#8 - Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)
This movie wears crotchless panties and barks like a dogWhen you talk about movies, you can rarely come up with a movie that was made, sucked major butt, was re-made using half of the existing footage, re-shown, and sucked even worse butt. Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers is one such example. Curse has the distinction of being made twice, with the released theatrical cut being absolutely shitty, and then having the fabled "Producer's Cut" that's shitty in a whole 'nother ballpark. With reason! You see, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers had a pretty wide cliffhanger ending that ripped a whole in the story so wide, no fathomable resolution was going to tie the ends together, but we'll get to Halloween 5 soon. So, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers had a huge story-hole to make up for.
 |
| Michael Myers in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers |
The movie opens with Michael's niece Jamie Lloyd, now a teenager, being rushed into a room to give birth. Already, the viewer is totally lost. Jamie gives birth and then the nurses take the infant into a satanic cult room where some sort of ritual is performed on it. Already the user is totally lost. Jamie then breaks free from her captivity, steals back her baby and makes the escape. Michael Myers gives chase, eventually stabbing Jamie and leaving her to die on the floor of a barn. Michael then realizes Jamie hid the baby from him and he can't kill it. Already, the viewer is-- well you get the idea. Elsewhere, an elderly Dr. Sam Loomis, surviving his collapse at the end of 5, hears Jamie call for his help on the radio, so along with his friend Dr. Terence Wynn, he springs his wrinkly ass into action and heads back to Haddonfield once more. You'd think he'd want to stop trying to kill the unkillable Michael Myers, but I digress. The baby is found by Paul Rudd. That's right, Paul Rudd in one of his first major film roles. He plays Tommy Doyle, the little kid from the first Halloween film. You can tell he didn't have the confidence of an actor yet, because each and every piece of speech he gives is monotone and dull. He lives across the street from the Myers house, which again looks nothing like the original OR Halloween 5's, so it's the third different Myers house in the series. Continunity is not their strongsuit. Living in the Myers house? An extension of the Strode family. What a coincidence!
The plot goes that it's the season of Thorn. By that of course I mean it's Halloween. In Haddonfield, Halloween is still celebrated as a joyous holiday for kids even though three major murder sprees have occurred. The Strode family has moved into the Myers house because they have bad luck, and as mentioned, Tommy Doyle lives across the street. Tommy is an eligible bachelor who makes late-night phone calls to Michael Myers hotlines and spies on half-naked women across the street. He is also forever tied with Michael Myers because when he then finds Jamie's baby in the bathroom of a bus station, naming him Stephen and taking him in, he makes himself the target of the vengeful Myers, who wants to kill the baby. Uncomfortable levels are through the roof! What follows is a ham-handed chase that sees Dr. Loomis spew "he's evil" speeches to everyone he meets while Michael slowly kills members of the Strode family, all for nothing more than living in his house. It's like Halloween: Resurrection, except there they were just in his house. Michael doesn't like anybody to be in or near his house. The plot takes them to Smith's Grove where Loomis's chum Terrence Wynn reveals himself as the cult leader and the man-in-black who broke Michael out of prison at the end of 5. So...that's one loose end tied up.
So let's talk about the two versions, because they result in two very different stories and two very different climaxes. The disastrous "Producer's Cut" was the first finished film submitted for viewing before release. The Producer's Cut was a little longer and played the "Thorn cult" storyline up much more. Michael being the pawn of cult is not as bad of an idea as people make it out to be, but it is pretty dumb when it's played out. Most of the time he's just standing around like a dufus, not really doing anything.
So, you wanna talk about the baby's father? The baby's father is Michael Myers. Yes. He impregnated his own teenage niece. That is really stupid. It's not creative, it's not witty, it's not dark, it's just plain wrong. Having Michael be the father of his niece's child is so demented and weird, and not in a way that would serve the story well. Plus, that's a really lame-ass prophecy by this cult. The cult's prophecy is that a family member afflicted by the Cult of Thorn must kill the other members of his/her family...because. I don't know, it's not explained very well. My point is that if Michael's supposed to appease this apparent "Curse of Thorn" by wiping out his entire family, then why the hell does he have sex with his teenage niece to create a baby just to target him and try to kill him? If you have Jamie, the final member of your living family, alive and served up to you on a silver platter, you stab her and end the curse, not have sex with her you stupid fucking goof.
So not only does the Producer's Cut excel in making Michael out to be an incestuous sex offender, but then it makes him out to be a weak little shit, as by the end of the chase, Tommy is able to stop him by arranging a group of runes on the floor that render Michael motionless. So, yes, Michael Myers is stopped by magic. That's...one way to do it. After Tommy and Kara escape with the baby, Loomis returns to check on Michael. He rips Michael's mask off and finds Wynn. Wynn tells Loomis that Michael's gone and that Wynn's job of protecting Michael is now Loomis's to bear. Then Loomis screams like a fool as the Thorn symbol appears on his wrist to match Michael's. Some kind of twist ending, I suppose, but it's not even that big of a shock. It puzzles me more than anything. If you're gonna give the job of protecting Michael to someone, why don't you pick someone younger? Not fucking Loomis. He's already seventy or older! It makes zero sense.
Apparently I wasn't the only one who thought so because the Producer's Cut sucked so bad upon viewing the studio vetoed its release. I don't know, I guess they didn't find the idea of a serial killer molesting and impregnating his niece very scary. The crew decided to take the film back into production to correct some of its, shall we say "flaws". However, during the wrap-up of the Producer's Cut, Donald Pleasence unfortunately passed away. So now, they're going back into production on a movie that had Donald Pleasence in it without him to shoot any more scenes. With careful editing, additional scenes and a boatload of studio interference, the crew was able to cobble together a sort-of finished version. In it, the ending is completely changed. Michael goes berserk on the cult and goes to kill the baby in the basement of the Sanitarium, but Tommy defends the Strode family and the baby by injecting Michael with corrosive liquid and beating him with a lead pipe. Michael's survived gunshots and explosions and a lead pipe is how you're going to do him in? Well, I suppose a young man in his prime with a lead pipe is better than an old man with a wooden beam (*cough* Halloween 5 *cough*). How does the movie end now? Loomis still tells the others to go one without him, and then we see a shot of Michael's mask lying on the ground, and we hear Donald Pleasence's scream recycled from the previous cut, only we don't see anything. The fates of both characters are left ambiguous as we cut end credits.
Are there good aspects of Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers? Yes. Marianne Hagan, who plays Kara Strode, does a great job in the role she's in. She may be just as mundane as Paul Rudd in some scenes, but for some reason I just rooted for her to make it. Rudd could've gone either way. Donald Pleasence still is great in his fifth and final round as Dr. Loomis. Due to his age and the fact we now know he was near death, his performance comes off a little tired. He just wheezes all of his dialogue and sounds like he barely has any air in his lungs to get the speeches out. Plus, both versions' ending are a detriment to his character. It's just a shame he couldn't come back when production restarted and film a more satisfying send-off to his character; but hey, at least the art-direction is still on par. Halloween films have a certain level of art-decor guidelines that they need to follow. It feels very much like the October season in a Midwestern town. Aesthetically speaking, the movie is a treat because of this.
Some of the death scenes are pretty gruesome. John Strode getting electrocuted to the point that his head explodes is pretty fun to watch. As I said, during the climax of the theatrical cut when Michael goes on a rampage in the nurse's station, slaughtering all of the nurses in the midst of a strobe-ridden atmosphere is a great sequence. It's eerie to just see flashing pictures of nurses getting slaughtered instead of full-motion video. Michael slamming the guys head into the gate wall in his head disintegrates is messy to say the least. The theatrical cut was much more gory in terms of its death scenes, as the Producer's Cut had a lot less Michael in the end. So I guess they knew it was going to be shit and just had to make the death scenes count for something.
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers is a bland heap of weird while maintaining to be the usual slasher movie garbage. It's definitely a movie that suffered majorly behind the scenes and resulted in a cobbled-together, half-assed piece of shit experience. It's new characters are nothing to remember, its returning characters are either old and boring or misused in a way that undermines them, it's twists aren't creepy and don't really pay off that well. It does something creative with the story that's a spooky development but ultimately ruins it by having Michael go from a mysterious, unstoppable serial killer to the pawn of a cult operating on an external agenda. In my opinion, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers is one you should skip, unless you REALLY want to know what happens after 5. Trust me...it ain't worth it.
At least the leader of the cult wasn't a white fucking horse.
The plot goes that it's the season of Thorn. By that of course I mean it's Halloween. In Haddonfield, Halloween is still celebrated as a joyous holiday for kids even though three major murder sprees have occurred. The Strode family has moved into the Myers house because they have bad luck, and as mentioned, Tommy Doyle lives across the street. Tommy is an eligible bachelor who makes late-night phone calls to Michael Myers hotlines and spies on half-naked women across the street. He is also forever tied with Michael Myers because when he then finds Jamie's baby in the bathroom of a bus station, naming him Stephen and taking him in, he makes himself the target of the vengeful Myers, who wants to kill the baby. Uncomfortable levels are through the roof! What follows is a ham-handed chase that sees Dr. Loomis spew "he's evil" speeches to everyone he meets while Michael slowly kills members of the Strode family, all for nothing more than living in his house. It's like Halloween: Resurrection, except there they were just in his house. Michael doesn't like anybody to be in or near his house. The plot takes them to Smith's Grove where Loomis's chum Terrence Wynn reveals himself as the cult leader and the man-in-black who broke Michael out of prison at the end of 5. So...that's one loose end tied up.
 |
| L: Kara Strode, R: Paul Rudd...er, I mean...Tommy Doyle |
So let's talk about the two versions, because they result in two very different stories and two very different climaxes. The disastrous "Producer's Cut" was the first finished film submitted for viewing before release. The Producer's Cut was a little longer and played the "Thorn cult" storyline up much more. Michael being the pawn of cult is not as bad of an idea as people make it out to be, but it is pretty dumb when it's played out. Most of the time he's just standing around like a dufus, not really doing anything.
So, you wanna talk about the baby's father? The baby's father is Michael Myers. Yes. He impregnated his own teenage niece. That is really stupid. It's not creative, it's not witty, it's not dark, it's just plain wrong. Having Michael be the father of his niece's child is so demented and weird, and not in a way that would serve the story well. Plus, that's a really lame-ass prophecy by this cult. The cult's prophecy is that a family member afflicted by the Cult of Thorn must kill the other members of his/her family...because. I don't know, it's not explained very well. My point is that if Michael's supposed to appease this apparent "Curse of Thorn" by wiping out his entire family, then why the hell does he have sex with his teenage niece to create a baby just to target him and try to kill him? If you have Jamie, the final member of your living family, alive and served up to you on a silver platter, you stab her and end the curse, not have sex with her you stupid fucking goof.
So not only does the Producer's Cut excel in making Michael out to be an incestuous sex offender, but then it makes him out to be a weak little shit, as by the end of the chase, Tommy is able to stop him by arranging a group of runes on the floor that render Michael motionless. So, yes, Michael Myers is stopped by magic. That's...one way to do it. After Tommy and Kara escape with the baby, Loomis returns to check on Michael. He rips Michael's mask off and finds Wynn. Wynn tells Loomis that Michael's gone and that Wynn's job of protecting Michael is now Loomis's to bear. Then Loomis screams like a fool as the Thorn symbol appears on his wrist to match Michael's. Some kind of twist ending, I suppose, but it's not even that big of a shock. It puzzles me more than anything. If you're gonna give the job of protecting Michael to someone, why don't you pick someone younger? Not fucking Loomis. He's already seventy or older! It makes zero sense.
 |
| Donald Pleasence in his final motion picture appearance |
Apparently I wasn't the only one who thought so because the Producer's Cut sucked so bad upon viewing the studio vetoed its release. I don't know, I guess they didn't find the idea of a serial killer molesting and impregnating his niece very scary. The crew decided to take the film back into production to correct some of its, shall we say "flaws". However, during the wrap-up of the Producer's Cut, Donald Pleasence unfortunately passed away. So now, they're going back into production on a movie that had Donald Pleasence in it without him to shoot any more scenes. With careful editing, additional scenes and a boatload of studio interference, the crew was able to cobble together a sort-of finished version. In it, the ending is completely changed. Michael goes berserk on the cult and goes to kill the baby in the basement of the Sanitarium, but Tommy defends the Strode family and the baby by injecting Michael with corrosive liquid and beating him with a lead pipe. Michael's survived gunshots and explosions and a lead pipe is how you're going to do him in? Well, I suppose a young man in his prime with a lead pipe is better than an old man with a wooden beam (*cough* Halloween 5 *cough*). How does the movie end now? Loomis still tells the others to go one without him, and then we see a shot of Michael's mask lying on the ground, and we hear Donald Pleasence's scream recycled from the previous cut, only we don't see anything. The fates of both characters are left ambiguous as we cut end credits.
Are there good aspects of Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers? Yes. Marianne Hagan, who plays Kara Strode, does a great job in the role she's in. She may be just as mundane as Paul Rudd in some scenes, but for some reason I just rooted for her to make it. Rudd could've gone either way. Donald Pleasence still is great in his fifth and final round as Dr. Loomis. Due to his age and the fact we now know he was near death, his performance comes off a little tired. He just wheezes all of his dialogue and sounds like he barely has any air in his lungs to get the speeches out. Plus, both versions' ending are a detriment to his character. It's just a shame he couldn't come back when production restarted and film a more satisfying send-off to his character; but hey, at least the art-direction is still on par. Halloween films have a certain level of art-decor guidelines that they need to follow. It feels very much like the October season in a Midwestern town. Aesthetically speaking, the movie is a treat because of this.
 |
| The Thorn Cult Dungeon, where Halloween goes to die |
Some of the death scenes are pretty gruesome. John Strode getting electrocuted to the point that his head explodes is pretty fun to watch. As I said, during the climax of the theatrical cut when Michael goes on a rampage in the nurse's station, slaughtering all of the nurses in the midst of a strobe-ridden atmosphere is a great sequence. It's eerie to just see flashing pictures of nurses getting slaughtered instead of full-motion video. Michael slamming the guys head into the gate wall in his head disintegrates is messy to say the least. The theatrical cut was much more gory in terms of its death scenes, as the Producer's Cut had a lot less Michael in the end. So I guess they knew it was going to be shit and just had to make the death scenes count for something.
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers is a bland heap of weird while maintaining to be the usual slasher movie garbage. It's definitely a movie that suffered majorly behind the scenes and resulted in a cobbled-together, half-assed piece of shit experience. It's new characters are nothing to remember, its returning characters are either old and boring or misused in a way that undermines them, it's twists aren't creepy and don't really pay off that well. It does something creative with the story that's a spooky development but ultimately ruins it by having Michael go from a mysterious, unstoppable serial killer to the pawn of a cult operating on an external agenda. In my opinion, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers is one you should skip, unless you REALLY want to know what happens after 5. Trust me...it ain't worth it.
No comments:
Post a Comment