So, what could be timelier than releasing a Halloween slasher film around… July? The plot (i.e. flimsy device to set up killing horny teenagers by) is something that you might actually see on MTV’s Fear show. Busta Rhymes is the head of an online entertainment company and has proposed a contest where the lucky few get to spend a night in the creakily and poorly lit house of serial killer Michael Myers. Their prize seems to be nothing more than the notoriety of being seen live on the net. College student Sara Moyer (Bianca Kajlich) is one of the lucky winners along with her stars-in-her-eyes gal pal and culinary obsessed friend (‘Save the Last Dance’’s Sean Patrick Thomas). Some other people get picked including the requisite smart girl and “weird” guy. And then there’’s the horn dog played by the insufferable Thomas Ian Nicholas of ‘American Pie’ fame. For some randomly selected process it’s kind of odd that three people who are all good friends got picked. Eh, oh well.

Anyway, the kids go exploring through the decrepit remains of the house with cameras strapped to their heads. Why the house wasn’’t knocked down after the first baker’’s dozen of murders is anyone’s guess. The kids try and look for any clues to explain the psychological nature of Mr. Hack-N-Slash. Michael Myers eventually makes a homecoming complete with his favorite set of cutlery and goes to town. People go missing and eventually the participants, with Busta at the wheel, figure out that this whole thing ain’’t make believe.

Now this movie could have been a lot worse, although the scene where Myers kills a cameraman with a tripod leg is dearly pushing it. Jamie Lee Curtis even shows up for about five minuets in the beginning before having an early confrontation with Myers. Let’’s just say that Curtis seemed to want out bad, and realistically who can blame her?

I realize there are certain leaps of logic when even entering into the darkened theater to take in a slasher flick, but ‘Halloween: Resurrection’ doesn’t just defy logic, it slaps you across the face with it like a cold fish. Myers is no super human entity, to the contrary, and should actually be pushing 50. But man, can he still jump out of walls needlessly like the Kool-Aid man. And can he still dangle from poles with one arm like a champ. Talk about upper body strength.

There’’s a scene toward the beginning of the film in the basement of the mental hospital Jamie Lee resides in. Two guards retreat down there and one of them stops to purchase a vending machine goodie while the other goes ahead only to meet his doom. The lone guard now timidly searches around the nearby laundry machines and discovers his colleague’s head inside the tumbling machine. If you look closely, and do some marginal thinking, you’ll find out that in order to achieve this spook Mr. Myers actually had to put money into the laundry machine. Talk about your commitment to fear.

This whole bloody ordeal is streamed live across the Internet with something like 50 camera choices. Now the Internet, if no one’ told you, is not exactly a small thing. Wouldn’’t someONE someWHERE be watching one of the camera angles where they DO happen to see the killings and phone someone? Maybe everyone in the world just has a dial-up modem. You must realize that this bare-bones cheesy reality show concept was likely from everyone making a movie as they went along.

Let’’s face it folks, the thrill of this whole thing is gone. Somewhere along the way, I’’m guessing 19‘83, the whole concept just got stagnant and poorly executed. But now with the rise (or resurrection if you will) of the slasher genre in our post-irony world we get things like Jason in Space! And Michael Myers in an episode of MTV’s Fear! The draw is supposed to be the tightly wound suspense but, and maybe it’’s just me, where is the suspense when you could care less about the cheese-heads that are supposed to be the heroes and you KNOW what’’s going to happen to them?

Busta Rhymes, the thespian, is going to need more time to hone his craft. LL Cool J took up the rapper-come-Halloween-victim role in the last film, 1998’’s ‘Halloween: H20’ (which flagrantly did not take place underwater at all). To compare the acting prowess of the two rappers is like questioning the cooking ability of the Star Trek starship captains. It’’s just very inconsequential and should never be asked rightfully. Tyra Banks is in this movie for some reason even though her scenes account for about a weekend of work. Everyone else in the cast is forgettable, even the cute Uma Thurman-looking redhead who has the most head-scratching nude scene in an underground crypt.

‘Halloween: Resurrection’ is sloppy, dumb and above all things not scary. It seems Michael Myers is the ultimate boogey man –  he’’s survived seven straight duds.

Nate’s Grade: C-