Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers
HALLOWEEN: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS (1995)
WRITER: Daniel Farrands
DIRECTOR: Joe Chappelle
STARRING: Donald Pleasence as Dr. Loomis
Paul Stephen Rudd as Tommy Doyle
Marianne Hagan as Kara Strode
Kim Darby as Debra Strode
Bradford English as John Strode
Keith Bogart as Tom Strode
Mariah O'Brien as Beth
Leo Geter as Barry Simms
Mitchell Ryan as Dr. Wynn
QUICK CUT: Tommy Doyle reunites with an old friend on Halloween, as the town of Haddonfield brings back the celebration after several years without.
THE MORGUE
Doctor Loomis - A lot more laid back this time around, Loomis has settled into a more reasonable role as guardian, and while his determination is still there, he is less dogged thanks to age and time and wisdom.
Tommy Doyle - A weird guy who grew up in the shadow of Michael Myers, one of the few survivors from the original night he came home, and now always on the lookout for his boogeyman, and trying to protect the Strodes. He has way too much free time on his hands, and too much research into runes.
Kara Strode - Laurie’s cousin, had a child when she was young, and eventually was forced to retur4n home to a very unhappy father, but is smart, strong, and studying hard to make a better life for herself and Danny.
Danny - Kara’s son, and seems to have psychic dreams for some reason. A bit on the annoying side, and more there just to have a kid, but he’s okay.
Michael Myers - The boogeyman is back, and he’s not as enigmatic, as answers are given. But he is still haunting, and unstoppable.
Oh trust me, the curse is all mine.
TRISK ANALYSIS: Happy Octoberween, Triskelions! As has become tradition, the first of October is when we head back to Haddonfield, and see what Mikey is up to. And this year is no different, as we hit the much maligned sixth entry, The Curse of Michael Myers. That's enough preamble, so let's get into this.
We open up on lots and lots of screaming, and not the good kind. A recast Jamie Lloyd is being wheeled down a hallway by persons unknown as she gives birth to a baby boy.
As the credits wrap up, Ant-Man gives us a recap of the first few movies, and I wish they had gotten Luis to do it. That would have been epic.
One of the evil nurses is not so evil though, and helps Jamie escape with her child. She pays the price for this insolence though, when Michael takes the nurse out of the picture.
Damn, I always hang them up crooked…
Jamie escapes, with Michael in pursuit, so she steals a truck and drives off into the plot. Meanwhile, at the old Myers home, some Strode family members have moved in, and one of them has a kid having nightmares. I wonder if that will pay off later in the plot??
A clue: No.
Our main heroine, Kara Strode, tucks her kid in, and listens to some radio setting up the world, and I really do love how the murders have tainted life in Haddonfield. It’s a nice, sensible reaction to the previous movies.
Also, Mikey has fangirls calling in to the radio show and wanting to bone him. That's hilarious.
But then, another person calls in, and it's a not so young Tommy Doyle, all growned up after the babysitting incident. Oh, and he believes Michael is still alive.
And I brought along a clip I’d like to play…
We slide over to old doc Loomis, working on a book, and bahahaha, someone calls in to the show with his theory that Michael Myers has been shipped off to space. Surprisingly, this franchise never went there.
Jamie finds her way to a bus depot, which is also playing the radio station. She grabs the nearest payphone and calls in, trying to get Loomis' attention, while he gets paid a visit from an old colleague from Smith's Grove, wanting him to return to work.
It's a good thing no one watches or listens to anything else in this town. Of course, she never gets a chance to give her name or location, so the only one coming for her is Michael.
Just getting started.
We get even more chasing as Jamie escapes back to the truck, pursued by Michael, until he runs her off the road. There's more running, until he catches up with her and kills her in the nearest barn. Fortunately, Jason Voorhees ducked out a few weeks ago, or it would still be occupied.
So it's now Halloween, and we go back to the Strodes family, with John and Debra and ah ha ha, cute movie. I see what you did there.
Kara's dad is a bit of an ass, for no real good given reason. He's just not happy with his daughter getting knocked up I guess. He smacks her around a bit until her son Danny grabs a steak knife and threatens gramps with it.
A chip off the old Myers block.
We suddenly jump back to Smith's Grove where Loomis is settling in, and Wynn's secretary informs them they found Jamie's body.
Meanwhile, Tommy listens to the recording of Jamie's call, and picks out some audio, figuring she was at a bus station. So of course he goes to investigate.
He comes across a telltale bloodtrail, which eventually leads him to the stashed baby in a cabinet, which no one noticed until now.
Am I going to run into an old version of me next?
Tommy takes the baby to a nearby hospital, where Loomis just so happens to be, and the two catch up over the coincidence.
Loomis says Jamie was the last of Michael’s bloodline, and while holding a baby, Tommy refutes this. And somehow no one puts two and two together here. But Tommy promises to explain everything later, because heaven forbid we do that now.
Back at the formerly Meyers home, we watch as Debra Strode does some laundry, until Loomis shows up to warn her.
Look what they’ve done to my house…
I am a little shocked that the Strodes, even being her uncle and aunt, seem to know NOTHING about what happened to Laurie. This is bad exposition.
Loomis warns Mrs. Strode to leave, she calls John, and he doesn't believe a word of it. But she packs up, gets ready to run off with the kids...until Mikey shows up and gets fresh blood all over her clean laundry.
Kara returns home to find Tommy hanging out with her son, and he catches her up on some of the plot as he takes them to safety over at his place.
And that's when we get the info dump on runes and building up the Cult of Thorn. I know it gets ripped apart a lot, but I genuinely like bringing in something like this at this stage in the franchise. Even if their use of runes is a bit bullshit.
Back at the hospital, Loomis finds out Jamie was pregnant, and finally durs his way into realising he might know where the baby is.
John finally returns home, to an empty house, thinking everyone left him. The power goes out, and ha ha, he thinks it's all a prank. Well, the joke is all on him...
Dramatic backlighting, the villain’s best friend.
Not sure how I feel about Michael returning home and killing John and Debra, his family and creators, if I’m being honest.
During all this, the radio host has been having fun in town, and tries to relocate to the Myers house...until he runs into Michael himself, and it does not end well.
Tim and his girlfriend Beth head back to the house ahead of Barry, and decide it would be a great idea to light a thousand candles and screw before anyone shows up. And recap MORE of the movies. This film spends a lot of time talking about four other movies.
Eventually, Tommy finds the radio host by dumb luck, and they know everyone is in danger, so lets get this final act going.
The jock’s final shock.
After sex, Tim jumps in the shower, gets handed a towel by Mikey because he likes his victims to be clean, and then takes care of them both.
Kara watched as her best friend was murdered in her bedroom, and rushes over, creeping around with a fireplace poker. She finds her friend in bed, whips back the sheets and it's just their corpses.
She finds Danny, and get stalked through the house a bit by Myers before they eventually escape.
It could’ve been a horse’s head…
Kara shoves Mike down the stairs, and I am getting weird Night Killer flashbacks. They finally escape, and run into Tommy and Loomis at his place. But now the BABY has gone missing.
Fortunately, they find the baby in the capable hands of the woman who babysat Michael that fateful night in the sixties, and whom Tommy rents his room from.
Oh, and she's joined by the man in black, whom has been lurking through two movies now, with the reveal that he is...Doctor Wynn! ...Okay I guess.
And featuring Ed Harris.
Kara self defenestrates to escape, but when she hits the ground, she's in no shape to run. The cultists take her and the kids, leaving Tommy and Loomis in the lurch.
Aaaand this is where the plot starts getting all wobbly. The movie jumps as they come to, having been drugged, and it's a jarring transition. It is also far from the last such thing in the final 20 minutes.
This all leads back to Smith's Grove, where the cult operates out of. Loomis knows to go there at least, thanks to the Wynn reveal, and gets armed up. Also, plot convenience.
He moves about as fast as Michael now…
While Loomis goes to deal with Wynn, Tommy hears screaming and rushes off into the hallways to find Kara.
The doctor gives us even more infodump on the Cult of Thorn, and offers Loomis a seat at the table before the final sacrifice can occur.
Ant-Man stumbles through the halls, and good thing he has his breaking and entering skills. They sure will come in handy in a high security place like an asyl...nope, all the doors and bars and gates are unlocked. No wonder Michael keeps escaping.
Tommy finally finds Kara behind the one locked door in the entire place, and that's when his personal, literal, boogeyman shows up. And this happens...
Homina homina homina
He gets Kara out and they run off just in time, with only a few small complications. Nothing that can't be handled with a big enough gun.
The two wander around for a bit, this movie's trademark it seems, and just so happen to find Danny. And Michael finds them at the same time.
So after a lot of standing around and lurking, Mike grabs the biggest knife he can find in the hospital, which is shockingly large, considering, and slaughters an operating room full of people. For reasons??
Our heroes grab the kids and run some more, and eventually find themselves in a weird room with weird baby dolls and runes and stuff.
I saw this trick in a Terminator movie once…
But yeah, again, this all feels weirdly rushed and really slow at the same time, since things just kinda HAPPEN, but then we sit and wait for the next happening.
Tommy calls out Michael, and presents him with the baby...OR DOES HE...he does not.
But the actual baby cries out, so Mike knows its a trick, and so Ant-Man hams the killer with a bunch of vials...no you fool! That was green! That was ReAnimator juice! If he wasn't immortal before, he sure a shit is NOW!
And when he comes around the corner…BAM! right in the face with the doughnut holer!!
After much beating with the pipe, everyone runs off, finds Loomis, and escape into the night, and uh, the movie just kinda peters out. Okay then, I guess?
Just a brief aside, this was the theatrical version I talked about, but I have since also watched the ‘producers cut’ and yes, it IS an improvement in most ways. It’s a little tighter in the plot, things flow a lot better, but it does still have a few leaps in logic and strangeness all its own, with another ending that sputters to the end. If you could combine bits and pieces, you might have something, but neither version is quite right.
TRISK ASSESSMENT
Video: As is no surprise, this looks really good, with some great use of light and shadows, as people love to do with that mask.
Audio: An okay enough mix, but it sounds weirdly hollow and echoy, especially the foley stuff, like it was recorded in a tin can.
Body Count: I’ll say this about Michael, he at least never leaves without a pile of bodies left out for collection.
1 - Just after the five minute mark, a doctor cultist gets her head impaled by Mikey.
2 - Random dude gets his neck snapped.
3 - Michael guts Jamie in a barn.
4 - Debra Strode gets axed in the face.
5 - Michael stabs and electrocutes John Strode.
6 - Barry Simms gets his neck snapped by Mike.
7 - Tim gets stabbed in the bathroom
8 - Then Mike takes care of Beth
9 - A random doctor gets stabbed.
10 - And another
11 - And then Mike does some surgery of his own and slices their patient open.
12 - Inmate gets crushed against a grate.
Best Corpse: Mmm, I’ll go with Papa Strode. I am a sucker for electrocutionals and head explosions, even if they make zero sense.
Blood Type - C: Not much in the way of blood or effects, but they use it to good effect a few times.
Sex Appeal: Solely surprised by Beth’s breasts.
Drink Up! Any time someone mentions Samhain or recaps a previous movie.
Movie Review: So, to be fair, this isn’t half bad. And is a damned sight better than #4, and definitely #5. Especially the first two thirds of it, when they knew what they were doing with the plot. But everything following the Man in Black reveal, and the return to the asylum, is just a mishmash of ideas that needed more to either flesh it out, make it more coherent, or something else entirely. It’s still not bad, but it is a big ol’ jumble of stuff happening with not the best flow. Also, if the plot didn’t have coincidences, there would BE know plot. So much happens by the right people in the right place, and just moving the plot along. And as decent and servicable as the plot may be at times, there IS a lot of wandering around without doing much of anything. You spend a lot of time waiting for stuff to happen, and when it does, it is out of left field. Three out of five runestones
Entertainment Value: That said, it’s still eminently watchable. Donald Pleasence, even if he’s clearly in declining health, still delivers one hell of a performance. I feel like this is one of the stronger Michaels, having a decent, threatening presence to his stalking, if not very clear motives. It’s fun bringing back Tommy, and lots of nods to the past. Still, there’s nothing that really stands out, and it’s not so bad as to be hilariously watchable. A perfectly fine movie with a solid cast. Three out of five Strodes.
