Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
Dimension Films | Release Date: August 5, 1998 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
52
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 20 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
10
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleBob Graham
Not a routine cut-and-paste horror but a full-fledged revenge fantasy -- and a completely satisfying one. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKevin Thomas
Halloween: H20 is as stylish and scary as it is ultra-violent. It's a work of superior craftsmanship in all aspects. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
If you can accept the flouting of logic and credibility that usually goes with this kind of horror picture, this scary and suspenseful genre exercise, chock-full of false alarms and brutal shocks, really delivers. Read full review
80
NewsweekAllison Samuels
The plot is predictable, but the frights are real. Read full review
70
VarietyDennis Harvey
While plot mechanics aren't wildly imaginative, pic nonetheless delivers requisite jolts in an above-average package. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
Most of the innumerable sequels were tripe, but this one has a freshness -- even a kind of wit -- mixed in with all the blood. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
H20 is the second-best entry into the series, and, although it's nowhere close to the level established by Carpenter's classic, it avoids the excesses that ruin many would-be horror movies. Read full review
60
The New York TimesLawrence Van Gelder
For horror film devotees eager to know how this unseasonable visit from the darker spirits of autumn rates, frankly, it's more marketing trick than moviegoer treat. Read full review
60
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
This efficient fright machine features a knowing cameo by Curtis's mom -- "Psycho's" Janet Leigh -- a couple of bloody good scares and a genuinely affecting performance from Curtis. Read full review
60
EmpireKim Newman
Director Steve Miner, on board because Carpenter passed, made two of the early Friday The 13th sequels and manages the business of the sudden knee-jerk shocks with ease, realising (as the previous sequels didn't) that Halloween movies are supposed to be scary not violent. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyStaff(Not Credited)
Like Demi Moore leaking tears or Sharon Stone crossing her legs, Jamie Lee Curtis screaming is one of those glorious sights that inspire a generation of moviegoers to binge on popcorn. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
He can take a licking and keep on slicing. In the latest Halloween movie, he absorbs a blow from an ax, several knife slashes, a rock pounded on the skull, a fall down a steep hillside and being crushed against a tree by a truck. Whatever he's got, mankind needs it. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Miner strives to imbue the film with the requisite autumnal haze of the original but then gives up midway through and instead resorts to the standard stalk 'n' slash formulas. Read full review
50
Washington PostStephen Hunter
The movie, directed by Steve Miner, a "Friday the 13th" vet, never quite gins up the giddy, sick, politically incorrect power of the more high-powered "Screams" of late. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
It's campy fun, but if you've seen the previous sequels, the plot grows tiresome and lacks shock value. Read full review
40
Film ThreatRon Wells
BRILLIANT and WITTY. Those are two words that will not be used to described this film. Read full review
40
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
The story is thrown together in the most perfunctory way possible, and director Steve Miner's ("Friday The 13th Part 3: 3D," "My Father The Hero") idea of a scary moment is having things spookily jump out of the blue. Read full review
30
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
The 20th-anniversary sequel to the groundbreaking horror film-and the sixth in an increasingly awful series about the bulletproof murderer Michael Myers-is a styleless and predictable affair. Read full review
25
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Steve Miner is no Carpenter. A directing veteran of the Friday the 13th saga (parts II and III, in case you care), he's a plodder who favours long, dull buildups to short, dull climaxes -- it's slaughter by the numbers. Read full review
0
San Francisco ExaminerBob Stephens
Unfortunately, the contemporary horror movie has ceased being an individual work full of surprises and fresh manifestations of the Gothic imagination - it has, instead, been reduced to the level of an inflexible, repetitious, ritualistic event. Read full review
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