Fuji reviews Halloween: Resurrection

[Fuji Vice]

Halloween: Resurrection


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When a group of college students win a contest to spend the night in the childhood home of brutal serial killer Michael Myers, they expect a few scares but none of them are prepared for what awaits them. The house has been rigged with cameras as they are to be broadcasted live over the internet to be watched by millions. As they wander around the house in search of some kind of answer for Michael's murderous actions they find a bigger problem. Michael has come home and he does not intend to let anyone leave his house alive.

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Remember yesterday when I spoke briefly about how much I hated the poster for Halloween H20? Yep, there's more HATE today, because the one for this movie is just as bad. I assume the same brain-dead moron designed both since it's the only way to explain just how poor they are. As with yesterday’s film, the awful poster is actually also an indication of how the movie ends up, so perhaps it’s appropriate that they both reek to high heaven. Halloween: Resurrection, a film I had only seen once until this review, is far and away the worst of the series if you don’t include Rob Zombie’s crap, which I don’t. What’s even worse is that the concept of the film itself was pretty good; it just suffered from extremely poor execution, total lack of focus from the director, an awful bait and switch and more poor performances than you can shake a butcher knife at. It’s a shame that Halloween, a great film with some decent sequels, had to descend to this level of garbage before it was all over. As per usual, I’m going to put the lion’s share of the blame on producer Paul Freeman, who once again managed to get his name slapped on a poor Halloween film. Apparently the rest of Hollywood also realized Freeman was a moron, because this was the final film he ever produced and no, it wasn’t because he was killed by an overzealous Halloween fan!

"Is this thing on or what?"
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Directed by Rick Rosenthal (Halloween II) and written by Larry Brand and Sean Hood (Cube 2), the film appears to be designed to take advantage of both the reality horror genre popularized by The Blair Witch Project and the internet boom of the early 2000’s. Sadly this actually ends up making the film feel more dated than anything else, as I constantly found myself laughing at how poor the video quality was. Clearly having a film that was going to hold up to any sort of scrutiny wasn’t paramount in Rosenthal’s mind though; sadly it seems like a paycheck was all he cared about here. How else can you explain how horribly paced the film is? Rosenthal has always gotten a pass from me due to his work on Halloween II, but now I’m starting to believe the stories of John Carpenter himself directing portions of that film. It’s really the only way to explain how poor Rosenthal’s work is here. Meanwhile, the script actually lends itself to some pretty cool moments and the concept IS cool, but too often it meanders off into the realm of horror cliché. Yes, I realize it was probably SUPPOSED to do that, but if that’s the case why bother trying out anything unique at all? It was simply bound to fail before it was even put into production, although I won’t knock Brand and Hood for trying their best.

"Can you smell that? Yep, it smells as bad as this movie."
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Obviously LL Cool J was too busy singing "my head is like a shark's fin" to appear in this film so the producers went out and got the next best thing; Busta Rhymes! Seriously, is this the lowest the Halloween franchise has sunk yet or what? Why are hip hop artists suddenly a requirement for your film? Not to mention, even if you can somehow prove that they are, why didn't you get someone cool like Flavor Flav? Amazingly, Rhymes actually gets top billing here, which should say everything you need to know about the name value brought by the rest of the cast. To his credit, Rhymes is certainly not the worst performer in this film, but that's just because basically everyone else is horrendous. For starters, Tyra Banks proves once and for all that smiling and a nice ass are her only assets and again I have to ask why she was cast in the first place. What demographic were they possibly hoping to bring in with her? Then we’ve got the final girl, played with all the style of your average grapefruit by Bianca Kajlich, although luckily this performance didn’t stop her from eventually making it big on the show Rules of Engagement. Speaking of people who would go on to greater success in the television world, Katee Sackhoff of Battlestar Galactica fame is also here, although I wish she wasn’t because she’s just awful. Sean Patrick Thomas (The District) and Thomas Ian Nicholas (Pretty Little Liars) fill out the rest of the "we're now famous on television and were seriously NEVER in this piece of crap movie" cast while Brad Loree gives a particularly uninspired performance as Michael Myers himself.

[video=youtube;Qwt_Qx4OQE4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwt_Qx4OQE4[/video]
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Hopefully you all checked out that trailer before reading this next line but if not, please do so and get back to me in a moment. Alright, now that you’re back, let’s talk about a little something called the bait and switch. If you’ll remember the trailer above, it seemed like all hope was lost for the occupants of the house until Laurie Strode made a surprise return, most likely killing Michael once and for all and saving the day. Well, that would be all well and good if that could happen, but it can’t and do you want to know why? Because she’s FUCKING dead, that’s why, killed by Michael in the first 10 minutes of the movie. I realize that may have been a spoiler but honestly, if you haven’t seen this movie don’t bother, you’re not missing a thing. Anyhow, stuff like that really pisses me off and I just cannot believe the producers would do something like that, particularly to a group of fans who were already fragile after the last two crappy films. Of course, these are the same people that decided to ret-con Michael’s death in the last film by saying he crushed an ambulance attendant’s larynx, put his mask on him and then dumped him in the back of the ambulance for Laurie to kill. Actually, when you think about it that way, everything really starts to fall into place provided you’re on the same drugs these people are clearly on! Anyhow, instead of Laurie’s triumphant return, we get to see Busta Rhymes go medieval on Michael’s ass and be the big hero. Is it wrong that I wished it were LL Cool J instead? 2/10.

"Coming up tomorrow...motherfucking werewolves!"
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