JLC Hallo-Watch: Halloween H20 - 20 Years Later (1998)

Watched:  10/30/2025

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  First

Director:  Steve Miner

This movie has a "and introducing Josh Hartnett" credit at the beginning, and knowing what we'd soon know about Hartnett's quality as a lead and Hollywood hunk...  it's absolutely inexplicable that he has one of the dumbest haircuts in cinema.  I was alive and a young adult in 1998.  Nobody had this haircut, this was not a haircut I literally saw on anyone then, before then, or since. It's somewhere between the male version of the Karen/ Kate Gosselin haircut, like he just woke up, like maybe he deeply offended a barber, or someone pulled a prank on him or her took pinking shears to his own head.  

"...so you're saying there's a chance?"

It's so odd, in part because the hair changes moment by moment in the film, like they really couldn't manage it.  It required some weird trimming, and in some shots it's one way, and some shots it's not, and he just looks insane through the whole movie.

The haircut is just a minor indicator of what's happening with Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later (1998), a shockingly unnecessary movie and a reminder of why sequels and horror movies have such a bum rap with many critics.  It is predictable, it's not enough and too much, doesn't seem to know when Halloween occurs or think the holiday matters in the Halloween franchise.   

The movie has a dinky cast that was probably budget in 1998 and now stars two Oscar winners (Jamie Lee Curtis and Michelle Williams), Josh Hartnett and LL Cool J.  Heck, Adam Arkin, who is definitely an actor is here - but I feel like he's moved into Directing and Producing the past several years.  And even Janet Leigh shows up for a few scenes.

Did I watch this to check in on "what the hell did they do with this franchise in 1998?" Yes.  To say "Hey, it's JLC!"  Also, yes.  

The movie ignores Halloweens 3- 6 and suggests Michael Myers has been hanging out somewhere for twenty years doing god knows what while Laurie Strode changed her name and moved to California.  She's had a son (Hartnett) while also I think earning her PhD in education and becoming dean of a pretsigious private school.  

Curiously, Laurie is now an addict - popping pills and drinking too much.  Which was, IRL, what JLC was battling at the same time.  She'd get sober the next year.  Her boyfriend is Adam Arkin, a counselor, who is either too dim to be aware of her struggles or is ignoring them to get with the dean.

The movie is essentially counting on the viewer knowing the tropes of slasher jump scares, and Halloween itself to a lesser extent.  It's lots of shots framed to look like "oh, they're about to get got!" and then, nope, someone pops out with bouquet of flowers or some shit.  I complain because it happens like a dozen times in this movie both before Michael is anywhere near the location we'll exploit and for a brief while after we know he's arrived.  We even get the set-up of "oh, that dumbwaiter is absolutely unnecessary and will absolutely be used for a jump scare".  And so, nothing is scary.  It's just mildly tense.

All of which seems like a shock in 1998, but movies didn't really have a chance to up their game yet in the post-Scream era.  

What's weird is that Halloween is a franchise that has had more false starts and reboots and changes than anything else I can think of. Halloween 3 is completely stand-alone and has nothing to do with Michael Myers.  This movie ignores four of the prior 6 films.  Then in 2007 we restarted the franchise over completely.  Then in 2018 we picked up again, ignoring everything after Halloween 1978.  

The basic story is, on paper, not entirely different from the 2018 Halloween.  Laurie Strode is traumatized due to the events of Halloween 1978.  That trauma has pushed away partners and her single kid is in the process of/ had already rejected Mom, unable to live with her paranoia.  This movie sticks with the shitty idea dropped in Halloween 2 that Laurie is somehow Michael's sister, and I really want a time machine to go back and tell people "making everything personal in movies is not the flex you think it is".  

there you go.  Best shot in the movie.  I just saved you 87 minutes.

Anyway, what's weird is that this movie doesn't need to take place on Halloween.  I just couldn't believe the movie was about a secluded private school where Myers could have been a whirling dervish through horny high schoolers (instead we give all horny dialog to one dude who you know will be in the first 2-3 kills), and instead they cook up the idea to clear out said private school aside from the characters on the poster- which makes it really obvious who is going to get killed the minute you know who is who.  

It is a bad movie with good actors, which is its saving grace.  But, man, there are bad decisions in writing, directing, and even editing which all undercuts what this could have been.  And for the record, I think the 3 movie cycle started with 2018's Halloween is actually terrific, and you're wrong about them.  And this could have been that if anyone had cared about what Halloween is, used Laurie's trauma as more than a way to fill the first thirty minutes, and not moved this to California.  

Anyway, it does end (SPOILERS) with Laurie lopping off Michael's head.  Which you'd think would feel pretty final, but it sure doesn't.  

I thought this was it, but apparently there IS a sequel.  I can only assume it's the same room temperature nonsense as this one.