Halloween H20: 20 Years Later

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Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Steve Miner
Produced by	Moustapha Akkad Malek Akkad Bob Weinstein Harvey Weinstein Paul Freeman
Written by	Screenplay: Robert Zapia Matt Greenberg Story: Robert Zapia Uncredited: Kevin Williamson Characters: John Carpenter Debra Hill
Starring	Jamie Lee Curtis Adam Arkin Michelle Williams Adam Hann-Byrd Jodi Lyn O'Keefe Janet Leigh as Norma Branden Williams Nancy Stephens Beau Billingslea introducing Josh Hartnett with LL Cool J and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Jimmy
Music by	John Ottman
Cinematography	Daryn Okada
Editing by	Patrick Lussier
Distributed by	Dimension Films
Release date(s)	August 5, 1998
Running time	86 min.
Country
Language	English
Budget	$17 million
Gross revenue	$55,041,738
Preceded by	Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)
Followed by	Halloween: Resurrection (2002)

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later also known as Halloween: H20 is the seventh film in the Halloween film series. Initially released in the United States on Wednesday, August 5, 1998, it was released in several European countries as well as Singapore, Israel, Australia, and Mexico in the months that followed.

This is the first film about the Michael Myers character to not feature Donald Pleasence. Pleasence had died shortly before the release of Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers thus off-setting one of the key components of the series. This chapter is meant to be a direct sequel to Halloween II or, as people may call it, a remake of Halloween III. The "H20" in the title refers to the film taking place in continuity (as well as the sequel and having been made) twenty years after the original. This is evident in the "20 Years Later" subtitle, not to water as some may think. Identifying films with abbreviations in marketing has been common since Terminator 2: Judgement Day (T2) in 1991.

The original working title for the film was Halloween 7: The Revenge Of Laurie Strode. Due to this being a sequel to Halloween II, the title was, however, changed to Halloween: H20.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Production 3.1 Music 3.2 Masks 4 Reception 5 Continuity 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Plot

The movie begins on the 29th of October 1998. Marion Chambers returns to her house to find it has been ransacked. With her two teenage neighbors, they search the house, but find nothing and Marion decides to wait for the police in her house alone. While in her house Marion discovers her file on Laurie Strode missing and finds someone is still in her house and terrified, she rushes over to her neighbours house. When she arrives she finds them both murdered and Michael Myers attacks her, and after a confrontation with him, Marion herself is slaughtered. The police arrive to find the bodies just as Michael leaves the house with the file on Laurie.

In Northern California, Laurie Strode, is now revealed to be living under the assumed name "Keri Tate". As Tate, Laurie has a seemingly perfect life with an intelligent son and a boyfriend, a great career (as a head mistress at a private boarding school) however, Laurie is far from happy. The tragic events from 20 years previous still haunt her and adversely affect her parental capabilities. To everyone, this is "just another Halloween"; however Laurie still lives in constant fear.

To mark the 20th anniversary of the happenings of 1978, her brother, serial killer Michael Myers, manages to find her using the file, and starts killing off her co-workers and students one by one. For the first time in two decades, they meet again. Laurie escapes but chooses to go back to the school to challenge Michael in a fight to the death. She finds him and attempts to kill him several times. She finally pushes him off a balcony, causing him to apparently fall to his death, similar to the first film. To make sure he is dead she raises his own knife in order to kill Michael for sure, but she is interrupted by the school security guard, who takes her to safety.

The police come and clean the mess and put Michael's corpse in a body bag and in an ambulance. Laurie steals the ambulance with Michael's body in the back, but Michael is still alive and escapes the body bag, and again tries to kill her. She slams on the brakes, throwing him through the windshield. She then tries unsuccessfully to run him over. The vehicle tumbles down a cliff but she escapes, while Michael is trapped between it and a tree. He reaches out to her. She reaches for his hand, but then remembers everything she has gone through. She then chops his head off with an axe, finally killing him. Michael's head, still concealed by the mask, rolls down the hill as sirens are then heard approaching.

[edit] Cast

• Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode/Keri Tate
• Josh Hartnett as John Tate
• LL Cool J as Ronny Lewis
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Jimmy Saville
• Nancy Stephens as Marion Chambers
• Tom Kane as Dr. Sam Loomis
• Janet Leigh as Norma
• Adam Arkin as Will Brennan
• Michelle Williams as Molly
• Adam Hann-Byrd as Charlie
• Jodi Lyn O'Keefe as Sarah
• Branden Williams as Tony
• Beau Billingslea as Fitz
• Matt Winston as Matt
• Larisa Miller as Claudia
• Emmalee Thompson as Casey
• John Cassini as Cop #1
• Jody Wood as Cop #2
• Lisa Gay Hamilton as Shirl
• Chris Durand as Michael

Director Steve Miner also has an uncredited cameo as the School Financial Advisor.

[edit] Production

John Carpenter was originally in the running to be the director for this particular follow-up since Jamie Lee Curtis wanted to reunite the cast and crew of the original to have active involvement in it. While it was believed that Carpenter, himself, opted out because he wanted no active part in the sequel this is not the case. Carpenter agreed to direct the movie, but his starting fee as director was 10 million dollars. Carpenter rationalized this by believing the hefty fee was compensation for revenue he never received from the original Halloween. A matter that was still a bit of contention between Carpenter and Akkad even after twenty years had passed. When Akkad balked at Carpenter's fee Carpenter walked away from the project.

Writer/Producer Kevin Williamson was involved in various areas of production on this particular sequel including coming up with the treatment that the film was based on. Although not directly credited, he provided rewrites in character dialogue, which is seen heavily throughout the teen moments. Miramax/Dimension Films felt his involvement as a co-executive producer merited being credited.

[edit] Music

The original music score was composed by John Ottman, but some music from Scream was added to the chase scenes later on during post-production. John Ottman expressed some displeasure about this action in an interview featured on the Halloween: 25 Years of Terror DVD released in 2006. Ottman's score was supplemented with Marco Beltrami's scores from Scream, Scream 2, and Mimic by a team of music editors as well as new cues written by Beltrami during the final days of sound mixing on the film. Dimension Films chief Bob Weinstein demanded the musical changes after being dissatisfied with Ottman's score.^[1]

The song "What's This Life For" by hard rock band Creed was featured in the movie during a party sequence and is also heard during the credits of the film.

[edit] Masks

As said on Halloween: 25 Years of Terror, Halloween H20 had scenes re-shot due to complaints of the Myers mask used in the film. Scenes that could not be re-shot had a CGI mask replace them frame by frame. Four masks were made for the film.

[edit] Reception

In terms of total gross, Halloween: H20 is the second highest grossing film in the Halloween series, behind the 2007 Halloween remake directed by Rob Zombie. It was released on August 5, 1998 in the US and later in many other countries. H20 cost $17 million to make and made over $55 million in domestic box office sales.^[2] As for DVD/Video rentals, the film made over $21 million.

The critical reception for H20 was a mixed rating of 50% with the general consensus being that it was the best of the sequels.^[3] The masks used in this movie were from latex painted white, it featured a new hair style for Michael Myers.

[edit] Continuity

As originally conceived, the plot device in which Laurie had faked her death was written explicitly to account for her reported "death" in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, and the original story treatment for H20 acknowledged the events depicted in the fourth through sixth films in the series, including the existence and death of Laurie's daughter, Jamie Lloyd. However, the filmmakers ultimately chose to ignore the continuity of the previous three sequels. Although Laurie's faked death remained in the script, the scenes mentioning Jamie were removed from the story, and the film's dialogue was adjusted to indicate that Michael Myers had not been heard from in the twenty years since the night depicted in the first two films.

Michael's 20 missing years are explained in the comic book Halloween: Sam, which also explains what happened to Loomis in the new continuity and further goes on to explain that Loomis and Laurie both knew he would return and she was placed in a witness protection program. The new continuity explains that Michael's body was never recovered from the hospital.

Halloween H20 also features the return of Nurse Marion Chambers-Wittington, who appeared in the first two films as an associate of Dr. Loomis. In Halloween, she was the nurse who drove with Loomis to the asylum when Myers made his escape, and she returned in Halloween II.

The Halloween comic book series, published by Chaos Comics in 2001, attempted to bridge the continuity between Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers and Halloween H20, but in doing so made the plot of Halloween: Resurrection (unreleased at the time) impossible.

Some scenes that were dropped from the other three movies were placed in H20. One was when Laurie is hiding under a table in the dining hall, Michael starts flipping the tables over. This was originally going to be placed in Halloween 4, in the scene where Michael chases Jamie into the school. She was going to hide under a desk and Michael was going to flip the desks over. This was dropped due to time reasons and Moustapha Akkad remembered it and placed it in H20.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official site
• Halloween H20: 20 Years Later at the Internet Movie Database
• Halloween H20: 20 Years Later at Allmovie
• Halloween H20: 20 Years Later at Rotten Tomatoes
• Halloween H20: 20 Years Later at Box Office Mojo
• Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later
• Smith's Grove Sanitarium Fan site w/ original music and more.

v • d • e The Halloween series Films Halloween (1978) • Halloween II (1981) • Season of the Witch • The Return of Michael Myers • The Revenge of Michael Myers • The Curse of Michael Myers • Halloween H20 • Resurrection • Halloween (2007) • Halloween II (2009) Characters Michael Myers • Samuel J. Loomis • Laurie Strode • Jamie Lloyd • Other characters

v • d • e Films directed by Steve Miner Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) · Friday the 13th Part III (1982) · House (1986) · Soul Man (1986) · Warlock (1989) · Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken (1991) · Forever Young (1992) · My Father the Hero (1994) · Big Bully (1996) · Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) · Lake Placid (1999) · Texas Rangers (2001) · Day of the Dead (2008) · Private Valentine: Blonde & Dangerous (2008)