better? Sigh. Jamie Leigh Curtis deserved a better script than this for coming back and lending her considerable cache to the series that made her the original Scream Queen. Just go back and watch the original to remember what made this stuff work in the first place.

Final comment: Did you ever thing that Janet Leigh's car in "Psycho" had blue tones? That sure surprised me.

Jamie Lee Curtis Was Great But The Lead Kids Were Awful!
Anyone planning on seeing or buying this movie should know that it does not really make sense when viewing Parts 4, 5, and 6. Jamie Lee Curtis, who is terrific in this one by the way, has said in numerous interviews to forget those films and watch Parts 1, 2, and H20 as the definitive trilogy. That being said, the best parts of H20 are when our lead actress is on the screen. Whether it be from having nightmares, being a teacher, having lunch with Adam Arkin, or duking it out with her brother, Michael Myers, Curtis is great to watch. The bad parts of the film involve the lead young actors, including Josh Hartnett (The Faculty), who plays the son of Laurie Strode (Curtis), and his cheesy girlfriend, played by Michelle Williams of TV's Dawson's Creek fame (is this H20 or Dawson's Bloody Creek?). Both are horrible. I enjoyed the two other costarring friends of theirs much better. At least they had some wit and humor about them that was fun. LL Cool J is enjoyable standing around through the whole movie as a security guard, convincing his wife that he wants to be a romance novelist by reading excerpts to her over the phone when he should be working. But the film focuses too much on the son and the girlfriend. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad if the people playing the parts could actually act. You might think I'm being a bit harsh but I couldn't find any redeeming qualities between the two of them. The only scene where he even helps his Mom is at the beginning after she's had her nightmare (He gives her medication and calms her down). But are we to believe that he doesn't really love his Mom? That he just feels obligated? That he's resentful of her acting nuts over a supposed killer he's never seen? That she's just a head case he can't wait to get away from rather than support? I know horror fans might not care, but this film could've been 100 times better if this relationship was better developed. If I had a choice I'd have picked Tobey Maguire (Pleasantville, The Cider House Rules) as the son and Natalie Portman (The Professional, Heat) as the girlfriend. See, they can actually act. They could pull it off. But I guess a Part 7 horror movie doesn't exactly attract alot of good young actors. John Carpenter (Halloween 1) even turned down the opportunity to direct the film after Jamie Lee Curtis offered him the chance. And as for Big Mike? To me, Nick Castle will always be the real Michael Myers. It's just the way he moves and his subtle gestures that define him to the role, while the others (mostly stunt people) ended up only trying to imitate him, but nowhere near having the same effect. So watch the movie mainly for Jamie Lee Curtis's performance. She's the best thing about this movie. But if you're planning on buying this film on DVD, I feel you're getting gypped because it is very expensive and only has a trivia game, music video and a short "making of" featurette on it (not even a trailer). The copy I own says on the back that an audio commentary by Director Steve Miner and Jamie Lee Curtis was offered but it's actually not even on the disc. To Dimension Films, I just want to say this is false advertisement. As for their being a Halloween 8? Only time will tell.