{"id":239568,"date":"2025-11-02T12:24:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T12:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/239568\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T12:24:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T12:24:15","slug":"halloween-h20-has-five-connections-to-the-scream-franchise-three-are-subtle-two-are-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/239568\/","title":{"rendered":"Halloween H20 Has Five Connections to the Scream Franchise (Three Are Subtle, Two Are Not)"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Wes Craven\u2019s Scream (1996) really took off, there were any number of studios, big and small, that scrambled to replicate its success. The goal was to create something that perfectly blended stylishness and scares just as Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson did. And, while Scream 2 (1997) was the only one that really managed to beat Scream at its own game, at least as far as some fans are concerned, there was one other that did an admirable job of taking the template established by Scream and making it its own. That would be Halloween H20: 20 Years Later<\/a> (1998), which not only brought Michael Myers some success after two particularly lackluster entries<\/a>, but even managed to bring director Steve Miner back into the slasher fold over a decade after he gave Jason his mask in Friday the 13th Part III<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But, make no mistake, H20 (which, like Craven\u2019s Ghostface movies, came from Dimension Films) wears its Scream influence on its sleeve. At least in one case, but there are other cases, too, where the influence is much more subtle. Let\u2019s go through all the ways H20 and Scream (and Scream 2) are linked.<\/p>\n

The Ghostface-Michael Connection & A Dialogue Reference<\/p>\n

\"\"image courtesy of compass international pictures<\/p>\n

Throughout the Scream franchise we\u2019ve gotten some pretty big reveals as to who has been wearing the Ghostface costume this whole time. However, outside the rare occurrence (like when Skeet Ulrich was wearing it as Ghostface stands behind a couch-bound Randy in Scream), it\u2019s almost always a stunt double wearing the get-up.<\/p>\n

This is pretty typical for slasher movies, which put their masked murderers through the wringer, and Ghostface is no different from Jason or Michael in that regard. And, in the case of Scream 2, the stuntman who inhabited the role of Ghostface was Chris Durand. And what did Durand do one year after that gig? He played Michael in Halloween H20.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a subtle connection for sure, as is one line of dialogue from H20, which merges a reference to its own originator and a reference to Scream. As one might remember, in the original Halloween Laure Strode tells Tommy Doyle and Lindsey Wallace to \u201cGo down the street to the Mackenzie\u2019s house.\u201d This dialogue sounds awfully familiar in Scream, when Casey Becker\u2019s father says to her mother, \u201cGet in the car. Drive down to the Mackenzie\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what does the Mackenzie have to do with H20? It features a line where Laurie says to her son, John, that she wants him to \u201cDrive down the street to the Beckers.\u201d It\u2019s a clever little name switch there.<\/p>\n

The Score Sounds Quite Familiar<\/p>\n

\"\"image courtesy of dimension films<\/p>\n

Halloween H20\u2018s score was initially composed by John Ottman and, while far from poor music, it simply didn\u2019t gel with a movie trying to be tense. It\u2019s a very crowded, ambitious work. <\/p>\n

So, for the film\u2019s several chase scenes throughout the Hillcrest Academy campus, Marco Beltrami was brought in. Not to compose all new music, but rather some of his themes from Scream, Scream 2, and Mimic were used to supplement Ottman\u2019s score. Beltrami then wrote a few new cues during H20\u2018s final days of sound mixing.<\/p>\n

So, if you\u2019re watching H20 and you start to get a subliminal twinge that Ghostface may be nearby, it\u2019s not your imagination, it\u2019s because you\u2019ve heard the exact cue when Ghostface was chasing Sidney Prescott on Stu Macher\u2019s property. For instance, when Michael approaches the car Laurie Strode is using to try and get her son and his girlfriend, Molly, off of the Hillcrest property.<\/p>\n

One Inadvertent Connection & One Intentional Blatant One<\/p>\n

\"\"image courtesy of dimension films<\/p>\n

In the original Scream, multiple Ghostface masks were used because it took a bit to get legal permission to use the Fun World ghost mask we see in many of the shots. So KNB Effects Group, who did the film\u2019s kills, made a replica. Hence, this is why Ghostface looks quite different in a few shots such as in the opening sequence, when Ghostface is chasing Casey Becker on her lawn in slow-motion. It didn\u2019t stop with just two masks, either, as several slightly different looking Fun World masks ended up being used. Though, with the different Fun World masks, there was no major disparity like there was between the Fun World mask and the KNB mask.<\/p>\n

The connection to H20 here is that multiple masks were used to bring Michael to life and, well, the results varied. In the opening scene, when he slits Marion Chambers\u2019 throat, that is the same mask from Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. Throughout most of the production a KNB mask was used. It\u2019s pictured first above and was frequently seen in the trailer and stills of the film. But producers found it too be too white and vacant, so Stan Winston made the one we see throughout the majority of its runtime after a few reshoots (pictured second). Then there\u2019s a single scene with a horrendously aged CGI mask, pictured third above. All of this is to say it\u2019s a blatant connection between Scream and H20, though not an intentional one.<\/p>\n

As for the intentional blatant connection, there\u2019s a scene in H20 when we see a scene from Scream 2 playing on a television. It\u2019s a neat connection, but also not quite a logical one. If Scream is a fictional franchise<\/a> in the world Laurie Strode occupies, how can she also be a character beloved by Randy in Scream? But that thought process is a dog chasing its tail, so we\u2019ll leave it alone, enjoy it, and say Happy Halloween.<\/p>\n

Stream Scream and Scream 2 on Hulu and Halloween H20: 20 Years Later on HBO Max.<\/p>\n

What are your thoughts on Halloween H20? Do you prefer it to David Gordon Green\u2019s Halloween? Let us know in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Wes Craven\u2019s Scream (1996) really took off, there were any number of studios, big and small, that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,101039,2839,88885,101040,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-239568","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-halloween-h20","10":"tag-movies","11":"tag-regular-feature","12":"tag-scream-franchise","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}