Michael Myers arrives years after his first rampage at the house of the nurse (Nancy Stephens) who helped Dr. Loomis transport him, to find out more about his sister’s disappearance.  After dispatching some obstacles, including a young Joseph Gordon Levitt, he travels to California to find his sister (Jamie Lee Curtis) living under an assumed name and running a private school.  With most of the students away for Halloween, she will have to fight Michael for her life and the life of her son (Josh Hartnett).  Can she end Michael’s reign of terror or will he finally satisfy his blood lust for his sister?

The sixth sequel to the original Halloween decides to discard films four through six and return to the original story line involving Michael and his sister.  Considerably less gory than most of the other Halloween films, this effort, released by Dimension Films, clearly meant to capitalize on the wave of teen-oriented horror films that came in the wake of Scream.  Kevin Williamson even worked on the story for this film, although he was ultimately uncredited.  The return of Jamie Lee Curtis improves the level of acting relative to most of the previous films in the series.  The ending also appears to provide a definitive end to the story line, although the presence of one more sequel proves that nothing ever really represents the end.  Simply watching the first two films and then this effort actually makes for a good horror trilogy and this film is recommended to those who left the series after 1981.  ✰ ✰ ½

MJM  04-13-2012