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Hi, from the Daily Strange! (SPOILER ALERT!) I had the misfortune of witnessing Halloween: Resurrection because of the bad reputation of the entire Halloween series. When Halloween, 2018 new movie came out, Halloween series got my attention to rewatch. Even though the bad reputation of Halloween Resurrection, I had to watch it anyway. Just two Halloween movies I have never watch before. Yeah, these are Halloween Resurrection and also Halloween, 2018.
Here you might buy ''Halloween: Resurrection'' film on Amazon
If I started from to talk about Halloween Resurrection:
Laurie Strode, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, the strongest character in the series, is killed off in 10 minutes.
Michael Myers then encounters a mental patient that knows all about mass murderers. The mental patient takes one look at Myers and recites Myers’s past like some horror version of Dustin Hoffman’s Rain Man.
Myers apparently is impressed by the psychotic fan’s gruesome expertise—and gives him a butcher knife for a souvenir.
Michael Myers returns to his hometown in Haddonfield, Illinois, to kill more teenagers but this time he does it live over the Internet.
Here you might be interested Michael Myers books on Amazon
How very 21st century of him. Myers can’t kill everyone though. We need at least two survivors. One is Sara Moyer, the down-to-earth, pretty heroine portrayed by Bianca Jahlich.
In one particular scene, Freddie dons the Michael Myers trademark coveralls and William Shatner mask in an attempt to scare up Internet ratings.
When he encounters the real Michael Myers, Freddie believes it’s one of his friends playing dress-up. Freddie proceeds to yell at Myers and shoves him for good measure. Myers walks away, confirming that we don’t need a gun, an ax, the police or a scream queen to stop the Shape. We just need an angry cliché black man to scold him.
One can’t help but wonder: When did the Halloween series fall apart? More importantly, can it get any worse? Will Busta Rhymes return to discipline Michael again?
Halloween: The Sensitivity of Michael Myers might not be too far off!
This article discusses why the original Halloween is a classic horror film. It also shows why the sequels are not only inferior to the original, but how they have dragged a once potentially good series into inadequacy.
Here you might be interested Halloween III: Season Of The Witch Medias on Amazon
Halloween III: Season of the Witch will be omitted because it’s not an actual sequel to the Michael Myers saga and therefore has little value in this analysis.
Here you might be interested from Rob Zombie's Halloween Movie Medias on Amazon
Director Rob Zombie’s stand-alone remake of the original film was omitted, because his contribution wasn't be part of the original franchise series.
Here you might be interested Halloween 1978 Movie Medias on Amazon
Although the script is simple, it is John Carpenter’s exceptional direction that makes the film a classic.
In the opening scene, we see someone entering the house, grabbing a butcher knife, going up to Judith Myers’s bedroom, stabbing her to death, descending the staircase and exiting the front door, where the shocked victim’s parents await. We discover that the killer isn’t a typical kooky-eyed giggling man, but a blank-faced and silent six-year-old boy.
Although the killer’s identity suggests a different kind of psychopath from the mainstream Hollywood standard, it is the opening shot that lures the viewer. The opening sequence appears to be one continuous steady-cam motion, which was a painstaking shot. Such an idea shows Carpenter’s masterful talents that threaten to rival Alfred Hitchcock’s. Unfortunately, such risky and creative camera shots died along with Judith Myers as no director in the series’ sequels has ever attempted to try something that risky. It’s a shame, because that particular opening scene shows us the murder through the killer’s eyes. In a dramatic way, the viewer is the murderer whether he or she likes it or not. This can be unsettling to the sensitive spectator.
Another sensational camera shot is when Annie (Nancy Loomis) is in the kitchen pacing back and forth while talking to her boyfriend. Behind her is a pair of French doors. As she paces to the left, Myers appears behind the glass doors. As she paces right and goes to look out the doors, he is suddenly gone.
As in the opening scene, this is one continuous shot that flows and, if watching for the first time, may give the viewer the impression that it was all a paranoid illusion. Yet, what gives Carpenter his edge in this film is not when we see the Shape’s face, but when we don’t see it. Most of the shots involve either seeing the back of the Shape’s head or not seeing him at all, typically only hearing his breathing, such as the scene when Lynda (P.J. Soles) and Bob (John Michael Graham) are having sex.
In the sequels, the closest we come to Carpenter’s gift for suspense with camera angles is seeing the victim in the foreground while the Shape’s staring and blurry image is in the background.
In Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, it was when Deputy Logan (George Sullivan) is sitting in the rocking chair by the front door.
Here you might be interested Halloween IV Movie Medias
on Amazon
In Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, it was Rachel Coruthers (Ellie Cornell) when she was dressing in her bedroom.
Here you might be interested Halloween V Movie Medias
on Amazon
In Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, it was Debra Strode (Kim Darby) talking on the phone with her angry husband (Bradford English).
Here you might be interested Halloween VI Movie Medias
on Amazon
In Halloween H20, it was Nurse Marion (Nancy Stephens) investigating her burglarized house.The sequels had a higher budget than the original and needed to stick with techniques that producers knew worked, or else box-office money could be lost.
The original Halloween was an independent film, which meant more freedom to take creative chances, and Carpenter’s daring experiments made Halloween the most successful independent movie for years.
The movie’s final moment is even more brilliant than the opening shot. Dr. Loomis, played by Donald Pleasence, looks over the balcony and sees that Michael Myers has walked away after being shot six times.
John Carpenter mentioned that Donald Pleasence had two suggestions: “I can play this two ways. I can play this ‘Oh my God!’ or I can play this ‘I knew this would happen.’” We also see a montage of possible places the Shape could be hiding while hearing his chilling breathing behind his mask. The breathing itself is noteworthy. It acknowledges the Shape’s presence. At the same time, Halloween’s effectiveness is its ability to make popular urban legends believable. The first urban legend is often entitled “The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs.” The legend is about a babysitter who receives disturbing phone calls. She (the babysitter is always a young attractive girl, not unlike Laurie Strode) hears heavy breathing on the other end of the line. The babysitter calls the operator for assistance. The operator tells the babysitter that if the heavy breather calls again, to keep him on the line for as long as possible, while the call is being traced. Sure enough, another call occurs and the babysitter stalls the heavy breather until he hangs up. The operator immediately calls the babysitter and urges her to leave the house because the crank calls are coming from an upstairs extension. The babysitter survives the ordeal, like Laurie Strode, but bloodshed occurs: in the urban legend, the victims are children; in the movie, three teenagers appear. Two scenes occur where the breathing over the phone is implied. The first is after Laurie sees Michael Myers amid the flapping laundry on a neighbor’s clothesline and the phone rings. The second is after Michael Myers kills Lynda and Listen to Laurie through the receiver. According to leading folklorist, Dr. Jan Harold Brunvand, this legend’s origins trace back to about 1964 and have been reported throughout the continent as far north as Montreal, Quebec and as far south as Austin, Texas. Teenagers in particular are familiar with this tale as executive producer Moustapha Akkad notes: “The word ‘babysitter’ clicked with me because every kid in America knows what the babysitter is.” In other words, Haddonfield could be any suburban town in America. The second urban legend is called the “Killer in the Back Seat.” In the middle of the film, Annie attempts to drive to her boyfriend’s place. Once she is inside her car, the Shape springs up from the backseat and murders her. This legend traces back to 1967 and, though no actual murder cases have been reported, folks still check the backseat before stepping into their automobile. The urban legends are central to the Halloween screenplay because of their simplicity.
Folklorists and film critics may analyze each, but the main purpose of such tales is to frighten us by preying upon the fear of being unsafe in either a car or the comfort of a suburban home. The final urban legend is a reference to supernatural folklore. This is demonstrated in the scene when Bob leaves Lynda in bed to get a beer and makes the mistake of opening the closet door. Michael Myers bolts out and kills the teen, a classic footnote to the boogeyman that hides in the closet.
This confirmation also takes place earlier when school children tease young Tommy Doyle (Brian Andrews), claiming that the boogeyman is coming to get him.
As in folklore, the child sees the boogeyman in the shadows and warns the adult, in this case, babysitter Laurie Strode, only to be told that it is all part of an overactive imagination. The closet is also used a final time in the film’s climax as Laurie makes a failed attempt to escape the Shape.
This time the urban legend is reversed. It is the victim who is hiding in the closet, while the boogeyman is in the bedroom trying to break in. Common urban legends have found their way into Halloween’s sequels with limited success. In Halloween II, as Laurie is being rolled into Haddonfield Memorial Hospital, an unfortunate trick-or-treater is admitted after biting into a piece of candy (or perhaps an apple), and winds up with a severe mouth wound lined with a razor blade. This urban legend, in particular, still impacts today’s society as it did in 1978.
Parents are annually advised to check their children’s candy for possible tampering, yet folklorists and sociologists insist that reports of what Jan Harold Brunvand calls “Halloween sadists” are based more on fear than fact. One case when Halloween candy caused a child’s death is most likely where the urban legend originated. It took place in Houston, Texas, on Halloween in 1974. Ronald Clark O’Bryan slipped cyanide into his son’s (Timothy O’Bryan) Pixie Stix candy. The crime is tragic, but is a far cry from where legions of madmen spread terror by poisoning the masses. The urban legend in this film works because it is synonymous with Halloween itself. Other urban legends in the sequels don’t work. In Halloween 4, Michael Myers is hiding in the back seat of Deputy Logan’s patrol car as he pulls into Sheriff Meeker’s (Beau Starr) house in an attempt to protect young Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris.)
The scene doesn’t work because it illustrates the policeman’s lack of intelligence. Halloween is supposed to be the most dangerous night of the year in Haddonfield. Police are supposed to be on edge, having heard of Myers’s notorious reputation. Yet, the viewer is supposed to believe that a trained law enforcement officer didn’t notice the killer in the backseat at anytime, including when he was driving the cruiser. This is a contrast to the similar scene with Annie in the original Halloween because the windows were fogged up and she was only in the car for a few seconds before being murdered. Later, Deputy Logan notices that the cruiser’s rear door is open and, though he looks somewhat mystified by this (because he drives in the front seat, you know), he shuts the door and doesn’t give it a further thought.
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers repeats this urban legend when obnoxious D.J. Barry Simms (Leo Geter) is talking on the phone while entering his vehicle. By this time, however, the outcome is expected. Not only does a close-up of Simms’s face appear, which suggests that something is approaching, but he insults Michael Myers before he dies.
This seems to be an unofficial rule in horror films: Supporting characters can’t slur the killer and live. Like the “Killer in the Backseat,” another urban legend is repeated in Halloween 5. In the original Halloween, Michael “the Boogeyman” Myers attacks from the closet to kill the just-had-sex teen.
In Halloween 5, Myers is hiding in the closet again as Rachel is picking out a sweater to wear.
This scene doesn’t work because it takes place in the well-lit afternoon and Michael Myers is standing in front of her as she scours through her clothes.The previous “boogeyman-in-the-closet” scenes could happen, which makes it scary. The latter scenario is too hard to believe, especially since Rachel was shown to be a smart heroine in Halloween 4. Another technique that is taken for granted in the original Halloween is the lighting, or rather, the lack of lighting. When watching Halloween, no doubt exists in the viewer’s mind that the night scenes were indeed shot at night. Carpenter used just enough lighting and took full advantage of the darkness to make every scene work. The darkness also dominates all three main murders. No close-up occurs on the cord Michael Myers uses to strangle Annie. We don’t see Lynda wriggling on the ground, watching her last breath. We also don’t see the Shape’s knife stab into Bob’s chest. All of it is suggestive or covered in darkness. The darkness is also effective in the scenes where Tommy Doyle looks out the window and sees Michael Myers, either standing across the street as trick-or- treaters dash by, or, carrying Annie’s corpse into the house. The shadows also dominate the climax inside the Doyle house from the time the Shape hides behind the couch to the close- up we see of him before Dr. Loomis empties his revolver. The darkness not only conceals a lot of potential gore that Halloween could have produced, it fuels the suspense, forcing the viewer to fill in the blank spots on where everything (include the Shape himself) could be. The lighting among many of the scenes in the sequels is inefficient.
Halloween II did produce an effective scene where the lighting was just right. It involved candy striper Janet (Ana Alicia) discovering Dr. Mixter’s (Ford Rainey) body. As she steps back in horror (why she didn’t scream or gasp, we’ll never know), the Shape’s mask fades in from theblack background directly behind her. Despite this effective scene, Halloween II lacks the original’s ability to sneak up on the nervous viewer.
Michael Myers’s concentration shifts to murdering a hospital staff member instead of stalking Laurie Strode, but perhaps, just as importantly, he doesn’t hide in the shadows anymore. He’s out in the open, walking the streets and hospital hallways.
Halloween 4 also has one standout scene when it comes to the lighting. It’s in the opening montage as the credits fade in and out. We see Halloween shots such as a paper skeleton stapled to a door, a scarecrow sitting on a tractor and sharp farm equipment. The background is a timber sky with traces of sea foam green. The montage not only makes the viewer shiver, even if watching it in July, but the montage captures the holiday’s essence. The sounds of wind mixed with the subtle scary music is icing on the cake.
Unfortunately, Halloween 4’s lighting takes a nosedive after the introduction. Most scenes look like director Dwight Little attached a piece of blue film over the camera’s lens and called “Action!”in the middle of the day. One can see a hint of blue light in almost every night scene, but two scenes best exemplify this. The first scene is when Michael Myers kills Bucky (Harlow Marks), the power plant worker, via electrocution...
The second scene is when Michael Myers walks up the stairs in Sheriff Meeker’s house and confronts Brady (Sasha Jensen), who is trying to load a shotgun.
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers’ director Joe Chappelle takes a similar approach when Jamie Lloyd (this time, J.C. Brandy) and her newborn make their escape in the opening scenes.
Later, a shot occurs of the Shape walking out of his house and crossing the street to kill Kara Strode (Marianne Hagen) and her son Danny (Devin Gardner).
We notice that cobalt blue lights dominate the sets in an attempt to give the illusion that it is nighttime. The results are ironic: the higher the budget, the phonier the sets look.
Halloween 5 is even shoddier. The worst lighting takes place in the booth in the barn where sex between two teens goes awry, and the Myers’ house, which went from being a quaint little lot to a huge Gothic mansion. Director Dominique Othenin-Girard doesn’t even attempt to hide the white light that blazes through the boarded-up windows, even though the scenes are supposed to be taking place late at night. The last elements that flawed the series are obvious: inconsistency and lazy writing. Under most circumstances when writing a sequel, the author has an obligation to acknowledge the past while subtly incorporating his own style into the current project. I am aware that even the best writers never fully get the backstory just right and minor flaws can be excused. When choosing a suitable setting, however, the author should never insult the viewer’s intelligence, which has often happened in this series. Halloween 4 is a favorite among fans. The script is good yet blemished. Michael Myers murdering the entire police department seems like a cop out (no pun intended.) and eliminates potential complexity. The film would have been stronger if officers were scouring the streets. Myers can also add impaling victims’ brains with his thumb and stabbing victims with a shotgun to his list of creative but unconvincing murders.
In Halloween 5, Myers is suddenly wearing a new mask, even though the film takes place where part four left off. Perhaps he found his new mask with the ski-jump nose and overly huge neck in the mineshaft he fell down while Haddonfield’s finest were lighting the dynamite. Escaping the brunt of the explosion, Myers falls into a very deep sleep. The town hermit watches over him until Myers wakes up, which is conveniently on Halloween Eve. Myers’s niece, Jamie Lloyd, suddenly has a telepathic link with him, but that angle fizzles out and stabbing people is once again the script’s prime objective. Dr. Loomis, who for years proclaimed Myers to be pure evil, suddenly wants to rehabilitate him: too many conveniences, not enough logic. In the end, a man in black breaks, the Shape out of jail.
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers promised to answer some questions proposed in part five, but didn’t. Myers kills Jamie Lloyd 15 minutes into the film so the next logical step is to pick on the closest thing to a relative the Strodes, who conveniently (there’s that word again.) live in the old Myers house.
Everyone in Haddonfield seems to know this fun fact except the Strode kids. Not that it matters. Most of the characters are killed off while we listen to a modernized, overdone, faced-paced and annoying Halloween theme song that drowns out John Carpenter’s simple but creepy chords.
We discover that the man in black (Mitchell Ryan) from Part Five is the leader of a devilish Druid cult that wants to use the Shape’s evil for some unspecific reason: Another angle that goes nowhere. The cult members die and the surviving characters are never heard from again, including Donald Pleasence’s Dr. Loomis. Unfortunately, Pleasence passed away during post-production, leaving a void that will never be filled in future installments.
Here are some other examples of lazy script writing:
In Halloween II:
Much of this movie takes place in Haddonfield Memorial Hospital. A reasonable choice considering that it begins right where the original left off. The question is, how come only a handful of staff members and no visible patients appear in such a gigantic building?
Nurse Karen (Pamela Susan Shoop) is already in danger of being fired, yet the threat of losing her job doesn’t stop her from getting in a hot tub with her paramedic boyfriend. That would have been quite a black mark on her resume...if she had survived, of course.
Why exactly did Michael Myers break into the schoolhouse and why write “Samhain” on the blackboard? Another angle lost in limbo.
When Loomis discovers the link between Laurie and Michael Myers, why didn’t he force the State Marshall to order backup on the CB before entering the hospital?
In Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers:
In the beginning of the film, Michael Myers’ head is bandaged up. Why?
Surely, the burns he received in Halloween II have healed after 10 years. The reason is probably that the filmmakers didn’t want the viewer to see his face, but bandages aren’t necessary. Creative camera angles, perhaps one from the Shape’s view, could have avoided this. To top it all off, how is he supposes to breathe? The Shape is somehow able to track down his niece’s residence, which is listed under her stepparents’ name, in record time. We never know how he came to such conclusions. Throughout the film, Jamie Lloyd is running for her life from her evil uncle and yet at the end, she is compelled to hold his hand while he is lying unconscious. Rachel falls off a roof and yet regains consciousness in time to know that her niece was in the local schoolhouse and opts to go after her, unarmed and unassisted.
In Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers: Jamie Lloyd’s entire stepfamily has left her for an out of town commitment on the anniversary of one of the most tragic nights of her life. One would think Rachel, Mr. Coruthers or Mrs. Coruthers would say, “Hey, why don’t you come with us? After all, you have been getting death threats.” Once the cavalry arrives, the logical step is to take Jamie to safety and call for backup. Instead, they take Jamie to her uncle’s house and use her as bait to lure Myers into a trap. Then, all but one cruiser abandons the plan and exits from the Myers house at the first sighting tip they get.
In Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers:
The Strodes, living in Myers’ house, have Halloween decorations all over their yard. This doesn’t fit with the overacting and crabby John Strode who appears to hate everything about Halloween. The character uses an axe to chop down a cardboard figure of the Shape that is embedded on a pole a kid’s prank. It would be logical for John Strode to pull the pole out of the ground, but then if he did, Michael Myers wouldn’t later have a weapon. The Shape is able to place Barry Simms’s corpse in a tree, located in the middle of Town Square, among the trick or treaters, without anyone noticing. Wait, it gets better. We are also supposed to believe that a child is stupid enough not to notice the body or that she is being trickled in blood. “It’s raining red,” the child says. The climax takes place in Smith’s Grove Sanitarium. According to Dr. Loomis in Halloween 4, the distance between Haddonfield and Smith’s Grove is a four-hour drive yet in this film, it feels like it is just around the corner. As with Haddonfield Memorial Hospital, this large building appears empty of staff and patients. Barry Simms tells Tim Strode (Keith Bogart) and his girlfriend Beth (Mariah O’Brien) that he will meet them at the Myers house in five minutes, to do a live broadcast. So what do Tim and Beth do once they arrive, knowing that Barry Simms will be there any minute? They have sex (and not even a quickie) and Tim takes a shower. Tommy Doyle (this time, Paul Rudd) lives with a senile old woman named Mrs. Blankenship (Janice Knickrehm). Although he is able to develop his “Thorn theory,” he wasn’t able to discover that the old lady he lives with is part of the Thorn Club.
In Halloween: H20:
In the prologue, Marion’s house is broken into. She runs next door to call the police. Even though there could be a dangerous felon lurking in Marion’s house, the neighbor has no problem entering it armed with only a hockey stick. When this unpersuasive scene takes place, daylight can be seen. Five minutes later, Jimmy comes out of the house, and it is suddenly dark. Laurie Strode seems to have forgotten that she had a daughter, nor does it seem that anyone in either Langdon, Illinois or Summer Glen, California has heard that Michael Myers struck Haddonfield in 1988, 1989 and 1996.
In Halloween: Resurrection, Michael Myers and a paramedic switch places. This leads to Laurie Strode chopping off the paramedic’s head in H20’s conclusion. Although the paramedic’s arms are free, it doesn’t occur to him to take the mask off before she winds up her axe.
After Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers bombed, Dimension Films realized that they needed help with the series much like the way the Titanic needed more life boats. Enter Kevin Williamson, whom many believe saved the horror franchise in the 1990s with his creative script, Scream, and paved the way for “smarter, non- clichéd slasher films” (which is ironic because such imitations like I Know What You Did Last Sum- mer, Valentine and Urban Legend were not smart or non-cliché, but that’s another article). Williamson does the outline, Dimension hires a respected director named Steve Miner and thank God Jamie Lee Curtis is back as Laurie Strode. Halloween H20 (which sounds more like a movie about chemistry than a killer) is a hit and rightfully so. Although it has its errors, the film is arguably the smartest of the series. The opening credits are an excellent tribute to Donald Pleasence and his character. The script is more about showing what became of Laurie Strode after her traumatic night in 1978 rather than knifing people. The climax is respectable, and Michael Myers is finally killed. The series ends on a high note. What’s that? Halloween H20 is a hit? “Well let’s make another one!” producer Moustapha Akkad says. The result is Halloween: Resurrection, which doesn’t live up to its name. For those who are still ardent fans of this series, this article will end on a good note. Yes, there is hope. Different roads potentially exist that Dimension Films haven’t gone down yet. One of the better ideas is based on the Halloween comic book written by Phil Nutman and Daniel Farrands. The premise is a younger Dr. Loomis chronicling Michael Myers’ boyhood years in Smith’s Grove Sanitarium. Another halfway decent idea that was considered was Halloween.
Before Rob Zombie’s remake of the original Halloween failed to jumpstart the franchise. For every Donald Pleasence, there are a hundred Busta Rhymes, ready to drag the series into the purgatory of mediocrity, or even bad, moviemaking.
Finally, John Carpenter brought us a respectful type of Halloween sequel with the two original casts, were they played in the same role well played as well before. One of them is Jamie Lee Curtis as a Laurie Strode, other one is Nick Castle as the Shape. Now David Gordon Green is the director of the new one.He’s not bad in his field, but he’s not familiar with this kind. But he directed well anyway. Why? Because after watching the 60 year old scream chick, Laurie on the screen, I felt like an orphan and also afraid first time after 40 years. And also ambience of the film was so nostalgic for me. That’s why I guess. Frankly, I must say about David Gordon Green, and he's the only director made a great job after our Master of Halloween, John Carpenter. I’m sure nobody could be perfect like him for the name of Halloween.
Halloween, 2018 is the my new favorite now. You don't need to be so worry guys! But this new piece must be the third wheel, into the Halloween series. Without any doubt, Carpenter's original one is the still perfect as always. First and the second one never be the change for me. But for the 2018 version, you must forget to all the sequels made before. That’s complicated for me as a Halloween fan. Maybe I love the whole journey of Dr. Sam Loomis.
Here you might be interested Halloween 2018 Movie Medias
on Amazon
On the other hand in the Halloween series, Michael Myers character wasted with form of absurd and freaky way. So these things not so good also bad for me. I can say something about for Halloween 2018. And that's the scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis. Once again, she proved to us her amazing character, Laurie Strode's power and also her amazing screams to the dark cameras. Despite Michael Myers was in his twenties in the first halloween film, he was quite slow for grabbing his victims in that time. So before the watch, I was a little worried about how can he managed his victims when killing time his knife, after 40 years later as a 60-year-old cold killer. Frankly, I have to say about old Michael, he was quite dark and creepy like as always. So, as a Halloween fan, I'm grateful for that. So you don’t need to worry because of that. It’s better than I expected. And this movie has a worthy sequel with an enjoyable finish. It’s a good conclusion to the long series. And Jamie Lee Curtis as a Laurie Strode character saved this sequel along with Nick Castle. It was great to watch cold killer Michael Myers as a 60 year old dark form with the original casts.
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