Halloween: Resurrection
By Jeff Allard
Opening with the apparent end to Laurie Strodes decades-long battle with her brother, Michael tracks Laurie to the asylum where shes been incarcerated since killing a paramedic she believed to be Michael. After a final confrontation, Michael slays his sister, thereby taking Laurie out of the picture (and closing out Jamie Lee Curtis contractual obligations to the series). After this pre-title sequence, the film joins a group of college students as they prepare to enter the long-shuttered Myers house (on, of course, Halloween night) as part of a reality program. The Myers house has been equipped with cameras and each cast member has their own mini-cameras attached to them as well so every move they make during their night in the Myers home will be broadcast live to an eager online audience. This premise (with the screenplay credited to Larry Brand and Sean Hood) was indebted to then-recent phenomenon of reality programs like Survivor as well as to the shaky-cam aesthetic of 1999s The Blair Witch Project. To the films credit, Resurrection was ahead of the curve as the first slasher film of the millennium to incorporate internet culture and reality TV into its storyline, before the likes of My Little Eye (2002), Cry_Wolf (2005), and Scream 4 (2011).
Id like to be able to say that Resurrection has aged well as a stronger-than-remembered entry in the series but that just wouldnt be true. Even with Halloween IIs Rick Rosenthal calling the shots (making him the only director in the series to have helmed two entries); Resurrection is probably the most universally reviled Halloween of them all (although Rob Zombies remake and sequel have their own army of detractors). On the upside, actor Brad Loree was arguably the best Michael since Nick Castle. Some people in this world might believe that one slow moving dude in a mask is no different than any other slow moving dude in a mask but hardcore fans who have watched all these movies multiple times know better and Loree made for a very cool, menacing Michael. Had there been a Halloween 9 rather than a reboot, they definitely shouldve called Loree back.
On a tragic note, Resurrection was the last Halloween to be produced by Moustapha Akkad before his death in 2005 in Amman, Jordan during an attack by a suicide bomber. While his son Malek has continued in his place (having worked at his fathers side on the series since 1995s The Curse of Michael Myers), one wonders if the series mightve taken different paths (not better or worse, just different) post-Resurrection if Moustapha had still been there to guide it. Certainly, Resurrections conclusion gave the series an intriguingly clean slate to jump off from (Laurie and Loomis were gone thered never been a Halloween sequel without including either one or the other in some capacity and even the Myers house had been destroyed) but a true follow-up was not meant to be.
Resurrection marked the end of an era: the last old school slasher sequel before the trend of rebooting the horror franchises of the 70s and early 80s kicked in a trend that would in large part define the decade. At the time of Resurrections release, the thought of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street and even Halloween all being remade would have seemed an implausibility at best but yet beginning the following year in 03, when the new TCM made its debut, thats how things played out as one by one the horror heroes of the slasher age were revamped for a young new audience who werent even born when the originals (or most of their sequels, even) were released. No one couldve known it at the time but Halloween: Resurrection would be the last film of the classic series, a sad last hurrah for Michael Myers before becoming just one more titan of terror reimagined for the new millennium.
