Halloween H20 (1998)

Episode 509, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw I’m Todd. 

Craig: And I’m Craig. 

Todd: Halloween week two, baby. 

Craig: I know. I’m excited. 

Todd: Yeah, me too, man. You chose this week, and we chose Halloween H2O. Or as I learned when I was looking it up online, it’s H2 zero. Get it? ‘Cause it’s 20 years later. This came out in 1998.

You know, when the original Halloween came out in 1978. This one was, like, a pretty big revival of the franchise, which I think, uh, had ended with, what, the fifth one? Was it The Return of Michael Myers? I think- Sixth one. Oh my God. 

Craig: I think it was The Curse of Michael Myers, I think. Yeah. 

Todd: Was that even in the ’90s?

Maybe very early ’90s, wasn’t it? 

Craig: I don’t remember. 

Todd: But this one without… N- none of the rest of them except for, I think, the first two, right, involved John Carpenter? 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: Obviously, the third one involved him. He produced it and, uh, did he direct that, too? I don’t think he did. No, 

Craig: he didn’t 

Todd: direct 

Craig: it. No. Mm-mm.

Todd: He produced it, but they were planning on going on, like, a, you know, Halloween is the theme of the series, but they were gonna have more of an anthology bit. And then it turned into, like, the people just wanted to see Michael Myers again, so then they just made, like, what, three more, I guess. And then they laid it to rest, ’cause it was kinda getting stale, I think, and a little weird.

Craig: And it wasn’t doing well. The last ones hadn’t done well. 

Todd: Yeah. You know, Michael Myers, he’s a guy who, for me, I was never that into. I’m more into him now as an adult than I was as a kid. As a kid, I didn’t see the hook. You know what I mean? Jason had his hockey mask. His hockey mask and his machete. I mean, technically he didn’t always, but you know, when I was a kid.

Jason had his hockey mask and his machete, and he’s this brutal, hulking guy who just appe- I mean, you know, there’s a whole language to that film that ended up developing, and it went in some fun directions and played with it a little bit, but it was mostly the same thing over and over and over again, which is why I’ve said before I was never really that into Jason, either.

Michael Myers was even less because for me, it’s just a guy in a white mask. Even less of a hook. I don’t know. It just didn’t have the pull that Jason did. I didn’t really get the fascination with him. I saw the first one. I thought it was scary. Had no interest in seeing all the rest of them. Now as an adult, I see it psychologically different, and I have a strong appreciation for the first movie.

First movie’s just a work of art. John Carpenter’s so skilled at creating and maintaining tension there, and there is a language in that film, and I think the one after it- That he developed that I think just kinda got lost through the rest of the series. And you know what, God, now s- then, uh, H2O came in 1998, and we were all like, “Oh, the return of Michael Myers.

It’s been a long time since we’ve had a Michael Myers movie.” I know I saw this. I don’t think I went to this theater to see it. I think I saw it when my friends rented it. I was in college. And, eh, I thought it was interesting. It was very much in the flavor of all of the slasher movies that were becoming revived at this time, right?

Scream, and I Know What You Did Last Summer. It was just the late ’90s became horror revival slasher time. And so at the time I was excited to see this, but I remember watching it and I remember just being eh about it. And all these years later, I hadn’t seen it again, I didn’t really remember why I was so eh about it.

So, uh, it was fun to watch it again and be able to discuss it this time around. What’s your history with it, Craig? 

Craig: Yeah, I was excited about it, too. It was, it- I think that it was really smart to jump on that Scream bandwagon because the plot or, you know, or, or the characters fit so easily into that mold.

I mean, Scream really is, is, uh, very much like Halloween, where you’ve got a quiet masked figure stalking teenagers. 

Todd: True. 

Craig: And those… And, and it was wildly popular and made tons and tons of money, and they were making sequels, and they were doing well, and I think it was really smart Jamie Lee Curtis, you know, she’s spoken about it differently.

Of course, when it came out she was very positive about it. Well, she was promoting it. But in later interviews she’s less kind in talking about it, and says it would’ve been better if she would’ve produced it. And it really sounds like she, uh, she’s said that she wanted to come back and do it at the 20-year mark as a gift to her fans.

She’s also said outright that she did it for the money, so whatever. I’m sure it was some combo. Both, I guess. Right, exactly, right? Like- 

Todd: A gift to my fans with a big fat paycheck. 

Craig: Yeah, sure. Why not? Who cares? But, but she was willing to come back. The last ones hadn’t done very well. I saw them and I didn’t…

They were fine, but they were… I, I felt like they were trying too hard with the world building. Like- 

Clip: Oh … 

Craig: it, it, it became that Michael Myers was the conduit for some cult, like some ancient Celtic cult or something. And- 

Todd: I didn’t even get that far … 

Craig: it was this centuries-long thing, and it had all been building up to him, and they were all very invested in him, and, ugh, it was a whole big, it was a whole big cult thing.

Todd: Sounds, sounds like some serious retconning going on there. 

Craig: Yeah. Well, and they killed Laurie off offscreen, and like gave her a daughter, and then they killed off the daughter, and then there was a granddaughter. And like there were things that I l- there were things that I liked about it, like Danielle Harris wa- starred in two of them, I think.

I don’t remember if she was Laurie’s daughter or granddaughter, I don’t remember. But I like her, and they were decent, fine slasher movies, but they were getting a little silly. So when Jamie Lee wanted to come back, that’s what I was excited about For whatever reason, I don’t agree with you that Michael Myers is just a guy in a white mask and doesn’t have his thing.

I think there’s a l- a lot going on with him. 

Todd: Oh, no, no, no. L- let me correct that. I, I said wh- when I was a kid- You felt that way … that was what I thought. Yeah. Nowadays as an adult, I have a stronger appreciation for him. I see what makes him special now. 

Craig: Well, I, to be fair, w- much like you, I was not as into him as I was the others.

I still watched the movies, but I wasn’t as excited about them as I was, you know, when sequels to those other franchises would come out. But this one I was excited because Jamie Lee Curtis was coming back, and at that point in time she was doing pretty well. You know, her- Yeah … she was doing very well and, and she had successfully branched out into things beyond horror and was doing action movies and dramas and thrillers and- 

Todd: True Lies I think was just a couple years before this.

That was huge. 

Craig: I loved that movie. Um- Me too … and- 

Todd: It hasn’t aged well, but let me tell you, it was a fun movie . 

Craig: Yeah, I loved it. A- and I think that she really had kind of established herself as a, not serious, but you know, a, a serious actress with some range, and I thought it was cool that she was coming back.

I didn’t think that she ever would And I remember liking it. I mean, it’s, it may as well be a Scream sequel really. I mean, even if you just look at, if you look at the, the poster, there for, like, from the time Scream did it, for the next 10 years, every single one of these movie posters looked exactly the same.

Todd: Yes. 

Craig: Um, it was, it was just your, your principal characters’ faces- 

Todd: Mm … 

Craig: you know, in, in some sort of, on some sort of dark background, in some- All looking like cool- In, in some configuration. Right. Right. And it looks exactly like that, and, and it’s got a major Scream influence. But I thought it worked well, and it’s got…

There’s a lot of cool stuff about it. This is what… I was trying to think about it, and I didn’t take the time to do any kind of investigation, but would you… Do you think this is kind of the first legacy sequel, where- 

Todd: Ever? 

Craig: Yeah. Well, I don’t know. Where, I mean, where you take a property that was successful that had been gone for a long time, in this case 20 years, and then you bring back the main actress.

I just couldn’t think of any time that it had happened. It happens all the time now. 

Todd: Well, you kind of have New Nightmare. I mean, it’s not like this movie- 

Craig: Yeah, New Nightmare was before this, I guess. Right before. 

Todd: Y- Little- Yeah, right before. And it kind of falls in the same vein. And I guess when you call it a legacy sequel, it’s one that kind of goes back to the source, right?

Craig: Mm-hmm. ‘

Todd: Cause, ’cause New Nightmare kind of went back to the source, kind of forgot. It didn’t disallow all the movies that came in between, but it more or less just referenced the first couple or first one. And this one in the same vein, it seems like it’s referencing the second one. Like, it’s looked like more or less a sequel to the second one.

Craig: Yes. 

Todd: While maybe leaving a little room for the others as well. 

Craig: Yeah, it basically ignores all the others. She still says, Jamie Lee Curtis returns as Laurie Strode, but she’s living and working under an assumed name. And the only person I think who knows the truth is her teenage son. She says in this movie that she staged her death.

So the fact that she had died in the earlier, that, that could be explained by the fact that she staged her death, but- Right … you know, they were planning a sequel anyway, but it was gonna be direct to video, and it didn’t have anything to do with Laurie Strode. But then Jamie Lee wanted to come back, and of course they jumped at that opportunity and wrote scripts with her in them and s- and took bits and pieces from the previous scripts.

So it went through all kinds of incarnations, but In one of those incarnations, they did have a scene where a student in Jamie Lee Curtis’s class would do a report on the Halloween murders, like a, ugh, a book report or something. 

Todd: Wow. 

Craig: And it would tell the whole story of Laurie Strode and Michael Myers, and up to…

And it would say, “You know, but Laurie Strode faked her death and is presumably living under an assumed name somewhere else, but her daughter died.” And that would be when Laurie, Jamie Lee Curtis, would find that out and would run to the bathroom and have an emotional breakdown, ’cause she just found out that her daughter died.

They decided to cut all that, and I think that that was probably the wisest choice. Like- It’s 

Todd: probably going a little too far, you know, into 

Craig: the- Right. Just let it go … like trying to make it fit. 

Todd: Let’s just… Yeah. Yeah. They, they already did more than they needed to, honestly. 

Craig: It’s interesting because that kind of sets into motion what will become one of the most interesting franchise timelines.

Th- because this, this franchise is like a multiverse. Like- 

Todd: Yeah. It is … 

Craig: there are so many, you know, Michael Myers, I guess, except for Part III, which doesn’t really have anything to do with him, but he’s in it because in that movie, Halloween and Halloween II are movies that exist in the world. 

Todd: Oh, that’s true.

Craig: But they’re just movies. So anyway, Michael Myers is the through line. But you’ve got like the f- the continuity of one through VI, excluding III. But then this one, which is VII: H2O, ignores that. So then you’ve got a new timeline that’s just I, II, VII, VIII. And then you’ve got the whole, what’s the tril- the Rob Zombie timeline, which is total remake.

That’s 

Todd: II, right? 

Craig: There’s two of those, and then you’ve got the Da- uh, God, what’s the guy’s name? David Allen… I can’t remember. Re- the new ones. The guy that did… Yeah, the new ones. The, the ones that started in 2018, and those are just Carpenter’s original and then boom, boom, boom, those three. So there’s like three or four different timelines.

And honestly, one of the things that I liked about this movie, and spoilers obviously, I thought that this was cool that it came back to the original characters after 20 years and ended it definitively, and I really kind of wish that it had just stopped there. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Especially ’cause the next one is terrible.

Ah. I, I, I kinda doubt if we’ll ever get around to doing that one, but the next one’s the Michael Myers reality show- 

Todd: Oh … 

Craig: se- sequel. Oh my God. 

Todd: I don’t even know what that one is. 

Craig: It’s bad. And they kill Laurie off super unceremoniously in the first five minutes. I, I guess, I don’t know, Jamie… I, I’ve been reading conflicting things.

Like, she said she would only come back if they killed Michael off, but the producer, he specifically wanted it in the contract that Michael couldn’t be killed off because he wanted to continue producing sequels, as he ultimately would. And I don’t know, I guess they compromised and they were gonna shoot two different endings or, or they were gonna shoot the ending where Michael dies, but there was a loophole that it ultimately really wasn’t gonna be him.

And I… Like, I’ve heard different accounts, like Jamie Lee Curtis knew that from the beginning that there was gonna be a loophole, or that she didn’t and thought that this was gonna be it. I mean, ultimately we know that it, it’s not. It, it goes on, even this timeline goes on for one more movie. But there’s, there’s a little part of me that kinda thinks, “Gosh, if it had just ended here, that would’ve been a nice…”

I don’t know. I kinda like… Anyway, I’m ju- I’m getting ahead of myself clearly. 

Todd: Nah, it’s okay. 

Craig: All that to say I actually really like this movie and I still do. It’s a definite throwback to that very specific time. 

Todd: Yes. 

Craig: Um, but I liked those movies then and I still do. I, I, I like, I still like them, so. 

Todd: It is so ’90s slasher.

It’s just taking… And I guess that is one thing that, one criticism I have of the movie, and I’m gonna point out specific parts of it, and it’s not really a criticism because you can do whatever you want. You don’t have to stay true to the original director’s cin- cinematography style or the way that his pacing or anything like that.

You’re gonna make a sequel, shake it up. It’s fine. So it’s not really a criticism per se. It’s just a glaring difference. If you’re a big fan of the first two movies, this movie’s gonna feel a bit jarring. And then again, also the subsequent sequels are gonna feel jarring too. You know? So what am I trying to say?

I, I just, I just think it’s interesting how different these movies are in the way that they really are geared to appeal to that particular ’90s aesthetic as far as pacing, as far as the characters go, as far as the cinematography goes, and everything that we were so engrossed in at that time. The director, Stephen Miner, has been, you know, directing horror movies since, uh, the second Friday the 13th.

Mm-hmm. In fact, that was his first dir- It was his directorial debut. Friday the Th- 13th Part II, Friday the 13th Part III, House, which we love. I love that movie. 

Mm-hmm. 

We did Warlock. That was goofy fun, but was a big one for us when we were kids, and another one of those ’90s, well, late ’80s I guess, horror movies.

Really bridged the gap there that we watched on t- a lot. And then he went off to do a bunch of other things that weren’t horror at all. He did, like, Forever Young with Mel Gibson- 

Mm-hmm … 

which I remember being really nice, but I haven’t seen it in the longest time. TV with The Practice and Dawson’s Creek, all this stuff, and then came back to horror with this, and then immediately followed it the next year with Lake Placid, which we also did.

I think that was our Betty White tribute, right? 

Mm-hmm. 

S- so, so yeah, this director is, is, uh, well-seasoned in horror and other things. It was, uh, it was probably a smart thing to have him be the guy to come back and do, and do this one. I think it was pretty successful, right? 

Craig: I think so. I don’t remember. I didn’t look up the numbers, but I do think it did pretty well and, and I’m not surprised.

Like I said, those movies were really popular and Kevin Williamson, the guy who, you know, was one of the main writers on the first couple of Screams, worked on this. He ended up only getting a production credit, a, a producer credit because I guess the writing rules that time said you had to have been credited for at least a third of it to get a gr- a writing credit.

Ev- So even though he worked on it, and his influence I think really comes through. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting because it is so ’90s, but it’s also interesting to hear you say how different it is from the original because I just feel like Scream felt like such a throwback to specifically Halloween, that type of stalker.

You know, I, I think of, I think of Ghostface inexplicably lingering around public spaces. Like I re- Yeah. I, I remember- Just standing there … you 

Todd: know, like- Nobody notices him except that one character, and then he’s gone. 

Craig: Right. Right. I mean, so far as I think at one point in time he’s, like, in the video store with them, and like really nobody notices.

I feel like that came from Halloween. So this almost, I don’t know, it just feel, it, to me it feels like a natural progression. Yeah, it’s got, you know, uh, Scream modernized it, I guess, and it definitely had a more modern aesthetic, and, and this definitely leans heavy into that aesthetic. But it just, I don’t know, the vibe of it fits so comfortably into what it is.

And, and it is, and it is very formulaic e- especially to its benefit or to its detriment, I’m not really sure, because they do lean heavy into that ensemble cast of good-looking people. You know, you’ve got the big star in Jamie Lee Curtis, so she gets a prominent space on the poster. She’s the Neve Campbell or the, an, o- originally the Drew Barrymore.

A- and then you’ve got a cast of beautiful young people, in this case introducing Josh Hartnett. I, I had completely forgotten that this was Josh Hartnett’s first movie because he went on immediately to become a huge heartthrob in these types of teen movies and was all over the place. And, and then Michelle Williams, I didn’t realize that this director had worked on Dawson’s Creek, if that makes sense.

That’s probably how he knew her. And, and, you know, she was a teen star at that point. But she’s an, either an Oscar nominee or an Oscar winner now. Like, she’s a very well-respected actress in Hollywood. Janet Leigh in here, you know, got a mother-daughter scene, which is really cool. And then another thing that makes it super, super ’90s is that you’ve gotta have silly comedy in it, too.

So s- check and see if LL Cool J’s available. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: Because if he is- 

Todd: He’s the 

Craig: one … we’re 

Todd: gold. God, how many, how many movies did LL Cool J play the comic- I know … relief for at this time? 

Craig: Oh, gosh. 

Todd: But that’s where it’s different, right? That’s what I was referring to. It’s got far more- Yeah, yeah … comedy in it. 

Craig: A lot.

Todd: Plus, of course, you know, I mean, obviously the Scream franchise is, the Ghostface killer is a costume. You know, it could be anybody in there, and we know that it’s, it’s a mortal, and there’s a question, there’s a mystery behind it. Who’s doing the killing? Whereas in the, all the Halloween movies, there’s really just no question.

It’s this one guy. It’s Michael Myers. We know from the beginning, you know, escaped mental patient with a history, and that’s it. So I think those are pretty significant differences tonally. The only other tonal difference I guess I would say is that I feel like John Carpenter was really good about creating Michael Myers as almost this mystical guy.

We knew he’s a person, but is he really? Because he just seems to have almost the supernatural ability to pop in and out of frame inexplicably. Whereas in this movie, we just see him moving around a lot more. And I- almost to the point, not that he’s running, but there’s, there’s moments in here that we’re gonna talk about that I’m, I feel like, ugh, that just doesn’t feel like the Michael Myers I know.

It does feel like the Michael Myers I’ve seen in the sequels since, but it doesn’t feel like the Michael Myers that John Carpenter had in the first two movies. So that’s, that’s all I’m referring to, and we’ll, we’ll talk about that when we get there. 

Craig: Yeah, I do. Yeah. 

Todd: You know what I mean? 

Craig: Yeah, I do know what you mean.

Well, I, I, I feel like we should just dive into it, ’cause I feel like I’ve got more… We, I, I think we both have more specific things to say, but it’d probably be better in, with some real context. So it also, the movie goes out of its way to give us throwbacks to the original. It, it opens up with Mr. Sandman, the song, which features prominently in the second movie, and I, I can’t remember if it gives us…

It, it does give a… It, it tells us that it’s October 29th, 1998. It, it’s a, you know, suburban street where it’s all Halloween, and a mom, like, stabs a huge butcher knife into a pumpkin and, you know, it’s, uh, setting the mood right away. But this nurse’s house has been broken into, and I believe, w- is this the same actress?

This character was Dr. Loomis’ nurse in the first or second. Right. Yeah. And I think it’s the same actress. I could be wrong. But somebody has broken into her house, and so she gets the boys next door, one of them being Joseph Gordon-Levitt. 

Todd: Uh-huh. That was funny. 

Craig: That was funny. It’s also funny that he’s, like- I don’t know, like 50 now.

God, we’re so old. Oh. 

Todd: He, he’s a kid in this movie, like a kid. 

Craig: Yeah. And, you know, the, the, the kid goes in and looks around, but the… And, and the office is a little bit disheveled, but nothing else has been disturbed, and he goes and tells her that, and the two boys go next door, which is their home or whatever.

And she goes in and she looks around, and she sees that what is missing is Laurie Strode’s file. And then Michael, we see that he’s there. She doesn’t, but he steps into frame behind her, but she is scared that something’s up, so she runs next door and she finds the next-door boys murdered, and then-

Michael finds her, and it’s… You know, all of this, I wanna say the Kevin Williamson open, where you’ve gotta have this- Yeah, it kinda is … you know, this setup for this great first kill to introduce what’s going on. 

Todd: And this close call where they almost find 

Craig: her, right? Yeah, the co- And just in time. I mean, ’cause they’ve called the cops, but the cops come to her house, and by this point she’s next door.

And so the cops are right there, and she’s screaming for them, but they can’t hear, and she gets her throat cut. 

Todd: Yeah. Now, can you help me with this a little bit? If I remember correctly- Isn’t Michael Myers a, like isn’t he kind of a one-trick pony with a knife or does he al- also use other implements to kill people typically?

Because I remember him as just being a knife guy, but he uses some different implements in this movie. 

Craig: Yeah, I, I, gosh, I don’t… The whole skate through the face thing was, you know- Yeah … obviously- That was really out there. I mean, it, it looks, it look- We didn’t actually see him do it. I guess ’cause- We just saw the aftermath, but i- it looked good on screen.

I hadn’t really thought of that. Maybe he hadn’t found his knife yet. Oh, 

Todd: maybe. 

Craig: Any- anytime he walks by a big block of knives, he, he’s always sure to grab one. Um- Yeah, true. Maybe, maybe he just hadn’t found it yet. I don’t remember. What I also am not sure, do they ever tell us where he’s coming from? Why is it 20 years later and he’s just now showing up?

I feel like that- I don’t 

Todd: think we ever 

Craig: know … that question gets asked a lot, but I don’t think it ever gets answered. 

Todd: I don’t believe it does. There’s no like, “Ah, Michael Myers has escaped from the institution.” 

Craig: No. No, because they think he’s dead. 

Todd: Right. Right. 

Craig: But they never found a body. They, they think he, he, he burned up in the hospital at the end of part two, but they never found a body.

Todd: He’s just been hanging out quietly. 

Craig: Yeah, and people, I, more than once, people say to Laurie, Jamie Lee Curtis, like, “Don’t you think he, if he were coming for you, don’t you think he would’ve come by now? Why would he have waited until now?” Like, they ask the question several times, but they never answer it. I guess he just- 

Todd: Well-

Craig: was taking a break … 

Todd: they k- they kinda answer it in that, like, again, we’re jumping ahead, but why not since we’re talking about it. Her big revelation seems to be looking up and seeing that, and realizing that it’s her son’s 17th birthday- Oh … when she was killed on her 17th birthday. 

Craig: Oh, yeah. 

Todd: I don’t know if that makes a hell of a lot of sense, but that’s what they say.

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: I mean, what was he doing for these 20 years? He was literally like, “I just gotta wait for, for that kid to turn 17. In the meantime, I’m just gonna chill and not do anything.” Just doesn’t really seem to be in, in his character, you know? 

Craig: How would he even know she had a kid? Because she faked her death- 

Todd: True

Craig: and then went off and had a kid with, I don’t know, some drifter or something. 

Todd: Who 

Craig: knows? I don’t know. At some point, at some point she tells her son, she’s like, “Oh, you got a birthday card from your dad. I guess he, like, took a break from the methadone clinic or something like…”

It’s weird. 

Todd: Oh, it’s so easy to just write in things to try to- But, but how 

Craig: would he even know? 

Todd: Yeah, how would he know? He w- 

Craig: He clearly didn’t know where she was because he had to break into Loomis’ nurse’s house to get the file. 

Todd: Pretty lucky he just happened to be there 17 years later- 

Craig: Yeah … 

Todd: right after his son was born.

Craig: It’s a… Yeah. 

Todd: Coincidence. 

Craig: Right. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but that’s okay. Who cares? Yeah. So then we catch up with Laurie. 

Todd: There’s a lot of, I mean, aside from that initial kill- There’s a lot of exposition here where we’re getting introduced to Laurie, we’re getting introduced to her son and his friends, and the fact that now she’s a headmistress at a private school out in California with a different name.

I don’t know, though. I would think if that you’re trying to be low profile, you wouldn’t wanna be, like, the headmistress of a school. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Not in California. I don’t know. It’s a quiet school. It’s a small school apparently, so she’s out there, and then she has a guy that she’s involved with at school. Maybe it’s a little bit of a secret or something, or maybe they just kinda got started.

Craig: I don’t know. I can’t tell. 

Todd: At first, they make it sound like it’s illicit. 

Craig: I know. 

Todd: But I, I… It’s not. I guess it’s- 

Craig: They’re just sneaking around … I know. They’re just sneaking around. I guess it’s just ’cause it’s an office romance, and, like, I don’t remember what the dynamic- Mm-hmm … is. I think she’s his boss, isn’t she?

Todd: Uh, yeah, yeah, she is, ’cause she’s the headmistress, and he works there. Adam Arkin is the actor here. 

Craig: He’s really familiar. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I was, I was bothered by his performance, though, because as the movie went on, I felt like they were trying to make him seem shady, and I couldn’t figure out why. Right. I couldn’t figure out why because we know that Michael is the killer from the beginning.

Like, there’s n- I guess in one of the scripts, it wasn’t going to be Michael. It was gonna be a copycat killer, or it was gonna be one of the teenagers who we haven’t talked about yet. There’s John, the son, played by Josh Hartnett, and Molly, his girlfriend/love interest, played by Michelle Williams. But then there are two others, Charlie and Sarah, who don’t really have anything to do.

They’re just around. Is, and at one point it was going to be Charlie, but it’s not. We’ve seen Michael from the beginning, and we also know that Jamie Lee Curtis, Curtis is Laurie Strode. The other people don’t know, but we do. They don’t keep that a secret from us. Yeah. This isn’t like, okay, spoiler for, like, 10-year-old show coming up.

This isn’t like that Exorcist reboot. Did you watch that, the TV show? 

Todd: No, I didn’t see the TV show. 

Craig: Oh, gosh. You’re gonna spoil it for me too, huh? Yeah, I’m gonna spoil it for you too. Go 

Todd: ahead. It’s fine. 

Craig: I’ll- It stars, uh, Geena Davis, and it’s about this family, and the daughter becomes possessed. Well, it, about, I don’t know, a, halfway through the season, you find out that Geena Davis is Regan from- Oh

the original Exorcist. 

Todd: The original. 

Craig: Uh-huh. But this isn’t that. This isn’t that. We know it’s her, and we know it’s Michael, so I thought it was weird that they were casting suspicion on other characters. Like, what? Is he helping out? I don’t get it. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But anyway, you know, the whole setup, I guess, is that though- She is very successful.

She is still irreparably damaged from- 

Todd: Right … 

Craig: this trauma that she’s been through, and sh- she’s struggling with alcoholism, and she’s having nightmares. She sees Michael everywhere she goes. She’s overly protective of her kid. Like, little Josh Hartnett just wants to go to Yosemite with his class, but she thinks that’s a ridiculous ask.

Clip: What the do you think you’re doing? 

Mom, I’m really uncomfortable with you saying that 

word. Well, then don’t put me in the position, John. Do you know what day it is? Of all the days for you to pull this shit. What do you think you can do? Just wander around town? I don’t ask you for very much. Just give me one day.

Mom, I’ve given you 17 years. 

And I need you to be responsible. Do you know what that means? Responsible? Responsible. 

Don’t talk to me about responsible, 

Mom. I just need this one thing. 

Mom, I am not responsible for you That’s it. That’s enough. I can’t take it, Mom. He’s dead. Michael Myers is dead

What do you want me to say? 

That it’s over. That we should try to get on with some attempt at a happy existence, Mom ‘Cause all the shit that’s going on in your head is leaking out on me, and I can’t take it anymore 

Craig: And so there’s a lot of tension there. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: That’s kind of the setup, and th- that’s it. And then she’s afraid Michael- That’s it

she’s afraid Michael’s gonna show up. Everybody’s like, “No, you dum-dum, he’s dead.” And then he does show up, and she’s like- Yeah … “

Todd: See?” Could you, could you imagine telling this woman for 19 years, “Come on, it’s okay. He’s not gonna show up,” and then like the 20th year it’s like, “Oh, shit.” 

I 

don’t know how I feel about that, honestly.

“It’s been 20 years, Mom. Oh, geez. Don’t you know that’s a nice even number? You’re 17 now.” Oh, God. 

Craig: And that glosses over a lot, because there’s stuff going on, but I mean, that’s the gist of it. Yeah. And then, you know, and then Michael comes back and chases them around. I mean, that’s basically the gist of it.

There’s other fun stuff, like as I mentioned before, Janet Leigh, Jamie Lee Curtis’s mother- 

Todd: Oh, she’s 

Craig: so good … the actress who played, I think Marian Crane in, in Psycho, here plays, I think Jamie Lee Curtis’ secretary. 

Todd: Yeah, Miss Tate. Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. And- 

Todd: They have some good moments. I l- I mean, when we first see her, it’s kind of a quickie where they’re kinda running through and she’s rattling off all the problems at the school and, and they’re getting ready for the trip as Jamie Lee Curtis is walking through the office before she shuts the door on her.

And she says something about, “Oh, and the d- and the drains are clogged in the women’s bathrooms, but we think we have a solution.” 

Craig: Mm-hmm. And 

Todd: I was like- Cute … “Oh, that’s funny.” And then later they have a heart-to-heart moment, which has no purpose except just to give her a little bit of a cameo. 

Craig: And to give them some screen time together, which is actually really sweet.

Todd: Yeah. Super sweet. Could you imagine your mom being in this just iconic movie, and then you becoming a famous actor, and then being able to just share a moment with them in a 

Craig: movie? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. 

Todd: And I love it. She just approaches her. She says, “You know it’s not my place, but if I could be maternal for a moment.”

And she’s like, “You know, just calm down, relax,” or whatever, and then she walks back to her car. The theme from Psycho gets briefly quoted in the score, and I’m like, “They were having so much fun with this.” 

Craig: And her car is the car that she drove in that movie. The same car. Yeah. It’s, it’s a- Oh … it’s a fun l- And it wasn’t even supposed to be her.

Like, she was second choice. It was supposed to be P.J. Soles who played- Oh, really? Yeah, who played, uh, Jamie Lee Curtis’- Oh, yeah … best friend in, in the original, and she was not gonna be playing the same character. I liked her. Just the same actress. But they, but I don’t know. She, she never, she never responded, I guess, is what I heard.

They’re going for trying to make it super character-driven, but in doing so it almost pushes to melodrama. Like, I really like Jamie Lee Curtis, and I think she’s giving it her all, and I see- what they’re trying to do. She is damaged, but she also just comes across as a bitch. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Like, like, uh, I, I get it.

Like, but do you really need to be such a bitch? She yells at some waiter. It’s just, like snapping at some waiter to get her wine that she can chug while her boyfriend’s in the bathroom and- 

Todd: I actually like that bit. 

Craig: And then she, and then she confronts her kid in the street outside during the day. Now, he’s not supposed to be there.

He has snuck off the grounds that are apparently like a prison. That, that was so weird to me. I know, 

Todd: right? Why, why can’t they, these kids leave? What’s going 

Craig: on? Right, like just jump the wall. Like this is, it’s very strange. But they al- they also make it seem like it’s impenetrable. Like that, that front gate that LL Cool J guards- Uh-huh

it, like if, if it is closed, nobody’s getting in or out. Like- Yeah … it’s like Fort Knox. 

Todd: Like Willy Wonka’s factory- … in there, man. 

Craig: Oh, man. I don’t know. But she, okay, so Jamie Lee Curtis also yells at her kid, and that’s where she, she, you know, she’s screaming at him and she’s like, “Just give me one day.” And he is like, “Mom, I’m not responsible for you.

Michael Myers is dead.” And then he says, “All that shit in your head is leaking out on me, and I can’t take it anymore.” 

Clip: If you wanna stay handcuffed to your dead brother, that’s fine. But you’re not dragging me along, not 

Todd: anymore. 

Craig: It’s very melodramatic. 

Todd: It is really, yeah, saying things that people will never say, in ways they’ll never say them.

Craig: Right. And for ultimately like it not to really matter because she’s right, but this convinces her that she’s wrong even though the second they drive away, like they walk away from this fight that they just had in the street to reveal that Michael Myers is right behind them in his death wagon that he stole.

His 

Todd: death wagon. It’s a very distinctive car, isn’t it? 

Craig: It reminded me of The Creeper’s van. Yes. Now, it’s not really that big, but it reminded me of that. 

Todd: I was thinking exactly the same thing. Oh, that he stole from that couple. Not that 

Craig: couple. It’s not a couple. That’s a mom and a 

Todd: daughter. The mother and 

Craig: the child.

Oh, my God. I actually, this is a scene that really has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the movie. It’s just when Michael originally leaves from killing those people in Illinois, he pulls out in a dark-colored sedan, much like the one that he drives in the earlier movie. So I guess maybe he’s been dr- you know, I don’t know, living in this car.

I don’t know. But- Somewhere on his way to California, it breaks down, gets a flat tire, and there’s this scene in a rest stop that I think is the scariest scene of the whole movie. 

Todd: Hmm, yeah. It is, ’cause there’s a child involved And you kind of think they’re probably not gonna go there, but you never know.

Yeah 

Craig: It’s just suspenseful. Like, we don’t know these people. Like, this mom and this daughter pull up in this really odd-looking vehicle that looked like something that a serial killer would drive, and they, the g- little girl has to pee really bad, and so they go up to this rest stop in the middle of nowhere, and as they walk up to it, the camera kind of pans back and shows that Michael’s car is there.

And then the mom puts the little girl in one stall, and she goes in the other, but then the mom realizes they’re not alone in there. She sits her purse down in the stall, and somebody really quick grabs it and startles her, and she looks up, and it’s Michael Myers out there, like, in his mask and everything.

And it w- I, I guess it’s just really situationally scary. Like, we know that they’re in the middle of nowhere. We know that Michael Myers is evil incarnate and that if he wants to do anything to this woman and her child, they’re helpless against him. And her, you know, her daughter is in the stall right next door, like, humming a little song.

Meanwhile, she’s terrified, and eventually he just goes away and steals their car, and they’re fine. But I actually thought out of the whole movie, that was the most tense and suspenseful moment. 

Todd: Honestly, it was, yeah. Well, it’s early enough in the movie that you’re not quite sure what’s going on and what the stakes are and who’s gonna get killed and who’s not, and also it’s just this innocent victim, which you kind of…

They’re usually the ones who die, right? It’s usually the random people that just come for a scene for a kill and then go that you’re thinking the odds are high maybe they’re gonna get it, and this mom and her daughter? That would suck. Yeah, so I thought that one was, was way more suspenseful than most of everything else we saw.

And you know, like for example, the LL Cool J bit, I would say that there’s still Michael Myers sightings happening up until he starts literally just into the campus and, and, and starts killing everybody, right? 

Mm-hmm. 

But then this thing with LL Cool J at the front, they do the John Carpenter thing where he’s in the back, and then he’s not in the back.

But then they start doing this thing where he’s in the back window, but he kinda… LL Cool J’s talking on the phone with his wife with this stupid thing that he’s, like, trying to write romance novels and… Okay, whatever. He, he just needed some shtick, I guess. And as he turns away from the window, Mike Myers rolls into the window, just like, zoop, like from around the corner, almost like Bugs Bunny.

And then as soon as he turns back around to it, he just r- roop, rolls right away just in the nick of time. Like, that is kinda stuff we don’t normally see from this guy. We usually see him pop in or pop out, or the camera kinda frames it so we’re not sure if he’s gonna be there, he’s gonna be not But this Mike Myers does a bit of ducking and dodging.

Craig: That’s true. 

Todd: A little too much for my tastes, you know what I mean? 

Craig: Yeah. Especially when nothing comes of it l- as- Yeah … like in that moment. The whole thing is he just needs to get in the gate. Well, he gets in the gate. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: We see him walk right behind LL Cool J, and LL Cool J doesn’t notice him, so he gets in.

So what’s he just creeping around for? What- Like, if he’s not gonna kill him, what are you doing? 

Todd: I thought it was gonna cut back to this scene or we were gonna see him later dead, but no, later on he comes popping in like, “What can I do? How can I help?” I’m like, “Oh my God, he’s alive?” We just had him being slightly menaced from behind for a while.

What was the purpose of that? 

Craig: That’s one thing that I, that’s one thing that I will be a little critical of the movie of. Like, it relies a lot on jump scares. There are so many jump scares. 

Todd: Oh, there’s a million jump scares, to the point where it’s almost a parody of itself. 

Craig: I- yeah. Yeah, it’s too much, and, and they never amount to anything.

Well, they very rarely amount to anything. 

Todd: It’s like her mother surprises her, her f- her boyfriend surprises her. The boyfriend. 

Craig: Everybody 

Todd: is s- Everybody’s surprising each other with a “da” kind of cue. 

Craig: God, so many jump scares. 

Todd: Well, she ends up, uh, revealing herself to her boyfriend, I guess you could call him, and, uh, he’s not, doesn’t really take her seriously at first and then he does.

And then, uh, he’s like, “Oh, I need a drink.” And so she goes to get a drink, and I think it’s during this conversation that she looks up and realizes, “My son is 17. He must be coming back now.” And I’m like, “Okay, that’s a huge leap, but okay.” 

Craig: I, yeah. 

Todd: I, I, again, I’m not really sure why she was any more worried about him this year than any other year.

Yeah, she keeps seeing him in the background, but w- we’ve established that these are like figments of her imagination, and she knows it. 

Mm-hmm. 

Right? She blinks and it goes away. There’s even kind of a cool sequence where it looks like Mike Myers is walking towards her, and she blinks and he doesn’t go away, and she blinks, he doesn’t go away.

She blinks again, and you’re thinking, “Dude, this is the real guy,” but it turns out to be her boyfriend jump scare, right? So I mean, it’s no different than any other year for her except that her son is 17. I think it’s a big leap. Anyway, she goes and she finds that they haven’t actually left after all with the group because her son, like an idiot, not very good at covering his tracks, left his bags in his room.

So she’s like, “Somebody’s not on the trip. Oh my God, let me call.” And so she’s gotta track him down. In the meantime, her son and his girlfriend are getting menaced at exactly this moment. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: And that’s another long chase scene. 

Craig: Yeah, they got… I mean, Jamie Lee Curtis actually did give, at the last minute, gave the son, John, permission to go.

Like, his little outburst about being handcuffed to her dead brother or whatever changed her mind, and she gave him permission to go, but he had already made plans with his friends to stay behind. And so he didn’t tell her, but they stayed behind, and they’re throwing a super… I, I’ll go ahead and say it anyway.

I was gonna say a super lame basement party- … but whatever. It was just as cool as any basement party I’ve ever thrown, so 

Todd: Yeah, don’t be too cocky there, 

Craig: Corey. 

Todd: Did you even bother to make a sign like he did? 

Craig: They… I, I was worried by the number of candles that they had down there. That just looked like a fire waiting to happen to me.

But yes, they are being menaced. The other two- the other teenage couple, who again, I- are only there as fodder, do their job as fodder. You know, it’s, it’s established that there’s a dumbwaiter so we can play with a dumbwaiter. That’s fun. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: Those two, the other random couple, go up and down the dumbwaiter getting chased by Michael.

The boy gets killed. Okay, so they’re in a k- they’re in a kitchen, like, on a lower level of the building, and the boy uses the dumbwaiter as an elevator to go upstairs to get something, and he gets killed, but he gets killed off screen, and then the dumbwaiter comes back down And his dead body’s in it, and then Michael starts chasing her around.

It really bothered me that she gets in the dumbwaiter and she gets upstairs. Michael gets one stab in her leg, I think, before she gets up there. But she gets up there, and then she cuts the rope on the dumbwaiter and crushes her own leg in it. Like, are you stupid? 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: What are you doing? Pretty 

Todd: dumb. Like, 

Craig: pull your, like make sure all of your limbs are clear of it-

before you cut the rope. Oh, God, I don’t know what was gon- she thought was gonna happen. And then does she get killed? My mom called me at this point in the movie, and my remote wasn’t working. It wouldn’t pause, so I was trying to pay attention to the movie and talk to my mom on the phone at the same time.

And I think, does she get killed on screen or does she get killed off-screen? They find her later. 

Todd: No, no. He pulls her out and jumps on top of her body and stabs her a bunch of times. 

Craig: Okay. 

Todd: So yeah, that, that happens. And then the other couple comes h- comes back, sees the blood smear. Again, typical Halloween.

Craig: Is this some kind of joke? 

Todd: I guess. I mean, 

Craig: it’s Halloween. There’s huge blood… I know, but there’s huge blood trails- … all down the hallway. You guys, knock it off. 

Todd: I know. So he jumps out, and they start to get the best of him for a while, and then they, they do the smart thing. They fricking run out of the house, leap across the backyard, tear down the back street, and they’re running for quite a while before they stop.

And I’m like, “All right, this, this couple actually did something smart.” Of course, they’re stopping. They stop for about two seconds, and in true to fashion, suddenly he’s there. And he leaps out at them from the bushes. He starts chasing them some more. And this is where it gets very un-Michael Myers for me, because they end up at this, like, like a little gate that leads into the front door of this place.

Right. And she’s got the keys to it. So she’s got her keys, and she ends up fumbling. There’s a whole deal of her getting the keys. She unlocks it. She closes it. And I guess it kinda locks, but also she drops the keys, and he comes towards her. But he gets the keys, and now they’re backed up against the door.

And he, his arm is sticking through, just wildly swiping at them. 

Craig: Uh-huh. 

Todd: Like, he’s, he’s at least two feet away from them, but he’s wildly swiping at them like he’s a, I don’t know, like a toy, a wind-up toy that’s stuck. I thought, “This is so distinctly not him.” Like, usually at this point he just disappears, right?

And suddenly… I mean, he’s not usually that stupid. Then he crouches down and picks up the keys and starts fumbling with the keys to get in the door. And I don’t know, man, I just, it just felt very It felt more like Scream here than it did a Halloween to me I don’t 

Craig: know. I don’t know. It, it 

Todd: felt very- 

Craig: When Michael Myers is 

Todd: swiping wildly at people and fumbling with keys.

Like, come on. 

Craig: I mean, the dude drives. He, he, he drove, he drove in the first two movies, so it’s not like he’s- 

Todd: Yeah, but it takes a little bit of the mystique out of it. Also, can I say another thing? 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: I remember distinctly from at least the first movie, maybe the second movie, we don’t really see his eyes, right?

His mask is just black where the eyes are. 

Craig: Uh-huh. 

Todd: His eyes are there, we just never see them. We see a lot of his eyes in this movie. A lot of his eyes. 

Craig: Uh-huh. 

Todd: That also, ah, you know, kinda bothered me. 

Craig: Yeah, I thought that that was some sort of an attempt to remind us of his humanity, which I don’t … Which I think is kinda stupid.

I, I think the whole point of him is that, like, he’s pure evil. 

Todd: Yeah, he’s evil incarnate. He should be kind of … We know he’s a human, but he’s almost supernatural. 

Craig: But since you mentioned the mask It looks pretty terrible in this movie. Yeah. And, and it’s also inconsistent. There are, there are a couple of ti- y- like they, I don’t know.

They started with one mask, and then they decided it didn’t look good, and so they got replicas of masks that they had used before and used them for a while. And then they decided they didn’t like them either, and so they, they made another one, and then they went back and tried to fix some things that they’d already shot with CGI.

And so there’s different mask looks kind of throughout. W- One of them looks so just blah and kind of washed out. I just hate it. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: But then it also bothered me because at times, the mask seems to change expression, and that really bothered me too. Yes. 

Todd: It fits too tight, you know? It’s, like, narrow, but it’s a little too tight-fitting and yeah, it seems to 

Craig: move.

I re- I… There’s one time, it’s that time that you were just talking about where they ran away, and, like, this part bothered me too because they re- like you said, they run for a long time. And they pause for a second, and he somehow jumps out, like, in front of them. Like, what? 

Todd: Yeah. It makes 

Craig: no sense. How did he know where they were going?

But they fight for a while, and she ends up, she, Michelle Williams, ends up hitting him in the head with a rock. And he falls to the ground, and then he looks up, and the mask is angry. Like- … how does the, how does the mask get angry? I don’t understand that. Oh. Um, and we also skipped one part that was a big part that they showed, I remember they showed in the trailers, where it’s Michelle Williams sitting in a classroom, and Jamie Lee Curtis is the teacher now.

But Michelle Williams looks out the window and sees Michael Myers out there, and then the teacher distracts her, and she answers a question. She looks back, and he’s gone. It’s a big throwback- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: to Jamie Lee Curtis. 

Todd: Doing the exact same thing. 

Craig: I don’t remember what they were talking about. 

Todd: Frankenstein.

Craig: Well, yeah, Frankenstein here. In, in the first one, whatever the teacher was talking about was poignant and, and relevant to whatever was going on, but it is here, too. This is where they are really heavy-handed- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: about telling us what this movie is about. 

Todd: Right. In the most typical way possible. A teacher giving a surprisingly poignant lecture in the classroom.

Craig: Right. And Michelle Williams, uh, what’s her… Jamie Lee Curtis asks her some question about Frankenstein, and Michelle Williams gives a very poignant answer for a high school student. 

Clip: But I think that Victor should’ve confronted the monster sooner. I m- he’s completely responsible for Elizabeth’s death. He was, he was so paralyzed by fear that he never did anything.

It t- took death for the guy to get a clue. 

And why do you think he was finally able To confront his monster? 

Well, I think that Victor had reached a point in his life where he had nothing left to lose. I mean, the monster saw to that by killing off everybody that he loved. Victor finally had to face it It was about redemption.

It was his fate 

Craig: Mm-hmm. And that’s the big conflict that Jamie Lee Curtis is going through. Like- Yeah … she has to face her monster in order to be, to find her redemption. So all of this has been building up to this point where, like you said, they’re in that little cage. But Jamie Lee Curtis rescues them at the last second, and she and Michael come face to face, uh, like a porthole window.

Clip: Yeah. 

Craig: They share a moment of eye contact, and she looks away, and then he’s, he’s gone. But I feel like she runs around with those kids and the boyfriend, and I remember that there’s stuff that happens here, but it all feels insignificant because ultimately- Yeah … she just gets them out of there. Like- 

Todd: Yeah.

She gets them out of there, and we never see them again. 

Craig: Never see them until the end. 

Todd: They’re no help to her. They’re not under threat. 

Craig: That’s what I was saying, like, th- they Scream-ified the movie by giving us this cast of teenagers, which makes sense. The original was a cast of teenagers, too, and that’s fine, but these teenagers, they’re irrelevant.

Like- Yeah … if you took them out of the movie, it would just make it shorter. That’s the only difference that it would make. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Because it’s all just leading up to the final confrontation between Laurie and Michael. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: Uh, which I think is probably what the fans were wanting anyway. And Jamie Lee Curtis has said that for her, the movie starts when she escorts those kids off the grounds and tells them, “You go on, go down to the, the Barkers,” or something.

You know, it’s a throwback to when she, a throwback to when she sent the kids that she was babysitting down the street to the Mackenzies or whatever. She’s like, “You, you all go down there. I’ll be right behind you.” And then she sends them away, and then she grabs an ax and heads back in. And the m- the, the Halloween theme, the dun, dun, dun.

Like, you know, like it- Mm-hmm … it swells as she marches back in there to face him. 

Todd: This is the moment. 

Craig: And that really is. That, I mean, that really- 

Todd: Last 10 minutes, really. 

Craig: I kn- yeah, but it’s the very end. 

Todd: Yeah, yeah-huh. 

Craig: And just like with the newest ones where we, I, I don’t know about everybody else, but I was willing to wait through three movies to see the final showdown between Michael Myers and Laurie Strode.

I, I f- I was disappointed, and this one is k- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: pretty disappointing, too. 

Todd: It is. It’s just kind of a little bit of a lame back and forth and fight. Then he falls from a, from a great height just like before. 

Craig: Well, I did like the scene, kind of, it went on for too long, but in the cafeteria where she’s kind of under the tables and he’s above her, that, there was some suspense there.

But then she runs, like, to a kitchen, pulls out a huge drawer full of knives that scatter on the floor, and she just took- keeps tossing them at him. Like, it’s almost comic. 

Todd: It is, actually. 

Craig: Like, she’s just, like, she’s just tossing knives at him, and they’re just ricocheting off of him, having absolutely no impact whatsoever.

Todd: Uh. 

Craig: But yeah, she finally stabs him and pushes him off a balcony. Again, callback to the original, and he’s laying there seemingly dead, and she goes to stab him again, as well she should. 

Todd: Yes. 

Craig: But- 

Todd: Like a freaking idiot. LL 

Craig: Cool J- But LL Cool J comes in- … and is like, “No, no, no, he’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead.” 

Todd: Oh, my God.

Craig: And I was ready… Like, I’m, not literally, but in my mind I’m screaming at the screen, “Just keep stabbing him,” like this is- 

Todd: Don’t stop … 

Craig: like, don’t listen to LL Cool J. LL Cool J- He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. 

Todd: Mind your business. 

Craig: You have been through this before. 

Todd: We have. Oh, my God. So then there’s the st- the, the police and everything, and they, they zip the m- the guy up in a body bag, and she somehow gets a hold of the van, right?

That is driving his body bag. 

Craig: Somehow she grabs a knife and one of the cop’s guns. 

Todd: Oh, yeah. And is like, runs- 

Craig: Is like, “Get back.” “

Todd: Get 

Craig: back.” “Get back. 

Todd: Let me do this.” 

Craig: Which I thought was also hilarious because she could have just slipped into the van. Yes. 

Todd: And she could have… You know what’s better than driving him away in the van?

Is just jumping in there and stabbing him through that body bag. Just finish. 

Craig: Or shooting him with that gun. 

Todd: Do both, right? You don’t have to drive down the road. Oh, my God. So then we get a whole other scene, which you can see coming a mile away, where of course he unzips himself from the body bag and they have a tussle inside the van.

And then, you know, she… He ends up k- tossed out of the van, and then he’s in front of the van, and then she goes to run him over, but as she hits, he’s standing, and as she hits him, of course, he just splays across the windshield and they get another moment where they’re staring at each other through the, through the glass.

And then of course instead of hitting a tree or anything effective happening, they end up going off the road. She tumbles down. I mean, s- it’s a huge dramatic thing. I don’t know how she got out of there in one piece. 

Craig: She slams on the brakes. He flies out through the windshield, so she hits him again and then they- Yeah

go, they, they, down the cliff. He ends up pinned to a tree. Now, I remember when this came out liking this and f- F- I don’t know. My little teenage heart found it, like, touching- Oh … that she had this moment of compassion for her brother. You know, he’s there. I also found it strange at the time that he’s kind of out of it, ’cause he’s pinned against this tree, and she calls his name more than once, and then he, it, it, like, he wakes up.

Like, he was unconscious and he wakes up, and he kind of feels at his head like he’s confused- 

Todd: Right … 

Craig: uh, uh, for a second. But then he looks at her, and they have this moment of eye contact, and he reaches out for her. 

Todd: Ugh. 

Craig: And she reaches out for him. And it’s hard to impossible to tell if he’s reaching for her looking for help or if he’s still just- Trying to grab her

trying to get her. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: Yeah, right. And she kind of, you know, she’s kind of crying, and she reaches out to him, but she’s also not stupid, and so she takes the ax and cuts his head off. 

Todd: Yeah. Pretty definitively. 

Craig: Dun, dun, dun. The end. Should 

Todd: be the end. 

Craig: Yeah, and his, and his head goes flying But God, I mean, part six picks up exactly where this leaves off and they retcon it.

I mean, not really. I, I guess they had this planned, but turns out that wasn’t really Michael. The real Michael Myers had swapped clothes with- 

Todd: Oh, God … a 

Craig: paramedic, and somehow made him unable to speak, cut out his tongue or something, put him in his clothes and mask and switched places with him. And so in the next one, Jamie Lee Curtis is in the insane asylum because she’s racked with guilt for killing an innocent man, and Michael shows up and kills her in the first five minutes.

Super stupid. 

Todd: Okay. 

Craig: Super dumb. But this one… The… Okay, the only other thing that I wanted to say that I didn’t say before is that ultimately the ones that started, the trilogy that started in 2018 were more in line with what Jamie Lee Curtis wanted to do here. Jamie Lee Curtis wanted Laurie Strode to be a mess, like just destroyed by what had happened.

Todd: Yeah. That’s a better setup. 

Craig: And I think Kevin Williamson convinced her, “No, you need, she needs to have more to lose, so let’s make her successful,” and, you know, she, n- she’s not just protecting her family, but sh- she’s got a life and all that. And, and so she went along with it. So we, we get, I think, what was ultimately more of Jamie Lee Curtis’s vision in the later ones.

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: And I think that works fine. I liked those movies okay. But if I were going to pick up any Halloween movie to watch just for fun, it would probably be this one. The first one’s great- 

Todd: But it’s slow and suspenseful. Yeah. This 

Craig: is- And, and it is. And it’s, it’s more like i- if you’re gonna watch it, you really should sit down and watch it.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: This one I feel like- 

Todd: Action-packed. It’s candy. 

Craig: I- right. Exactly. It’s candy. Like the first one is a good film, like you should pay attention and appreciate it. This one’s just easy and it’s short. It’s the shortest of all of them out of the whole franchise at, at 86 minutes. It’s a quick ride. Jamie Lee Curtis looks great and is, you know, I, I think, as she always does, she’s giving it her all, and there’s fun.

You know, if you are our age, as I think many of you are, and you grew up in this time, it’s a great throwback to that time and those actors that we were growing up with, like Josh Hartnett and Michelle Williams, and it’s just cool to see them as kids knowing, you know, what they’re doing now and that they’re still successful and working.

And it’s, it’s a very specific time capsule, but it’s very palatable, and I’ve kind of wanted to get to it for a long time ’cause the entire franchise isn’t my favorite. I, but I do enjoy it, and of all of them, I think that this is probably my favorite. It’s not the best one In terms of quality, but I think it’s probably my favorite.

Todd: Well, it’s not my favorite, but I guess with your caveats, I would agree with you that it’s a, it’s a big ride and it’s pretty… I mean, if you’re gonna just sit down and watch one, every- everything you said, basically. If you’re just gonna watch one and you just wanna watch one to say you’ve watched a Halloween movie, you could watch this.

You could also watch Scream. You could also kinda watch- Right … You Know What You Did Last Summer. They’re all kind of like this, you know? Uh-huh. It’s not that much different, so, you know, take your pick. It’s fine. Plus, you get Jamie Lee Curtis in it, you get some in-jokes. That’s, that’s cool, so- 

Craig: Yeah … 

Todd: that’s fine.

Ultimately, though, no, the first one is totally, totally great. And then the, the sequels are, run the gamut, uh, you know, for their own reasons or not. I found the Rob Zombie ones incredibly brutal to the point where I just was too distracted by that to enjoy them really. 

Craig: I thought they were really well done.

Not really my cup of tea. 

Todd: Yeah. Well 

Craig: done, but, but yes, very brutal. 

Todd: They were well done. They were very Rob Zombie, honestly. 

Craig: Yeah. Uh-huh. 

Todd: And then the last three, I honestly have only seen the first two. I didn’t see the very divisive third one, so, uh, I can’t, like, like, give you my whole feeling about it. But I actually like the first of the last, of this last trilogy.

I liked the setup. 

Craig: I liked the first one, too. I, I thought that both the second and the third I thought were disappointing. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Uh, again, I mean, I guess kind of spoiler alert, it’s an old movie at this point, but the third one does what this one tried to do, like, make it definitive, like, he’s dead. 

Todd: Mm.

Chopped up into tiny pieces. Burned at the stake.

I can’t wait. 

Craig: Oh. But anyway, thanks for indulging me, ’cause I have wanted to do this one for a long time. I think, you know, every Halloween we come up with a long list, and it’s always hard to pick. And this year we were like, “You know what? Let’s just each of us throw out our, our, our top two and, and go from there,” and we did, and neither of us had any objections, and this was, uh, I think, my first pick, and so I’m glad.

I, I appreciate you giving me the opportunity. It was fun to talk about. 

Todd: It really was, and a good Halloween movie. A pretty good, pretty good movie for Halloween. Well, thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. Let us know what you’re doing for Halloween. Just find us on our socials.

Search for Two Guys and a Chainsaw Podcast for Facebook, Instagram, or our website, chainsawhorror.com. Be a patron at patreon.com/chainsawpodcast. Five bucks a month gives you, uh, complete access to our unedited phone calls, plus minisodes. We’re doing a lot of fun minisodes this Halloween, and a lot of extra goodies back there for our patrons.

So please check that out if you’re interested. Until next time, I’m Todd. 

And I’m Craig. 

With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.