Review Detail
8.8 7 10
(Updated: November 22, 2012)
Overall rating
9.2
Audio/Video Quality
9.0
Audio Editing
10.0
Visual Editing
9.0
Narrative
9.0
Enjoyment
9.0
Halloween H20 was a surprisingly solid slasher for an era, the late 90s, in which the genre was at its lowest ever, dominated by juvenile Scream knock-offs. Still, there was room for improvement, and improvement is what's provided by The Butcher's edit. This version is more suspenseful and has more character development, my favorite added bit being Will telling Laurie about his past, which adds warmth to him and makes it more smooth and believable when she subsequently opens up to him about her true self.
Editing itself is very well done. The TV scenes are of way lower quality, but that's unavoidable. The only thing that bothers me a bit is that the TV scenes show some ghosting, like they come from an interlaced source that was badly removed with a filter. Not having seen ThrowgnCpr's preservation, I don't know if the problem was avoidable or not, though. Audio editing was fine, and the new score was phenomenal.
Cut-wise, I agree with other reviewers about Laurie stabbing Michael, it felt "huh?" and I would have preferred the solution proposed by roswell422. I might have also removed a couple of distracting things like Laurie's way too wink-wink-nudge-nudge "Oh, f..." when opening the closet's door, and her later kicking Michael in the balls and him making a cross-eyed face for a moment.
Also I shall point out, while audio/video quality was fine as far as the TV footage allows, I feel a 5.47GB DVD9 was not needed for an edit that's 91 minutes long and would perfectly fit on a DVD5 with fine quality.
A great ending for the "Laurie Strode trilogy" overall, and one I'd recommend to any horror fan.
Editing itself is very well done. The TV scenes are of way lower quality, but that's unavoidable. The only thing that bothers me a bit is that the TV scenes show some ghosting, like they come from an interlaced source that was badly removed with a filter. Not having seen ThrowgnCpr's preservation, I don't know if the problem was avoidable or not, though. Audio editing was fine, and the new score was phenomenal.
Cut-wise, I agree with other reviewers about Laurie stabbing Michael, it felt "huh?" and I would have preferred the solution proposed by roswell422. I might have also removed a couple of distracting things like Laurie's way too wink-wink-nudge-nudge "Oh, f..." when opening the closet's door, and her later kicking Michael in the balls and him making a cross-eyed face for a moment.
Also I shall point out, while audio/video quality was fine as far as the TV footage allows, I feel a 5.47GB DVD9 was not needed for an edit that's 91 minutes long and would perfectly fit on a DVD5 with fine quality.
A great ending for the "Laurie Strode trilogy" overall, and one I'd recommend to any horror fan.
D