Delayed Reaction: Halloween H20: 20 Years Later

The Pitch: It'll be Halloween, 20 years later. Seriously? How did you not get that from the title.

How I Came Into It: I have something to admit. It's a little shameful but I feel safe here amongst my faithful Stumble button pressers and people who haven't figured out how to take me off their Facebook news feed. I haven't seen Halloween. Any of them. I'm not sure how that's happened and ideally, I would've gotten to the originals first rather than starting with this pseudo-reboot of the franchise.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) Halloween is rightfully an iconic horror franchise. Michael Meyers is one of the great antagonists. You better believe that when the Halloween music started playing, I got chills. Jamie Lee Curtis had a big enough career by the time this movie came out that her return wasn't simply for continuity (unlike, say, putting Ralph Machio in a Karate Kid movie would be). The younger cast has some gems like Oscar nominee Michelle Williams, "one of these days we'll find the project to make him an A-lister" Josh Hartnett, and even "that girl from those 90s teen movies" Jodi Lyn O'Keefe. It's so short too - not even 90 minutes - that it's over before it can get tedious. 

Why I Wish I Hadn't: All the things that people normally complain about horror movies still apply. Characters continually make dumb decisions. Everyone is always sneaking up on everyone else. The fakeouts. All that. Also, since they are trying to service both the old generation (Curtis) and the new (the kids), the whole thing feels pretty limited. I feel like the body count should've been higher, right? I should've started from the beginning rather than this. They didn't gain any points by killing off Joseph Gordon Levitt off in the beginning either.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend