Halloween: Resurrection / YMMV

Alternative Character Interpretation:
- Michael Myers wasn't in the whole movie. He was there during the opening scene where he killed Laurie but the rest of the movie involved the serial killer fanatic that Myers encountered in the opening movie took his place, while the real Myers is just hiding somewhere. After he killed Laurie him passing the knife to that fanatic could be seen as his way of saying "I'm retired" (which would potentially be a satisfying explanation for fans who did not like how Michael was so easily defeated, as well as for fans who might want the H20 timeline to be revisited in some future film(s) but without the ability to use Laurie as a character if Jamie Lee Curtis is truly done with the role after Halloween Ends).
- Why did Michael spare Freddie after he chewed him out while dressed as him? Was he hoping to frame Freddie for his kills? Was he so annoyed by him that he thought saving him for last would be satisfying? Or did the methodical Michael just want to take advantage of the information Freddie gave him while chewing him out - that the backdoor was unlocked and Nora was alone, unprotected, in the shed? Supporting this take, the next time we see Nora, she's been murdered, and the next time a character approaches the back door, it's locked, giving Michael the opportunity to corner and kill them.
Ass Pull: The whole "Michael replaced an ambulance worker for himself at the end of H20" revelation at the start. It wasn't exactly a true Ass Pull, since producer Moustapha Akkad had planned the idea to get out of H20's ending ever since they shot it, but even hardcore fans didn't buy it. It was originally worse; the Michael Myers in H20 wasn't actually Michael, it was an obsessive fan. It may have made more sense, but it would've been a very hard twist to defend. Par for the course for Akkad, who signed off on the ending of 4 with Jamie taking over as the killer in the series, but had no intention of following up on it.
Awesome Music: One good thing many fans like about this mostly reviled entry is its rendition of the main theme, a slowed down version of the classic song that is able to be both hauntingly beautiful and chilling at the same time.
Base-Breaking Character: Freddie is either loathed for removing all the menace from Michael Myers and mostly existing to stroke Busta Rhymes' ego, or loved for bringing some life and humour to an otherwise dull film and supplying most of the films' Funny Moments.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The opening scene of the film, with Laurie Strode's narration about "the tunnel" and "a door to Heaven or Hell," really has no bearing on the plot.
Common Knowledge: Busta Rhymes' character, Freddie, has taken a lot of flack for supposedly effortlessly defeating Michael Myers with his martial arts skills. In reality, things weren't quite so one-sided; Myers was actually winning the fight up until Freddie managed to electrocute him and turn the tables.
Complete Monster: Michael Myers. See here.
Ensemble Dark Horse:
- Jim tends to be fairly well liked, primarily due to his funny one-liners and style.
- Brad Loree as Michael Myers is also praised by many fans, claiming how he harkened back to Nick Castle from the original film with his performance.
Fan Nickname: Halloween Colon Resurrectum, amongst detractors of the movie.
Fanon Discontinuity: Many fans prefer to regard H20 as the ending to the original series, if only because it was a great definitive end to the series and this movie utterly disrespects that. They aren't alone either, as Jamie Lee Curtis and John Carpenter don't have a high opinion of the movie either. Curtis sees the movie as a joke, while Carpenter tends to ignore all films past the first one (until the 2018 movie, which he had a hand in making and has spoken highly of).
Ham and Cheese: Busta Rhymes is clearly having a good time with his role. He's easily the best part of the movie.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Jamie Lee Curtis having Laurie killed in the opening sequence in order to not do any more films in the series. 16 years later, she returned to the role yet again — for a trilogy, in fact — undoing the events of all films except the first.
- Katee Sackhoff as a giggling blonde airhead who gets killed off quickly, considering she'd eventually get typecast as Action Girls.
Narm: It's all over the place in this movie.
- The blatant Character Shilling at the beginning where Sara simply whispers the answer to a question in class, and her professor inexplicably hears her and goes on praising her with zero authenticity.
- Something falls and breaks behind Sara, and her startled scream is so loud that she shatters glass. What's more is Bianca Kajlich couldn't scream and so had to be dubbed.
- Nearly all of Michael's kills are slightly hilarious. Impaling a guy with the camera tripod, or decapitating a girl with one stroke of a butcher's knife, for instance. Earlier than that, he bursts through a mirror (and presumably the wall it hung from) to stab a guy to death, whose dying screams of terror no one hears in the small house.
- The Deleted Scene showing Nora’s death, because of the terrible, terrible acting.
- The mask used in the movie, while seen as slightly better than the ones used in H20, is still hard to find scary, mostly his eyes look like they’re bugging out of the mask in many shots. Then there’s the Groucho Marx eyebrows...
- Michael dramatically recoils when Rudy throws a handful of black pepper into his eyes. Michael, who has been shot dozens of times over the years, including in the eyes, and was set on fire.
- How does Freddie end up defeating Michael, one of the most famous movie villains ever? By jamming a sparky electrical cord into his crotch, comically electrocuting him.
- When Michael pulls his Not Quite Dead routine at the end, there's an abrupt wolf howl for no reason.
Narm Charm: Busta Rhymes' entire performance as Freddie. It's completely out of place in a Halloween movie, yet he's the only one bringing any heart to the film besides the actor playing Michael Myers.
Nightmare Fuel:
- Donna's death is actually pretty horrifying. After discovering a half-eaten rat below the house, she gets chased to an old gate with a sharp railing sticking out. She tries to climb through it, but Michael gets there and just calmly forces her back-first through the spike.
- Sara's realization that everything happening is real and desperately trying to escape and beg those watching for help is also pretty nerve-wracking.
Nightmare Retardant: Most of the kills in this movie could’ve been legitimately scary, as they had some decent setups, but the inclusion of the webcams, and the cutting back and forth between the webcam footage and the onscreen footage drains any suspense they could’ve had, as it makes it look more nauseating than scary.
Retroactive Recognition:
- That's Kara "Starbuck" Thrace's head being lopped off in the middle of the movie, and Kevin Myers getting stabbed in the head.
- And Jennifer Morgan escaping the house in the end.
Sequelitis: This is an almost unanimously reviled film, often ranked as the worst in the series. It's also seen as completely unnecessary, given that the ending to H20 neatly wrapped things up and the writers had to go to extreme measures to retcon Michael's death. Some even find the film to be of Direct to Video quality.
Signature Scene:
- "Trick 'r' treat, muthafucka."
- Also, the unforgettable "Two Michaels" scene.
- The opening 17 minutes between Laurie and Michael, as it’s the only part of the movie that many fans agree actually felt like a genuine Halloween movie.
So Bad, It's Good: Resurrection is the goofiest Halloween to date, what with the silly retcon at the start, Busta Rhymes using martial arts he 'learned' from watching old kung-fu flicks to beat up Michael Myers, "Trick or Treat, mothafucka!", and so on.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
- Some felt that Donna had potential to be an interesting character, and her actress was somewhat trying. But she's the second one killed off.
- Many wished that the film, after killing off Laurie, followed John and Molly as the main characters and their fight against Michael seeing as how Halloween II sets up the idea that he’s trying to kill everybody in his family.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
- The cancelled continuation of this film would've been Laurie's son seeking revenge against Michael for killing his mother. One has to wonder why that idea wasn't this movie in the first place.
- The prologue with Laurie lying in wait in the mental hospital for Michael is also interesting enough and could have made for a feature-length film on its own. The 2018 sequel would use some of those very ideas.
  - Related to Laurie being institutionalized in the opening sequence and the way that the previous film ignored the Halloween 4-6 timeline, the film could have chosen to almost seamlessly reverse the arguably already soft Retcon of Jamie Lloyd's storyline in the previous film by simply acknowledging many of the elements from the third and final issue of the Halloween CHAOS! Comics series (published in 2001) that ties 4-6 and H20 together, in which Laurie Strode herself becomes the "Shape" and is straightjacketed in a mental hospital at the end of the issue (e.g., by claiming that Laurie fled the scene of the paramedic beheading and suffered a psychotic break that caused her to temporarily "become" Michael, much like Jamie did in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, before being apprehended, becoming lucid again, and atoning for her previous actions by continuing with her original goal to end the cycle of violence and kill Michael, who is actually still alive unlike in the last of the CHAOS! comics). Having killed innocent people herself in both H20 and the final CHAOS! Comics issue, it would also possibly explain why she is almost affectionate toward Michael as she dies (being able to relate to him better than before as both his sister and someone who followed in his footsteps as a one-time serial murderer).
- The very concept of people getting trapped inside the infamous Myers house with Michael himself stalking and killing them is an idea that honestly has promising potential to be genuinely terrifying and a neat way of revisiting familiar franchise territory after H20's change of scenery.
  - The film sets up an intriguing twist on Michael's character - that he still considers the Myers house his home. This is the first time he's had a reason for killing people other than his family members other than "they're in my way". And the film does nothing with it. Halloween Kills executed the idea in a much better fashion.
- The fact that absolutely nobody in Haddonfield seems to be up in arms or protesting about Freddie Harris using the infamous Myers House as a setting for his television show for profit, essentially capitalizing on the murderous reputation surrounding the house. Keep in mind that a majority of Michael's body count includes various residents of Haddonfield itself. It's a massive wasted opportunity to showcase how deeply affected the town still is from the murders.
  - Hell, the fact that Haddonfield itself doesn't have a particularly significant role in the story at all is disappointing considering it'd be rather interesting seeing how it's changed within this separate continuity from the Cult of Thorn trilogy.
Took the Bad Film Seriously:
- As stated above, Brad Loree's performance as Michael Myers is considered by a large amount of fans to be the sole good thing in what is universally agreed on to be the worst entry in the franchise. To this day, some fans still hope that he gets a second chance to play the character in a much better Halloween film.
- Going by their in-depth on-set interviews, most of the actors don't seem to be aware of just how ridiculous of a movie they're in... except for Luke Kirby (Jim), who confessed in his interview that since he was in a "campy" film, he didn't have to worry too much about his performance. Busta Rhymes also appears to be playing up the ridiculousness of his role.
- One review noted that Daisy McCrackin was really trying to make her character interesting but didn't get enough screen time to quite get there.
Unintentional Period Piece:
- The film dates itself to the 2000s by incorporating the then-cutting edge technology into the plot. Sara is the only character with a phone that can send and receive messages - and it's on a typical 2000s flip phone. Her and Miles are friends from an online chatroom, only knowing each other by screen names, and Jen is suspicious of him for this reason - when even ten years later, online friends would be so common due to social media (which of course isn't mentioned). The film shows it was also made when reality TV was at the height of pop culture (Jen referencing Survivor at the time too). The fact that the characters don't have access to the internet 24/7 dates the film to a time when it was only starting to become a fixture in everyday life.
- The film attempted to get in on the Internet gaining widespread attraction by having its main plot center around an Internet reality show hosted by Busta Rhymes of all people (playing another character, mind you). However, all of the extremely forced references to how cool and up-to-date the Internet is only succeed in severely dating the film to its early 2000s roots. No one watching today, in a world where the Internet is so massively ubiquitous that most people spend half their day using it, would ever find the inclusion of it as anything but forced and laughable.

YMMV / Halloween: Resurrection

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