Every Halloween Movie Ranked Worst To Best After Halloween Kills

Twenty years after her first tussle with The Shape and seventeen years after her last, Jamie Lee Curtis finally returned to the franchise that made her, and despite it being released so late in the series, Halloween H20 is an undeniable gem.

There are issues -- the constant, on-the-nose winks to horror classic Psycho (Curtis's mother, Janet Leigh, turns up for a spell) and recent hit Scream are a bit much, and the jump scares overpower the menace of Myers' single-minded purpose -- but H20's svelte runtime and unsettling kills allows it to pack a mean punch.

Directed by Steve Miner, there's a sense throughout the movie of impending doom. Some of the emotional highs are stilted by the cheap jumps, but the atmosphere is still electric, and Curtis gives a typically staggering portrayal of dread and bravery.

H20 isn't high art, and it relies on retracing the steps of the superior films that preceded it, but it gets out of its way quickly and ends with a bang. It's a shame they didn't stop here, really.