THE FONZIRELLI MANEUVER

A Film Review of "Halloween Resurrection"

Copyright 2002 Glenn Walker

This is the eighth installment in the Halloween series and it's starting to show its age. The Michael Myers bits are boring and predictable, it could've been any slasher icon in this part, the plot could have featured Freddy or Jason just as easily and it shouldn't work that way.

This one, like the last one and the first two, stars Jamie Lee Curtis who obviously doesn't know what the Fonzirelli Maneuver is. Henry Winkler played Fonzie on "Happy Days" in the 1970s and 1980s. Unlike other sitcom actors whose shows become successful and feel the need to move on to 'better things,' Winkler stayed with that show 'til the very end. He rode that horse until it died beneath him.

Jamie doesn't know about this maneuver. If Jamie Lee Curtis had had any sense she would have been in all eight Halloween movies and she wouldn't be trying to eliminate her own character or the lead protagonist. Can't wait to see her next big career move… maybe another guest spot on "Buck Rogers?"

After a great resolution to the questions left from the end of the last movie we hit a dead boring streak where this flick's plot is set up. It's a live internet reality show where kids spend Halloween night in Michael Myers' boyhood home. It's typical slasher flick fare after that. If you do drugs, you die, if you have sex, you die, and so on like clockwork. The suspense doesn't kick in until the heroine pulls out her palm pilot to get instant messaged on the live broadcast she's part of.

The cast of kids is adequate, name actor Sean Patrick Harris merely sits and collects a paycheck while rapper Busta Rhymes displays unique charisma as the internet con man with delusions of martial arts grandeur. Rhymes has got a career in Hollywood if he wants it. And once again, with her acting performance here Tyra Banks proves what a great model she is.

It's typical, but worth a look for fans of the genre, a nice morsel to keep us satisfied until Jason vs. Freddy…


The above previously appeared in a slightly different form at
Project Popcorn
http://www.whitevioletpictures.com/popcorn/