‘Halloween: Resurrection’ so bad it’s almost scary

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In theaters

HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION, directed by Rick Rosenthal, written by Larry Brand and Sean Hood, 89 minutes, rated R.

In Rick Rosenthal’s “Halloween: Resurrection,” Michael Myers, the beleaguered yet beloved serial killer of the “Halloween” franchise, dusts himself off from the series’ last film, “Halloween: H2O” – in which he was decapitated, no less – and goes on another killing spree, this one aired live in cyberspace.

What a trooper.

And what a concept. The film, from a script by Larry Brand and Sean Hood, is second in awfulness only to this year’s other nostalgic stinker, “Jason X,” which found “Friday the 13th’s” Jason Voorhees being cryogenically frozen, rocketed into outer space and realizing fantastic new powers in the year 2455 as the indestructible Uber-Jason.

Myers might not get the fancy new moniker Jason enjoys in his film, but he is allowed a special reunion with his sister, Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis, perfectly humiliated), whose sudden release from a mental institution is assured in the film’s gruesome opening moments, which I’ll leave for you.

The film’s real story, if you can call it that, gets rolling after the initial bloodbath. It rests with Internet entrepreneur Freddie Harris (Busta Rhymes), who along with his assistant, Nora (Tyra Banks), handpicks a sexy group of six twentysomethings to schlep

around Michael’s childhood home on Halloween night.

Locking them inside, Harris broadcasts the event live over the Internet on his Web site, www.DangerTainment.com, which can be watched all over the world by anonymous voyeurs who, like the people inside the house, have no idea that the real Michael Myers is biding his time beneath the basement stairs and that, for some reason, he still has an ax to grind.

What ensues is exactly the sort of dull, predictable, witless string of butcher-knife murders audiences have come to expect from the series, which began so promisingly with John Carpenter’s terrific 1978 original, “Halloween,” but which has long since impaled itself with such howlers as “Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers,” “Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers” and “Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers.”

I’m longing for “Halloween 9: The End of Michael Myers,” which, following the laws of the horror movie franchise, will naturally will be followed with “Halloween 10: Son of Michael Myers.”

Can’t wait to see what they do with that.

Grade: D-

On video and DVD

COLLATERAL DAMAGE, directed by Andrew Davis, written by David Griffiths and Peter Griffiths, 110 minutes, rated R.

There’s nothing quite like the intrusion of real life to showcase just how bad some hopeful Hollywood blockbusters really are. Take Andrew Davis’ “Collateral Damage,” for instance. Real life has rendered it obsolete.

Before Sept. 11, the film would have served only as a reminder of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s waning influence in movies. It would have stood as his third flop in a row, suggesting that the actor had become, like so many other ’80s relics, a man unable to connect with a public that once adored him.

But since Sept. 11, the film’s glaring improbabilities, silly situations and implausible action sequences are more ludicrous than ever given the tough education in terrorism Americans have received in the long months following the attacks on our country.

In the film, Schwarzenegger is Gordy Brewer, an L.A. fireman whose wife and son are killed by a terrorist’s bomb. It’s an effective scene, one that can’t be viewed without recalling the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon. But since this is essentially a Schwarzenegger movie, with all that implies, Davis undermines the rest of the movie with a string of unlikely scenarios featuring his pumped-up hero.

Furious that the CIA isn’t doing enough to catch the terrorist who murdered his family, Gordy sets out to bring the man, identified as an American-hating Colombian named The Woolf (Cliff Curtis), to justice on his own. Predictably, it’s a journey peppered with peril and danger, but surprisingly little suspense or tension.

As an actor, Schwarzenegger still has the emotional range of a cube steak, which will serve him well in the upcoming “Terminator 3,” for which he’s being paid $30 million to play a defunct robot programmed without emotions.

But in a movie whose subject demands he showcase a range of emotions more complex than pain and rage, Schwarzenegger proves he’s not our wartime Everyman – or what this clumsy movie needs.

Grade: D

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, occasionally on E! Entertainment’s “E! News Weekend,” Tuesdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5” and Thursdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5:30” on WLBZ-2 and WCSH-6. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.

THE VIDEO-DVD CORNER

Renting a video or a DVD? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores.

Collateral Damage ? D

Dragonfly ? D

Resident Evil ? D-

Crossroads ? C-

Kung Pow: Enter the Fist ? B-

The Time Machine ? D-

Amelie ? A

John Q. ? C-

Pinero ? B

Charlotte Gray ? B+

Hart’s War ? B

The Royal Tenenbaums ?

B+

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius

? B+

Shallow Hal ? C

A Beautiful Mind ? B

Gosford Park ? B+

I Am Sam ? C

The Majestic ? D-

Max Keeble’s Big Move ? B

Orange County ? C-

The Shipping News ? C

Rollerball ? F

Black Hawk Down ? B

Kate & Leopold ? C+

Monster’s Ball ? A

The Mothman Prophecies ? C

Harry Potter and the

Sorcerer’s Stone ? B 3/4

Sidewalks of New York ? B-

Lantana ? A

Vanilla Sky ? B+

Corky Romano ? D-

From Hell ? C

The Others ? B+

Snow Dogs ? B-

Ocean’s Eleven ? B

Waking Life ? A

Ali ? B+

Not Another Teen Movie ?

C-

Behind Enemy Lines ? C-

No Man’s Land ? A

Black Knight ? F

The Deep End ? A

Domestic Disturbance ? C

The Man Who Wasn’t There

? B+

Mulholland Drive ? A

Spy Game ? C+

Bandits ? D

13 Ghosts ? F

Donnie Darko ? B

K-Pax ? B-

Life as a House ? C

Original Sin ? F