In this feature, Vegan Voorhees examines those jaw-dropping revelations that the slasher film loves to bat our way from the blue, like a pushy parent tossing softballs at a kid who doesn’t want to learn baseball.

Today, let’s share in the absolute disbelief laid at our feet by the truly spectacular revelation at the beginning of Halloween: Resurrection, a.k.a. How Michael Got His Groove Head Back. As ever, SPOILERS ensue…

Set Up: Laurie Strode (Dame Jamie Lee of Curtis) is holed up in an asylum after it turns out that, at the end of Halloween H20, she DIDN’T lop loon-brother Michael’s head off with an axe at all… He returns, kills her (!) and then sets about terminating a group of teenage ghost hunters participating in a webcast at the olde Myers house.

Twist:  You remember the end of H20 don’t you? Jamie Lee commandeers the meatwagon with Michael’s body in it, knowing full well he won’t actually be dead. He ain’t. There’s a struggle, a crash, and Michael is pinned long enough for Laurie to take an axe and off with his head! No. This is what Resurrection tells us REALLY happened…

It wasn’t Michael. Michael attacked a paramedic, crushed his larynx so he couldn’t speak, and put the mask and boiler suit on him so he could hot-foot it outta there. JLC decapped the wrong dude!

Problems with this revelation:

• Where the hell to begin? Why didn’t Michael just kill the paramedic, thus giving himself more time to escape before medical examiners found out it wasn’t him?
• Why would the paramedic move and act EXACTLY like Michael?
• Why wouldn’t he take the mask off?
• Busta Rhymes!? No no no no no.

Likely explanation: Desperation. Sheer, greedy, corporate desperation. H20 did much better than predicted and Miramax couldn’t just leave it be with its perfect round-trip-ticket ending could they? They just had to meddle, coming up with the worst resurrection idea since a dog pissed on Freddy Krueger’s grave!

A pitiful twist if ever there was and then followed up by the death of the genre’s most iconic final girl. I’m surprised JLC agreed to take part at all.

However, the rest of Resurrection isn’t half bad – aside from Busta Rhymes of course – providing a workman-like slasher flick trip through to its pointless ending, which was cock-blocked by Rob Zombie’s remake, which just rebooted the whole franchise, making the whole project even more redundant than it already was.