Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)

Review

Jamie Lloyd escapes from an institution with the baby she has just given birth to, hot on her tracks is Michael Myers who wants to complete the slaughter of his family. While Jamie doesn't escape Mikey's attentions her baby is well hidden and later found by Tommy Doyle, one of the kids Jamie Lee was baby sitting in the original movie, of all people. Tommy has spent years researching Michael and is back in Haddonfield as he believes the stars are in alignment and the big masked killer is going to celebrate Halloween Myers style in the township.

Meanwhile the Strode family are living in the old Myers family home and have put the fun back into dysfunctional. In some sort of weird twist on Jamie Lloyd, Kara Strode's young son Danny is having the visions which doesn't escape the notice of Michael's, uhmm, Druid employers who want not only Jamie's baby but also Danny. Aligned against the whole Druidic thing are Tommy, Kara, and of course Doctor Sam Loomis. Can the three thwart Michael and stop a devious plan to mess with genetics or something, hey the plots more confusing than a barrel fill of monkeys on meth, or will Thorn incarnate kill the lot of them. Much slaughter and whacked out ideas ensue.

With news that there's a new Halloween movie in the works finally, Halloween 3, I thought I might dial into the few movies in the franchise I haven't yet got around to having a look at. Unfortunately it's the later movies in the catalogue and for sure the franchise was showing some wear and tear by movie number six, which is of course The Curse of Michael Myers. With the fifth movie having lost its way, and introducing a whole new dynamic in the process, Curse made the mistake of running with those ideas and delivering the whole "Thorn" thing to over complicate matters. Not helping Curse were the Editors who slashed, no pun intended, the movie to such a degree that it makes no coherent sense when viewed. Okay I'm not against Tommy Doyle returning to take on "the shape", but Michael as some bizarre Celtic force of evil, WTF!!! Rob Zombie couldn't have made more of a mess with this one to be honest, and he spat the ludicrous Halloween II (2009) onto our screens.

Things kick off okay with Jamie Lloyd escaping from some medical facility with her recently born baby. She flees into a dark night complete with lightening and rain, just what the Doctor ordered for the audience. With Michael in hot pursuit we're expecting Jamie to have a few close encounters before making good her escapes. Unfortunately for Jamie, she may have survived the two previous movies but her luck runs out in the third with Michael delivering a particularly gruesome death. Now okay I was rocking along at this stage and had high hopes for the rest of the movie. We do get plenty of tension, enough atmosphere in the Myers old abode to have horror fans frothing at the mouth, and some way past inventive kills but the binding scenes between Mikey doing what he does best are pretty woeful to be honest. I was at stages wondering if I shouldn't put a load of washing on as we got various people giving away increasingly weird theories as to Michael and his motivations. Remembering this is Michael Myers, the shape, he doesn't need any motivation to get his stalking on, it's all in the name.

While the movie begins with a bunch of malarkey about runes, a demonic entity of pure evil called Thorn, and other druidic shenanigans, by the end of the movie we are talking genetic research and other non-related ideas. Tommy Doyle is apparently an expert on Michael Myers but this never helps him deal with his nemesis, for all the research Tommy has done it comes down to him wielding a plumbing pipe and whaling on Mikey. Which kind of leaves me wondering why exactly they included the tenuous link to Halloween III in the first place as it means squat end of movie. Equally it made me wonder why Michael was wandering around in the final act of the movie slaughtering various medical teams, exactly what was that achieving?

Director Joe Chappelle knows what he is doing behind the camera, there's a real retro grunge feeling to Curse, but he goes nowhere with the atmosphere and tension he creates beyond Mikey adding to his body count. We get Myers appearing from the edge of frames, behind peoples' shoulders etc. in emulation of John Carpenter's work in the original franchise movie, but Chappelle takes it nowhere, hampered by the script he is unable to build the mythology Carpenter imbibed his seminal masterpiece with. Word on the street is that the Producer's cut of the movie makes a hell of a lot more sense, the indication therefore being that Chappelle's movie has been slashed and burned by the Editors.

On the bright side we get an explanation for the "Man in black", however that explanation left me wondering if the script writer shouldn't have been drowned at birth. Sorry to sound nasty here, but tough love friends and neighbours except there's clearly no love involved. Seems Black not only managed to hoist Mikey from jail, keeping him subdued in the process, but thieves off with Jamie as well, talk about your full dance card. Maybe the dude could fix the Aussie economy over the weekend.

The poo topping on this treat from the sewers is the Strode family, apparently the whole of the state of Illinois is populated by either members of the Strode or Myer clans. Surprisingly, besides dad, no one in the family is aware they are currently living in Casa Del Myer! You would think someone in the local community might have just let the ball drop about that but apparently not. Similarly Mr Strode has apparently learnt everything he knows about being a father and husband from Anthony Montelli, Burt Young's character in Amityville II: The Possession. Micky could have given the old abode a miss; the Strodes are on the road to self-destruction anyways.

About the only strength I could appreciate in the movie was the score, oh hang about that was pretty much John Carpenter's work. I may need a stiff drink right about now.

Acting is okay with zero in the way of standouts. Donald Pleasence is showing his age and doesn't have the command of the screen he once had. This would be the Don's last trip to Haddonfield as he died soon after completion of the movie.

Thankfully out of words here, but yes there is some T&A going down with boobs! The ladies get the square root as usual, though to be honest not a lot of them are not going to get fooled into watching this dynamic example of time wasting.

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers for some reason remains an elusive property Downunder, though you can pick up a copy on eBay or import. My copy was a bare arsed non-region release containing the standard version of the movie. Considering this one is for the hard core Halloween fan that's probably fair enough, there's only so much of Curse one can take after all. Mikey is doing his thing, but the whole fandango is immersed in tar and doesn't make any sort of logical sense. For once in this franchise I'm saying give a movie a wide berth, Curse fails on most levels and to be honest is a waste of your time. No recommendation, what were the Producers thinking!