Product Description

This smart and suspenseful thriller scares up a bone-chilling good time with original scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis (TRUE LIES, HALLOWEEN I&II) and a hot cast of hip young stars! Now the headmistress of a private school, Laurie Strode (Curtis) is still struggling with the horrifying, 20-year-old memories of the maniacal killer Michael Myers ... when he suddenly reappears with a vengeance! And this Halloween, his terror will strike a whole new generation! Laurie's rebellious son (Josh Hartnett -- THE FACULTY), his girlfriend (Michelle Williams -- TV's DAWSON'S CREEK), and the school security guard (LL COOL J -- WOO, B.A.P.S.) will become Michael's newest victims unless Laurie can conquer her greatest fears and put evil in its place once and for all! The time has come again for you to experience the frightening fun of HALLOWEEN -- the motion picture series that totally redefined terror!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6574 in DVD
• Brand: Disney
• Released on: 1999-10-19
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Collector's Edition, 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.

H20: The True Sequel!!
The "Halloween" saga has always been a favorite of horror film fans. It began with a ground-breaking, terrifying original, and moved onto "Halloween II" which continued the story on the same night as the original, making it the perfect companion piece. While not as relentlessly terrifying as the original, it is a scary movie.

Then came "Halloween 3" which had nothing to do with the rest of the series. It could have been an all right movie if they had left off the "Halloween" title. But it raised so many fan expectations that it fell very short.

"Halloween 4" brought Michael Myers back, and returned to the suspense of the first two films, heralding the 10-year-old original. "Halloween 5" was a step down in quality, with a good first 20 minutes, and suspenseful second half to make up for the "stupid teenagers and sex" sub-plot. "Halloween 6" was on the same level as the fifth one--entertaining in parts, but it was so choppy, you could hardly tell what was going on a lot of the time.

Then it came full-circle. 20 years after the original film came "Halloween: H20--Twenty Years Later", bringing everybody's favorite horror heroine, Laurie Strode--played by Jamie Lee Curtis--back to the screen. It bypasses films 3-6, and becomes a direct sequel to the first two. It is an excellent film, very scary and suspenseful, while not falling too much into the trappings of "Scream" rip-offs. With Jamie Lee Curtis and Michael Myers going face-to-face 20 years later, it brings a successful resolution to the saga.

"Halloween: The Homecoming" is supposed to be coming out soon, and I'll probably see it, just because it too has JLC and Michael Myers. But I have a feeling that it is going to be about as good as "Halloweens 3, 5, and 6", which is not very good. "Homecoming" will negate the whole effect of H20's brilliant climax in which Michael finally meets with his death, and I think it should stay unreleased. If you want to experience the true story of Halloween, watch "Halloween", "Halloween II", and "Halloween H20". This trilogy of Michael Myers and Jamie Lee Curtis is super-scary and brings the terrifying story to a satisfying resolution.

It begins 20 years after the first two films, and Nurse Marion from the first two finds her house broken into, with files on Laurie Strode missing, before Michael Myers kills her. Then Michael heads out to California, where Laurie is living under a different name, with her teenage son John, and running a prep school. But as Halloween draws closer, Laurie must finally face her demons, and goes head-to-head with her masked brother for a final showdown that has an unexpected, yet completely satisfying conclusion--bringing the story of Michael and Laurie to a close. The acting is excellent for a horror film, and it is a beautifully made film. The music, which hints at John Carpenter's original themes, is very creepy. The direction is quite good as well. It is certainly the best of the "Halloween" sequels, follwed closely by "II".

The DVD is an awesome widescreen version. But there is no commentary as mentioned on the box, and no theatrical trailers. But there is a neat documentary on the making of the film. And the picture and sound quality is excellent. Buy H20 now, before it's too late! You won't regret it. Now you can see how the horror saga really ends.