Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers
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Halloween 666: The Origin of Michael Myers (working title) (more)
Directed by:
Joe ChappelleScreenplay:
Daniel FarrandsCinematography:
Billy DicksonCast:
Donald Pleasence, Paul Rudd, Marianne Hagan, Mitchell Ryan, Kim Darby, Bradford English, Devin Gardner, Susan Swift, Tom Proctor, Fred Lerner, J.C. Brandy (more)VOD (1)
Plots(1)
Six years ago, Michael Myers terrorized the town of Haddonfield, Illinois. He and his niece, Jamie Lloyd, have disappeared. Jamie was kidnapped by a bunch of evil druids who protect Michael Myers. And now, six years later, Jamie has escaped after giving birth to Michael's child. She runs to Haddonfield to get Dr. Loomis to help her again. Meanwhile, the family that adopted Laurie Strode is living in the Myers house and are being stalked by Myers. It's the curse of Thorn that Michael is possessed by that makes him kill his family. And it's up to Tommy Doyle, the boy from Halloween, and Dr. Loomis, to stop them all. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Reviews (3)
Both versions of this film are equally dumb as far as the story is concerned; both take the legend of Michael Myers in directions no one wished for. But if I need to compare them, the producer’s cut (i.e. the original version) is definitely better and more watchable in all respects. At least, it caters to the filmic basics by offering scene continuity, a plot framework, proper editing, a quality musical accompaniment and, mostly, a decent preservation of the scenes with the late Donald Pleasence. The cinema version (reshot and recut) doesn’t have any of this. All it has is more murders, the rest failing terribly due to the stubbornness of the director and the producers. If your film is completed and your main actor dies, you can’t venture into tragic reshoots while giving up on any kind of meaningful ending! The only possible result is a pure insult to the viewer – which the cinema version truly is. Dr. Loomis would have deserved a more befitting departure, for example in H20.
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When I cried out for any kind of innovation after the fifth installment, I had no idea what a director's innovative approach could do to this film. Joe Chapelle definitely hasn't studied the history of slasher films because Michael mows people down like any other below-average redneck from routine teen murder movies, i.e., unimaginatively. Instead of darkness, epileptic editing flashes at us from everywhere, supported by industrial music with movement insertions in the form of human screams or moans. You could understand this in the mid-nineties (the times are moving forward), but in terms of infantilism, the script once again trumps the previous film. And if we prefer not to look for logic, at least the filmmakers could have chosen some point of contact and brought this theme to some kind of resolution. Unfortunately, we don’t get even that. This film hit rock bottom because, after this, the next two films (so far) can’t get any worse. Donald Pleasence’s bitter farewell. Amen.
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Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers is a perfect example of how to set up a series in terms of quantity, but completely disregard quality. There is an effort to revive the series here, that's for sure, but it's done in a way that isn't the best possible option. The newly created mythology harms what had been established so far and turns it into a cluttered mess, which is a great pity.
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