Halloween H20

In 1978, director John Carpenter gave us pure evil in Mike Myers. The movie begins in 1963 where 6 year Michael is sent to a mental institution for stabbing his older sister with a kitchen knife. 15 years later, he escapes the hospital and returns to Haddonfield to finish off what he started.

20 years later, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) has a new name, lives in a new town with her son John (Josh Hartnet) and works as the headmistress at the prestigous Hillcrest Academy in California. It is almost Halloween night again and the memories of that fateful day still haunt her, even knowing that Michael is dead - or is he.

The night is upon us and soon Michael has made it into the school grounds, searching for his sister and the scariest family reunion yet. This time Laurie doesn't run, she fights until the very end.

Exceptional video quality, or is that because I had watched the VHS version about a month earlier? Another great transfer from the folk at VR giving this image a deep black image that does the film justice. Black level is great and shadow detail holds up well.

In the various day scenes there is excellent detail in the image and a natural sharpness which is always pleasant to see. Colors could have been a little richer in some scenes yet this could simply have been all manner of combination of things here from film stock to directors intent. Strike that, color is fine.

I didn't see any mpeg artifacts and given that the disc is only spread across a single layer, it's good to see that the compression holds up very well indeed.

As with all slasher movies, the sound adds to the fear factor. This soundtrack is no exception with an eeriness that surrounds the presence of the evil one. The most attractive feature of the audio is the musical score. The original, composed by John Carpenter himself, and the various improvements that Alan Howarth did for the sequels only emphasised the original haunting notes. John Ottman produces a more dynamic representation in this film and it certainly produces that air of expectancy around the villain.

Your surround and directionality sensors will get some tickling as will your subwoofer. Dialogue is always clear and discernable throughout the movie and even during some scenes with the rock soundtrack pumping, you're always in the clear with the audio. There were no lip synch issues with the Start dvd player and Paul had my Pioneer so you may have to check other reviews for any other hardware issues.

This package features the basic Village Roadshow extras. Included is the original theatrical trailer and a short behind the scenes featurette.

Throw in biographies and interviews with the director and actors and you've covered them all. As always, 16x9 enhancement across everything is standard with VR so no complaints there.

While not as great as the classic original and the 80% decent sequel, it is a cut above the deviations of the previous four sequels that came before it.

A nice way to complete the series by bringing back Jamie Lee Curtis so she can settle the score with her evil brother. If it tried to stand on its own as a single movie, it'd fall over totally drunk.