Editorial Reviews

Notes jotted down while watching "Halloween: H20": Medical science should study Michael Myers, the monster who has made the last two decades a living hell for Laurie Strode. Here is a man who feels no pain. He can take a licking and keep on slicing. In the latest ``Halloween'' movie, he absorbs a blow from an ax, several knife slashes, a rock pounded on the skull, a fall down a steep hillside and being crushed against a tree by a truck. Whatever he's got, mankind needs it.

How does Michael Myers support himself in the long years between his slashing outbreaks? I picture him working in a fast-food joint. "He never spoke much, but boy, could he dice those onions!" I have often wondered why we hate mimes so much. Many people have such an irrational dislike for them that they will cross the street rather than watch some guy in whiteface pretending to sew his hands together. Examining Michael Myers' makeup in "Halloween: H20," I realized he looks so much like Marcel Marceau as to make no difference. Maybe he is a mime when he's not slashing.

Maybe what drove him mad was years and years of trying to make a living in malls while little kids kicked him to see if he was real. This also would explain his ability to seem to walk while somehow staying in the same place.

I happen to know Jamie Lee Curtis, who plays Laurie, is one of the smartest people in Hollywood. I cannot wait for the chapter on horror movies in her autobiography.

There is a scene in the movie where a kid drops a corkscrew down a garbage disposal. Then the camera goes inside the garbage disposal to watch while he fishes around for it. Then the camera cuts to the electric switch on the wall, which would turn the disposal on. I am thinking, if this kid doesn't lose his hand, I want my money back.

Michael Myers may also have skills as an electrician. All of the lights and appliances in every structure in this movie go on or off whenever the plot requires them to. I can imagine Myers down in the basement by the fuse box, thinking, "Gotta slash somebody. But first--geez, whoever filled in the chart on the inside of this fuse box had lousy handwriting! I can't tell the garage door from the garbage disposal!" I think Jamie Lee Curtis shouts "Do as I say!" twice in the movie. I could be low by one.

Yes, the movie contains the line "They never found a body." Michael Myers, described in the credits as "The Shape," is played by Chris Durand. There is hope. Steve McQueen started his career in (but not as) "The Blob." Half of the movie takes place in an exclusive private school, yet there is not a single shower scene.

Speaking of shower scenes: Janet Leigh, Jamie Lee's mother, turns up in a cameo role here, and she started me thinking about what a rotten crock it is that they're remaking "Psycho." I imagined Miss Leigh telling her friends, "They wanted me to do a cameo in the remake of `Psycho,' but I said, hell, I'd do `Halloween: H20' before I'd lower myself to that."

Plot Summary

• Tagline: This summer, terror won't be taking a vacation.
• Plot Outline: Laurie Strode, now the dean of a Northern California private school with an assumed name, must battle the Shape one last time and now the life of her own son hangs in the balance.
• Plot Synopsis: Seventh movie in the series and the first to star Jamie Lee Curtis as her character since Halloween 1 and 2. It is 1998 and 20 years after Michael Myers's attack on his unknowing sister Laurie Strode. Since then Laurie has lived with the danger of Michael tracking her down again and therefore faked her death in a car crash and reinvented herself as Keri Tate, the head-mistress of an executive school. However, she is having trouble with the drink, keeps having nightmares featuring Michael and keeps having run-ins with her rebellious teenage son, John, who doesn't believe that Michael is alive. Some of the kids decide to have a Halloween party and Laurie comes out and tells the truth to her boyfriend, teacher Will. However, somebody searches through the papers of recently deceased Dr. Loomis and finds that the info on Laurie's whereabouts are stolen. Michael has found Laurie and people start to disappear during the party. But this time Laurie is not going to run and stays to fight the madman whose trying to complete a job that has taken nearly 20 years so far...

Product Details

• Actors: Jamie Lee Curtis, Josh Hartnett, Adam Arkin, Michelle Williams, LL Cool J
• Directors: Steve Miner
• Format: Closed-Captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Letterbox, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English
• Disc Origin: Region 1 (USA) Original
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 (Letterbox)
• Number of discs: 1 (1 x DVD9)
• Rating: R
• Studio: Dimension Films
• DVD Release Date: October 19, 1999
• Run Time: 86 minutes