Not enough outlets were willing to openly contest the format’s possible harm, but horror was on the frontline, emphasizing how some reality TV is deceptive and sadistic. And from behind their computer screens, audiences watch in both pleasure and fear, asking themselves if this is real or not.īy 2002, reality television was well on its way to becoming a permanent, not to mention detested, part of people’s daily lives. On Halloween Night, six college students along with the producers of “Dangertainment” are then picked off inside Haddonfield’s most infamous house. Following the prologue, a year after Laurie’s demise, the film shifts focus to an internet stunt set inside Michael Myers’ childhood home. Michael hacking up various people who wander into his ancestral home and other haunts sounds a lot like something in the Halloween young-adult novels, but Resurrection adds a modern touch.ĭespite all its apparent failings, Resurrection achieves a sliver of success with its unusual setup. The story severs the personal connection to Michael altogether, and in place of some other ill-fated relative, the sequel offers random fodder who mistakenly enter the old Myers house as part of some macabre attempt at entertainment. And Resurrection thought going back to the origin of evil would do the trick. The big challenge after such a risky undertaking was making the audience still feel invested, even if Laurie was out of the picture. The outcome here is not desirable from a fan’s point of view, although it is a conclusive, if not controversial, way of passing the torch from one generation to the next. There is a good idea here about the eternal struggle between final girls and their enemies, and the unavoidable aftermath of said battle. The opening scene puts a new slant on survivor’s guilt, and those first fifteen minutes account for Rick Rosenthal ’s most coherent direction in the whole film. The studio eventually dialed that darkness down in H20, but some of what Curtis originally had in mind found its way into the sequel. Curtis intended for Laurie to have a darker story when she first contacted Carpenter and Debra Hill about the 1978 film’s twentieth anniversary. Putting aside the much-hated explanation for how Michael survived that cathartic decapitation - Laurie killed an innocent man wearing Michael’s mask - his and Laurie’s final confrontation is not even the worst part of Resurrection. So, that loathed opening sequence of Resurrection was always going to happen. A creative workaround allowed both Laurie and the audience to think Michael was finally dead at the end of H20 - and no footage in the actual film could suggest differently - yet in the inevitable sequel, Curtis asked for her character to return and be killed off. The late producer Moustapha Akkad stipulated Michael Myers could not be killed, so the original plan of Halloween H20: 20 Years Later being The Shape’s swan song was off the table, much to Jamie Lee Curtis ’ chagrin. Nothing quite sets off horror fans like the killing of a legacy character, but the decision to bump off Laurie Strode was put in place before Resurrection was written. When remembering “the one in that house, with all the cameras,” John Carpenter said in 2018, “Oh my god, oh lord, god.” So it should come as no surprise that general opinion on Resurrection has hardly changed over the years.
“Spectators will indeed sit open-mouthed before the screen, not screaming but yawning,” said The New York Times, and Entertainment Weekly called it “comatainment.” The most telling review, however, came later from the Halloween franchise’s co-creator. The critics who bothered to assess the sequel, despite there being no advance screenings, made sure to flay the film. Halloween: Resurrection opened to bad reviews upon its unseasonable release in July of 2002.
0 kommentar(er)
