I really love the cinematography in Halloween H20. The warm orange color palette gives off a lot of autumn vibes. I also love the use of shadows in this movie, it adds a lot of depth to the scenes. I also love that it uses long wide tracking shots like the original three movies.
It’s practically scream with a Michael Myers actor in it
The cinematography in both Halloween H20 and Scream are very different. H20 uses a warm autumn color palette, whereas Scream uses a more natural color palette. Both movies look very different from each other.
I 100% agree with this. I’ve always loved the cinematography win H20 and honestly the movie as a whole. People hate on it a lot, but it’s easily one of the most watchable of the sequels.
As for Space Mage’s comment- In terms of screenplay, score, dialogue it is definitely reminiscent of scream (which of course makes sense given Williamson’s involvement), and no one denies that.
In terms of cinematography you are absolutely right. I find it gorgeous.
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I agree with you about the music. They used some music from Scream, Mimic, as well as parts of John Ottman’s original score.
But I don’t agree about the script though. Kevin Williamson wrote a short treatment that they mostly didn’t use. He did a little script doctoring, but according to the Writers Guild Of America it was extremely little. Dimension Films wanted to give him a writing credit for marketing reasons, but the WGA wouldn’t allow it since he had very little involvement with the script.
Anyway I’m really hoping Shout! Factory releases a 4k version of this movie later this year. I’d love to see how it’ll look. I’ve always loved the cinematography in this movie, and I hope I get to see it in 4k.
While it’s certainly not entirely the same or a rip off of scream in terms of dialogue, the scream influence bleeds through. Even the small instances of the quick and quippy dialogue between some is reminiscent of it to me, just my personal opinion of course. Regardless I’m happy to see someone gush over the cinematography here!
I would absolutely love to see it in 4k as well. Fingers crossed!
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I’ve always wondered how they did this shot with Michael and Laurie. It’s such a cool shot. I also really love Jamie Lee Curtis’s performance in this movie. She did an incredible job.
Judging by the angle at which it’s shot I imagine they just superimposed Michael to be there and fade out in post, just my guess tho.
Funny you mention her performance because I think she did a great job also. Especially when comparing it with H18 and kills work tbh.
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Wasn’t the school in H20 also used in one of Scream movies?
It was used in Scream 3 2000. H20 used it first.
You’re probably right. Another cool shot is during the rest stop scene. You can barely see Michael through the cracks of the stall door. This scene has some great suspense.
Never cared for the look of this movie. I can justify the warm color palette during the daytime scenes, but for the night scenes they really should have just used a colder palette.
Of the two 90s Halloween movies, I always thought H6 was visually stronger. H6 is a little more dated than H20 is visually, but I feel like that’s also its appeal. It feels and looks more like an 80s movie than H20 does, and that’s what I like about it.
I have to agree. I’m not a fan of H6, but there is no denying how well it captures the Fall season. Plus, I vastly prefer the atmospheric blue lighting over warm orange lighting any day. H6 just feels darker, as a Halloween film should in my opinion. The fact alone that H20 takes place in sunny California, of all places, takes all that away, I think. Still, I will admit that H20 does have it’s moments, in terms of it’s cinematography.
People want to shit all over H20, but it’s a fun 90s movie and far far from being the worst movie in the franchise
The day scenes, especially the opening, look good but I wish the night scenes had a slightly colder look to them.
100% agree!!
I disagree. 90s horror was the worst. The atmosphere in this film just didn’t do it for me at all. Felt like a WB TV show at the time.
ehh idk about that. Scream to me was a work of art in the cinematography department. Both are awesome, but very different. Scream feels like a play at times with some of the beautiful moving continuous shots with everyone hitting their marks. Halloween was very different.
That isn’t really fair. This movie dealt with a lot of uphill battles from a cinematography standpoint, yet still did an amazing job. Its easily in the top three in terms of cinematography. The irony is that where this movie fails is because of the DOP as well lol. He did a horrible job lighting Michael Myers and showed his eyes too often. Mask was a bad fit and bad shape and they didn’t do the actor any favors with lighting. It’s weird cause they lit everything else beautifully.
They lit him well in a lot of scenes, just not the entire movie. Here’s a few of those moments where he’s lit well.
