Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Joe Chappelle
Produced by	Moustapha Akkad Malek Akkad Paul Freeman
Written by	Daniel Farrands
Starring	Donald Pleasence Paul Stephen Rudd Marianne Hagan Mitch Ryan
Music by	Alan Howarth
Cinematography	Billy Dickson
Editing by	Randolph K. Bricker
Distributed by	Dimension Films
Release date(s)	September 29, 1995 (1995-09-29) (United States)
Running time	88 minutes (Theatrical) 94 minutes (Producer's cut) 89 minutes (Director's cut)
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$5 million
Box office	$15,116,634

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers is a 1995 American horror film and the sixth installment in the Halloween series. Directed by Joe Chappelle from a screenplay by Daniel Farrands, the plot involves the "Curse of Thorn", a mystical symbol first shown in Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers and revealed in the film to be the source of Michael Myers' evil.^[1] The cast includes Paul Rudd (in his first film appearance) as Tommy Doyle, a returning character from the original Halloween film, and Donald Pleasence reprising his final role as protagonist Dr. Sam Loomis. Jamie Lloyd's appearance in the beginning of the film ties up loose ends to Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers.

Curse opened to a respectable $7.3 million on September 29, 1995, coming in second to New Line's seminal serial killer thriller Seven.^[2] Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers and the Thorn plotline would be ignored in succeeding installments, 1998's Halloween H20: 20 Years Later and 2002's Halloween: Resurrection. However, the 2001 Halloween comic book series published by Chaos Comics — and based on Farrands' concept for the eighth Halloween film — attempts to bridge the continuity between The Curse of Michael Myers and Halloween H20.

The sixth installment is known for its controversial behind-the-scenes history, suffering from re-shoots in production and numerous cuts and arrangements made in the editing room; the workprint of the film, with 43 minutes of alternate footage including a different ending, was eventually discovered by fans of the series. This version, dubbed "The Producer's Cut" (as it was the original intended version of the film) developed a strong cult following, with bootleg DVD copies sold on eBay.^[3]

Plot

Six years after the events of Halloween 5, it is revealed that the Man in Black seen throughout the previous movie who had rescued Michael from the Haddonfield Police Station had also abducted his niece Jamie Lloyd as well. At this point, a now 15 year old Jamie (J.C. Brandy) has been impregnated. The baby is born on October 30, 1995 and is then carried away by the Man in Black who appears to be a leader of a Druidistic-like cult. Later that night, Mary (Susan Swift), a nurse, helps Jamie escape with her baby she warns is in harms way. Michael (George P. Wilbur), in pursuit of Jamie and her newborn, kills the nurse. Jamie and the baby flee in a stolen pickup of a drunk motorist (who quickly becomes Michael's next victim) and hides at a dark and deserted bus station. She calls into a local radio station for help, only to be ignored by the DJ Barry Simms (Leo Geter) who is doing a broadcast on the Haddonfield murders. Michael nearly corners her, but she escapes only to later be run off the road by Michael. Beaten and exhausted, she makes her way inside of an old barn where Michael pushes her into a corn thresher, only to find that Jamie does not have the baby.

Meanwhile, Tommy Doyle (Paul Stephen Rudd), the child Laurie Strode babysat in the first film, has his eye on a family who has moved into the old Myers house across the street from the boarding house where he lives. The boarding house is run by a mysterious old woman named Mrs. Blankenship (Janice Knickrehm). For years, Tommy has been obsessed with finding the truth behind the murderous motives of Michael Myers. After hearing Jamie begging for help on a local radio show, Tommy finds her baby at the bus station, takes the child into his care and names him Steven. Tommy runs into Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) at the Haddonfield Memorial Hospital and tells him of a family living in the old Myers house when the two are convinced Michael has indeed come back to Haddonfield.

The people living in the Myers house are relatives of the Strode family who had adopted Laurie. While Kara Strode (Marianne Hagan), her six-year-old son, Danny (Devin Gardner), and Kara's teenage brother, Tim (Keith Bogart), are at school, Dr. Loomis visits their mother Debra Strode (Kim Darby) and reveals to her that she is living in Michael's home. After he leaves, Debra calls her husband John (Bradford English) who is at work and tries to convince him to leave Haddonfield but is then killed by Michael. Later, Kara returns home to find Danny in his room with Tommy, whom he had met while on his way home. The three of them go to Tommy's house across the street, where Tommy reveals to Kara that he believes Michael was selected by a cult of people to be under the influence of an ancient rune symbol called Thorn; that druid astronomers claimed originated from a constellation of stars that appear from time to time on Halloween night. It is an ancient Druid curse that represented a demon that spread sickness and caused destruction. To prevent this, a child from each tribe was chosen to inherit the curse and would offer a blood sacrifice of its next of kin on the night of Samhain (Halloween). The curse explains why Michael is trying to kill his family and also accounts for his superhuman abilities.

While Tommy goes out to look for Dr. Loomis at a party at the Haddonfield Junior College, Mrs. Blankenship reveals to Kara (after talking to Danny) that she was babysitting Michael Myers when he killed his sister many years ago, and that Danny hears the "voice" telling him to kill just like Michael Myers heard when she was babysitting him the night he killed Judith. This indicates that he is to be the next child to come into the influence of Thorn. Meanwhile, Michael kills Barry Simms, John Strode, and then Tim and his girlfriend Beth (Mariah O'Brien). After Tommy returns to the boarding house with Dr. Loomis, the "Man in Black" finally reveals himself as Dr. Wynn (Mitchell Ryan) from the original Halloween. After a terrifying showdown, he and his cult of people who appear to be the "Cult of Thorn" take Kara, Danny, Steven, and Michael back to Smith's Grove Sanitarium, with Tommy and Dr. Loomis following them. Loomis confronts Dr. Wynn, who credits him for recognizing the evil he corrupted inside Michael. Wynn then implies that Jamie's baby represents a new cycle of evil, inviting Loomis to join in on his efforts. Stunned, Loomis calls Wynn out on his evil scheme before being knocked unconscious by a staff member. Meanwhile, Tommy finds Kara locked in a room in the maximum security ward. After a brief confrontation with Michael, they continue on to find Danny and Steven.

In the hallway, they see Dr. Wynn and a team of surgeons walk into an operating room after discussing a scientific breakthrough procedure they are about to work on as a result of a genetic experiment. Tommy and Kara sneak into the adjoining room, where they find the children. They watch the doctors begin to perform the procedure, but Michael soon interrupts it, walking in with a surgical machete and slaughters them all (though Dr. Wynn's fate remains unclear in this sequence). Tommy, Kara, and the kids run with Michael in hot pursuit until they hide in a high-tech medical laboratory. Inside the lab, Kara notices tanks containing human fetuses inside each one of them with a chart of runes and scientific letter codes next to them; both connected together by the Thorn symbol. There is the vague suggestion that Dr. Wynn and the sanitarium crew are not a true "Cult of Thorn" but a group of geneticists who are trying to control and study Michael's evil power, and harvest that power through more than one child through IVF, PCR and using the female patients of the sanitarium.

Michael breaks into the room where Tommy injects him with tranquilizers of a corrosive and beats him into unconsciousness with a lead pipe. As Dr. Loomis, Tommy, Kara, Danny, and Steven are about to escape, Loomis tells them to go on without him because he has "a little business" to attend to. Back inside the building, Michael's mask is found lying on the floor of the lab room as the screams of Dr. Loomis can be heard in the background.

Cast

• Donald Pleasence as Dr. Sam Loomis
• Paul Stephen Rudd as Tommy Doyle
• Marianne Hagan as Kara Strode
• George P. Wilbur as Michael Myers
• Mitchell Ryan as Dr. Terence Wynn
• Kim Darby as Debra Strode
• Bradford English as John Strode
• Keith Bogart as Tim Strode
• J.C. Brandy as Jamie Lloyd Carruthers
• Mariah O'Brien as Beth
• Leo Geter as Barry Simms
• Devin Gardner as Danny Strode
• Susan Swift as Mary
• Janice Knickrehm as Mrs. Blankenship

Production

The Runic symbol of Thorn, which is a major theme in the film.

In 1990, screenwriter, and long-time Halloween fan, Daniel Farrands, had set out to write the sixth entry in the Halloween series. Farrands gave his horror movie scripts to the producer of Halloween 5, Ramsey Thomas; impressed by his writing, Thomas set a meeting for Farrands with executive producer Moustapha Akkad. Farrands described the meeting:

“

I spent weeks preparing for the meeting and came in with a huge notebook filled with HALLOWEEN research – I had the entire series laid out in a timeline, a bio of every character, a “family tree” of the Myers and Strode clans, as well as all of the research I had compiled about the runic symbol (Thorn) that was briefly shown in “Halloween 5.” I then laid out how I thought all of this might be explored in HALLOWEEN 6.[4]

”

Although the producers at the time had already sought to make a sixth Halloween film, a series of complicated legal battles ensued which delayed plans for a sequel; eventually Miramax Films (via its Dimension Films division) bought the rights to the Halloween franchise.

Writing

In 1994, Akkad called Daniel Farrands for him to write the sixth Halloween film, after several screenplays from writers were deemed insufficient. Farrands has said his initial intent for Halloween 6 was to "bridge the later films (4-5) in the series to the earlier films (1-2) while at the same time taking the story into new territory so that the series could expand for future installments."^[5] Daniel Farrands had written several drafts to the film. His final draft, originally titled Halloween 666, went through eleven different drafts.

The writer and filmmakers' intentions with the script were to ultimately unveil what had kept Michael Myers alive, and his reasons for killing. They decided upon using the "Curse of Thorn"-angle, which is the concept that Myers had been under the influence of an ancient Celtic curse that drove him to murder all family members in his bloodline; once this task was completed, the curse would be passed onto another young child.

Casting

Donald Pleasence returned as Dr. Loomis, in his last performance; according to Farrands, Pleasence "loved the script for 6, however, and told me that he felt it was the best story since the original." Danielle Harris was asked to reprise her role as Jamie Lloyd, but she and Dimension could not come to an agreement over her salary and ultimately did not want to pay Danielle more than she received in Halloween 4. Harris herself admitted to "not caring for the script" and that upon meeting with director Joe Chappelle, did not see "eye to eye" on things. She also stated that she did not like that Jamie would be killed in the beginning of the film, because her character was no longer important to the series.^[6] She ultimately opted out of reprising the role, and J. C. Brandy was cast instead. The producers wanted Brian Andrews to reprise his role as Tommy Doyle. However, without an agent, they could not get in contact with Andrews.

The leading female role, Kara, was given to Marianne Hagan; however, Hagan has since stated that Miramax did not favor her, and made aesthetic criticisms about her being "too thin" and her chin being "too pointy".^[6]

For the role of Dr. Terence Wynn, Mitchell Ryan was cast; Farrands originally urged the producers to cast Christopher Lee, having had the veteran horror actor in mind when writing the character. Denise Richards also auditioned for the part of Beth, but the studio passed on her, giving the role to Mariah O'Brien.

Stunt performer George P. Wilbur, who portrayed Michael in the fourth installment, reprises his role as the silent unstoppable killer in the film.

Filming

Kara (Marianne Hagan) and Tommy (Paul Rudd) attempting to escape Michael Myers in the final act of the film.

Fred Walton (director of When a Stranger Calls and April Fool's Day) was originally attached to direct Halloween 6 but dropped out.^[7] Cult movie director Jeff Burr also expressed interest in directing the film at one point.

Filming started in October 1994 and was shot mostly in Salt Lake City, Utah; the city was experiencing an early winter at the time which proved troublesome for the production company. Producer Paul Freeman and director Chappelle reportedly rewrote the ending on-set, even from shot to shot as production deadlines loomed large. Freeman also sent the crew home when crucial scenes needed to be shot; deleting scripted scenes indiscriminately, rewrote dialogue and action sequences; and took it upon himself to direct second-unit shot as well supervised the post-production phase of the original cut and made a series of blunders that resulted in Miramax taking control of the film, ordering reshoots.^[6]

In early 1995, after filming and editing was completed, Halloween 6 was given a test screening which, as described by actress Marianne Hagan, "consisted primarily of 14-year-old boys."^[6] During the Q & A afterward, one of them expressed great displeasure at the ending of the film, which entailed a Celtic ritual and the passing on of the Curse of Thorn to the Dr. Loomis character. As a result of the audience's disapproval toward the film's finale, the movie was rushed back into production, this time without Donald Pleasence, who died on February 2, 1995.

The film's ending was excised from the original cut that had been shown in the test screenings, and an entire new ending was shot that nearly dropped the film's "Curse of Thorn" concept entirely. Additionally, over twenty minutes of other footage was removed from the film during the re-editing process, creating several plot holes in the final cut.

Some violent footage was also edited out for fear of an NC-17 rating. This including some extra seconds of Jamie being impaled on the drills, with more blood pouring from her mouth and extra closeups of the drills going through her body. The other major edited scene involved Michael ramming the doctor's head through the bars in the hospital until his head is gorily mashed through and pulps of his skull hit the floor. This footage is restored in the "Director's Cut".

Music

The original music score is composed by long-time Halloween contributor Alan Howarth, his work in the series dating back to his collaboration with John Carpenter on Halloween II. However, Howarth's score was redone when the film went through reshoots. A soundtrack album was released by Varese Sarabande Records, and is an unusual combination of the music featured in the original cut of the film, as well as that of the final theatrical cut.

The music of Alabama based rock band, Brother Cane, was featured throughout the movie. The music came from their 1995 release Seeds on Virgin Records. The album's hit single "And Fools Shine On" can be heard when Kara, Tim and Beth arrive at school in their car. The song is also heard during the closing credits. Three other Brother Cane songs (all from the Seeds album) are featured in the film: "Hung on a Rope", "20/20 Faith", and "Horses & Needles".

"Disconnected" by the group I Found God is also featured in the film.

Release

An earlier teaser trailer of the film employed the title Halloween 666: The Origin of Michael Myers, which according to Daniel Farrands, came before an official title had been decided, and that the trailer title was a combination of an earlier script titled The Origin of Michael Myers by another writer, and Farrands' original script titled Halloween 666. At one point, executive producer Moustapha Akkad asked Farrands for a title, who suggested The Curse of Michael Myers due to the troubled production. Although Farrands was half-joking, Akkad took the name to heart and decided upon it. Farrands also adds that this coincidentally made the subtitles similar to those in The Pink Panther films, which also used Return, Revenge, and Curse subtitles.^[8]

Box office

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers was released on September 29, 1995 in the United States, and brought in a $7,308,529 opening weekend gross, coming in second to serial killer thriller Se7en, being the first film in the series to beat Halloween II's opening weekend gross. The film went on to gross a total of $15,116,634 at the U.S. box office, from an estimated $5 million budget.

Critical reception

While the film was a financial success, it received poor reviews from film critics. Daniel Kimmel of Variety called the film "tired" and "run-of-the-mill",^[9] while Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle said the film lacked suspense and said that "not even the presence of the late, gloriously histrionic Donald Pleasence can liven things up".^[10] In general, most critics had negative reactions to the film. It currently holds a 7% 'Rotten' rating on the film review aggregating site Rotten Tomatoes. Screenwriter Daniel Farrands generally dislikes the film, due to its deviations from his original script. Although Farrands thinks both versions are poor, he considers the Producer's Cut to be the superior version.

Home media

The film was first released for home media on VHS on October 7, 1997. A DVD followed on October 10, 2000. In January 2010, the film was released for the first time on Blu-ray in Canada.^[11] The film was released on Blu-ray and again on DVD in the United States on May 10, 2011.

Alternate versions

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers is notorious among Halloween fans for having multiple versions. The Producer's Cut is the most well known, however a Director's Cut also exists with most of the footage cut for the R-rating restored. As of 2011, the theatrical version is the only version commercially available while the Director and Producer's cuts only exist as low-quality bootlegs.

Producer's Cut

Copies of the original version of the film (known as the "Producer's Cut"), without the changed ending, have long been floating around in bootleg/collectors' circles. In addition to featuring a different ending which was intended to keep Donald Pleasence's character in the films, it also features longer scenes in several parts of the movie, as well as different music at times. Major plot points differ between the two cuts. For example, in the Producer's Cut, Jamie Lloyd is not killed by Michael's attack in the barn; she is wounded only to be killed later on in the film by the "Man in Black" after having a dream about how she was imprisoned in Smith's Grove and impregnated with Michael's child. There is also a flashback to Halloween 5 that shows Jamie and Michael kidnapped by the "Man in Black".

On the Halloween: 25 Years of Terror DVD, it was stated that Dimension was trying to plan an official release of the Producer's Cut. Fangoria reported that the Producer's Cut may get an official release. However, Disney, who owns the rights to the film; decided not to give an official release.

Fans continue to sign online petitions asking for an official release of the Producer's Cut, but there has been no official release for any of the alternate versions.

A few select scenes from the Producer's Cut can be seen on the television version of the film. The scenes were re-inserted to increase the running time of the film (originally a scant 88 minutes).

References

1. ^ Nicholas Rogers, Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 110.
2. ^ http://boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=1995&wknd=39&p=.htm
3. ^ "Arrow In The Head Review: Halloween 6, The Producer's Cut". JoBlo.com. http://www.joblo.com/arrow/reviews.php?id=407. Retrieved 1 September 2011. 
4. ^ Interviews with Daniel Farrands "Daniel Farrands Interview: Halloween 6". HalloweenMovies.com. http://www.halloweenmovies.com/h6retro_interview.html. 
5. ^ "Interview With Daniel Farrands". 73 Miles to Haddonfield Fansite. Archived from the original on 2009-10-25. http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/2260/int-farrands.html%3F200724&date=2009-10-25+08:05:48. Retrieved 29 September 2009. 
6. ^ ^{a b c d} Danielle Harris, Marianne Hagan (2006). Halloween: 25 Years Later (A Documentary) (DVD). Anchor Bay Entertainment. 
7. ^ "Fright Exclusive Interview: Daniel Farrands". Icons of Fright. June 2005. http://www.iconsoffright.com/IV_Dan.htm. Retrieved 29 September 2009. 
8. ^ Dan Farrands interview
9. ^ Kimmel, Daniel (29 September 1995). "Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers". Variety. http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117910137.html?categoryid=31&cs=1&p=0. Retrieved 29 September 2009. 
10. ^ LaSalle, Mick (2 October 2005). "FILM REVIEW: Latest 'Halloween' is No Treat". San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/1995/10/02/DD40921.DTL. Retrieved 29 September 2009. 
11. ^ "Halloween 6, 7 and 8 Available on Blu-ray in Canada, without the inclusion of the Producer's Cut or any of the deleted scenes". DreadCentral. http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/35467/halloween-6-7-and-8-available-blu-ray-canada. 

External links

• Official website
• Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers at the Internet Movie Database
• Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers at AllRovi
• Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers at Box Office Mojo
• Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers at Rotten Tomatoes