Halloween H20

Halloween H20 by the way refers to the twenty years that have passed, not some obscure reference to water.

Halloween H20 is pure slasher movie, and according to some who'd know better than me, it's one of the best. I can attest though that there are plenty of blades, blood and badness in Halloween H20, along with the obligatory slow set up before the real mayhem starts in the second half of the movie.

But unlike Scream, the best of the recent fright flicks, Halloween H20 isn't at all funny. Halloween H20 is lean and mean, only about 80 minutes long, hasn't the same number of self conscious in jokes that Scream revelled in, but still tips its hat at times to the history of slasher flicks.

Above all though, Michael Myers wields that big carving knife with considerable enthusiasm.

The high point of the film comes when Jamie Lee Curtis playing Michael's long lost sister Laurie strides down a darkened street, fire axe in hand, screaming for the fiend to come out and fight. And then I nearly cheered.

Jamie Lee Curtis has a wiry look about her, and a vigorous intelligence that lends itself well to axing wayward brothers. She can hold her head (or perhaps Michael's head) high after her performance in Halloween H20 along with other reputable female strong women of film such as Sigourney Weaver (Aliens), Meryl Streep (The River Wild), Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon (Thelma And Louise) and even perhaps the best of them all; the housewife with the blender (Gremlins).