MadCap's Reel Thoughts - "Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers" (1995)

For six years, people waited for an answer to the cliffhanger ending of Halloween 5. Michael had been captured and, rather than being "killed", had actually been arrested by the Haddonfield PD. Young Jamie Lloyd was safe and sound...and then the mysterious Man in Black who had been around during the events of the film showed up, gunned the police down, and freed Michael. A very bleak downer ending that was ripe to be picked up with a sequel.

...then 1995 came along, and we now wish that they really, really hadn't bothered.

Spoiler alert: This movie sucks. A lot.
I'm well aware of the much more liked "Producer's Cut" of the film, but I've decided to review the theatrical cut because I'm kind of an awful human being.

But as for the theatrical cut of the film, we begin with an introduction from Paul Rudd telling us the story that the first movie told us far more quickly and efficiently. Namely that Michael Myers stabbed his sister to death and bad shit followed. Now, anyone who has been a follow of my blog or me on Twitter will known that Paul Rudd is one of those actors like Kurt Russell for me - any film that they're in is 87% better just by their presence. That's just hard science.

Unfortunately, 87% of 0 is still 0 (Math degree holders, please sit down) and so we are left with The Curse of Michael Myers.

Jamie Lloyd, played by a woman who is not Danielle Harris, has recently birthed a three month old and one of the members of a cult that seemingly worships Michael - or, rather, the symbol of Thorn as we'll see - helps her escape before being killed. Now, in the theatrical cut of the film Jamie escapes long enough to alert Loomis to her presence and hiding her child before being brutally murdered on farming equipment. So Jamie, the character who we watched through both Parts 4 and 5...is dead. Rather unceremoniously in the first twenty minutes or so of the film.

And we get stuck with Paul Rudd. As I said before, this is normally a good thing and I will give him credit that he does a good job with the material he's given. The sad problem is, of course, that the material he's given is a massive pile of garbage. That's not to say there wasn't some actual effort put into it. The writer, Daniel Farrands, attempted to get in touch with the writers of 4 and 5 and by all accounts did an exhaustive amount of research on the series lore. It's nice to see that, really, and it shows that - at one point - someone actually wanted this to be good.

But getting back to the point, Tommy is now a paranoid shut-in living in the house across from the Old Myers House and having an understandable psychotic paranoia about Michael Myers. Living in the Myers house is the dysfunctional family of the Strodes - the uncle and aunt of Laurie Strode and their children, as well as one grandchild by the eldest daughter. The father, John, is played by actor Keith Bogart: an actor you might remember from such movies as Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. He is also the front runner for the biggest asshole victim in the series up until Rob Zombie managed to manipulate his way into a director's chair.

The grandmother, Debra, attempts to keep the peace between her husband and her children. And, yes, the mother and father are named in homage to the series' creators - John Carpenter and Debra Hill. I'm certain that they definitely didn't mind having their names given to a complete and utter irredeemable asshole and a doormat, respectively. Good job, guys!

But the main focus of the story is Kara, their eldest daughter (who sadly does not become the Girl of Steel), and her son Danny. Danny has been having strange dreams of late, seeing a shadowy man with a knife who commands him to kill. It seems that the Cult is up to its old tricks, having done this once before on a Halloween night in 1963...yeah, here we get into one of the more infamous notions of the film. Namely that Michael Myers, who was a normal child until the night he picked up a butcher knife and stabbed his sister Judith to death...was influenced by magic.

Instead of this embodiment of evil that had no real impetus or explanation, this force of nature that just was and didn't really need an explanation - say it with me now, kids - a wizard did it. Or, rather, a druidic cult did it.

Yes. That's the best they could come up with. Of course, given the difficulties in writing given the lack of notes left by the writers of 4 and 5, maybe Farrands really was giving it his best shot.

Loomis, the driving force behind most of the film, is cut out of most of it with Paul Rudd being given the reins as Tommy. This isn't a bad idea necessarily, since Donald Pleasance was getting up in years and was - in retrospect - dying at the time and a new lead for the series would make at least some sense. However, this is a fault of the director - Joe Chapelle - rather than that of Farrands. Chapelle apparently found Loomis to be boring and so cut most of his scenes out, resulting in Loomis just kind of...wandering about in many scenes with no clear reason for him to be there.

The entire theatrical cut of the film is a jumbled mess from poor editing choices to poor music choices to poor scene progression (if at all). It feels more like the very first attempt at a student film than it does a multi-million dollar motion picture. Chapelle would later go on to direct Hellraiser: Bloodline, which kept the tradition of bad ideas in horror movies going for another year. Most of the problems with the theatrical cut come down to this, up to and including the ending that was reshot due to Donald Pleasance's death.

With no real resolution on the Thorn Cult Saga and with his passing, producer Moustapha Akkad decided that it was time to give the series a reboot. A sequel, set twenty years after Halloween and Halloween II that would completely ignore parts 4, 5, and 6. A sequel that would begin the breaking of the space-time continuum...in more than one way. That, however, will be a story for another Halloween. Also, potentially the Producer's Cut if I can get a copy of it - it's apparently finally available on Blu-Ray after many years of fan demand.

With the review of a Halloween film, it's the end of Horror Month 2019. I didn't get to everything that I hoped to, but that's the way it goes. We've seen a Lonely God battle ghosts and demons, a not so good and a much better struggle against Dracula, the beginning of Tommy Jarvis' trauma, the continued adventures of Sharp Hand Joe, and my continuing descent into madness. This year was definitely a good year for Horror Month.

And so, I leave you with what is now my outro on this, the season of Halloween and the festival of Samhain: the Dark Side is always there, waiting for us to enter - waiting to enter us.

Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight...

Happy Halloween, everyone! Keep it spoopy!

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers is brought to us by Miramax and Dimension Films.

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