In defence of Hal­loween: Resurrection

Marred by pro­duc­tion issues and a slew of rewrites and reshoots, 2002’s Hal­loween: Res­ur­rec­tion nev­er stood a chance. Wide­ly derid­ed as yet anoth­er sub­par addi­tion to a fran­chise that failed to cap­ture the essence of John Carpenter’s genre-defin­ing 1978 slash­er, Rick Rosenthal’s film is best remem­bered for its clunky dia­logue, laugh­ably pit­ting Bus­ta Rhymes against the indomitable Michael Myers, and an anti­cli­mac­tic end­ing to Lau­rie Strode’s ini­tial arc. Yet despite its flaws though, Res­ur­rec­tion is arguably the most inno­v­a­tive film in the entire series.

A lot of cred­it must go to screen­writer Lar­ry Brand, whose ambi­tious, some­what prophet­ic vision tapped into the public’s emerg­ing obses­sion with real­i­ty tele­vi­sion. At the time, shows like Big Broth­er, The Real World and The Osbournes were all the rage, herald­ing a new era of mass media con­sump­tion. Fuelled by the internet’s increas­ing acces­si­bil­i­ty, we were enter­ing a true dig­i­tal age, evi­denced by our sub­se­quent seam­less tran­si­tion into a world of smart­phones, social media and stream­ing platforms.

With exec­u­tive pro­duc­er Moustapha Akkad’s insis­tence that Myers remain alive for future sequels despite his decap­i­ta­tion in 1998’s Hal­loween H20: 20 Years Lat­er, Brand devel­oped a unique premise inspired by Orson Welles’ 1938 radio broad­cast of HG Wells’ ​‘War of the Worlds’. Where­as Welles man­aged to con­vince his lis­ten­ers that aliens were invad­ing Earth, Brand sought to reverse that con­cept by stag­ing a live web­cast from inside Myers’ child­hood home in Had­don­field, with view­ers at home believ­ing that the ensu­ing car­nage was all part of the show. Titled Hal­loween: MichaelMy​ers​.com dur­ing pre-pro­duc­tion, Res­ur­rec­tion was meant to sig­nal a rebirth for the fran­chise, with Myers stab­bing his way through stand­alone storylines.

Resurrection’s unfa­mil­iar­i­ty proved to be its undo­ing. As the first Myers-based Hal­loween film not to fea­ture Jamie Lee Cur­tis’ Lau­rie Strode or Don­ald Pleasance’s Dr Loomis as cen­tral pro­tag­o­nists, fans denounced it as soon as they saw the for­mer meet her demise ear­ly on at the hands of The Shape, ret­conned back from the dead. The ill-advised deci­sion to kill off hor­ror cinema’s quin­tes­sen­tial Final Girl capped off an oth­er­wise impres­sive open­ing 15 min­utes, which takes place inside the san­i­tar­i­um where Lau­rie was com­mit­ted fol­low­ing H20’s conclusion.

Laurie’s fak­ing cata­to­nia inside a creepy asy­lum and the sub­se­quent chase down its dim­ly lit cor­ri­dors were atmos­pher­ic homages to 1981’s Hal­loween II, anoth­er sequel direct­ed by Rosen­thal. It also show­cased a cal­cu­lat­ing Myers retain­ing the stealth and cun­ning bare­ly seen since the first two Hal­loween films, emerg­ing vic­to­ri­ous over his estranged sis­ter before hand­ing his blood-soaked blade to a patient with an ency­clo­pe­dic knowl­edge of mass mur­der­ers, then dis­ap­pear­ing into the shad­ows like only he can.

Brand’s nov­el idea doesn’t come into play until the sto­ry shifts back to Had­don­field, where we’re intro­duced to a bunch of fame-hun­gry uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents select­ed to take part in a real­i­ty web series called ​‘Dan­ger­tain­ment’. As instruct­ed by the show’s hosts, played by Tyra Banks and a hilar­i­ous­ly ham­my Bus­ta Rhymes, the group have to spend Hal­loween night inside Myers’ child­hood home with the pur­pose of attempt­ing to unrav­el his mur­der­ous motives. The six con­tes­tants, each of them sport­ing head­cams and laden with quirks xerox­ed from the teen slash­er renais­sance of the late ​’90s, are tedious mur­der fodder.

Even Sara, the film’s Final Girl, serves as a regret­tably dull coun­ter­part to the icon­ic Lau­rie, with her only true con­fi­dant being an online pen pal named Deckard who tunes into the broad­cast at a par­ty lat­er that evening. Once inside the Myers house, they run into fake evi­dence, rigged props, and Rhymes’ Fred­die dressed up as Michael, before real­is­ing to their hor­ror that they are actu­al­ly locked in with The Shape him­self. Cue mass slaugh­ter via pix­e­lat­ed web stream­ing. In the end, Sara and Fred­die, who stay one step ahead of their homi­ci­dal host thanks to Deckard track­ing The Shape’s move­ments on web­cams and tex­ting them his where­abouts, man­age to defeat Michael by fry­ing him alive with stray elec­tri­cal wiring.

Despite Resurrection’s lop­sided exe­cu­tion, Brand’s screen­play suc­cess­ful­ly satiris­es the public’s obses­sion with celebri­ty, ser­i­al killers, and the exploita­tion of tragedy. Also inter­wo­ven is the flawed idea that some­one like Michael Myers can be decod­ed, giv­en that the hap­less web­cast­ers’ pri­ma­ry goal is to fig­ure out what led Myers to kill when the truth is that he has no motive. Iron­i­cal­ly, this brings it more in-line with the 1978 orig­i­nal than most oth­er Hal­loween films.

If any­thing, Resurrection’s premise is a clever metaphor for the entire filmic expe­ri­ence. The con­tes­tants are the actors, the Dan­ger­tain­ment staff are the crew, Deckard and his fel­low par­ty­go­ers are the audi­ence, and the asy­lum patient from the begin­ning rep­re­sents the hard­core hor­ror afi­ciona­do who spews facts and col­lects masks. Even Fred­die, whose kung fu moves immor­talised him as the Hal­loween franchise’s Jar Jar Binks, chan­nels Hollywood’s need for greed, pro­claim­ing at one point that ​“Amer­i­ca just wants a lit­tle raz­zle daz­zle, and us being the ones to give it to ​’em, I don’t see noth­in’ wrong with that”.

With Tik­Tok, Twitch, and true crime pod­casts and docuseries now dom­i­nat­ing the media land­scape, Resurrection’s under­ly­ing mes­sage may res­onate with a mod­ern, tech-savvy audi­ence. It’s cer­tain­ly apro­pos for a gen­er­a­tion who have found fame in cyber­space. It may not be the best Hal­loween sequel, but it deserves some kudos for fore­shad­ow­ing the rise of dig­i­tal broad­cast­ing at a time when ​‘unscript­ed’ con­tent was in the ascen­dan­cy. Irre­spec­tive of your own tastes, wouldn’t you tune in to see a group of insuf­fer­able influ­encers locked inside ​“the birth­place of evil”?