Director
Steve Miner

Cast
Jamie Lee Curtis,
Adam Arkin,
Josh Hartnett,
Michelle Williams,
L L Cool J

Music
John Ottman
&
Marco Baltraimi

To create a new name, new life, and new family Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) faked her own death to remove herself from the life, or lack thereof, of her psychotic murdering brother, Michael Myers.

Calling herself Keri Tate. She becomes the Head Mistress of a Private School waaaay out in the boonies. Her 17 year old son John (new comer Josh Hartnett) attends this school, allowing for Keri/Laurie to carefully, if somewhat overprotectively, watch over him, as she still fears Michael return to kill her, and her son. This paranoia has put a serious strain on their relationship, and the latest problem is that Ker/Laurie, will not allow her son to attend the school camp at Yosemite, due to leave...October 31^st…Halloween.
As a result, John’s Girlfriend Molly (Dawson creek’s Michelle Williams) and their two best friends all decide (in one way or another) to skip the camp so as they can have their own fun, a Halloween Party of sorts…little do they know..

To make matters worse, Keri/Laurie decides to let John go on the camp, but with his friends now not going skips it, unbeknownst to his mother.

With the kids gone, bar these 4, Keri/Laurie, and her school teacher boyfriend Will (Adam (chicago Hope) Arkin, have the place to themselves (except for the presences of the security Guard (L L Cool J), along for some comic relief), or at least they think they do, until the inevitable arrival of…….the Shape.

As far as sequels go, H20 remains quite faithful to the origins of Halloween. Not only do we have the return of Jamie Lee, in the role that made her a star, but also Nancy Stephens, who played Nurse Marion in 1 and 2. (she was the nurse who’s car was stolen my Michael in the original).
We'll do the same as the makers and ignore the fact that Laurie had a daughter Jamie who appeared in 4,5 and 6, named as an injoke to actress Jamie Lee Curtis
The Halloween films have had many other injoke references and pay homage to other great horror classics. Another was other names of characters, the name for Nurse Marion, was taken from ‘Psycho’ character Marion(killed in the shower)Crane (played by Janet Leigh).

Janet Leigh actually makes an appearance as Keri/Laurie’s PA, Norma, another homage to Psycho…..Norma is of course taken from Norma Bates, Norman Bates Mother. On top of that Janet Leigh is Jamie Lee Curtis’ Real Life Mother.

It is very unfortunate that actor Donald Pleaseants (Dr Loomis, named after another Psycho character who was Marion's boyfriend) died only days after completing his work on Halloween 6, as he had stuck with the series since the original. 
Had he been alive, he would have undoubtedly appeared in H20, so to pay, somewhat, homage to this great actor, is a voiceover during the opening credits with voicework by Tom Kane who sounds quite like Pleaseants..nice

So How Does This Transfer Hold Up??
Here’s another 16:9 Enhanced transfer, of a movie, that you won’t see any time soon on the region 1 DVD.
Presented in the original theatrical aspect of 2.35:1, this transfer is quite good, but ultimately lacks detail and definition. There is a slight haziness to the picture, giving it a rather soft look., and with this being such a dark picture, I found it often difficult to see what was happening in the shadows, and not just because it was dark, but because of the decrease in image depth. Colour saturation on the other hand is very good, with some terrific used of colour, and the print used for this looks to have been cleaned up very well as there was only a few instances of flecking.
Even for a 2.35:1 image, there was essentially no problems with aliasing (the better BV sourced ones don’t often have this problem).
Unlike good looking DVDs of late, this is the only one I’ve seen evidence of MPEG artifacting, thankfully it only showed up Once and in the opening sequence during the POV shot through the school. It’s about 13 minutes in as the camera whips past the green blackboard.

This movie has been delayed not only in Australia for a few months, but also the USA, and mostly because of problems with the Audio. It seems that the original audio tracks have a few moments of distortion and the initial audio masters given to studios worldwide to author for DVD were so bad that everyone had to wait until a new master was made.
Though there are still a few instances in H20 where you can hear some distortion, the Dolby Digital 5.1 audio mix is so dynamic that its pretty much covered up anyway, so you really have to be listening to pick up on any of it (and when you consider the awful moments of distortion in the audio great Air Force One, why bitch about it as no one seemed to care with these problems there:)
This aside, the very impressive dynamic mix will give your system a good workout, across the front sound stage at least, as it’s a little low in the surrounds.
I did find the level of this mix to be about 5 Db too loud, so you may want to drop it back a bit as it does pack quite a kick. (love the bass attack though)
The standard Dolby 2.0 mix is also on this DVD, which is recommended over a 5.1 mixdown to 2.0, if required.

For Extras, the menus have been backed with music from the movie (gotta love the sandman song ) and the cast interviews also include an animated blood drip (I like this:-) .
You also have a theatrical trailer, the Dolby Digital Train Trailer, Cast and Crew Interviews (which are actually pretty good and let you in on a few secrets about the movie) and there is also a 3 minutes behind the scenes featurette showing some goings-on during the making of the movie.

Given the differences between the region 1 version and the region 4, ours offers for the better, an 16:9 Enhanced picture, a few extras (actually credited on the slick), a much much lower price AND it’s a very decent followup to a horror classic….(but I’m horror biased :-)

Can’t wait for #8…..Halloween : H2K

Review Equipment
TV: Pioneer SD-T50W1 (16:9 RPTV)
DVD: Pioneer DV717  (using RGB outputs)
Receiver: Marantz SR870 & Sony SDP-EP9ES
Speakers:-
     Fronts: B&W 602
     Centre: B&W CDMC-SE
     Rears: Jamo Magic 14
     Subby: M&K V125 

- Reviewed 28th November 1999