Before H20, HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION, and the new Zombie line, there was HALLOWEEN: THE DEATH OF MICHAEL MYERS.

I know what you’re saying. “What is this? HALLOWEEN: THE DEATH OF MICHAEL MYERS? Do you think I’m an asshole, Jason? I’ve never heard of this.”

Of course you haven’t! (And it depends on who you are.) It’s an unlicensed, fan-made sequel to HALLOWEEN: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS. Aww shit.

Remember this guy?

While I was working to put together a HALLOWEEN youtube video roundup in the style of fellow Video Ferox contributor Sarah, I stumbled upon this piece of HALLOWEEN gold — or copper maybe, depending on your outlook.

This low-budget, unlicensed, snore — eer, I mean, gore fest was, according to the filmmaker (or the person who posted it on youtube, anyway), made a month after he and his friends saw CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS in theatres. I can only imagine that the origin of the movie was a deep dissatisfaction with this last HALLOWEEN’s conclusion — as well as its plot, dialogue, and pretty much everything about it.

Take us back to the past, baby!

Although this no-budget sequel to CURSE is described as a “labor of love,” I honestly can’t imagine how anybody could have loved that jumbled, disjointed, debacle of a film enough to want to continue its story in the form of a feature length sequel. But, hey, to each his own.

THE DEATH OF MICHAEL MYERS is actually not the only fan-made HALLOWEEN movie either (a group calling themselves Palangi Studios have put together at least three of them), but it is, I think, the longest. Which occurs to me now as a reason why I should have chosen a different one to write about. Oh, well. You live and you learn. Unless of course you’re Michael Myers. He very soon won’t be able to live or learn since his imminent death has been promised to us by the film’s title.

The new Loomis standing above a fallen Michael in a scene seamlessly linking the new film with the old.

The story begins exactly where CURSE ends, only Loomis’ scream, which viewers of CURSE were to take as a sign of his murder at the hands of his famous patient, is in the new film to be taken as a huzzah of temporary triumph. Tommy Doyle, rushing back into the hospital, discovers a very much alive Loomis standing above a temporary KOed Michael.

This is a far more impressive example of historical revision than those that past sequels have perpetrated. Turning a scream of death into a shout of joy is not nearly as absurd as turning the severed head of Michael Myers into the severed head of Paramedic #2, or turning Jaime Strode’s murder of her step-mother into Michael Myer’s psychically implemented murder of a somebody that was nobody to him, or turning a close range head-exploding blast from a magnum round into a slight graze. Should I go on?

Loomis picking up the bundle of rags that is Baby Caruthers.

Actually, as far as flow from past movie to present goes, THE DEATH OF MICHAEL MYERS accomplishes what nary a sequel has done since part II — a seamless transition.  Well, seamless if you ignore the fact that all the actors have been replaced with stand-ins and that baby Caruthers has been replaced with a football wrapped in dishtowels.

Loomis incidentally is pretty great in this new movie. Invigorated, apparently, by his close call with Michael Myers, the good doctor is back to being the impatient, fiery-tempered curmudgeon we all know and love rather than the tired and resigned Loomis of CURSE. Although played by an actor a quarter Loomis’ age, the new Loomis disguises the greenness of his portrayer with a rubbery bald cap, a long trench coat, and a crotchety waddle. The actor steers his depiction of Loomis dangerously close to the Columbo side though, but manages to veer back on course when he delivers those classic Loomis tirades. And I’ve never heard Columbo discourse on the metaphysics of Evil.

Not Columbo.

The movie itself tells a simple story: Michael ain’t dead yet, and he wants that baby. It’s a capture the flag game, pitting Tommy Doyle and Kara Strode against Michael Myers with a baby as the flag. Quite frankly, it’s this simplicity that gives the movie something most HALLOWEEN sequels lack — a basic dramatic structure.

They keep it simple. No revelations. No soap-opera twists. You don’t find out that Michael Myers is Loomis’ long lost step-nephew on his mother’s sister’s brother’s side. The name Dr. Whyn is never mention. And not a single member of the Cult of Thorn makes an appearance. It’s just Michael doing what Michael loves to do: Hunting his kin and chopping up some losers on the side.

Death-defying stunts!

Despite the fact that the film is comprised mostly of scenes of characters walking around, there are some nice sequences. One scene involves Michael Myers plastered to the windshield of a car which is traveling at high-speed down a suburban roadway. I’m imagining the budget didn’t call for any stunt doubles. So somebody had to talk their friend into putting on a Michael Myers mask and holding onto the car for dear life as one his other friends took it up to ninety.

There’s also a nice scene of implied lesbianism. Kara and Tommy’s leggy female roommates have a cozy bed-in before their craving for midnight munchies provides Michael with the perfect opportunity to go all phallic-symbol-y on them with his big long knife. Tommy tried to warn them. “It’s your funeral,” he calls nonchalantly after they refuse to accompany him and Kara on their baby hunting mission. Nice warning, Tommy.

Ladies. Ain't nothin' wrong with that.

There’s also another interesting scene in which Tommy and Kara try to get baby Ernie or whatever the Caruthers brat’s name is back from the baby house where the Haddonfield Municipal Court has remanded him. I’m guessing the actors are Canadian, not only because of how they say “aboot” instead of “about,” but also because after being refused access to the baby or any information about the little guy’s whereabouts, Tommy politely thanks the stubborn attendant instead of getting pissed and opening a can of USDA approved whoop ass all over the dude. Tommy has calmed down a lot since the days when he stormed into hospitals demanding to see doctors he didn’t stick around long enough to get yelled at by.

Tommy and Kara. Just walking around, doing their thing.

The climax of the movie features an unexpected twist. When Kara and Tommy fail to find baby Caruthers at the foster parents’ house (Tommy: The baby’s gone. Kara: Where is he? Is he dead? Way to jump to conclusions, Kara), they rush to Loomis’ finely furnished home. He’s got the baby safe and sound. Then he unexpectedly bashes Tommy in the back of the head (or shoulder?) with the butt of his handgun. He holds Kara at gun point and drives them to the place where it all began, that home, sweet home, the Myer’s house.

Where is he? Is he dead?

I’m not sure we ever find out why Loomis brings them with him to accomplish his scheme of giving Michael the baby — or why, for that matter, he even wants to give Michael the baby. In all fairness, there might have been an explanation in there somewhere — I wasn’t paying that much attention. In the absence of any better reason, though, I’m just going to believe that he brought Kara and Tommy with him because he simply wanted a captive audience for another one of his classic Loomis speeches. The man likes to pontificate.

As he concludes his oration — in the course of which he refers to his former patients as “outcasts of society” and “freaks of nature” (what the hell kind of doctor was he anyway?) — the movie itself draws towards its exciting finish, and a dramatic game of touch football ensues with little baby Caruthers starring in the part of the football.

The death of Michael Myers. I like how it looks like he's shaking his fist. "I'll get you next time, Gadget!"

It’s certainly not the worst movie I’ve ever seen. In fact, I’ve seen plenty of movies with professional distribution offering about the same level of production values, budget, acting and directing talent — but those movies, ya know, made up their own characters and stories and stuff. The music you hear in DEATH was inspired by the HALLOWEEN theme and composed and recorded by one of the crew members. It’s actually a pretty impressive soundtrack and surely the most professional part of the movie (which is perhaps not exactly the greatest compliment in the world).

While HALLOWEEN: THE DEATH OF MICHAEL MYERS is not technically canon, there’s nothing in later sequels to negate any part of its story. In fact, it offers a suitable conclusion to the line of films that abruptly terminated with H20’s decision to junk almost all previous sequels. So with this last and amateurish tale we get the closure that Hollywood failed to give us. Michael dies. Loomis lives. And little baby Caruthers?

Michael stabbed that little brat silly.

Way to go, Mike. You pissed off Gamera.

Watch HALLOWEEN: THE DEATH OF MICHAEL MYERS for free!

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight
Part Nine
Part Ten

In the twenty years following her confrontation with Michael Myers on Halloween night, 1978, Laurie Strode has set up a nice life for herself. She’s the head of a fancy private school and the single mother of a seventeen year old boy who attends the school. Her life is far from perfect though, as both she and her son John struggle with the psychological and emotional repercussions of Laurie’s ordeal. Thus her relationship with her son, not to mention her romantic relationship with another member of the school faculty, is strained because she’s unable to face and recover from that night of horror.

But luckily for Laurie, it’s Halloween night again and Michael Myers is on his way to administer some serious abreaction therapy.

The new emotionally reserved Laurie Strode.

As fans surely knew before seeing the film, H20 begins twenty years following the second HALLOWEEN  (suggested in the film by an appropriate choice of opening music). Thus the seventh film in the HALLOWEEN series ignores all films from SEASON OF THE WITCH (obviously) through CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS (not so obviously but very, very prudently).

Quite frankly, historical revision was the only recourse producers had after the atrocious CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS. Viewers had last seen Michael Myers as the pet monster of a crazy psychiatrist/cult leader. Where were filmmakers supposed to go from there? Michael battles HELLRAISER’s Pinhead? Michael’s early years in Smith Grove Sanitarium? Or maybe Michael starts killing people in their dreams? (He was already adept at astral projection, so why not?)

Instead of continuing deeper into uncharted territories of the farcical, filmmakers decided to retreat back to home base — and when they arrived they deposited all previous plot developments in the rubbish bin. This itself wasn’t an unprecedented move. HALLOWEEN 4 junked the previous film’s depiction of Michael’s blindness, as well as the deaths of both Michael and Loomis. HALLOWEEN 5 junked Jamie’s murder of her mother as well as its own Mountain Man character. THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS junked numerous plot developments of previous films — and pretty much just junked itself from start to finish. But this was the first time a HALLOWEEN film junked almost all the previous sequels and their stories.

Pinhead and Michael Myers: the potential for destruction of unwatchable proportions!

Not that the intervening three films are logically inconsistent with H20. Accepting them, though, would prove Laurie Strode the shittiest mother in the entire world, because the only way to explain the existence of her daughter Jamie Strode is to acknowledge that Laurie abandoned her little girl before entering the witness protection program, where she changed her name to Keri Tate and gave birth to a son. All this might suggest that Laurie wasn’t fleeing so much from brother Michael as from daughter Jaime.

A cut scene was originally intended to give credence to the story line of previous movies. A student in Strode/Tate’s class was to read a book report on the Haddonfield Murders, relating all major plot points from previous films. When the student finishes, Laurie/Keri rushes to the bathroom and vomits — perhaps a physical manifestation of her deep moral remorse for having effectively sacrificed her unprotected daughter to Michael’s knife.

It’s probably best that filmmakers left this scene out of the final cut, along with its regrettable suggestion.

A mime and a rag doll.

Besides Laurie Strode’s bad parenting, all the nonsense about Celtic ritual and ancient Evil that previous films had hatched and cultivated to a tedious maturity can now be gratefully forgotten. With H20 none of it matters. The only two films the new movie makes reference to are the original HALLOWEEN and its immediate sequel.

This means that Michael is free to shed some of those more unfortunate aspects of his twenty year development. First of all, he shrinks down to a more appropriately human physique, and along with this loss of bulk comes a marked wasting. Michael’s access to his supernatural stock of strength has now been severely restricted. (He only smashes through one door in this movie, but it’s not a very strong door, so it’s okay). Back again is the spindly mental patient who shuffles after his victims like a man who’s just popped a fist full of Quaaludes, and his general movements bring to mind something between a mime and a rag doll — which, I’d like to point out, is pretty awesome looking.

A brief posthumous cameo. Unfortunately, Loomis' lines are spoken by a voice talent, not Donald Pleasence.

Michael also appears as though he’s had a makeover. I don’t know if producers used a new mask or just applied a pinch of foundation here and a smattering of concealer there to make the old mask a bit more angular and frightening. But whatever they did, Michael’s more famous face looks much better than it has in previous sequels, and now suggests a chilling cross between Cesar Romero as the Joker and Vincent Schiavelli as Vincent Schiavelli.

With Michael looking the way Michael should look, and with Jamie Lee Curtis reprising her former role, things were finally back to what they should be: Michael Myers stalking Laurie Strode. This old premise, along with the familiar killer and the long absent victim, were taken by filmmakers, polished off and made into a well designed, effective, and suspenseful movie.

Scarier than Shatner?

Only one question remained:  Would filmmakers address the question of where Michael had spent the previous twenty years or why after all this time he chose this particular Halloween to return? Were viewers doomed to meet some long suffering reincarnation of the Mountain Man?

DAWN OF THE DEAD tells the story of a small group surviving in a world overrun with flesh-hungry zombies. Thankfully, except for one character’s metaphysical postulation about the occupancy capacity of Hell, we’re spared an explanation of how or why the dead are returning to eat the living. Any objective elucidation filmmakers might have given us — poison gas, radioactive meteorites, contagious disease, aliens, a “Prologue in Hell,” etc — would have reduced the domain of the unknown (and the unknowable) and given us one less thing to feel uneasy (and consequently frightened) about. All we know is that something has gone wrong with the universe (or our understanding of it), but “the how” and “the why” are relocated to some shadowy realm just beyond the frames of the movie.

The how and the why are also not what the movie’s about. If you’re going to explain something of such magnitude as why the dead are returning to life — or where Michael Myers has spent twenty years — you better make that a focus of the story and not just a gloss. Thankfully, an account of Michael’s twenty years of absence was neither focused upon nor glossed in HALLOWEEN H20 but left to the viewers’ imaginations, which are capable of creating far more frightening things then even the most adept filmmakers.

Laurie very briefly suggests a motive for Michael’s return. Her son has recently turned seventeen, which was the age she was when Michael attacked her and the age her older sister Judy was when he murdered her. The connection is simply suggested rather than being forced-fitted as a new fact in the already confused canon of Myers mythology. Whether it’s the “real” motive behind Michael’s return or not, Laurie certainly takes it seriously, just as in DAWN OF THE DEAD Peter takes his “No more room in hell” speech seriously. But neither film tries to coerce the subscription of viewers to either interpretation. (We see no prologue in Hell nor do we see Michael checking his date book).

Viewer’s with good memories may recognize the woman as nurse Marion Chambers who was attacked by Michael in a car outside of Smith’s Grove Sanatorium in the first HALLOWEEN and who accompanied Loomis to the hospital in the second film. If you didn’t recognize her, it’s okay as her significance is soon revealed.

This twenty years of absence is really quite brilliant in the way it teases the mind, and to enhance this, since H20 has already introduced the custom of ignoring sequels, I want to suggest slashing one more film off the list.

Michael’s sudden, unexplained appearance exactly twenty years after the gruesome events of October 31, 1978 pairs much better with his mysterious disappearance after being shot six times at the end of the original HALLOWEEN than it does with his templar knight-like blinding and burning at the end of part 2. If you watch H20 immediately after HALLOWEEN¹, Michael emerges as inexplicably as he vanishes, as though he flitted in and out of existence like the flickering flame inside a jack-o’-lantern. H20, like none other sequel, captures the uncanniness with which the original HALLOWEEN invested Michael, and watching the two films contiguously highlights that uncanniness.

An early scene in H20 in which Michael commandeers a new vehicle. While it may appear to have little in common with PSYCHO’s shower scene, it does in fact share many of the elements which made horror’s most famous scene so effective. But I won't bore you with a comparison.

Regardless of whether you view H20 as a direct sequel, or as the third movie — or even if you create intrepid defenses of Laurie’s poor mothering and make it the sixth installment — the movie that pitted Laurie Strode against the demon of her past is surely an enjoyable and artful thriller. I could go on and say a lot of pretty academic things about dramaturgical structure (for instance, the way filmmakers have wisely delayed gratification of viewer’s desire for blood and gore, deferring the violence until the climax of the film — a choice which, incidentally, is a major departure from the template of previous films) and the anatomy of its more suspenseful scenes (see the image to the left), but none of that would be very fun to read.

And while I won’t insist that you go rent the movie, you could do far worse with a HALLOWEEN sequel. Far worse.

Notes:

¹ The only proviso is that one keep in mind the fact revealed in part II that Laurie is Michael’s sister.

I can’t even begin to fathom the intent of the screenwriters, except that the previous film had given them a lot of stumbling blocks to trip over. Actually my heart goes out to them considering the embarrassment of inane riches that was their inheritance from previous sequels — or it would go out to them if I wasn’t certain that this movie wasn’t even scripted at all but rather assembled by a bunch of shareholders in ties sitting at a long table. (“It’s the nineties, gentleman. Can we have a Beavis and Butthead reference? I understand that our chief demographic really relates to them.”)

Before we get into the movie, let’s indulge in some genealogy.

There's ritual afoot in HALLOWEEN: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS

Michael Myers had two sisters: Judith and Laurie. Young Michael kills Judith, leaving little Laurie Myers alive. A few years later, Laurie and Michael’s parents are killed, and Laurie, having been adopted, becomes Laurie Strode, while Michael of course remains Michael Myers. After the events of the original Halloween and its sequel, Laurie either marries or changes her name to Laurie Lloyd (presumably, I should say, since it’s imaginable that her daughter Jamie Lloyd was given her father’s name while Laurie retained either Strode or some unknown alias, escaping the onus of an alliterative appellation).

Laurie has a daughter named Jamie Lloyd, who after Laurie’s death is adopted by the Caruthers, becoming Jamie Lloyd Caruthers, which is the name she will keep until her death at the age of fifteen after just giving birth to an unnamed baby. This baby, who is the last known heir of the Myers bloodline, would, had it been named, been a Caruthers nee Llyod nee Strode nee Myers. That’s a hell of a lot of names to keep straight.

Danny about to stab his grandpop, who sorta deserves it.

Now in THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS we are introduced to a new branch of the Strode family. Why the Strodes? Wouldn’t a new branch of the Myers family have made more sense, as it’s the Myers line that Michael has been after, not the line of the family that incidentally adopted his sister twenty-odd years ago? I could understand the choice of the Strodes if it were just a little nod to history, the equivalent of an in-joke with no bearing on the plot, but young Danny Strode is developing the same psychotic symptoms that Michael Myers exhibited when he was that age.

Now this truly is a coincidence of coincidences. It just so happens that the family that adopted the victim of a cursed killer happens to contain a member afflicted by that very same curse! It’s like Freddy Kruger running into the Gremlins at a Denny’s! “Oh, hey, guys, didn’t expect to see you here. Isn’t it after midnight?” What are the chances!

This is one of the most inappropriate scenes in the movie. Tommy arrives at the hospital, rushes up to the receptionist and demands to see a doctor. Then he impatiently runs past the receptionist, who proceeds to alert security. In the next reception room, Tommy is surprised to see Dr. Loomis (whose presence in the hospital is never explained). While they hastily elucidate some plot points, security arrives. Tommy flees, but not before arranging a future rendezvous with Loomis. Meanwhile, the audience is left guessing why Tommy was there, why he demanded to see a doctor, and why he felt the need to cause such a spectacle rather than accomplish his unstated aims in a furtive manner.

As mentioned, Jamie Strode has been delivered of a child. The goes-without-saying conclusion is that her Uncle Michael is the father. There’s a brief flashback (if you blink you’d miss it) to the Man in Black kidnapping young Jamie moments, presumably, after the final scene of part 5. (I must have blinked because despite the assurances of other online reviewers I’ve never seen the supposed flashback). It’s seems — again presumably, because the filmmakers are reluctant to give us any firm commitment to a particular backstory — that she’s been kept locked up these last six years in a cultic top-secret research facility, along with Michael Myers (who seems to be allowed to roam the halls without supervision).

The film begins with an unnamed fellow inmate (or perhaps staff member?) snatching up the baby, dumping it in Jamie’s arms, and telling her to get the hell out and quick. For her trouble, this good Samaritan, like her fellow moralist, part 5’s Mountain Man, quickly gets awarded Michael’s bloody red badge of courage.

In a mad rush to save the baby, Jamie races off to a bus stop where she deposits the child in a small, oddly-placed janitorial closet in the women’s bathroom. Not exactly Moses at the river, but the hiding spot does cause the little guy to stay in the movie longer than his mom, who gets mangled in the next scene. You think she might have tried calling him “Uncle Boogeyman” again. It worked last time.

(Incidentally, I’m guessing Jamie’s psychic connection with her uncle has waned over the years, since the current movie makes no attempt to remind viewers of it.)

A most convenient position for janitors and people searching for hidden babies. Not so convenient for people turning corners.

You may remember that Laurie Strode was babysitting a little boy the night her brother tried to kill her. Seventeen years later, Tommie Doyle is now big enough to stay home by himself. And he seems to do a lot of it, as he splits his time between researching the murderer who tried to kill his babysitter all those years ago and spying on MILFy Kara Strode who lives across the street. Some detective work eventually leads Tommy to the bus terminal bathroom where Jamie had stashed the newborn, and now the protection of the last member of the Myers line is in his hands.

From here the movie finally hits its stride as a THREE MEN AND A BABY style comedy where Tommy, who has no fatherly instincts, is forced to learn how to take care of a baby, changing its diaper, buying the right kinds of baby food, gently rocking him to sleep — and learning a whole lot about himself and what it means to love in the process. Actually none of that happens. In fact, this little Myers kid is an incredibly low-maintenance child, hardly fussing at all, despite never eating, never having its diaper changed, being clutched like a football through most of the movie, and, not to mention, being hunted by a monstrous killer and a cult of pagan weirdies.

Whyn has a great line here: “Evil . . . pure, uncorrupted.” A philosophical question: Does the phrase “uncorrupted evil” communicate any meaningful content?

This cult is headed by the MIB, who turns out to be — trust me, you’ll find the movie easier to sit through if you read the spoiler first — Dr. Whyn, another character uncreatively cannibalized from the first movie. Tommy’s cockamamie theories about Michael’s connection to rare constellation alignments and Celtic rituals turn out to be, if not true, than at least the shared lunacy of this group of yuppie black magic dabblers. Fueled by these banal explicanda, they are attempting to control and experiment on Michael, as well as (presumably) genetically engineering a whole army of Pure Evils.

Why are they doing all this?

Do they need a reason? Maybe they just love a good joke. Maybe a joke on the world’s children? But there’s a better reason. You don’t know much about HALLOWEEN. You thought no further than the strange custom of having an actor dress up in a costume and play a man named Michael Myers, a man who hunts down his relatives and all those who get in his way. But HALLOWEEN is something more. It was the start of a great money-making franchise in the old land — the land called Hollywood. And they were waiting, waiting in their mansions and yachts, waiting for the boundaries to go down between the watchable and the unwatchable, the enjoyable and the utterly, soul-suckingly crappy. And viewers’ time, their money, their patience — sacrifices! HALLOWEEN: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS: It is time again!

Michael does the laundry. Seriously.

Speaking of Michael Myers, you’ll notice I’ve hardly mentioned him so far. He mostly stumbles in and out of scenes as if a drunken Lon Chaney Jr were the actor behind the mask. Michael’s role in this film which bears his name is reminiscent of those Frankenstein-like monsters (usually Frankenstein himself) of old mad scientist films in which the monster is brought in as a mere errand boy and left to wander around and attack people when it isn’t too much to the master’s disliking. What he does and where he goes between killings is anybody’s guess — assuming anybody cares to guess. With HALLOWEEN: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS, the Terror of Haddonfield has devolved into nothing more than a souped up version of Lobo from BRIDE OF THE MONSTER. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

As always in the post-HALLOWEEN III sequels, the saving grace is Donald Pleasence. Unfortunately, his role has been reduced to a mere functionary and his lines have been reduced to aphoristic redundancies. (“It’s his mark.” “It’s his game, and I know where he wants to play it.” “Nothing will stop Michael.”) In previous films, Loomis’ role is that of protector and even of hunter. Not only does he try to save Michael’s potential victims, but he also pursues Michael, becoming the Van Helsing to Michael’s Dracula. In that sense Loomis had power. Even if it was never enough power to stop Michael, it was enough to make Loomis an interesting, quixotic, and unpredictable character.

MIB revealed. Along with his band of jumpsuit wearing goons.

THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS strips Loomis of all his former strength. He is now powerless to stop Michael or to protect the people Michael is after, making Loomis appear an ineffectual, feeble, and inconsequential character. His only dramatic purpose in the film is to introduce and sustain the audience’s contact with the mad Dr. Whyn.

Thus the character development that Pleasence had skillfully injected into the sometimes inane dialogue of previous films has been nearly abandoned. I say nearly, because it is possible to interpret the weariness with which Pleasence drags himself through tired scene after tired scene as the world-weariness of an aged, retired Loomis, who has lost all hope that Michael will ever be stopped (just as Pleasence has lost all hope that this movie will ever be any good).

". . . very much retired."

Why would Pleasence even agree to such an atrocious burlesque of the character he had put so much into? It wasn’t the money. Simple answer: When he signed on to the project, a very different script was the basis of the film. That was the script that cast and crew had pledged themselves to bring to life. By the time the movie was released to theaters¹, that founding vision had been buried under six feet of rewrites, re-shoots, creative differences, poor direction, studio interferences, producer-director disagreements, more re-writes, and finally the overall conviction of almost everyone involved never to be implicated in a HALLOWEEN movie again.

According to IMDB’s trivia page, director Joe Chappelle edited out almost all of Donald Pleasence’s scenes because he thought them “boring.” We lament that he was so restricted in his application of the criteria, otherwise he might have left HALLOWEEN: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS in its entirety on the cutting room floor and spared us this unpalatable sleeping pill of a movie.

Notes:

¹ There exists a “Producer’s Cut” of the film, which failed with test audiences and thus occasioned the Band-Aid-like application of further inanities and the excision of certain healthy organs along with the bad. I haven’t seen this original cut, but I hear it’s much better than the doctored-up theatrical version I’m reviewing here. Keep in mind though, “much better than HALLOWEEN: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS” and “piece of crap” are judgments not mutually exclusive.

Having strategically lowered viewers’ expectations with HALLOWEEN 4, producers were ready to offer the next installment of the Michael Myers legend. This was to be a continuation of the story of Michael Myers’ niece, Jamie, who now has a strange psychic connection to her uncle.

This new psychic element is a complete reinterpretation of the previous movie’s conclusion. That ending showed Jamie donning a clown costume and scissor-stabbing her step-mom to death — a repetition of the famous murder that began Michael’s killing spree back on Halloween of 1963. The suggestion is that Jamie now has “the Evil“ or “the Curse” or whatever you want to call the dark metaphysical aspect of Michael’s personality.

It may have been a satisfying conclusion to the film, but as far as continuing the series goes, ending the movie with a new killer was a terrible idea. Had producers not learned anything from the failure of the Michael-less HALLOWEEN III? The conclusion of 4 was memorable, suggestive, and –  I think, anyway — pretty frightening. But it seemed to suggest that a sequel would either contain no Michael Myers or that Michael and Jamie would form some laughable Uncle/Niece murder club. (When you think about it, wouldn’t they be obligated to kill each other?)

Jaime's transformation at the end of H4

Whatever you feel about the ending (and I know some people consider it a little over the top), you have to admit that it was certainly the most memorable part of HALLOWEEN 4. But producers weren’t going to make a sequel without Michael (let alone a movie in which a nine year old girl goes on a killing spree!), so the challenge was to convince viewers that they hadn’t seen what they all thought they had seen.

Instead of Jaime having become “the Evil,” which was the obvious interpretation, HALLOWEEN 5 tactfully suggests that when Jamie stabbed her mother, Michael Myers was psychically controlling her remotely from the Mountain Man’s hut where he (maybe?) lay comatose.

Mountain Man’s hut? What the hell was Michael doing in a Mountain Man’s hut? Good question.

Michael takes a dip

In part 4, before Jamie stabs her mom, Michael Myers is shot up by an angry mob of state troopers. He collapses seemingly into the ground, but it’s sort of vague and anticlimactic — at least until the sequel. The next movie begins by filling in the pieces of Michael’s “death.” The ground he collapses into is revealed to be a mine shaft which leads to a river. He manages to drag himself to the safety of the river before the State Troopers cover up the evidence of their creative by-pass of the judicial system by dropping a stick of dynamite down the shaft.

Michael rides the flume, eventually grabbing some rope or something, and finds himself in the Waldensian demesne of the Mountain Man (and his parrot). Here, presumably, Michael astral-projects into the body of his niece and then murders a woman that is neither a threat nor a relation to Michael himself. You have to wonder, if Michael wanted to kill Jamie so badly in part 4, why didn’t he use this unbelievable opportunity (and I do mean unbelievable) to have her jump out a window or swallow some pills or something? Why this sudden change in plans?  (And why is it so hard to kill a little girl!?)

The Mountain Man's kindness rewarded

On the topic of this Mountain Man, what do we learn about this fellow who tends Michael for a year? Not a damn thing. We could ask a lot of questions. Why does he take care of Michael? Does he ever attempt to get Michael to a hospital? Does he recognize Michael as the foulest mass murdered in Illinois history? What purpose does he have in letting a seemingly autistic, mute adult crash on his couch for a year? Was Michael in a coma the entire time while Mountain Man spoon fed him and changed his bedpan?

Before we have time to ask such questions, Michael kills the Mountain Man. Hopefully, we’re distracted enough by the rest of the movie not to remember these questions — or even that there ever was a Mountain Man at all, just as we’re better off forgetting that Jaime ever stabbed her step-mom with those scissors. HALLOWEEN 5, if nothing else good can be said about it, is a movie that moves towards its end without the slightest bit of shame.

One other good thing that might be said about the movie is that it has Loomis. My favorite part of the fifth movie is Loomis’ psychological abuse (and sometimes borderline physical abuse) of the already traumatized young Jamie. After having failed to capture Michael so many times before, Loomis has become a stubborn, cantankerous old coot, and he’s completely and rudely impatient with just about everyone — but especially with the young girl he believes can help him capture Michael.

"Do you like your life, Jaime?"

He informs Jaime that police discovered that Michael has dug up the coffin of a nine year old girl. “And what do you think he’s going to do with that, Jaime?” Loomis asks her. “Do you like your life?” He breaks stuff in front of her, he shakes her, he taunts her with her own mortality, and eventually he dangles her like bait in front of a knife-wielding Michael Myers.

(I’m guessing that Loomis’ psychological credentials do not involve any sort of training in child counseling. Oh, wait, wasn’t he a child councilor when he started working with Michael?)

I’m not a big fan of child abuse or anything, but as always Donald Pleasence plays the part of Loomis with gusto, even when he’s getting all up in that little girl’s face. His skilled acting suggests that this new curmudgeonry is part of a character that has been developing over the course of the series, rather than just a quirk that is necessary to drive the current film to the next setting for the next perfunctory murder.

In his defense, Loomis’ abuse is well intentioned. He’s hatching a plot to capture Michael. Of course, it involves tying Jamie to a piece of string like a dollar bill and yanking on her every time Michael grabs. Loomis shouts a whole lot of waffle throughout the movie about Michael wanting to “stop the rage” and about Jamie’s unique connection to him. What all this could mean, I have no idea. When you stop to puzzle it all out — you’ll stop trying to puzzle it all out.

More psychological abuse

Consider the final confrontation between Jamie and Michael. Jamie curls up inside the little girl coffin as Michael approaches. In a last ditch effort to save herself, she decides to feign compassion. She addresses her assailant as “Uncle Boogeyman” and then asks to see him with his mask off. He complies, and then he starts to cry(!). She attempts to wipe the tear off his face, and then he throws what can only be deemed a “bitch fit,” smashing everything in sight, after which he goes back to trying to kill her.

What the hell is all this supposed to mean? Does Michael want to be done with the murderous rage within him? If so, you think filmmakers might have tried to set that up somewhere during the previous hour of the movie instead of having him effortlessly and without the slightest bit of hesitation recruit tenements for cemeteries.

Is the suggestion that if Jamie “gets the rage” then Michael will be free to be a normal man again? And if so, does he feel some pangs of conscience at the thought that she would have to take his place? (Shades of ALCESTIS?) Did Loomis just make all this bullshit up to confuse Michael and lead him into his trap?

Typical for this movie, once you start asking questions about something you can be pretty sure that something is soon to happen to distract you from your questions. This particular distraction is the final stage in Loomis’ plot which involves, of all things, Loomis going completely shit eating crazy, grabbing onto Jamie, and screaming, “You want her, Michael! Come and get her!”

"Come and get her!"

While it would be pretty cool to see Loomis actually facilitate the murder of Michael’s nine year old niece, Loomis lets a chain link net fall on him before the killer’s knife gets close enough to do any damage. And with that, Loomis has done it. He’s finally captured Michael Myers. The boys in blue chain up the Terror of Haddonfield and throw his ass in a cell.

Now, before I can talk about the final few seconds of this film, I have to talk about the Johnny Cash impersonator.

Scenes of the Man in Black’s boots and long trench coach punctuate the film at inappropriate moments and have seemingly no influence on anything that happens in the movie. You are left wondering who this enigmatic figure is. Why is he in the movie? Will he ever emerge as a character connected to Michael Myers — or anybody, for that matter? Will he ever do anything?

The only thing we know about the Man in Black is that he has a tattoo on his wrist that is exactly the same as the tattoo on Michael’s, which we get a glimpse of early in the film (and which we remember because we find it so stupid that Michael would have a tattoo). We also know that he has a tendency to show up in places pertaining to Michael’s murders. But by the time of the face off between Michael and Loomis, we’ve pretty much given up on the Man in Black — or more likely, we’ve just forgotten about him, which is what I did the first time I saw the movie.

The MIB kicking a dog. (Michael, by the way, has killed at least three so far).

So it does come as a surprise when he finally does something in the last few seconds of the movie. Unfortunately, what he does provides HALLOWEEN 5 with an ending that makes the remake of THE PLANET OF THE APES’ conclusion feel satisfying.

The film ends with the mysterious Man in Black massacring the police force and breaking Michael out of jail. We’re left with the image of Jamie crying before an empty cell. Like the first movie, and the like the current movie’s immediate predecessor, HALLOWEEN 5 attempts to end the movie on a note of uncertainty, but it couldn’t have less in common with the chilling aporia of the first film or the dramatic unraveling of the fourth film. The current filmmakers would have created a more satisfying conclusion had they simply shown Michael safely in jail with a big blood-dripping “To Be Continued” plastered across the screen.

I brought up the BACK TO THE FUTURE series in relation to the original HALLOWEEN’s sequel to make a point about sequels. I’ll mention it again here to make another point. The first BACK TO THE FUTURE culminated in a great open-ended finale. Doc Brown shows up unexpectedly with urgent news about the future, which calls for Marty and his girlfriend to hop back in the time machine and disappear into the future. It wasn’t essential to the plot, the story had a beginning, middle, and end regardless of this tacked on last scene. In fact, producers had no plan of making a sequel, and it wasn’t until after the overly apparent success of the film that they slapped on a “To Be Continued” sign.

You're gonna tell me the cops locked him up with his mask on?

The point I’m trying to make is that BACK TO THE FUTURE was open-ended in a way that wasn’t trying to coerce you back into the theater, and was actually a fun and satisfying way to leave the movie. This is not the case for HALLOWEEN 5′s ending.

I’m usually not a critic of “exploitation” in film, but the sort of barefaced manipulation of viewers by which filmmakers introduce plot points that they have no intention of explaining in the current film is pretty offensive. It’s one thing if a story is told within a larger story, or if one adventure leads into another, as in the above mentioned BACK TO THE FUTURE series, or in the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN movies. But those movies have beginnings, middles, and ends, not just beginnings and middles. Viewers pay money to see a movie, not half a movie.

Let’s ask a serious question: What exactly constitutes the resolution in HALLOWEEN 5? In what way do you leave the film feeling satisfied that something has been concluded? Is it that everyone has died? To admit as much is to say that the movie has devolved beyond the point of basic storytelling. It’s to suggest that if the loose thread onto which filmmakers slide beads of blood and gore bears any semblance to a story it’s only by the merest of coincidences.

The last image of the HALLOWEEN 5

Aristotle cautioned writers against the use of Deus ex Machina. He thought it a cheap way out of difficulties to have a god suddenly appear and make everything right. What we have in HALLOWEEN 5 is far worse than a Deus ex Machina since it doesn’t even attempt to solve any of the difficulties. It would be as if Heracles were to pull out a machine gun, shoot the shit out of Alcestis, and then say to Admetus, “Sorry, dude, but now you’re gonna have to find somebody else to take your place.” What kind of ending would that be!?!?!

This is precisely the sort of Deus ex Machine-Gun ending we have in HALLOWEEN 5. It’s nothing but a contrived “what-the-fuck?” moment designed to fish-hook viewers back into theatres for a sequel that writers hadn’t even outlined yet.

I would say that the writers really ought to be ashamed of themselves, but they did have enough good sense to write a scene where Loomis beats the shit outta Michael Myers with a two-by-four.

This has my approval.

And that’s pretty awesome.

First of all, he was dead.

Luckily, this wasn’t as insurmountable an obstacle as it usually is in real life. Audiences had seen the first film in which Michael survives not only getting shot six times but also defenestrating from the second floor of Laurie Strode’s house. Thus there was precedent for Michael’s indestructibility. If fans could buy bullet-deflection and impact-resistance, then sure, why not have him survive the fiery explosion that we all thought killed him at the end of Part II? Add flame-retardation to the list.

He also had his eyes shot out.

Second problem: Now that Michael isn’t dead anymore, what the hell is he gonna do with himself? The obvious answer is continue to hunt down Laurie Strode. But Laurie was played by Jamie Lee Curtis, who since her début performance in HALLOWEEN had become a popular and respected actress. For some reason she was unavailable to play the part again.

What was to be done? Fans were certainly not going to accept a stand-in for Ms. Curtis. The answer? Write her out.

Before part 4 even begins, Laurie Strode has conveniently given birth to a baby girl and, just as conveniently, died. Now Michael Myers is free to make the murder of his young niece his primary goal, unencumbered by the juggled objective of also killing his little sister.

Producers now had their man and they had his mission. There was only one final consideration: Was Loomis coming back? He had presumably been crisped in the same inferno that was supposed to have engulfed Michael two movies back. And unfortunately, unlike Michael’s imperviousness to many forms of death, Loomis’ immortality was unattested.

What they decided upon was to shoot an opening sequence in which Loomis is seen being hurled from the explosion, badly burned, but alive. Additionally, they were to show him arguing vehemently with rescue workers not to douse a flaming Michael Myers. Thus in one blow they had hammered out the kinks in their premise. Both characters survived the blast. And you see it on screen. How can you argue with your own eyes?

But then they cut the scenes.

Instead of explosion we get exposition. The movie begins with a transportation crew escorting Michael from the mental ward in which he’s lain comatose for the last ten year. The cut scene is replaced with the expository dialogue of a crazy-eyed mental ward employee, who explains that Michael and Loomis both “nearly burned to death.” A little later we see Loomis himself, the scars on his face and hands testifying to his participation in the previous movie, but all in all looking pretty good for a man who had lit a match in a room filled with flammable gas.

Look at my hand, bitch!

Despite the implausibility of Loomis’ survival, it’s a good thing they brought him back. Loomis’ character — and Donald Pleasence’s outstanding portrayal — helps propel HALLOWEEN IV above the level at which a slasher film is just a pointless series of gruesome murders (which is a level at which the film might otherwise have remained). As in the previous two films, Pleasence takes the one dimensional character of Loomis, and through subtle (and not so subtle) intonation, expression, and movement, creates a personality which is psychologically deep and believable.

In fact, Pleasence almost steals the show from Michael. It’s said that George Wilbur, the actor playing Myers this time around, wore hockey pads under his clothes to look more menacing. It’s imaginable that he went out of his way to look so physically imposing to counter the psychological power with which Loomis commands his scenes.

Additionally, this increase in Michael’s size coincides with a decrease in Michael’s humanity. Viewers are no longer asked to see the world through Michael’s eyes. (A concrete example of this is the absence of the POV shots that were used in the first two films). This may also explains why Loomis commands so much attention in part IV. The vacuum that Michael Myer’s psyche has become leaves plenty of open space for Loomis to migrate into. Someone needed to become the psychological focus of the film. Our attention is drawn away from the psychology of a monster who has no psychology, to the mind of a man who is driven near the brink of madness trying to stop him.

The Michael Myers of HALLOWEENs I and II is an irreconcilable. Disregarding the question of what Michael “really” is within the context of the films, we can ask the question how would viewers watching those two films for the first time have interpreted Michael? The answer, I think, is that viewers are compelled to see Michael as human. Yet the movie slowly offers increasingly convincing arguments against Michael’s humanity.

Tension is created as viewers cling to the reality that Michael is a man — a man disturbed in a psychologically profound way, but nevertheless a man — whom we can, if not feel compassion or empathy for, at least have a “philosophy of mind” about. In other words, we can imagine “what it is like” to be Michael. That he acts without compassion, without emotion, without the stock of responses that are central to our sense of “what it is like” to be a human is irreconcilable with our compulsion to see Michael as a real man.

In HALLOWEEN I, the viewer doesn’t want to believe Loomis’ insistent assertion that Michael is not human, and Loomis seems like a man carried away by his own wild conjectures. Yet by the end, we are forced, whether we like it or not, to concede that he might be right: Michael may be something more than human. He may be Evil.

HALLOWEEN II continues on the same line, neither wholly confirming nor wholly refuting his completely monstrous nature. We’re still able to conjecture what it may be like to be Michael.

Thus the Michael Myers of the first two films exists in the audience’s mind somewhere between man and monster, neither wholly one nor the other.

By the time of the RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS, the tropes of the slasher film, and thus the tropes of the slasher himself, had been firmly established in popular consciousness. The slasher had evolved from disturbed psychopath (e.g. Norma Bates) to unstoppable supernatural killer (e.g. Freddy Kruger, Jason Voorhees). Michael Myers began as an impossible amalgamation of the two categories. The third installment of his story firmly establishes him as a completely supernatural monster, with his human side completely effaced and forgotten. What was behind the mask has now become the mask itself. Michael has become something wholly other.

This “monsterization” is accomplished in HALLOWEEN IV first, by the aforementioned increase in Michael’s size. No longer the spindly mental ward inmate, Michael Myers is now able to keep the physique of a linebacker despite having lain comatose for ten years.

Along with the increase in size comes an increase in strength. He pierces the cranial bone of one of his attendants with his bare thumb and later lifts a full grown man above his head before chucking him a great distance.

Finally, the film suggests that Michael now has an added supernatural connection to his young niece, though it’s unclear (until the sequel) whether she is connected to him directly or to some underlying force to which they are both subject. In at least one scene he seems to be able to materialize in front of her, as though they’re somehow psychically connected — an oddity that will later be exploited to bring Michael back for part V.

Viewers were not likely to be disappointed in HALLOWEEN IV, no matter what finally made it to the screen. So long as Michael Myers was slicing and dicing through most of it, fans would go see it. That gave filmmakers the leeway to make a pretty average horror film. The script itself had to be written in less than two weeks to avoid a screenwriter’s strike. This moratorium, if not making major rewrites impossible, at least created pressure to rush a story idea into final script form, and it’s possible that we might have had a very different movie had there been no deadline.

We would certainly have a different movie had the script that John Carpenter and Dennis Etchison originally pitched been accepted by producer Moustapha Akkad. That script supposedly struck Akkad, who wanted a typical slasher film, as too psychological and too smart. Like the previous installments, the movie was to be produced by Debra Hill, but with the rejection of the script, both Hill and Carpenter sold their interest in the series to Akkad. Very little specific information is available about the story told by this script and so we can only guess what kind of film it might have become.

I don’t want to suggest that HALLOWEEN IV is a bad movie, only that it’s very different from the first two movies and fails in some way to realize what made those movies effective (while perhaps knowing too well what made them high-grossing). Pleasence’s performance is clearly the highest redeeming aspect of the film. I wish I had a superfluous thumb for the sole purpose of giving the final forty-five seconds of the movie an impossible three thumbs up. Loomis’ “No! NO! NOOOO!” may not be the most quotable line in horror movie history, but it is one of the most memorably delivered. (If only they gave awards in the category of delivery of a repeated negation in a horror movie.)

Yet despite the gravity of Loomis’ masterful performance, the realism of the first two films is gone, and with it the uncanny aspects of Michael Myers’ presence. HALLOWEEN IV: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS firmly establishes Michael as a familiar horror stock character. And once something becomes too familiar, it ceases to terrify you.

“You don’t know what death is.”

I love when a sequel begins at the very moment the last one ended. BACK TO THE FUTURE is one of the best examples of this kind of sequel. We waited five years for it to happen. But when it did, the actors were the same, the wardrobes were the same, the sets, everything. It was like the audience themselves had traveled back through time to 1985, like they had never left the theater.

Not many sequels employ this device, opting instead for the “n years later” strategy. I’m glad that writers John Carpenter and Debra Hill and director Rick Rosenthal decided not to have Jamie Lee Curtis off at college somewhere a year later, trembling in her dorm because today’s her first Halloween since the tragedy and Michael Myers is still on the loose. . . . Although, now that I think about it, there is something a little familiar about this scenario.

In HALLOWEEN II, we start out exactly where the first movie ends. And we even get a brief point-of-view shot of Michael stalking down the Haddonfield street in the beginning, a nice repetition of the long scene that begins the first movie. While the shot in Part II isn’t as effective or even necessary, it’s still pretty cool.

DEMONS 2: Same as the first Demons but set in a high rise apartment building.

It’s interesting to imagine how many different ways the filmmakers could have taken the story at this point. Think about it, Michael Myers and the HALLOWEEN movies hadn’t any set modus operendi yet. They might have focused in on the interaction of Loomis and Michael, turning it into a classic face off between Good and Evil. They could have added a tinge of apocalypticism and made Michael the envoy for the end of the world — Evil’s final triumph. Or they could have just remade the first movie but set the whole thing in a high rise apartment building.

Actually, all those ideas suck and I’m glad they stuck as much as possible to the blueprint of the first movie. They created a classic and lucrative horror franchise, and made the name Michael Myers so famous that even Canadian comedians can’t escape its influence. But it’s still interesting to imagine a time when Michael Myers wasn’t a character set in stone.

Mike Myers does not play the axe murderer.

It’s great how many actors returned for the sequel:. Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Charles Cyphers as the sheriff, and even Nancy Kyes (AKA Nancy Loomis), who has a brief cameo as her character Annie’s corpse. All of this helps create an eerie sense of return.

John Carpenter knew what he was doing when he started the second movie at the end of the first — the sequel throws you right into the middle of the action with little need for explication, plot orientation, or character introductions.

Thanks to the help of a disappearing cultural stereotype, the kid with the boom box against his ear, Michael learns that Laurie has been taken to the Haddonfield Memorial Hospital. It’s hard to say whether the scale of the second movie was smaller because of the decision to set most of the action in the hospital. By staging the action of the first movie in a few different houses and not prolonging the action in any single one of them, the filmmakers achieved — well, certainly not something of a monumental scale, but something larger than would have been achieved by putting all the action in only one location– say, just the Strode House. (Although, now that I think about it, there does seem to be something a little familiar about the idea.) While the hospital has a lot of different settings within it, the audience nevertheless still ends up feeling as though they’ve spent a whole lot of time in a hospital.

Is this a Halloween costume?

In some ways a hospital is a fitting choice though. As a place where people die on a regular basis, the setting helps underscore the theme of death. And Rosenthal goes out of his way to show the maternity ward (even having Michael hiding in it), a place of new life, which contrasts with the death which is so prominent in the film.

In my discussion of the first movie, I mentioned how I felt that the sequel’s introduction of the twist that Laurie is Michael’s sister lessens the horrific and uncanny aspects of Michael’s murders by giving them a specific motive. But, after watching the movie again with my thoughts on the first film fresh in mind, the idea of making Michael Laurie’s personal assassin seems, instead of diluting the theme of the inevitability of death, to actually strengthen it. Laurie’s fate was sealed, either before she was even born or two years later when Michael killed their older sister and was institutionalized.

The question remains, though, why Halloween of all nights?  HALLOWEEN II attempts not so much to answer the question as to prod the audience with the mystery. Michael breaks into his old school and, presumably, draws some crayon pictures of a family and then stabs his knife into the little sister. He also draws the word “SAMHAIN” on the chalkboard. Loomis recognizes the name of “the Lord of the Dead” and connects it to “the end of summer, the festival of Samhain, October thirty first.” The audience wonders why Michael, who was institutionalized at an early age and has had no education since, would know this word, and the suggestions seems to be that there is far more going on than meets the eye.

Fire

Loomis later explains the idea of Samhain a little more fully, linking the idea to animal rituals in which fire is used by pagan priests to destroy sacrificial animals. Did Loomis have this in mind when he later uses fire to kill Michael? Was Loomis playing the part of a Celtic priest? Was Michael the emissary of some forgotten pagan god, embittered at man for ignoring him and defiling his holy day? Did the story of HALLOWEEN and its sequel play out some ancient archetypal myth?

Well, there was never supposed to be a sequel to explain these things. Michael Myers was dead. The filmmakers planned to hang up that decaying old William Shatner mask. Wouldn’t it have been nice if HALLOWEEN III began where II left off? When movies goers settled down in theatres on a crisp October night one year later, they see Laurie Strode loaded into that ambulance and driving away from the hospital, thinking everything’s gonna be okay. But, what’s this? Who is driving the ambulance? Michael Myers is driving! How can this be?

But no, the third installment in the HALLOWEEN franchise did not begin like that. It started a lot differently.

One last thing. There’s some discussion over how much of the film was directed by Rosenthal and how much by Carpenter. Apparently, Carpenter shot some scenes of gore and nudity to make it more appealing to horror fans. A different edit was seen on television in the eighties and is still shown on AMC occasionally. This version is said to be Rosenthal’s original cut. There’s a lot of interesting differences. I would recommend going here for a more detailed discussion of the subject.

NIGHT OF HORROR.

Aptly titled, because, trust me, it’s gonna be one. Yes, watching NIGHT OF HORROR is a night of horror. No. Worse. Much, much worse. In fact, let me suggest a new title.

That’s better.

After I watched this movie the first time, I took the tape and hid it behind my television set. I would have trashed it, but I didn’t want to sustain physical contact with the tape long enough to carry it to the trash can.

Whose idea of a joke was this?

This movie is an hour and fifteen minute long montage of awfulness, complete with stock footage of a civil war reenactment and too-fucking-much-more than occasional footage of an RV. Really, the RV is the star of the show, receiving far more screen time than any single character. If watching movies about RVs and the losers who drive them is your bag, baby, well — you’re still gonna hate this movie. That’s saying something.

There she is! What a beaut’!

Let me tell you how this movie begins. Fifteen minutes of mumbled expository dialogue. Yes, it’s always much more entertaining to hear characters talk about things that they did rather than to actually see them do them. And if this long drawn out dialogue isn’t enough to keep your attention glued to the screen, take this into consideration: through the whole scene, the speakers have their FUCKING BACKS TO THE CAMERA!

Seriously, this movie is enough to make me wonder if a group of guys didn’t get together and say to themselves, “Let’s see if we can make the shittiest movie ever made.” I mean, they had to have known, right? You don’t stick fifteen minutes of Civil War reenactment footage into the middle of your movie and think you’re pulling off something brilliant– or even something anybody except coma patients are gonna be able to sit through. In fact, I’m not entirely convinced that coma patients wouldn’t wake up and hightail it out of the hospital when faced with this garbage we can only euphemistically refer to as a movie.

Anyway, nothing said in the opening bar scene has any bearing upon the “story.” Except that it sets up an excuse to narrate the “action.” (Note those parentheses well. There’s gonna be a lot of sitting down, talking, and standing up in this movie– and most of that inferred through narration!) What we find out is that Guy #1 has been drinking a lot after his crazy RV trip. He’s a little depressed now. Apparently, he saw some ghosts or something. Doesn’t matter if you missed it, he’s gonna tell us all about it.

So how do things start off? He and his loser friends hit the road, and, uh, they read some poetry.

Guy: What’s that you’re reading?
Girl: It’s a poem by Edgar Allan Poe. Would you like me to recite it for you?
Me: God, no! Please fucking NO!!!
Guy: Yes, please.
Me: Arggh!!

Anyway, this sets up the girl as an ESP kinda chick. Let me tell you something else about this movie. It’s played more as a romance, since there’s absolutely no conflict caused by the supernatural. A cheesy overdramatic score plays in the most obvious places. And there’s all kinds of talk about love or something.  So why call it NIGHT OF HORROR? Why not NIGHT OF TALKIN’ ‘BOUT LOVE? Or better yet, NIGHT OF DRIVING THE RV?

So the RV hits a ghost, whom we don’t see. Ms. ESP senses that it was a ghost. And that’s how we know it wasn’t some poor sucker whose battered and RV-bruised body didn’t go flying twenty feet into the woods upon impact. Yup, it must have been a ghost, so they keep on driving.

I know what they did last summer -- not a damn thing.

Uh, I’ll skip over some stuff, like the dramatic argument about whether to eat now or wait till they get to the campsite. And the argument about how Guy #1 was adopted or something and how Guy #2 hates his parents. I swear, the filmmakers must have been thinking that if they cut in a pointless scene detailing a bit of psychological background on their characters it would sell to the “intellectual set.” Guy #1 actually says, “Oh, now you’re just projecting.” Projecting? Seriously, there must be some brilliant Freudian dimension to this piece of shit. I mean, somebody’s “projecting.”

The RV busts its muffler and they gotta pull over to fix it. Meanwhile, Civil War ghosts decide to commune with Ms. ESP and the losers have a séance. To tell you the truth, I don’t know what the rest of the movie is about. Some ghosts show up and start narrating. But they whisper and there’s some atrocious “spooky” effect on the audio track. All this adds up to me not having any idea what the hell is going on. Also the shots are so dark that you can hardly tell who’s talking.

It’s almost a relief when things cut to some nice, bright footage of a Civil War battle. A crisp, clear audio track begins to play and a guy wails a tune about dead soldiers. Like I said, almost a relief. This feeling of relief lasts exactly three seconds. The scene, on the other hand, lasts approximately ten minutes. You think that’s an exaggeration? Ten minutes of stock footage? Ten minutes when you start to wonder whether you’re watching a horror movie or an American history documentary?

Ed Wood called. He said, “Brilliant work, fellas!”

Well, the ghosts have told their tale. I managed to pick out two pieces of information from the mumbled ghostly monologue: (1) Somebody was beheaded. (2) The ghosts think Ms ESP is the reincarnation of somebody or other. (2) seems to have no bearing on the plot so we can just forget about it. But (1) leads our team of RV-driving losers to go digging in the dirt for a skull which they find and then re-inter about fifteen feet from where they dug it up. Who’s skull was it? Why did the ghosts want them to reunite it with its body? Who cares about any of this? I don’t know, I don’t know, and I really don’t know.

So, back to the bar. We get a post-night-of-horror wrap-up. Guy is so freaked about what happened (which is weird because he was actually fixing the muffler when all the skull-digging, soldier-séance shit was going down) that he can’t get up the nerve (or maybe something else?) to try to mac it with Ms ESP. And that’s about it. The end. Does the band ever get back together? Are you asking, “What band?” Yeah, me too. Who cares? I don’t care. Do you care? No, you don’t. Neither do I.

Really, this movie is so bad that I can’t even think of creatively bad things to say about it. There should be clever ways to put it down, right? WRONG! It just sucks. And anyone who watches it to find out won’t be able to think about it without feeling deeply despondent about pretty much everything– but especially about RVs and the Civil War and making jokes about the movie that put the two together. I’m not trying to justify a somewhat insipid review. I’m just telling you the movie is a black whole of boredom.

There’s only one possible thing I could think of that could make this movie at all worth watching. That’s if Bruce Campbell showed up at the end and kicked everybody’s asses from here to the 13th century. Can you imagine how much better every movie ever made would be if Bruce Campbell showed up at the end to kick some ass? Seriously, Hollywood, listen to me! Re-shoot the end of TITANIC. That old lady was just asking for a hot cup of whoop-ass. And Bruce only brews it but one way– decapitated.

He’d been hiding behind the bar the whole time.

(This is a slightly edited version of an article originally published at AxeWound)

Director Jon Porty’s resume is less then reassuring, having manned the helm of four non-horror/sci fi films (one of which being a made for TV video-film about the Unabomber). STAR PORTAL is his only real directorial foray into sci-fi. In his defense, he did write the script for THE GUYVER. (And with that being said, the defense rests.)

STAR PORTAL tells the story of Quad-rena, an alien who crash lands on earth, possesses the body of a sexy earthling, and can shoot lasers from her eyes. (Presumably this isn’t a talent the sexy earthling had pre-alien possession.) Quad-rena must satisfy an insatiable lust for blood, call her fellow space aliens to rescue her (and then kill them so they won’t blow up the earth?!), and in the middle of it all discover the value of human emotions and the warmth of true love. Sounds awesome, huh?

The first big problem with the movie is that Quad-rena is an idiot. She talks like she’s been hit in the head a couple times. But it’s not that she just dumb. Compounding the problem is that she’s sexy. And sexual. But not in an intelligent, empowering way. She just sorta dumb-fucks her way through the movie. Her doctor eventually emerges as the romantic hero. But the jarring thing about this is that anybody who knows she’s not an alien would believe that she’s in need of some serious psychiatric help. Instead of  having the poor space creature submit to a psychological evaluation, the good doctor, in an act of incredible medical integrity, dumb-fucks her.

The second big problem is that there’s no real reason to like her. Unless you consider the fact that she’s stupid and sexy a good reason. She’s killing people and drinking their blood. I guess you’re not supposed to feel sorry for her victims. You’re supposed to feel sorry for her for not knowing that if you lock a human up in the basement and let it eat spiders and drink its own urine it will continue to give you blood for at least another couple weeks. Despite her blood crazed murder of innocents, you get the feeling the creative minds behind this story really want you to have compassion for this murderous ingénue. Ya know, because she’s stupid and sexy.

Throughout the movie there are various flashbacks to her host’s life, but they never develop into anything plot related. In the end they just seem like filler. By a stretch of the imagination they could help to explain why she can speak English and understand the subtleties of such human cultural institutions as psychic consultations. But the knowledge she inherits from her host can only be considered spotty at best, since from beginning to end Quad-rena is a frustratingly moronic dimwit. You have even less reason to like her when you realize that she’s basically consigned the psyche of her host to the cosmic dump heap.

But the absolute worst part of the whole movie is that when she calls the mother ship she speaks in rhymed couplets. It’s like having the phone operator read you the lyric sheet from a Flock of Seagulls record.

“The stones of time make up the galaxies

Mass and gravity are mere fallacies

What draws starlight from there to here

Is love’s desire to be near.”

I really don’t know why it was called STAR PORTAL. The star portal itself doesn’t play much of a part in the movie. I’m not really even sure there is a star portal. Maybe they wanted to cash in on the popularity of STAR GATE which had come out a few years earlier. Anyway, this movie was better when it was called LIFEFORCE. At least in that movie the sexy naked chick is tough as shit and turns into Patrick Stewart.

Alright, this is my first post. Let’s get started with the review.

Recently I started and finished playing Resident Evil 4 for the PS2. I picked this game up a few years ago but I hadn’t played it until just recently because I kept getting sidetracked. Then the release of Resident Evil 5 got my ass in gear, cause it wouldn’t be much fun to play RE5 without knowing the story of RE4. The Resident Evil series is one of my favorite groups of games and RE4 did not disappoint, as I will now describe.

So, the game starts out and you are once again playing as Leon S. Kennedy (remember him from RE2). Leon is hired by some government high-ups to rescue the president’s daughter, Ashley, from some wacko cult in Europe. And, of course, just like in RE2, Leon gets more than he bargained for in this mission. He travels to a town where Ashley is suspected to be and discovers that all of the town’s people are crazy zombie-like abominations. (Notice I said the people are zombie-like and not zombies.) That’s right, the town hasn’t been infected by the T-virus or the G-virus but instead it’s been affected by an ancient parasite called “Las Plagas”. It’s a fight for your life as you battle an entire town of monsters!

“Just like old times in Raccoon City”

Now, to get it out of the way, here’s an overview of the whole game in a nutshell (*HUGE SPOILERS AHEAD!*): Leon runs all over the damn place collecting weapons and fighting crazy-ass monsters, finds Ashley and loses her and finds her and loses her and finds her ( I really can’t remember/don’t really care how many times this happens), meets an ally named Luis ( he dies), runs across opposition consisting of Saddler and his cronies, we see some blasts from the past in Jack Krauser and Ada Wong (more RE2 references!) and finally Leon destroys Saddler and saves Ashley. Ada escapes as well and with a sample of the parasite for……*drum roll*……Albert Wesker! Yeah, that’s right, Wesker makes an appearance in RE4. He is pretty much the main villain of the entire series after all. And with that out of the way we can focus on the finer details.

Resident Evil 4 is different in many ways from its predecessors. First off is the view of the game. RE4 takes the camera perspective of an “over the shoulder” view rather than looking down from above the character. This was a little tough to adjust to but you get the hang of it real quick. It has some nice benefits, too. You can see what’s coming ahead of you and you can aim your gun to a specific location on the enemy with the help of a laser sight (which is built in on every gun). I also can’t forget the button prompts; these usually happen in cut scenes and if you don’t press L1+R1 or X+Square fast enough your dead. The second difference is the enemies. As I stated before the enemies aren’t zombies but crazed parasite infected lunatics that speak Spanish (I didn’t mention the Spanish part before, but yeah, they speak Spanish). This might have some hardcore RE fans in a frenzy saying “WHAT!?! They’re not zombies!” but it doesn’t really change the game play too much. Another difference is the concept of collecting money to trade with The Merchant. Throughout the game you pick up money here and there and then when you find The Merchant you can buy guns and other nick-nacks from him. I found the Merchant’s voice hilarious and the fact that he always greats you as “Stranger”. (The name’s Leon motherfucker! LEON!!!). Also, there are no ink ribbons in this game. If you find a typewriter you can just save and that’s that. The ink ribbons can stay gone for all I care; I hated carrying around those annoying pieces of shit anyway.

Annoying pieces of shit

There are things that stayed that same, too. Leon starts the game with the standard knife and handgun. And as the game progresses you can obtain new and more powerful weapons. You can get handguns, shotguns, riffles, machine guns, magnums, rocket launchers, mine throwers, grenades, and even eggs. (Eggs restore your health but you can also chuck them at people, hilarious). And you can upgrade your weapons as well to make them more effective. Also, the healing herbs make an appearance again. There’s the green herb, the red herb and the yellow herb. The yellow herb is new and it increases your max health.

I liked the variety of enemies they had in this game. The infected town’s people, the wolf-dogs, giant insects, etc… (some more durable than others of course). And they weren’t impossible to kill or anything. Although, pretty early on in the game you encounter the chainsaw wielding bag head dude and he can be a pain in the ass. And somehow I feel like I’ve seen an enemy like this before…

There are also some enjoyable sub-boss fights with huge enemies. There are these giant monsters appropriately called “El Gigante” that you fight a few times and you also fight a giant mutated gator/croc while in a boat. And it seems some former enemies have taken a change for the better. The crows that normally peck you to death in other RE games will give you money/bullets if you shoot them down.

I can’t really find anything majorly wrong with this game. The only thing that can get annoying is Ashley. Having to protect her stupid-ass can get frustrating. Also, she’ll occasionally call you a pervert. (Is that anyway to treat your rescuer?). Not to mention her voice when she calls for help. “Leon! HEELLLPPP!”, “Help me Leon”, “HEEELLLPPP!”, “Where are you going?!?” (BITCH, I’M TRYIN’ TO SAVE YOUR ASS! SHUT THE FUCK UP!) But yeah, that’s really the only thing to complain about.

“Go ahead and take her.”

Also, there are some extras on this game. If you beat the game you get another outfit and additional weapons which is common in RE games. And in addition to the regular game you can play Assignment Ada and Separate Ways. I’m not going into them so just play the game and check them out yourself.

Ok, I hope I didn’t make this too long. I really liked Resident Evil 4. It had a decent story, it made some connections to the past Resident Evil games, the challenge wasn’t too hard or too easy, and it wasn’t agonizingly long or disappointingly short. The graphics weren’t too shabby either. I’ve heard the GameCube version looks better, but I thought the PS2 version was perfectly fine. If you’re a fan of Resident Evil games and you haven’t picked this one up yet, I would strongly suggest you get on it and play it. I expect high quality when I play a Resident Evil title and Capcom didn’t let me down. This game ruled.

-Super Joe