1) It was the first one made in the 21st century, and it shows.
2) It was the first time in the series a second movie was directed by the same person. Rick Rosenthal, who directed Halloween II, is back for more with Halloween: Resurrection, but hasn't improved in the 20 years since his first franchise appearance. (Incidentally, the remaining five films in the series to date would be directed by two different directors, neither of whom directed fewer than two films.)
3) It definitively clarified something I was starting to get an idea about in the last new movie, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, that being that this franchise is now treating Halloween 4, 5 and 6 as if they never happened. How do I know this? Early on we meet a mental patient who is obsessed with serial killers -- knows when they're born, knows how many people they killed, etc. When he recites the litany of Michael Myers' crimes, he conveniently skips straight from the events of Halloween and Halloween II to the events of Halloween H20, with no mention of what can now be considered the ill-fated Jamie Lloyd side trilogy. I'd argue that without the dozen to 20 deaths in those three movies, Myers is not nearly the legendary serial killer we know him to be, as his crimes are essentially limited to the initial murder when he was six, the murders across one night covered in the first two movies, and the murders 20 years later. That is certainly impressive, but in terms of sheer body count, it's got nothing on the other killers this guy mentions, Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy. It also makes it curious indeed that Laurie Strode was so worried about his return in Halloween H20, because it means he had been gone for a full 20 years at that point, and was not reasonably considered a threat to anybody.
4) It is sort of trying to end Jamie Lee Curtis' commitment to this series? She's in what essentially functions as a cold open in this mental institution, where she is fooling the nurses into thinking she's catatonic. Of course, she's hiding all her pills in a stuffed teddy bear, just waiting for this night that she somehow knows Michael is going to return to torment her? She's right, and she again has him where she wants him -- this time, the right him, though having to check by removing his mask forfeits her upper hand. (When she beheaded him at the end of the last movie, it turns out it was a paramedic with Michael's mask pushed over his head. He couldn't tell her this because Michael crushed his larynx. As ridiculous explanations go, it's not as terrible as it could be.) Anyway, she gets stabbed in the back and falls from the roof of the institution. We don't see her dead close up, so basically it's Curtis getting to decide whether that's it for Laurie or leaving open a plausible door for her return. Which we know she took since she's in the last three movies that I'll get to this month.
5) In a series that is mostly bad, this might be the worst Halloween of them all.
If I found the look and feel of the one two movies ago, The Curse of Michael Myers, stultifying because of the particular moment in time it was made, I might find Resurrection even more so. It's got a sort of Dawson's Creek look to it, which I suppose makes sense, as it was contemporaneous with the last few seasons of that show. (And don't forget, Michelle Williams was actually in the most recent Halloween movie before this, which coincided with the beginning of Dawson's Creek.)
But far more dated is the central conceit of this movie, that six college students are chosen to wear body cameras to spend Halloween night in the original Myers home, still looking as it did nearly 25 years earlier (which is more evidence that those three middle movies did not happen), for a live telecast broadcast over the web. Some of this perspective is not the fault of the movie. Technology that seemed cutting edge 22 years ago in 2002 can't help but feel a bit silly now. But the cheap production of the whole thing is what really grates.
The masterminds of this venture, called Dangertainment, are played by Busta Rhymes and Tyra Banks. Rhymes is a passable actor. Banks is not. Fortunately, she has less to do.
Other cast members of note are Sean Patrick Thomas, Thomas Ian Nicholas (this was the era when everyone had three names, though Jamie Lee Curtis did it first) and Katee Sackhoff, though it should be noted that she is credited here as "Katee Sachoff." I could not figure out the reason for this spelling of her name, considering that her birth name does appear to be "Sackhoff." Maybe at that time she was too worried about its similarity to Jack Off?
Everything about the way this movie is made is slapdash and perfunctory, which includes both the logic and the choreography of the kills. Any apparent "cleverness" is supposed to be contained within the use of these web cameras. Don't forget, this was the first few years after found footage became a thing with The Blair Witch Project. And while some of the movies inspired by Blair Witch did interesting things with it, Halloween: Resurrection does not.
One of the funniest things about it is that there is a disconnect between even the advertising and the movie itself. The poster above makes it look like Curtis interacts with the other people who appear on Michael's knife, but she does not. And her hair doesn't look like that, as it's worn long in this film. Just a lazy and uninspired effort all around.
And so it is time to reboot Halloween again with the Rob Zombie movies, only the second of which I will be watching since I just saw the first one in 2022. Depending on how you define it, this could be considered the fourth reboot of the series already. Here are the previous ones:
1) Halloween III: Season of the Witch, to take the series away from anything having to do with Michael Myers, albeit only for one movie.
2) Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, bringing Michael back but making the protagonist for the next three movies Jamie Lloyd, who was at that time supposed to be Laurie Strode's daughter.
3) Halloween H20, to erase the previous three movies and bring Laurie back.
Since we know there is one more coming after Zombie's movie's with the David Gordon Green trilogy, in a very real way this is a series that has been rebooted five times already. And when they inevitably make some future Michael Myers movie -- even though the last one of Green's is called Halloween Ends -- that will make it an even half-dozen.
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