Only now does it occur to me... DIAL CODE SANTA CLAUS (1989)

Only now does it occur to me... that there's more to say about DIAL CODE SANTA CLAUS, a.k.a. DEADLY GAMES, a.k.a. 3615 CODE PÉRE NOËL, a.k.a. HIDE AND FREAK than merely, "it's the basis for HOME ALONE."

While it indeed shares a few similarities with that 1990 John Hughes/Chris Columbus film––both center on a kid staving off a Christmasy home invasion with a variety of toy-inspired booby traps and Rube Goldberg devices––this is a much darker film, a brutal slice of survival horror by way of SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT and CHRISTMAS EVIL, and a paean to R-rated '80s action flicks, from COMMANDO to DIE HARD to RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II.

 

In DIAL CODE SANTA CLAUS, our hero is spoiled rich kid Thomas (Alain Lalanne, who went on to not to act, but to become a VFX producer on everything from THE DARK KNIGHT to THE REVENANT), son of a widowed mother who owns France's biggest department store (Brigitte Fossey, whose career was originally launched as one of the two child leads of René Clément's 1952 classic FORBIDDEN GAMES, which is not an action movie). Thomas spends his days wandering the family mansion, playing RAMBO-inspired games with his dog and nearly blind/diabetic grandpa (Louis Ducreux). It must be noted that even before there is a home invasion, the kid has a series of trap doors, a CCTV system he can access from a Power Glove-looking device, working handcuffs, secret wings straight outta BLUEBEARD (but filled with extra toys and weapons, not dead wives), and an extremely indulgent family who allows his fantasies to bleed into their day-to-day lives. With mom stuck at the office on Christmas Eve, a psychotic man-child dressed as Santa Claus (who was "fired" from his mother's department store earlier that day) launches a full-chimney assault on Thomas' home. 

 

Killer Santa's opening salvo is murdering the kid's dog, and it only gets more savage and complex from there. Along the way, we have montages set to a copyright-skirting clone of "Eye of the Tiger" and more fully-juiced gear-up sequences than in COMMANDO. (I'd almost go as far as to say this is more of an influence on HOOK than HOME ALONE.)

 

 There're cat-and-mouse chases that feel culled from THE SHINING

and an original Bonnie Tyler song which plays throughout called "Merry Christmas." Its lyrics are all over the place and the perfect, head-scratching accompaniment to this violent and existential film. "Happy birthday, Christmas!" sings Bonnie Tyler. "Wanted, Mr. Christmas," she sings. "Help me, Santa Claus." "Welcome holy Jesus." "Kids don't grow up like us, you can change the plan, here comes the darkness." What is this song about?! Who is Mr. Christmas? Is it his birthday? Never mind, here comes the darkness!

Director René Manzor brings a lot of visual panache to the proceedings. He has a real filmmaking joie de vivre which recalls early Sam Raimi or George Miller or Richard Rush. It's very kinetic and beautifully shot, full of unexpected images

 and well-orchestrated action.

I'm curious to check out more of Manzor's work, which includes episodes of HIGHLANDER: THE SERIES and THE YOUNG INDIANA JONES CHRONICLES.

In the end, this is a strong holiday recommend––a strange concoction of dreamlike imagery, hard-hitting action, unhinged 80s madness, and, finally, and perhaps most realistically, a meditation on PTSD.

Film Review: HALLOWEEN (1978, John Carpenter)

Stars: 5 of 5.

Running Time: 91 minutes.

Tag-line: "The night HE came home!"

Notable Cast or Crew: Starring Donald Pleasence (THE GREAT ESCAPE, PHENOMENA), Jamie Lee Curtis (PERFECT, PROM NIGHT), P.J. Soles (CARRIE, ROCK N' ROLL HIGH SCHOOL), Charles Cyphers (ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, THE FOG), Nancy Kyes (ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, THE FOG), Kyle Richards (THE WATCHER IN THE WOODS, ER), Brian Andrews (THE GREAT SANTINI, THREE O'CLOCK HIGH), Nick Castle (writer of ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, THE BOY WHO COULD FLY).  Written by Carpenter and Debra Hill (THE FOG, REBEL HIGHWAY).  Edited and production designed by Tommy Lee Wallace (STEPHEN KING'S IT, HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH).

Best One-liner: "Death has come to your little town, Sheriff."

HALLOWEEN.  The gold-standard for American slashers.  Foreboding atmosphere in 5/4 time.  A seasonal ode to the boogeyman, that blank slate whom we ourselves illustrate, whose gaps we fill with our innermost fears and deepest uncertainties.

As our subconscious mind paints vivid nightmares as we sleep, so does it adorn the empty mask of Michael Myers:  he is whomever we wish him to be.  Myers is so formless, Donald Pleasence's Dr. Loomis can't even ascribe a gender: "Don't underestimate it."  It is we who give form to The Shape, that "infinitely patient" shadow in the mist, that void, that lurker in the dark.

"Every town has something like this happen," intones the cemetery groundskeeper, and in those words is the history of 20th Century American horror, from H.P. Lovecraft to Ray Bradbury to Stephen King to Wes Craven to David Lynch.  No place, no town, and no mind is immune from the horrors of life and the dread of death.
 
I adore HALLOWEEN.  Many of its successors have been garbage.  Glorious garbage, usually, but garbage nonetheless.  HALLOWEEN was a masterpiece, a perfect storm; a the fervency of youth, the craft of experience, a certain magic of atmosphere.  Dean Cundey's cinematography captures a mood and a time and a place, dipping occasionally into that melancholy horror vibe I've written about elsewhere.

Raymond Stella's panaglide work is off the charts: this movie looks far more professional than many of its big budget counterparts.

Carpenter's brilliant score (supposedly written in three days) is exquisite.  At one point, two alternating piano keys build a wall of mood that stands taller than a dozen inferior films.

The characters (Jamie Lee Curtis, in particular) are instantly likable.  They have real hopes and dreams and feelings; sometimes we eavesdrop on their mundane, high school activities– zoning out in class, talking about boys... at one point Jamie Lee and Nancy Kyes are just driving around and bullshitting and tokin' the reefer and fearin' the reaper (yes, Blue Öyster Cult makes a soundtrack appearance) and it feels like a scene out of DAZED AND CONFUSED.  Real life is unfolding, and consequently we care about what happens to these people.

 

Unlike many of HALLOWEEN's successors, these characters are not token victims or sluts or sacrificial lambs – they're just folks, the genuine article– they could be friends of yours.  I'm betting a lot of the credit here belongs to Debra Hill, Carpenter's writing and producing partner, who also also made major contributions to THE FOG and ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK.

 

I also must point out the wonderful understanding of spatial relationships and the geography of the neighborhood.  We always have a grasp of what's happening and where: the Myers house, the high school, the general store, the Strode house, the Doyle house, etc.  This is key when it comes to separating HALLOWEEN from the slasher pack.  Scenes of terror are far more suspenseful when you can actually understand what's going on.  You'd think that would be obvious, but alas...

In any event, others have written quite admirably and extensively about these aspects of HALLOWEEN: I highly recommend J.D. of Radiator Heaven's exploration of Carpenter's craft, as well as John Kenneth Muir's psychological analysis of Mr. Myers.  I, as usual, shall devote the remainder of this review to tackling my beloved minutiae:  so, without further ado, here are my unlucky thirteen favorite facets of the pumpkin-flavored gem that is HALLOWEEN.

Spoilers will follow, but I assume you've all seen HALLOWEEN already.  I hope.  If you haven't, in penance you must listen to the Silver Shamrock song from HALLOWEEN III on loop while drinking the contents of a six-demon bag.

#1.  Where's the blood?

 
Incredibly, this film which set a new benchmark for American horror (and in the same year as the gory masterpiece DAWN OF THE DEAD) contains nearly nothing in the blood n' guts department.  Our only glimpse of viscera is in the opening scene when Michael stabs his older sister Judith, and, between the slats of his mask, we can barely discern the blood welling from her chest.  Ah, the power of psychology: the film is so effectively frightening that many are convinced this thing is an out and out gorefest.  Nicely done, Carpy!


#2.  The spooky imagery of the inmates wandering the asylum grounds the night of Michael's escape.

It's a subtle, fleeting image, but one that lingers.


#3.  Chain-smoking Carpy.

John Carpenter was so stressed out by the making of the film– his most ambitious project to date– that he chain-smoked like a madman.  While Annie (Nancy Kyes) investigates this hedge, puffs of Carpy's cigarette drift across the screen.  It's very difficult to tell in the screen grab because the smoke blends in with the leaves, but it's the kind of goof that somehow enriches the entire experience.


#4.  Michael Myers amid the fluttering laundry.


An oft-imitated scare.  It's simple, bold, and in broad daylight.  It shouldn't work but, oh boy, it does.


#5. The production design of Laurie Strode's  (Jamie Lee Curtis) bedroom.

It's simple and cozy, but with the James Ensor poster and the Raggedy Ann doll, we see a juxtaposition of burgeoning woman and naive youth.  And yet both conjure feelings of masks and contortions and the morbidity of childhood.  I have always felt that Raggedy Ann has rather macabre implications, and James Ensor's (a Belgian modernist painter of the 19th and 20th Century) work sort of speaks for itself:

Join the party!

#6.  A Coupe de Villes cameo! 

About a half-hour in, while Jamie Lee and Nancy Kyes drive from point A to point B, on the radio in the background is a generic doo-wop song that proclaims "Shanananana, let's rock, shanananana, let's roll, shanananana, let's twist!"  The performers are none other than the Coupe de Villes, the rockin' trio made up of John Carpenter, Nick Castle (who plays Michael Myers and co-wrote ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK), and Tommy Lee Wallace (who co-edited HALLOWEEN, devised the Michael Myers mask, and directed HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH).  You can (and should) read more about the full glory of the Coupe de Villes here, here, and here.  And here.


#7.  That beautiful moment when Michael Myers casually drives his station wagon behind Donald Pleasence, who has no fuckin' idea.  He could've nipped this whole thing in the bud before sundown, had some dinner, and taken a load off at the local Haddonfield pub.  I'd watch that movie, for sure!  Ah, well.

Anyway, allow me to say a few words about Pleasence's "Dr. Loomis," a character born of dogged, no-nonsense intensity. 

He says many ridiculous things in this movie and imbues them with power.  He is our Van Helsing.  He sets the stakes.  He tells us what we're up against.  And he sells it.  God bless Donald Pleasence.


#8.  Carpy's voice cameo as Annie's needy boyfriend Paul.

Paul's kinda fun, kinda sleazy, and absurdly lazy.  He browbeats his girlfriend into giving him a free ride ("Come and pick me upppp...") even though she's babysitting and doing laundry and kind of freaked out.  This directly leads to her brutal murder.  C'mon, though, don't judge– Carpy just wanted a ride!  Imagine it: Carpy waiting around on the stoop for a ride that never comes.  Hell, I'd watch that movie, too. 


#9. The subtle joy Donald Pleasence gets out of frightening children.

While staking out the old Myers place, some trick-or-treaters stumble a little too close to the dangerous site.  Pleasence pretends to be the boogeyman and whispers "Get your ass away from there!"

The children take flight, and then Pleasence smiles, utterly pleased with himself.

Even when you're fighting against the existential concept of evil, a man's still gotta get his kicks somewhere.


#10.  P.J. Soles is a goddamn blast.

From Riff Randell in ROCK N' ROLL HIGH SCHOOL to Norma in CARRIE, she playfully and lovably embodies every scrappy gal from the 1970s and succeeds in absconding with every scene she appears in.   In her final bit, her fate is sealed when she asks her bespectacled boyfriend for a beer, again and again and again.

 "Where's my beer?!"

Thanks to her, the "boyfriend who steps out to grab a beer and never comes back" has become a stock figure in horror film.  It's truly a cautionary tale, and has stopped many a beer-fetching dead in its tracks.


#11.  This one comes courtesy of my girlfriend.  The major question she had was, "Where, exactly, are all the parents?  Some key party?  It was the 70s."  She made a good point.  Hey, is that why the Sheriff (Charles Cyphers) is so grumpy?  He spent his Halloween traipsing around with Donald Pleasence instead of gettin' his freak on with the swingers from EATING RAOUL?

Donald Pleasence: bitter about not being invited to the key party.

On a more serious note...


#12.  The neighbor who shuts Laurie out during her moment of need.

Violently pursued by Michael Myers, Jamie Lee Curtis finally makes it out of the house and shouts for help from the next-door neighbor.

A shadow comes to the window and looks her over, and in a nod to Kitty Genovese, shuts the blinds and turns off the porch light.

You really feel Laurie's desperation in this moment, which may actually be the most chilling scene in the film.


#13.  The ending.  And not simply the banality of the unmasking or the uncertainty behind Michael's disappearance.  I mean the final shots of the film:



The void, the breathing, the emptiness.... these are the places we have seen Michael, and now they are empty.  But there is not even a whisper of reassurance.  The terror never came from Michael– it came from that void.  All we really ever had was the void; we projected the rest.

This kind of oppressive foreboding prefigures Carpenter's THE THING, where vacant corridors take on a life of their own in a very similar fashion. 
 
 THE THING even had a cameo in HALLOWEEN!

Five stars.  And a Happy Halloween to all!

–Sean Gill

2014 HALLOWEEN COUNTDOWN

1.  FROM DUSK TILL DAWN 2: TEXAS BLOOD MONEY (1999, Scott Spiegel)

2.  MARK OF THE VAMPIRE (1935, Tod Browning)

3.  FULL MOON HIGH (1981, Larry Cohen)

4.  EIGHT-LEGGED FREAKS (2002, Ellory Elkayem)

5.  MASTERS OF HORROR: WE ALL SCREAM FOR ICE CREAM (2007, Tom Holland)

6.  STEPHEN KING ON SONS OF ANARCHY (2010, Bill Gierhart)

7.  THE INITIATION (1984, Larry Stewart)

8.  MUTANTS (2008, Amir Valinia)

9.  JAWS 2 (1978, Jeannot Szwarc)

10.  THE PREMATURE BURIAL (1962, Roger Corman)

11.  DRACULA 3D (2012, Dario Argento)

12. ...

Book Review: HALLOWEEN III SEASON OF THE WITCH: THE NOVELIZATION (1982, Dennis Etchison)

Stars:  3 of 5.
Length:  228 pages.
Publisher:  Jove Publications, NY.
Tag-line:  "The night no one comes home.  The new screen shocker by Jack Martin based on a screenplay by Tommy Lee Wallace– a John Carpenter /Debra Hill production."
Back cover blurb:   "Do you know where your kids are tonight?  The streets are quiet.  Dead quiet as the shadows lengthen and night falls.  It's Halloween.  Blood-chilling screams pierce the air.  Grinning skulls and grotesque shapes lurk in the gathering darkness.  It's Halloween.  The streets are filling with small cloaked figures.  They're just kids, right?  The doorbell rings and your flesh creeps.  But it's all in fun, isn't it?  No.  This Halloween is different.  It's the last one."

Happy Halloween, everyone–  Poor Man's Carpy continues!

Using the pseudonym of "Jack Martin," Dennis Etchison brings us another John Carpenter-related movie novelization (he also did THE FOG and HALLOWEEN II) that's better than it needs to be.  In lieu of retreading old ground, if you need a little background on Etchison and his other Carpy-related work, see my review of THE FOG: THE NOVELIZATION.  Also, if you're somehow unfamiliar with HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH, allow me to fill you in:

After HALLOWEEN II, John Carpenter was getting sick of this Michael Myers guy, and envisioned the HALLOWEEN series as becoming a series of spooky flicks that merely shared the common holiday setting.  Therefore, he, HALLOWEEN co-creator Debra Hill, and crony Tommy Lee Wallace (who designed the original look for Michael Myers) teamed up to unfold the saga of an evil cult of killer-robot-manufacturing Irish people living in a small town in California who are hell-bent (literally!) on killing the children of America by way of rigged masks that will turn them into rotting piles of snakes and spiders. They are doing this so that people will take Halloween seriously again.  It leads to an absurdist, apocalyptic, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS-by-way-of-James Bond conclusion, and in its own way is one of the great, underrated horror films of the 1980s.

So what does HALLOWEEN III: THE NOVELIZATION bring to the table?  The language isn't quite as florid as in THE FOG, but it's a decently written palimpsest of the screenplay.  Let me give you the rundown– my ten favorite things about HALLOWEEN III: THE NOVELIZATION:

#1.  It begins with a Thomas Hardy quote.

 Remember him, possibly from English Lit?  JUDE THE OBSCURE, THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE, THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE, TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES, etc., etc.?  So let me say that again:  the HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH novelization begins with a quote by Thomas Hardy.

"If a way to the better there be, it lies in taking a full look at the worst."
–Thomas Hardy

Is that a prediction of HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION?  Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck.  (Also, I'd like to see Carpy do "TESS OF THE COUPE DE VILLES!)

#2.  Attempts to recreate how annoying the "Halloween Countdown song" is.

Anyone who's seen HALLOWEEN III will never forget the "Eight more days to Halloween, Halloween, Halloween... eight more days to Halloween..." Silver Shamrock song, set to the theme of "London Bridge is Falling Down."  Etchison, obviously, makes it an integral part of the novel.

"The insistent refrain, chanted inanely to the tune of 'London Bridge is Falling Down,' was for a few moments everywhere, even cutting into speakers which were set to carry only a steady drone of Muzak around the clock throughout the hospital and, it had seemed to Challis lately, the entire world.  But tonight he was feeling no pain.  '...SIL-VER SHAMROCK!'  At last the advertising jingle wound down, followed immediately by Madison Avenue's idea of an Irish jig."

#3.  Michael Myers fake-out.

Etchison knows that some readers of HALLOWEEN III: THE NOVELIZATION (specifically those who haven't seen the film yet) are going to expect to read about Michael Myers.  Instead of being up front with his audience about Myers' exclusion, he tries to fake them out for the first fifty or so pages.   I find this to be hilarious.

In a marked reference to "The Shape" being Myers' name from the credits to the first film, Etchison tries to fool us while he describes one of the Irish robots:

"It was not a bush that was moving.  It was the shape of a man.  ...He veered to the curb and cut his lights.  The shape was no longer there."

Furthermore, he specifically references the tag-line of the first film by naming the first section "The Night He Came Home Again." As you read on, you realize that this actually refers to "Challis" (the Tom Atkins character).  Additionally, the opening murder (which takes place less than five minutes into the movie) doesn't occur until 53 pages in to this thing!  It almost seems designed to piss people off.  I heartily approve, and find it well-deserving of a slow clap.

 #4.  Challis' (Tom Atkins') alcoholism.

In THE FOG: THE NOVELIZATION, Etchison fills in a few gaps in regard to character development, particularly with Father Malone (Hal Holbrook), the tortured whisky priest.  Here, since Challis is the clear protagonist, Etchison's focus is not divided (THE FOG has an array of protagonists– you could even make the argument that the fog itself is the main character!) and he's free to explore his brooding and alcoholism in great detail.  We see a fair amount of it in the movie, but in the novelization, Etchison describes it quite well, alternating between grotesque Bukowskian flourish,  Raymond Carver-ish straightforwardness, and Amis-style panache.

"'Agnes, tell me you've got a beer stashed somewhere with my name on it.  You were just about to say that, weren't you?  I can tell.  My mouth feels like a bedpan.'"

"He was strangling the glass neck through the twisted brown paper." 

"The day after the funeral he had bourbon for breakfast."  

"He poured beer down his throat.  It tasted bitter, but he knew it would make him feel better in a few minutes."  

"Beneath the wide brimmed hat was an old face, covered with stubble and deeply creased from too many years out of doors and out of luck.  The expression in the eyes was rat-shrewd.  It was a look Challis had seen all his life, in bus depots and skid-row clinics in every city he had worked.  The face was no more than forty years old by the calendar.  But they had been forty long, hard years." 

And perhaps one of my all-time favorite sleazy 1982 sentences:

"Ellie's maroon Cutlass was waiting at the curb in front of the liquor store."

#5.  These sentiments extend to Challis' brooding, which is wonderfully bitter and even more enjoyable if you properly imagine it as Tom Atkins' internal monologue.

"Kids, he thought.  They don't forget– they're too young– and so they don't forgive.  They're the only truly uncivilized beings left on earth, a race apart, a primitive tribe and a law unto themselves."

"The evasions are over.  I thought I could get away.  But I couldn't.  Happy Halloween, he told himself, gunning the motor and roaring away from the house, his house, the house he had built and would continue to maintain forever, undoubtedly even unto death and beyond the grave, if his ex-wife and the lawyers had their way.  Trick or treat?  ...He knew the answer, and would never ask the question again."

#6. Big Ideas.

Etchison tries to work some Big Ideas into this mass market paperback...  and sort of succeeds!  He hammers the point home that men are becoming like machines, that our humanity is being lost as our society becomes increasingly mechanized and detached.  These have become stock ideas and it's nearly impossible to express them without hammering the reader over the head, but dammit– Etchison hammers 'em well:

"They survive, he thought, the slow and the stubborn, the old individualist misfit sons of pioneers who won't allow themselves to be folded, stapled, or spindled.  The revolutions come and go, nations are torn apart and rebuilt, the climate changes to make way for the next millennium; the snow on the wheel turns and the century ices.  Men like machines walk on the moon and machines like men remake the world in their own image; the iron dream rears its head again in a new age; the old tribes fade from sight in the long night of the human soul."

I never thought I would read about "the long night of the human soul" in any movie novelization, much less that of a much-loathed horror sequel written under a pseudonym.  Will wonders never cease?


#7.  A FOG reference?

Apparently Father Malone survived THE FOG and relocated to Santa Mira?

"A signboard reading 'Church of St. Patrick/Rev. Father Tom Malone' was hanging peeled and broken from one upright."

#8.  A Jamie Lee Curtis reference.

The robotic, Big Brother-ish voice which lords over the evil Irish town of Santa Mira is played in the movie by an uncredited Jamie Lee Curtis.  She even gets a shout-out in the novelization:

"'Going down,' said a sensuous female voice."

#9.  The book can also function as a robot-killing manual.

"The graysuit outside her room went into a sputtering death-dance at the first surprising thrust to its soft spot.  The same spot, where the diaphragm would be in a human being, an inch or two below the center of the ribcage.  Challis remembered well his latest anatomy lesson."

#10.  The closing lines of apocalyptic brilliance:

"'STOP IT!  STOP IT! STOP...'  Then there was only the sound of the rain outside in the endless blackness of the long night and, presently, the rising tones of a pitiful wailing within and without, spreading across the station, the town, and the land without end."

Simply fantastic.  That about wraps it up, ladies and gentlemen. Again,  Happy Halloween– and stay tuned:  Poor Man's Carpy shall continue through November!

–Sean Gill

Film Review: HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION (2002, Rick Rosenthal)

Stars: 1 of 5.
Running Time: 94 minutes.
Notable Cast and Crew: Jamie Lee Curtis (HALLOWEEN, PERFECT, PROM NIGHT, TERROR TRAIN), Busta Rhymes (SHAFT '00, NARC), Tyra Banks (THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL-AIR, COYOTE UGLY), Ryan Merriman (FINAL DESTINATION 3, THE RING TWO), Sean Patrick Thomas (THE FOUNTAIN, CRUEL INTENTIONS), Bianca Kajlich (10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU, BRING IT ON), and Brad Loree (X2, THE X-FILES). Archival footage of Donald Pleasence. Based on characters by John Carpenter and Debra Hill. Screenplay by Larry Brand (BACKFIRE, OVEREXPOSED) and Sean Hood (the new CONAN THE BARBARIAN, CUBE 2: HYPERCUBE). Directed by Rick Rosenthal (HALLOWEEN II).
Tag-line: "The night HE came back!"
Best one-liner: "Trick or treat, motherfucker!" or maybe it's the poetry of "Let the dangertainment begin.... up in this motherfucker." Or perhaps "You want some of this? Huh? You want to try and fucking kill me? Huh? You like sushi, motherfucker?!"

Oh, goodness gracious me.  Hoo boy, and the whole kit and kaboodle. Talk about Poor Man's Carpy–  HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION is a pile of hilarious post-SCREAM trash, bundled in embarrassment, smothered in cliché, and repackaged for the era of reality TV.  In comparison, this thing almost makes HALLOWEEN: H20 look like HALLOWEEN.  Hell, even the poster feels the weight of this shame and would rather fool you into thinking you're looking at Ghostface instead of the tattered legacy of Michael Myers.  

The plot involves a company called "Dangertainment" that's working on a Haddonfield reality series when Michael Myers himself crashes their party.  Subsequent attempts at SCREAM-style self-awareness are cringeworthy. The less said the better, so I'll keep it brief:  here are three things that I absolutely never could have conceived of happening in a HALLOWEEN flick:

#1.  Jamie Lee Curtis re-imagined as Sarah Connor in TERMINATOR 2.

They don't even try to disguise it– she's a stringy-haired, crazy-eyed badass mental patient who warns her captors in vain about an unstoppable killing machine (she's defeated before) who may now be on the prowl again.  Michael Myers, predictably, shows up to kill her and Laurie Strode is given a rather ignominious send-off before the movie even begins.

I realize it's a hackneyed "badass" one-liner, but why would Laurie Strode think she's going to hell?

Hey, if Hannibal Lector and Clarice Starling can smooch...

Well... she gave it her best shot.  And, dammit, if anyone deserves $3 million for an extended cameo, it's Jamie Lee Curtis!

#2.  This one is so bizarre, it defies easy description.  What we have here is Michael Myers stabbing one of his victims with a sharpened tripod, a clear homage to one of the great-grandaddies of the slasher movie, Michael Powell's PEEPING TOM.

1960's PEEPING TOM.

 

2002's HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION.

Anyway, this in and of itself wouldn't necessarily be worthy of mention,  but here it's only a crosscut backdrop to another, inexplicable scene:  that of Tyra Banks making a whipped cream latte and 

rocking out with a wacky solo dance like in that SAVED BY THE BELL episode where Jessie Spano (Elizabeth Berkeley) gets addicted to caffeine pills and performs "I'm So Excited."  In short, while it sure as hell doesn't belong in a HALLOWEEN movie, it's certainly deserving of a slow clap.

#3.  In the original HALLOWEEN (which J.D. over at Radiator Heaven recently did an excellent write-up on), there's a brilliant Donald Pleasence monologue which attempts to tackle the true nature of Michael Myers in just a few brief, ominous lines:

"I met him, fifteen years ago; I was told there was nothing left; no reason, no conscience, no understanding; and even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, of good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and the blackest eyes... the devil's eyes.  ...I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized that what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... evil."

In HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION, Busta Rhymes is tasked with transcending Donald Pleasence's assessment, and while the monologue he's been given is certainly more succinct, I think we all must admit that it doesn't exude the proper... atmosphere.

So, apparently Doctor Loomis spent eight years trying to reach Michael, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because he realized that what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... a killer shark in baggy-ass overalls.

And that's about all there is to say about that, ladies and gentlemen!

–Sean Gill