Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers

Okay, so as a precursor to this review, I must say that I haven’t watched the director’s cut of the film that is featured on the Blu-Ray collection as of yet.  I’d preordered the set earlier in the summer when it was first announced and it was just delivered last month.  With that said, I’m basing my views on the DVD copy I own and not the Blu-Ray.  I’m not sure if the director’s cut is any better (I don’t know how that’d be possible), but if it is I will definitely update this post as soon as I see it and believe it’s better than the theatrical version.

Speaking of theatrical versions, I’m not even sure if this movie saw any theater time because I had never seen this title featured on any marquee around my parts.  The only inkling I had that the film existed was the constant trailers I saw preceding movie rentals that happened to be movies distributed by Dimension Films.  On top of that, the film was originally titled Halloween 666: The Origin of Michael Myers, as it stated and showed on the trailers I’d seen.  Somewhere along the way, however, the filmmakers decided to change the name and quietly released it to home media sometime in 1995 or 1996.

Dropping the number and changing the subtitle, the movie was released as Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers.  Directed by Joe Chappelle, this was only his second directorial feature.  The history of this film is so messed up with conflicting reports of how bad the relationship was between the producers and the director, not to mention the crew that worked on it as well.  The budget was said to be cut pretty drastically, which figures on why the movie looks the way it does.  But I’ll get more into that later.  For now, here’s the synopsis.

The film opens with Jamie Lloyd (J.C. Brandy), pregnant and held captive by some faction called Thorn.  She’s wheeled into an area where she gives birth to her baby and the cult wants to sacrifice it,

but she’s able to escape with the baby.  It turns out that Michael Myers (George P. Wilbur) is associated with this cult somehow and goes after Jamie and her child.  After Jamie tries calling in a radio talk show from the bus depot—since the police don’t take her calls seriously—Tommy Doyle (Paul Rudd) hears the call over the airwaves and goes to help.  However, Michael catches up with Jamie and kills her, but doesn’t find her child.  As Tommy arrives at the bus depot, he finds the baby and goes to Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) for help.  But Michael returns to Haddonfield once more to find the child.  Can Tommy Doyle and Dr. Loomis protect it from him?

Okay, this film is bad.  Really bad. Out of all the Halloween movies in the franchise, I can only think of one other that is worse than this one.  When I throw this one on, I find myself really forcing myself to watch, usually falling asleep or just keeping the DVD playing as background noise while doing something else.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s a curious concept, but it was just executed horribly and has too many lulls to keep one’s interest.  The whole film seems tired and features no tension and is confusing at times. 

I feel bad for Donald Pleasence as this was his last film, passing away before it was released.  For his dedication to this whole franchise, he should’ve gone out with a bang, but instead went out quietly.  Pleasence deserved an awesome swan song as he was responsible for some of the success this film has had over the years.

Like the previous entry, the film is filled with either hateful characters or just plain boring ones that

you don’t care what happens to them.  One of the worst—and probably within the whole franchise—is the father of one of the main characters.  He’s such a prick to his wife and daughter that you feel you want to kill him yourself.

The edited cuts quickly get on your nerves as you hear the sound effects of a slashing knife swooshing through the air and cutting something.  There is no rhyme or reason for the sounds, it’s just something the filmmakers thought would be cool to feature, but just seems stupid.

There’s nothing more I can say about this film, other than to tell you to avoid it.  That’s my final “bit” and I’m sticking to it.

Thanks for reading and Happy Halloween!

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