Christina Reviews the *Halloween* Series

         The original Halloween opens with a 6-year-old boy in a clown costume hacking his older sister to death with a kitchen knife.  The little boy is Michael Myers.
     
         Fifteen years later, he’s back to Haddonfield, Illinois, ready to take care of unfinished business.  He has his sights set on one particular girl.  How about that Laurie Strode?

        Jamie Lee Curtis plays Laurie, a 17 year old babysitter who would rather be responsible than party with her friends. 

         To reinvent a Dorothy Parker quote, Curtis sure does “run the gamut of emotions from A to B.”  If she doesn’t make it all the way to B then pretty darn close.  She doesn’t do much in the movie other than make catatonic faces and run in terror.  Occasionally she laughs with her friends and such so that you can differentiate between the times when she’s happy and the times when she’s scared.  This comes in very handy in particular in those early scenes where things are a little amiss but not quite awful yet.

         The movie ends with a cliffhanger, leaving the door open for Michael Myers to return in Halloween II.

         In the sequel, he hunts down Laurie Strode in the hospital where she was admitted after the near fatal, and really quite stressful, events of the first movie.  I didn’t much like the sequel.  It was very boring watching Laurie run through the hallways of a hospital with Michael Myers chasing after her.  There’s not much that can be done in a hospital.  This is why I liked the fact that Rob Zombie took creative license with the second film when remaking it.  I did like the fact that the secret of Laurie Strode’s heritage is revealed in this movie, though.  It was a cool twist.

         The third movie has nothing to do with Michael Myers.  It’s about haunted masks and how there’s only ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two more days until Halloween.  Silver Shamrock.

        The fourth and fifth movies are about Laurie Strode’s orphaned daughter Jamie (Danielle Harris).  Laurie Strode is dead and Jamie is being stalked by Michael Myers.  Danielle Harris shows a little more emotion than Jamie Lee Curtis, but that’s not hard to do.

        The sixth movie is called The Curse of Michael Myers and it involves the occult.  Apparently a curse was put on Michael Myers at birth and that's why he was the way he was.  The eighth movie will attempt to explain away his quirks by other means, but for now, the devil made him do it.  Laurie's daughter Jamie dies in a barn in the opening minutes of the film.  So the only character in this movie who is worth noting is Tommy.  He was the boy Laurie babysat for in the first movie, only now he's all grown up.

        In Halloween: H2O, Laurie Strode is back from the dead.  As it turns out, she faked her death.  But in order for H2O to work, you have to pretend that every sequel after the second doesn’t exist.  This is a good movie for those who liked the first two films but hated everything after the second movie.  To be quite honest, I think I'd rather pretend that this movie didn't exist.

       In Halloween: Resurrection, Laurie Strode dies---for real, this time.  Or at least until the next time they decide to resurrect her.  And then the rest of the movie is about a reality show in which several young people go to the old Myers house to prove to the public that there’s nothing to be afraid of.  Or is there?  You know what the one thing is that you never do, other than end a sentence on a preposition?  Trespass on Michael Myers’ turf with impunity!  And this is the movie in which we learn that “Michael Myers is not a soundbite. ... He's a killer shark in baggy-ass overalls.”

          To be honest, I think that Rob Zombie's Halloween and Halloween II far surpass any of the original movies.  There’s a darker tone and more perverse quality to Zombie’s movies which I think suits the story really well. But not everyone will agree. Rob Zombie isn't for everyone.

         It does kind of sadden me that Scout Taylor-Compton’s Laurie Strode is not a sweet, innocent girl like Jamie Lee's Laurie was.  She’s still kinda nice, but she’s a bit of a brat as well.  I suppose it's only fair, given all of the crap she had to go through.  I liked the music in the Halloween II remake.  And I liked the fact that Danielle Harris played Annie Brackett.

           I would rate the first movie ***½ stars, the second movie ** stars, the third movie ** stars, the fourth movie *** stars, the fifth movie **½ stars, the sixth movie **½ stars, the seventh movie **½ stars, the eighth movie **½ stars and the remakes **** stars.