Same old routine Okay, you knew it was coming, I knew it was coming, everyone knew it was coming. Michael Myers is back (and I don't mean the "Austin Powers" star). He is back home again, killing teenagers in the eighth Halloween film, "Halloween: Resurrection". Anyone who saw the seventh one, "Halloween: H20", might remember that Myers supposedly had his head cut off by his grown-up sister Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) at the end of the film. But since, this is the eighth film, the writers conjured up a way to have Myers slicing his way through yet another picture.
Surprisingly enough the director Rick Rosenthal ("Halloween II") and the screenwriters do create a fairly effective show down early on between Michael and sister, Laurie, who has been put in a mental hospital. After the opening few minutes though, the film becomes a mixture of the cliche and predictable. The plot revolves around having six teenagers spend a night over in the old Myers home as part of an online publicity stunt for a website. And surprise, surprise... Michael Myers is home.
The one trait "Halloween: Resurrection" lacks is tension, an obvious key ingredient to so many horror or suspense flicks. What made the first "Halloween" by John Carpenter so effective was a mood of genuine terror and tension based upon the unknown. Myers (in that film)appeared, then disappeared, he was basically a ghost and you waited and wonder when he would pop out of the darkness. This film as with virtually all slasher films now, possess none of that terror. Each killing in "Halloween: Resurrection" is telegraphed way ahead of time. So either Myers can stare at his victim for hours before he kills them or there will be a small meaningless chase before Myers shows his knife cutting abilities.
The film has a few other low points, especially in the plot. No one seems to notice the cameraman go missing for hours after being killed and despite a loud scream not a sole hears Bill (Thomas Ian Nicholas) meet his doom either. Although, this doesn't matter too much, since plausibility and the slasher film just don't go together. Then, there is rapper Busta Rhymes. I didn't know whether to laugh or cringe at some of the dialogue he spoke, which was just plain awful and silly at the same time.
The interesting aspect of this series as a whole, is how little things have changed in terms of the basics of the plot. Sure, some minor details are fixed. The teenagers in "Halloween: Resurrection" play on computers and e-mail rather than riding around in cars. There's even a mention of the TV show, "The Osbournes" in this movie. Despite the updating in visual and verbal references, little of substance has been added since the original. Michael Myers is still that unkillable boogeyman, and there are still teenagers waiting to be butchered. At least until movie executives stop seeing dollar signs next to the word, "Halloween". A 3 out of 10.