As we approach the 40th anniversary of John Carpenter’s seminal slasher, it’s important to remember that we have another anniversary to celebrate. Halloween H20 turns 20 years old this August, and though it is certainly not as powerful as Carpenter’s classic, it is a worthy entry into the Halloween franchise. H20 is a film that celebrates the legacy of Halloween by bringing the series back to its roots.

In H20, the great Jamie Lee Curtis rejoins the franchise for the first time since 1981. Laurie Strode had been absent from the films for 20 years, and H20 examines how the events of that fateful night have impacted her. This film mirrors many of the plot points and moments of the original Halloween – not as a cheap plot device, but with a purpose. It intentionally draws Laurie’s new life back to her past. Though she survived the events in Haddonfield, she has not thrived. She experiences PTSD and terror on a daily basis and hasn’t been able to leave the memory of that night and her brother behind her. H20 offers Laurie a chance to take back her life, once and for all.

This entry ignores the events of Halloween 4, 5 and 6, and instead brings the story back to Laurie. By this point, Jamie Lloyd’s (Danielle Harris) story had run its course, and screenwriters Robert Zappia and Matt Greenberg wisely choose to bring the narrative back to its source. As the opening credits roll over John Carpenter’s Halloween theme, we hear a voiceover from Donald Pleasence’s Doctor Loomis, describing the first time he met Michael Myers.

“I met this six-year-old boy with a blank, cold emotionless face and the blackest of eyes, the devil’s eyes.”

In its opening moments, the film reminds the audience that whatever has happened over the past twenty years, however many turns this tale has taken, its heart is Laurie and Michael. They are the principal players, and they will be the center of our story.

Laurie Strode has spent the past two decades trying desperately to move past the events in Haddonfield. We find that she has taken a job as headmistress of a private California boarding school under the new name of Keri Tate. She lives there as peacefully as she can, with her seventeen-year-old son, John (Josh Hartnett), but she has never fully been able to leave Haddonfield behind her. She is plagued by dreams and flashbacks of Halloween night and remains convinced that her brother Michael is still out in the world, waiting for her.

She’s not far from the truth, as we quickly learn that Michael has reappeared and is making his way out to California to find her. After breaking into the home of Marion Chambers (Nancy Stephens), the nurse from the first two films, Michael is able to ascertain Laurie’s whereabouts through a file kept in Marion’s office (after killing her, obviously).

As Michael approaches the quiet campus on Halloween morning, Laurie is having a discussion with her English class in a scene very reminiscent of the first film. In Halloween, Laurie is asked by her teacher to describe two writers’ views on fate:

“Costaine wrote that fate was somehow related only to religion, where Samuels felt that fate was like a natural element, like earth, air, fire and water.”

Here, the Laurie and her class are discussing Frankenstein, and why they felt Victor must finally confront his monster at the end of the story. Molly (Michelle Williams) says that Victor finally stands up to face his creation after the monster had killed everyone that he loved and Victor had nothing left to lose. She said that the confrontation was an inevitability – his fate.

Most of the students vacate campus that afternoon for a class trip, but a few stragglers remain behind – notably, John, his girlfriend, Molly, and their friends, Charlie (Adam Hann-Byrd) and Sarah (Jodi Lyn O’Keefe), who are busy planning a romantic Halloween evening on campus.

Laurie spends the evening trying to open up to her boyfriend – guidance counselor Will Brennan (Aaron Arkin) about her past. Over the course of a couple of quiet conversations between the two of them, we learn that Laurie has tried many different approaches to try to combat her PTSD, but to little avail. Nothing seems to work and the shadow cast over her life seems monumental. She struggles on a daily basis with fear and flashbacks, and uses more than her fair share of alcohol to manage the anxiety. Her connection with her son has suffered, as a result. Laurie and John care about one another, but their relationship is under a ton of strain due to her stress. She relies on him more than she should and he feels the weight of it on a daily basis.

As Laurie tries her best to open up, danger creeps closer, as Michael, of course, crosses paths with the teenagers. He quickly (and brutally) dispatches Sarah and Charlie. John and Molly escape and flee to another building on campus. Laurie barely manages to get them inside and close the door before Michael catches up. She looks up into the window in the center of the door and in a moment of terror, comes face to face with her brother for the first time in twenty years.

Laurie leads the group through the darkened halls of the school and their only prerogative is survival – trying to stay one step ahead of Michael until they can escape. Though Will is killed by Michael, Laurie, John and Molly are able to escape to Laurie’s car. In another moment calling back to the original film, Laurie tells them to drive down the street to the Becker’s and call the police. As they begin to protest the idea of leaving her behind, she says, with exasperation, “Do as I say, now.”

As they drive away, Laurie closes the gate to the campus and smashes the control box. She grabs a fire ax from the gatehouse and as Carpenter’s classic theme rises up, she screams Michael’s name as she walks openly through the campus to face her brother one last time. No more hiding – she is on the offensive and she is ready to finish this. He soon appears and after a chase sequence where the pair trade blows, Laurie gains the upper hand and stabs Michael repeatedly before throwing him off of a balcony. He appears dead (but we know the truth).

The authorities arrive and as Michael is placed into a body bag and loaded into the back of an ambulance, Laurie steals the body and crashes the vehicle. The pair are thrown from the wreck, and Michael is pinned between the ambulance and a fallen tree. As he reaches out to her (perhaps for help, or perhaps because he is only following his instinct and feebly trying for one last kill), Laurie, in a decisive moment of pure power, swings the ax and cuts off Michael’s head.

The crux of the film is Fate. In the first film, though Laurie fights back against Michael, it is Loomis who ultimately intervenes and saves her, shooting Michael and propelling him out a window. Here, she has one last chance to conquer both him and her fears. Like Victor Frankenstein, she too, must face her monster if she is to survive, Sure, Michael is not a monster of her own making, but he is a shadowy figure who has plagued her life for twenty years. Laurie must face him and vanquish him if she is to have any hope of a life of her own.

Though the Halloween series had been a presence on the horror scene (Curse of Michael Myers was released only three years earlier), H20 brought it back to audiences in a new way. By focusing the story on its original characters, it offers the character of Laurie a place in the modern world. We get to see how she has fared since the events of the first film, and is offered a chance to defeat her own demons. This Laurie is a very different person from the shy girl we originally met. Years of living in hiding have taken their toll. Here, she gets the opportunity to put those fears to rest and to finally defeat her boogeyman.  In the end, she emerges from her nightmare victorious.