 Hello and welcome to another episode of Frightfully Forgotten's Dead Wrong. And what are we drinking? We are drinking the Heretic Smoked Oktoberfest Lager. Mmm. Today we're going to cover 1998's Halloween H2O. Or H20. I always hated H2O. It just makes so stupid. It doesn't make any sense. We were originally going to do this as a trash or treasure segment because our tradition is we do a trash or treasure every year. Yeah. Two years ago we did Halloween 5, last year we did Halloween 6. This year we started filming at H2O Trash or Treasure, but then this happened. That'll bring us to the treasure of this movie. The first thing we have to mention is so we're forced to shoot it as a dead wrong because this movie basically in our opinion got everything dead wrong. Yeah. Basically they shit the bed and they rolled in it. Big time. This movie was super hyped up. I remember like the commercials, they were hyping back Jamie Lee Curtis coming back, reprising her role as Laurie Strode, pitting the two against each other, right? The final battle. This is where they finally meet and you know one of them is gonna get it. I remember the commercials were nuts, super hyped up. And then when we saw it, man, it did not live up to the hype for me whatsoever. No. But I still thought at the time it was maybe an okay movie. But it seems like as one of those movies that every time I watch it, I dislike it more and more. Yeah. To the point where I watched it to do the trash or treasure episode, where it's like I can't find anything redeeming about this movie. Yeah, it's not a movie that aged very well at all. No. It basically was, to me, it feels like a cash grab. Yeah. To, you know, Jamie Lee Curtis is coming back, 20th anniversary of the first movie. Let's not put in too much effort because we know it doesn't matter what we put out there. People go and buy tickets. That's right. To go see it in the theaters. And that's what they did. And they were correct because how can you not, right? And when you look at fans like us, we grew up. All we had when we were young was Halloween 4 that had just come out. And Halloween 5 and 6 that were brand new, right? So they were, you know, pretty decent movies on their own. When a new Halloween movie came out, you'd get excited. Back then you would, yeah. And so you went into it thinking, well, this is going to be like those. They're going to, you know, at the very least, they're going to be a, it's going to be a decent movie. Yeah. Wrong. So 25 years later, let's talk about how Halloween H2O is even worse than we thought it was. This is the first movie where Donald Pleasance is not in it. He had passed away, luckily right at the end of his scenes for Halloween 6. And his presence is, it's so missed in this movie. You can feel it. It's an enormous gaping hole. There is no more yin and yang. Nothing to chase Michael down. Yeah, there's no chase. There's nothing to fight him. Something to fill that void. And they didn't do that. They didn't come up with another character to fill that Loomis void. They had that too. Tommy Doyle in Halloween 6. And they just shit the bed again. They didn't take that character and use him effectively to become the new Loomis. No, and he should have been. If they wanted to do a proper sequel to Halloween 6, even though this movie kind of disregards everything after 2, Tommy Doyle would have made a great Loomis substitute. Opening credits start and we get introduced to this sick monologue thing with this fake Donald Pleasance voice doing the dialogue from the first movie. He had the blackest eyes. The devil's eyes are like, what the fuck are you guys doing? And the thing that gets me is like, it's not new dialogue. It's the same. So why not use the original dialogue? Use original Donald Pleasance dialogue. Why have some sick and person in there? And then it just makes you miss Loomis even more. When you hear the fake Loomis, it's kind of, it's a bit of a knife in the heart. He's not here anymore. Yeah, here it is. Here's the fake one for you for a bit. And like, well no, it makes it worse. Yeah, now you know he's truly not in this movie. Yeah, yeah, putting a fake one and there was worse than not having the real one in there. And they do that subsequently with the other movies, even though, you know, I don't want to get into that. Get it again? Yeah, it's like, they keep dredging him up. Yeah. Take somebody new to carry the torch. Yeah, that's what they really should have done here. So with the absence of Donald Pleasance, you need something to carry this movie. And that would be a really good story. And this movie is devoid of really any story, really, because the story doesn't really make sense and it's poor and it's full of fucking holes. They're going to do a sequel to number two and disregard the rest. But it's also kind of interesting where it could work as being a sequel to the other ones because she faked her death and all this stuff. So, okay, it could work as a sequel to four and five and six in a way. But I don't think they were going for that. I don't think they were smart enough for that. So what has Michael Myers been up to for 20 years then? I have no idea. He's all living in the city. Yeah, I know what you're like. It doesn't look like that. First of all, it doesn't look like that he was in a explosion at Haddonfield Memorial. No. His mask is pristine. He's pristine? It looks like he just walked out of the factory so to speak. He looks like he's brand spanking you off the fucking conveyor belt. Yeah. Not only where has he been, but what has he been doing? What has he been doing? Has he not been killing? And it took him this long to find Nurse Marion when she's right there. It took him 20 years to track down Nurse Marion to find Laurie Strode when she was right there the whole time. Like, what the hell? Was he sleeping? Was he in hibernation or something? Like, what the fuck? He went into cryogenic sleep. He's no fucking thing. He didn't age for 20 years. He's all pristine. Fucking demolition, man. And it all starts with the opening scene of the movie where Michael kind of tracks down that Nurse and then you got the other two kids that go into the house to like, you know, look for anybody who's broken in. And then Michael kills the Nurse. And then that's kind of it. That whole scene doesn't carry through to the rest of the movie. It's complete standalone. Yeah, that scene is basically fan service for fans who knew who that character was. Yeah. And I bet you anything, most people who saw this movie in 1998 didn't even realize that was Nurse Marion from one and two. That's right. Yeah, you have to be kind of a seasoned Halloween fan to know that. It's fan service, but it's also throwaway fan service because it doesn't move the plot forward at all, really. It's just there for it to be an opening scene. It's a cold open. So basically the story of this movie is no different than Halloween part two. It's Michael Myers stalking Laurie Strode because she's his sister, you know? That's the plot. It's a pretty weak plot. It doesn't move any of the Halloween mythos forward whatsoever. No, it's extremely stagnant and it feels stagnant by this point, too. And the atmosphere for this movie, all of the previous Halloween movies, at least to some degree, felt like it was Halloween time. You felt a sense of dread, right? There's somebody that's still out there stalking people. And they all have a similar look. Yeah, it's always dreary. Yeah, one, two, even three, four, five, and even six all have this underlying kind of same atmosphere. Kind of links them all. This movie takes place in what? California or something like that? California! So you already, you're taken out of that and you're put somewhere else. Which is fine because they have to do it at some point. It has to move at some point. They don't do it properly for this movie. But it doesn't feel like a Halloween movie. The atmosphere is too polished. This movie looks way too Hollywood to be a Halloween movie. It's that simple. It just looks way too polished and boring. The look of this movie is generic and boring. Every Halloween made up to this point was not the biggest budget movie, you know? Even the bigger budget of the franchise weren't the biggest budget. It helps to give it that look and feel. The music in this movie is one of the major fucking problems that I have with it. So okay, it has the Halloween theme in it for a little bit. And then that's it. The rest of the movie, it's all this generic orchestral run of the mill, every other 90s slasher. I know what you did last summer. Scream. The music was 50% of the fucking formula in the first movie. And actually all the other movies too, to a degree. Yeah. And this is like, oh, let's not use any of those Halloween themes. Let's just do some shitty generic orchestral score that doesn't drive any emotion or anything. It's, it's, oh. I know. As a Halloween fan, again, it's another knife to the heart. Yeah. Even the theme song, when it plays, you know, in the opening credits during the shitty, fake, pleasant monologue, it's too modernized. It's like a big orchestral string version. It's like, no, it's supposed to be down to earth, piano. And that's kind of it, you know. And you know, the percussion. And that's what makes it scary, is the fact it's so scant. Yeah. It's simple and scant. And the movie, the original movie was simple and scant. And that's what made the charm. You don't need a big budget version of the theme. No one wanted a big fucking orchestral version of the Halloween theme. Or like, look how much money we spent making it. Put a fucking guy behind a piano and play it, then take two seconds. And it was, it would be way more effective. Exactly. The music felt like a Home Alone Christmas movie to me. Like, it really did. That's, I wrote that down in the notes. Like, this is, this is what they use in Home Alone. The movie kind of feels like a Home Alone middle craft in the house and then Michael's trying to get in. And like, the characters for this movie are all one dimensional throwaway characters. Even the biggest character in this, Jamie Lee Curtis, is Laurie Strode. She is so boring and useless. Jamie Lee Curtis, we're not taking anything away from her as an actress. No, it's the writing. She's great. It's, but I didn't feel like I was watching Laurie Strode on the screen. I felt like I was just watching Jamie Lee Curtis. The writing for the character and what they were trying to do overshadowed a lot of stuff. Like they're making her into an alcoholic because she's got PTSD from the past, which is fine. But they start to focus too much on that and then the surrounding characters are like feeding that? Yeah. And so that's what you tend to just focus on. But then once Michael shows up, you're like, well, whatever. Even if she had PTSD and changed over time. That's fine. It would make sense. That's fine, but it doesn't, even then it doesn't seem like it's the same character. I think that's one thing that Halloween 2018 did better than Halloween H2O was it did seem like it's the same Laurie Strode, even though she changed. This movie doesn't seem like the same Laurie Strode, even though she changed. Not at all. She seems like a generic run of the mill, Jamie Lee Curtis. It could be any character she's playing in any movie. Yeah. But it's not Laurie Strode. Every Halloween she gets freaked out. She gets tense. Her son gets pissed off because she's tense. But it's like, okay, if you're afraid Michael Myers is going to come after you every Halloween, the stupidest thing to do is get pissed drunk. Wouldn't you want to be alert? If you really think he's coming for you, which he does, wouldn't you want to be alert and ready and not a fucking mess? The actions of the main character didn't make any sense. You seem more like a drama than a horror movie. It seemed like middle-aged mom drama. Middle-aged mom drinks too much drama rather than a horror movie. All the side characters suck. They're so unmemorable. The only other characters I can remember in this movie are, well, the son because his fucking hair cut. Who cut his kid's fucking hair? It's like somebody just sat him down and pissed and just sniffed away. But there's no memorable characters in here. He's like, oh yeah, you know, like most slashers have a cast of characters. You kind of like, yeah, you know them by name and you know them for their quarks. The characters have no character. That's right. It's that simple. Yeah. The kills for this movie are pretty damn generic too, right? And the movie doesn't take its time to build the suspense that a Halloween movie is known for. They show Michael walking around quite a bit. Too much. But he doesn't do anything. He just looks through all those windows. Then when he comes to LL Cool J when he parks that truck in front of the gate, I was like, okay, well, this is kind of neat. He's using that so he gets out and he's going to kill him. But he doesn't kill him. Then he goes back in and he starts talking to his girlfriend. You see him looking at him through the window and then he just walks away. I know. It's like, why don't you like, you know he's going to be a threat to you later because he's a fucking security guard. Kill him while you have the chance or leave him alive to deal with them later, maybe. Makes no sense. Nothing makes any sense. And Michael Myers in this movie fucking sucks for that reason. The whole movie is him walking around looking through windows. Yeah. And they show Michael Myers way too much. He's not the shape. He's not mysterious. No. He's just a guy walking around like and he's not intimidating or imposing. No, and he's all shitty looking like he's all baggy. He's fucking jumpsuits all too big and you see his eyes all the time, which is like, well, no. Yeah. And the mask almost seems like it has a little bit too much character. Well, the mask fucking changes throughout the movie. It's not the same mask. It fucking changes and it changes in the same scene shot to shot. Right. It's like, what? How come his mask is changing? He's chasing Laurie Stroke. One shot. He's wearing that one mask and another shot. He's wearing a different mask. Yeah. He's like, who is in charge of continuity on this thing? But even before that, why are there more than one design mask on set? Yeah. Is he the same fucking mask? Just be one. What the fuck? I know that. And also I'm positive that there's a CGI mask in this. I didn't notice that. Fuck. I had to stop it, rewind the movie a little bit like, yeah, it's all drawn in. It's all fucking CGI drawn. And you can see all the digital and everything. What the fuck? Like, what's going on with his mask in this movie? The fact that you see his eyes is like a huge no-no. It's a big knock to the character. Because you can relate to him with seeing his eyes. You're not supposed to. And the eyes he has and he's like, baby blue, like little puppy dog. Yeah, so it's like little Michael walking around. Oh yeah, look how cute he is. Look at the cute knife. Yeah, it's fucked like. And the fact that they use the Loomis dialogue in the beginning of the movie, stating he's got the blackest eyes, the devil's eyes. And then he's got these baby blue fucking, you know, like what? Yeah, it's like, it's a complete star contrast. Like, you guys know what the fuck you're doing or what? And the jump scares they use in this movie are way too much. Fucked it, every scene almost has. And it's all the same jump scares. It's not different. It's all the same routine. Yeah, just somebody putting their arm on your back. Or somebody just happens to be standing there and the person turns around. It's all the same jump scare. This movie is blatantly inspired by how successful Scream was. And it shows too much. Yeah. It shows way too much. This is way too much like a Scream movie than it is a Halloween movie. And like, just the fact that Michael Myers is basically like Ghostface, as to like how clumsy he is, how much damage he takes. Ghostface and a Michael Myers outfit is what this movie is. You can see a lot of the tropes that they're trying to use from the original movie. And they're forcing them into scenes. Like there's that one scene where Michael falls through that door or whatever and he's like laying on his stomach. And then they show him from far away and he like clumsily gets out and then looks over. And does that sit? I like this one, but he doesn't sit up. He like, you know, like kind of folds himself back out. Like, it's so shitty. It's so shitty. It's hilarious and it shouldn't be hilarious. It's fucking. Yeah. And you know, like when he stabs the loved interest and he lifts like a Halloween 2 when he kills a nurse, it's just all so unoriginal. By that point too, you're not paying homage. Right. You're just shitting on the originals. This movie was basically conceived to have like a last final showdown between Laurie Strode and Michael Myers. And again, it doesn't feel like a showdown between Laurie Strode and Michael Myers. It feels like a showdown between Jamie Lee Curtis and a bumbling idiot. You can tell that they wrote the movie around the fucking ending. And that's the worst way to write a movie. You know, like he's trapped behind a tree in the car and like looking like a stupid idiot. And then he's all reaching for and you see his eyes. Like if there was one point in the movie you should see his eyes. I can see maybe that scene, but it's shot all wrong. And it's like, it doesn't convey the emotion that they're going for. And then she just drops his head off. It's like, well, yeah, it's like, well, okay, I guess that's it. Yeah. And it's like, okay. All right. As climactic as it is, it's almost just as anti-climactic. Because you're also supposed to care about Michael to a certain degree as well. Right. They kind of start to get into that type of shit in the fourth and fifth movie. He does have something in him. Humanity hiding there somewhere. Yeah. But see, this is where Donald Pleasance comes in. This is where Dr. Loomis comes in. He's supposed to draw that out. Right. There's nobody there to draw that kind of shit out in him anymore. No. So you just get like a one-dimensional, you don't feel any fucking dimension for these characters whatsoever. Ever. You nailed it there. To me, this does not feel like a Halloween movie at all. No. People who like, oh, Halloween 3 isn't a real Halloween movie. Halloween 3 is way more of a Halloween movie than this ever will be. In a lot of ways, Halloween 3 feels more Halloween-like than even the first movie. Yeah. When you think about it. Yeah. So those are all the reasons why we think Halloween H2O fucking sucks. It sucks. Big time. It's probably the- Yeah. I didn't even say it's worse than resurrection just because all the hype they built to it and how much promise that was supposed to be there and how much they dropped the ball. Yeah. It's like they- It was supposed to be up here and it just took a fucking note of stuff. Like it's mediocre at best. It's a horror movie. It's mediocre. It's a Halloween movie. It's fucking blasphemy almost. It is more. It's horrible. There's nothing redeeming about this movie at all. And there isn't any reason why personally I would ever watch it again. The only redeeming thing really is the fact that put Nurse Mary in the beginning and seeing the kid with the skate through his face. That's it. That's the only thing I like about this movie is a kid with a skate through his fucking face. The only scene thing that I liked in this is when that guy guns down LL Cool J. Because he's all in the shadows and he's all trying to stop things and he gets all gunned down. So let us know what you guys think about Halloween H2O. We think they got it completely dead wrong.