Dr. K's Waiting Room

Quick Facts:
After the negative reception to Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (Othenin-Girard, 1989), producer Moustapha Akkad sought to retool the franchise, forming a partnership with Dimension Films and rejecting many pitches. The final product was heavily butchered following test screenings, reducing Donald Pleasance’s role in favour of more gore and a confusing ending that made marginally more sense in the Producer’s Cut (2014) and resulting in one of the most infamous entries in the franchise.

The Review:
Six years after Halloween 5, Haddonfield, Illinois has tried to bury the memory of Michael Myers/The Shape (George P. Wilbur/A. Michael Lerner/Brad Hardin) by banning Halloween. Michael, and his long-suffering former doctor, Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence), are presumed dead, as is the Shape’s niece, Jamie Lloyd (J. C. Brandy), who all disappeared in some form after the fifth movie. Dr. Loomis retired from his obsession and the spotlight and apparently found some peace that’s reflected in his healed scars. Everyone was happy to let the past die except horny, excitable Haddonfield teens like Beth (Mariah O’Brien), who want to bring Halloween back to Haddonfield. Oddly, despite the ban, the town still celebrates harvest festival and houses are still decorated for trick-or-treaters, much to the anger of the abusive and volatile John Strode (Bradford English), who’s incensed that local kids keep associated his family with Michael. Of course, it doesn’t help that realtor John moved his family into the old Myers house, where young Michael murdered his sister as a child, a fact unknown to his meek and mistreated wife, Debra Strode (Kim Darby), and their kids, Kara Strode (Marianne Hagan) and Tim Strode (Keith Bogart). Additionally, Haddonfield seems happy to bring Halloween back as there is no police interference in the youngsters’ public gatherings and no objections to shock radio DJ Barry Simms (Leo Geter) capitalising on Michael’s notoriety. Whatever passes as peace for Haddonfield is doomed, however, as Michael and Jamie aren’t as dead as people would like to think. Instead, they were spirited away by the mysterious “Man in Black” and held captive during the interim under the care of doctors and the druid-like “Cult of Thorn”.

While it initially seemed like Jamie had inherited her uncle’s curse to become a psychopathic killer, she was then seen to share a prominent psychic link to her uncle. The Curse of Michael Myers reduces her to a mewling victim. Held captive by the Cult of Thorn for six years, Jamie was presumably raped or possibly artificially inseminated during that time to birth Michael’s replacement, a force of pure evil the cult could control. After giving birth, Jamie escapes with the aid of a sympathetic nurse (Susan Swift) and promptly flees into the rain with her child, relentlessly pursued by Michael, now driven by the “Curse of Thorn” to murder his bloodline (and anyone in his way). Unfortunately, Jamie’s presence is very brief; she gets scant moments to bond with her baby, desperately calls for help, and is then promptly butchered by Michael. It’s a pretty shitty end for her, especially as they could’ve ditched her being held captive and simply transplanted Jamie’s story onto Kara. Laurie Strode’s (Jamie Lee Curtis) adopted cousin, Kara is having a tough time here. After getting pregnant in her teens and birthing Danny Strode (Devin Gardner), Kara was forced to move back after some incident, angering her father and causing him to lash out at her as much as Debra and Kara’s little “bastard”. As if clashing with her asshole father isn’t bad enough, Kara must deal with Danny being tormented by nightmares where the Man in Black calls to him. Danny constantly sees and hears the Man in Black, who encourages him to kill his family, just as Michael apparently heard a similar voice in the same house as a child. Although this drives Danny to hold a knife up to John when he hits Kara, it largely just leaves him an emotional wreck who’s either spaced out or wailing, meaning he lacks the nuance and appeal of young Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris) from the previous films.

Tommy Doyle, a young boy who encountered Michael in the first film, has grown up into “Paul Stephen Rudd”, a damaged and traumatised youth living in Mrs. Blankenship’s (Janice Knickrehm) boarding house across the road from (and obsessed with) the Strodes. Tommy has been obsessed with Michael since 1978 and has researched the Curse of Thorn, convinced that Michael will return to finish off loose ends (the Strodes). His odd nature initially unnerves Kara and sees him largely shunned by Haddonfield, but Tommy’s the only one who recognises Jamie’s frantic call and locates her abandoned baby, Steven Lloyd (Emily Haterson), whom he’s compelled to protect. Luckily, Tommy quickly runs into the aged and hobbled Dr. Loomis, who’s pulled out of retirement after a visit from an old friend, Doctor Terence Wynn (Mitch Ryan), and news of Michael’s pending return. Sadly, Dr. Loomis doesn’t get much to do here, or much of the spotlight. His manic demeanour is considerably toned down and he mostly appears confused and exhausted, to the point where he barely reacts upon learning that Michael’s loose. He’s pretty ineffectual at helping Tommy protect baby Steven, easily being “drugged” off-camera and completely blindsided when Dr. Wynn turns out to be the Man in Black. Dr. Loomis tries to kill his colleague to stop the madness and is promptly jumped and vanishes for most of the finale, returning only to seemingly be killed offscreen. It’s a shame as I would’ve liked to see Tommy bring Steven to Dr. Loomis and for Dr. Loomis to know of the Cult of Thorn, having researched them under the guise of retirement. Instead, the filmmakers went out of their way to cut Dr. Loomis and Tommy is left to wander around acting all twitchy and weird, almost having a psychotic break when confronted by Michael.

As bad as Dr. Loomis’s characterisation is, Michael’s is just as bad. Rather than being this mysterious, unknowable force of evil, Michael is little more than a lap dog here. The Curse of Thorn compels him to murder his bloodline but apparently means Dr. Wynn and his pseudo-druids can control Michael, to some degree. Or at least subdue him. It’s really unclear, to be honest. Michael spends most of the film wandering the cult’s facility, killing anyone who interferes with their plans, and then going after Jamie before returning to Haddonfield. His target is Danny (which is weird as Dr. Wynn also tries to corrupt him into a new Michael, like with Jamie), but he also makes the effort to kill Debra and John. He also randomly attacks Barry before killing Beth, Tim, and, bizarrely, all the doctors and cultists at the cult facility in the finale (presumably including Dr. Wynn). The film states that young Michael “heard a voice” that drove him to kill his family and that Dr. Wynn has always protected Michael, allowing him to terrorise Haddonfield as part of a bizarre ritual. From what I can gather, the cult wants to create a replacement Michael, either through science or genetics, one that they can properly control for some unexplained endgame. Dr. Wynn wants Dr. Loomis to join their efforts, but he adamantly refuses, and the idea seems to be that Michael’s pure evil cannot be controlled, which is why he goes on a rampage, but it’s all very sloppily executed. Michael seems to be going through the motions, barely being a terrifying figure as he wanders about and catches surprises his unsuspecting prey. Instead of a dramatic showdown between him and Dr. Loomis, we get Tommy damn near going crazy upon seeing Michael and frantically beating him with a lead pipe, which shows just how far the franchise has fallen.

While the first movie was a masterpieceof suspense and atmosphere, The Curse of Michael Myers was the goriest Halloween film to date. Michael rams a cult nurse against a convenient spike on a wall and then tosses poor Jamie onto farming equipment, impaling her through the belly and then mulching her by activating the machine. A random trucker (Tom Proctor) gets his neck violently snapped and Barry gets brutally gutted in his van and left strung up in a tree to “[rain] red” on an unsuspecting little girl (Raquelle Anderson), but it’s the Strodes who get the worst treatment. After being visited by Dr. Loomis and warned of Michael, Debra finally stands up to John and prepares to leave with the kids, only for Michael to hack her head off with a hatchet (off-screen, of course). When John stumbles home drunk, demanding his dinner and genuinely surprised to see Debra’s finally had enough of him, he’s jumped by the Shape he so openly mocked and stabbed in the gut. Michael then hauls John’s gurgling, dying ass into the fuse box, violently electrocuting him to the point where froth and blood bursts from his orifices and his head inexplicably explodes! When Beth and Tim return to the Strode house to wait for Barry, who decides it’d make for better ratings to have his Halloween special at the notorious Myers house, they have a bit off off-screen sexy time (in Kara’s bed, no less!) before Michael attacks them. He gets Tim after his post-sex shower, duping him with a towel and cutting his throat, then Kara’s forced to watch from Tommy’s creepy telescope as Michael repeatedly stabs Beth. Michael also slaughters the cultists in the finale, randomly cutting through them as they’re performing some vague operation for equally vague reasons, leaving a pile of bloody bodies before bashing some surgeon’s head in against some steel bars.

It’s weird, really. You’d think added blood and bodies would make this one more enjoyable, but it really doesn’t. All it does is turn the once nuanced and genuinely terrifying Michael Myers into a poor man’s Jason Voorhees (Various), which is ridiculously ironic considering their origins. At first, The Curse of Michael Myers seems like it’s retreading ground from the previous films, with a child being targeted by the “curse” and Michael hunting down his remaining family. While redundant, this makes some sense (though the whole “impregnating Jamie” doesn’t. Why not just kill her and end the Myers bloodline?) I don’t even mind the Cult of Thorn as it ties into themes hinted at in previous Halloween movies and adds a supernatural wrinkle to Michael. However, none of it is developed much beyond a few random images on Tommy’s computer and some half-baked exposition. Dr. Wynn’s dramatic reveal leads to nothing as he simply vanishes from the finale. We never explicitly get told what his plan is or what’s going on, so the finale boils down to Tommy and Kara trying to rescue baby Steven. They easily infiltrate Smith’s Grove Sanatorium to do this and evade Michael, despite Tommy’s fear of the Shape. Kara and Tommy take turns bashing Michael with a metal pipe in the basement after tricking him with baby Steven, and then they just flee after beating him up. Dr. Loomis randomly returns only to say he has unfinished business, and then the film ends with the vague suggestion that Michael survived and has killed Dr. Loomis offscreen. The film even has the audacity to end with a tribute to Donald Pleasence, as though it was a fitting swansong for his iconic character!

Final Thoughts:
I often hear about bad movies and wonder if they’re really as bad as people claim. Sadly, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers isn’t just as bad as you’ve heard, it’s worse! It takes everything that was bad about the previous films (derivative retellings of the original film, uninspired kills, unnecessary lore, etc) and dials them up to eleven, desperately trying to explain the notoriously unexplainable Michael Myers and failing miserably. It’s obvious to anyone with eyes that this film has been hacked to pieces. Characters come and go, scenes jump about, and it’s full of sub-plots and moments that either go nowhere or make no sense. This is most noticeable in the criminally reduced screen time for Dr. Loomis, who jumps in and out of the film so sporadically that at times I wondered if he was a figment of Tommy’s imagination. Paul Rudd fails to impress as the older Tommy, being a creep at best and a nut case at worse, but at least he tries to do the right thing and recognises Michael on sight. Kara was ridiculously bland and Danny may as well have been excised from the film since his plot fizzled out without any payoff. All the outrageous, gory deaths in the world can’t keep Michael from being at his most pathetic here. He’s just not scary and is largely treated as a lap dog. I’ve always believed there was some potential in the Cult/Curse of Thorn but it’s so poorly executed that it makes little sense. It’s lazily crammed in to explain Michael’s motivations, poorly explained, and has no payoff in the end since it’s never really clear what Dr. Wynn’s trying to do. This is a travesty of a film, one as hacked up by editors and studio interference as Michael’s victims, and an insult to the Halloween franchise. Don’t even watch it out of morbid curiosity: just avoid it and watch the original again.

My Rating:

Terrible

You know you didn’t enjoy Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers so don’t pretend like you did. You agree that this is clearly the worst in the series, yes? That the film was hacked apart and full of nonsensical nonsense? Tell me how much this annoyed you, how frustrating it was to see the series fall from grace. While you’re at it, tell me how are you’re celebrating Halloween this year in the comments and donate to my Ko-Fi to ease my pain at enduring this shit again!