By the mid-90s, scary movies had fallen on the floor and rolled to the back of the bus. The slashers that defined my teenage years in the 80s had jumped the shark, with Freddy and Jason both sent to hell for early retirement by 1993. The genre that once packed multiplexes was now fighting for shelf space at Blockbuster, kept alive by Full Moon and Leprechaun while prestige thrillers like Misery, Se7en and Silence of the Lambs took the window seats.
Horror wasn’t exactly dead, but it definitely had one foot in purgatory.
Then Scream arrived in December of ’96 and took a stab at reviving the genre.
I was in my mid-20s, old enough to know what Kevin Williamson was doing and young enough to be absolutely thrilled by it. He took a genre that had fallen tragically out of fashion and gave it a meta 90s makeover with self-aware characters and an undeniable indie cool factor. Director Wes Craven didn’t miss a beat either, having masterminded his own excellent meta nightmare the year prior.
So when I heard he was producing a ret-con Halloween sequel that would ignore the Thorn trilogy and serve as a direct follow-up to Halloween II, with Steve Miner directing, I was on board. Miner had cut his teeth on Friday the 13th Parts 2 and 3, and Williamson had developed the story with Jamie Lee Curtis herself over lunch at the Polo Lounge. It felt like the horror baton was finally being passed from the 80s to the 90s.
And yes, I knew it had a slight watered-down bubblegum grunge flavour, but I didn’t care. I loved the mature and grounded family dynamics and the cast was loaded with WB-ready faces like Josh Hartnett in his film debut and sporting the best haircut of his career, and some LL Cool J for extra credit. And if that wasn’t enough, Jamie’s mom Janet Leigh gets a pitch-perfect cameo. There was no mistaking it, this was A-list horror.
It grossed $75 million and became the highest-grossing Halloween film to date.
It gets dismissed as a Scream clone and with good reason, there were many and it’s not like Kevin wasn’t above penning a few himself, but the era also gave us the Faculty (also Williamson), Bride of Chucky going full meta, Final Destination, and Dark Castle launching its yearly Halloween haunts.
Horror was back and clearly drove the bus.
H20 remains my favourite Halloween sequel after the original. I know, I know. The Thorn trilogy was ok, and Rob Zombie’s hillbilly chic makeover didn’t click with me on first viewing, so I’m a bit standoffish with those. The new ones? I’ll tell you when I get past the first one.
I’ll admit that much of my renewed Halloween goodwill was squandered by the wtf-uckiness of Resurrection, and my pet peeve with those dreaded “R” subtitles started there. Redemption, Reloaded, Requiem, Resurrection, Retribution, Revelation, Revolutions, Rise, Revenge, Return, Reborn… Romulus
But as for the film, it just worked for me at the time. I’ll admit to some desperation and limerence, but Laurie got to face Michael on her own terms, and the horror genre got a much-needed shot in the arm that carried it through until the torture wave and zombie apocalypse of the 2000s.
I was ok with that. -Pop
Halloween H20 was released on home video in December of 1998, after an August 5th theatrical release.
