1. NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS

Prudent decision, I would say, to get the movie about sleeping out of the way during the first few hours of a 24 hour period of forced wakefulness. A bunch of sleep deprived kids in an insane asylum get knocked off one by one by the razor-gloved “bastard son of a thousand maniacs.” It’s a story that foreshadowed the coming twenty-four hours. Just like those droopy eyed Elm Street brats in the picture, each and every soul in this theater would in time succumb to the lunacy of sleeplessness — and, just like those kids, some of us wouldn’t make it to the end.

2. THE MIGHTY PEKING MAN

The program described the next movie simply as “giant monster movie.” I was told that traditionally Exhumed shows a Godzilla movie, so like everyone else I expected one of the many sequels that Toho churned out in that half century since the fire-shooting, Tokyo-destroying atom age metaphor first hit screens.

When the Shaw Brothers Studio logo hit the screen we were all somewhat surprised. I doubt many of us knew that those Hong Kong churner-outers of Kung-fu and Ninja movies ever tried their hands at giant monsters. And perhaps the few audience members who did didn’t have very high expectations.

As soon as the opening sequence started to roll there was a mass exodus, the likes of which would have made you think the back of the theater had caught on fire or NIGHT OF HORROR was playing. These folks didn’t know what they were about to miss.

Some Hong Kong entrepreneurs venture into the Himalayas to capture the giant King Kong clone known as Peking Man. After most of the shirpas who were guiding the expedition die in a series of gory leopard and elephant attacks, the remaining Hong Kongians decide to retreat back home, satisfied that they have proven sufficiently that there is no Peking Man. They were wrong though. One of their numbers discovers Peking Man and the sexy half-naked white lady with whom Peking Man is in love. He eventually takes them both back to civilization. Peking Man is forced into chains while the woman spurns the constrictions of cleavage-enhancing western dress.

Eventually, the lovelorn monster exploits a structural weakness in the Chinese-made monster cage, effects his escape, and goes Godzilla all over Hong Kong looking for his lady friend.

Pretty good movie. It kept me entertained and awake for another hour and a half. If you’re into giant monsters and post-colonialism, definitely check it out.

3. VAULTS OF HORROR

I love horror anthologies, maybe almost as much as my horrorthon companion Samm. (Check out her recent discussion of them). CREEPSHOW would have been a nice treat; CREEPSHOW II would have been even nicer. Any anthology — even the shittiest — I hadn’t seen before would have been great. TALES FROM THE CRYPT II, more widely known as VAULT OF HORROR was still a nice surprise. Even though I’ve seen it — and slept through it — before. Would I stay awake through its hackneyed comic book vignettes this time? Keep reading!

Carrying on the sleep-time theme introduced with the horrorthon’s first film, VAULT OF HORROR tells the story (well five stories really) of a group of strangers who get stuck in a room and — I guess just for the hell of it — relate the details of their realistic recurring nightmares. There’s an upscale restaurant, coiled rope, some spousal abuse, insurance fraud, and paintings. All employed in spooky ways, mind you.

I didn’t fall asleep. But next time I get stuck having to watch this movie, I’m taking the opportunity to reclaim that hour and half in the name of good King Sandman.

4. IT LIVES AGAIN

IT LIVES AGAIN is the followup to Larry Cohen’s 1974 mutant baby extravaganza IT’S ALIVE. This one’s got more mutant babies than the first — I think. I haven’t seen the first one in a while. The dad from the first movie comes back to help another family deal with the inevitable struggle which ensues when trying to give a good home to the next great leap in human evolution. It’s not going to be easy because the government is after them.

What? A heavy handed political message?! In a Larry Cohen movie?!

After the film we went out for a quick bite. In the middle of conversation, someone interrupted to inform us that the next feature had started. I quickly and unceremoniously detached myself from the group and raced to the theater. The messenger was wrong. When I got back to the theater a trailer was announcing that HALLOWEEN: RESSURECTION was “the night Michael came home.” For what it was worth, Michael should have stayed where he was. But it was a good thing that I didn’t stay where I was, because as soon as this crappy movie’s preview ended (along with the history of the slasher film? With not a bang but a whimper), the next film took over the screen — and if it was what I thought it was I didn’t want to miss a second of it.

The friend who was friends with the friend of the hobbled friend was Samm of Axewound.com (which you should read every day until your eyes bleed from awesomeness and flawless grammar). Together we headed on over to the International House in Philadelphia’s University City district. While home to a large capacity theater, the building also doubles as a residential center for international students. (The occasional group of polite, well-dressed, young Asian professionals that would later drift past the skulking, red-eyed horror freaks in the course of the night certainly added a modicum of atmosphere to be well-appreciated by any J-horror fans in the crowd.)

Asia: Homeland of many I-house residents and exporter of many terrible horror movies.

As you can imagine, I was pretty grateful to be there. Just two days earlier I didn’t even have a ticket to the sold out show, and honestly I was only vaguely aware that this horror-thon was even happening. But now, thanks to some loose lips and a broken kneecap, I was at the I-house in the before-noon hours of Halloween Eve ready to watch fourteen feature length movies, a cornucopia of coming attractions, and probably one or two pretty mediocre shorts films.

By the time Samm and I arrived (which was more than an hour before the first picture started), the line to get into the theater stretched very far back. Samm hatched the idea of pretending we knew the people in the front of the line in order to avoid a long wait and I suppose just to generally prove how much better we were than everyone else. Though I considered taking the moral ground, I realized that the moral ground was at the end of a long line. Besides, it wasn’t too hard to convince myself that she was right: I write for a blog. If that doesn’t mean I’m better than everyone else, I don’t know what does. Our fearless demonstration of our superiority and aversion to waiting in long lines meant not only that we were two of the first people in the theater but also that we were two of the first people to get this year’s program.

The line to get into this years 24 Hour Horror-thon. We butted.

Instead of simply telling us the titles of the movies we were about to watch, this program tortured us instead with vague clues that could pretty well describe any one of three million and five horror movies ever made. “Nifty, creepy horror anthology”? On a normal day you could probably recall the names of all of the three million and five nifty, creepy horror anthologies ever made. (All of which you’ve seen, of course.) Unfortunately, when the pressure’s on (I mean, a Blu-ray player was at stake!) and you’re standing in a line trying not to sound like a newb to all the kids wearing EVIL DEAD shirts within earshot, you’re only likely to remember one title that not only fits the category but also (most important of all) is slightly more obscure than it is watchable and thus very impressive to the guy with the DAWN OF THE DEAD tattoo on his face. So you lisp the name to your friend, see the guy with the BASKET CASE t-shirt nod with approval, and hope that the film’s not being screened under one of its alternate titles. Which of course it is.

SPOILER ALERT! We didn't win it.

The parenthetically mentioned Blu-ray player was the grand prize given to the soul who was able to guess (and I do mean guess) the most correct titles. Not a bad reward for simply writing down a couple of movies on a piece of paper. In my day, Exhumed gave prizes in the traditional “pull a ticket from a hat” manner without subjecting patrons to the inconveniences of having to spell legibly and correctly, or at all. What prize-winners won was usually a plush and cuddly Pinhead to love and to hold or some awesome DVDs to watch and to love and to hold. Never a goddamn Blu-ray player. And the fact that they didn’t exist back then doesn’t make me any less pissed that I never won one. I never won anything, actually — not even at the ATOR THE FIGHTING EAGLE/ALMOST HUMAN show where I was one of seven attendees, six of whom walked out of the theater with plush and cuddly Pinheads.

I doubted very much that this show would be any different. So just being there at the 24 hour horror-thon would have to be my surrogate Blu-ray player. That was prize enough, right? Especially if I was going to see the movie I was promised. (If overheard drunken gossip can be considered a promise, which it can). I quickly glanced over the hints, trying to find the one that best described it. And there it was. Movie #5. A simple elegant description, befitting such a masterpiece of cinema: “Zombie Movie.”

Finally the line started to move, and we snaked past the t-shirt booth where you could buy an Exhumed Films 24 Hour Horror-thon commemorative shirt. They came in all sizes but only in one color: yellow, the most commemorative color of them all. I did the economical thing and bought last year’s t-shirt for five bucks, instead of this year’s at twenty. A brilliant plan on my part. If they were slashing the price by over fifty percent after a year, why not just wait till next year to buy this year’s t-shirt at last year’s price? You don’t get rich buying brand new t-shirt at brand new prices. What I didn’t count on was them selling out of this year’s t-shirt before next year. Oh, well. All those people are going to go home and realize they spent twenty bucks on a yellow t-shirt.

I bought many of these. Instead of awesome movies.

I also took a moment to drool over the DVDs that Diabolik DVD was offering. I made a prudent decision, that I surely regret now, to save my money for food stuffs and coffee to keep me alive and healthy over the next 24 hours rather than spend it on movies to watch and enjoy again and again for the rest of my life.

One last stop before the theater was an interesting art showcase called Video Violence, displaying redesigned VHS boxes of popular horror/sci fi rentals. (This would be an opportune time to supplement this review with a photograph, but I forgot to take one. And unfortunately I don’t remember what any of the boxes looked like so I can‘t even replace real photos with dreadfully vivid and well written descriptions. So click on that link and look at somebody else’s pictures, or just stay here and move on to the next paragraph.)

Samm and I and our new friends poured into the theatre, reserving an entire row for ourselves and our adopted entourage. We plopped down enthusiastically, eager beyond all reasonable measure to sit in uncomfortable chairs for the next twenty four hours and pay a copious fortune of attention (paying until we’ve maxed out our metaphorical attention credit and the bank forecloses on our attention houses) to a large wall.

SUFFER THE SHARDS . . . (Image stolen and used without permission.)

Upon this wall before the show started, a video montage with accompanying music called SUFFER THE SHARDS OF THE LOST CULT OF SILENCE was projected. The audio was a “Black Metal/Drone track” created by musicians Matt Moore (Woe/Absu) and Chris Grigg (Woe/Jackson Pollock 5). It was pretty cool, and I recommend it highly to anyone with an interest in Black Metal or montages. You can listen to the audio and even buy a copy of the complete film here.

As we listened to SUFFER THE SHARDS . . . we continued contemplating the hints for the movies we were about to watch. The hint for the first film was “silly slasher sequel” along with the redundant information that it was “not as good as the original.” Even though I was praying for SLEEPAWAY CAMP II, I was pretty sure that wasn’t the movie we were about to see. Samm, if I remember correctly, was certain it would be a FRIDAY THE 13th jawn.

When the house lights fell and the projector started up, we were both proven wrong.

But neither of us were disappointed.

To find out what we saw, stay tuned for PART THREE.

Or go back and read PART ONE because it makes you feel all tingly.

On a dark and stormy night in late October I was getting drunk on PBRs in a dingy Philadelphia bar. Despite the horror-movie ambiance of inclement weather, poor lighting, and unkempt, zombie-like patrons, there was nothing happening worth writing about for Video Ferox — nothing, that is, until I overheard one slovenly patron disclose to another a closely guarded secret concerning Exhumed Films’ upcoming 24 hour Horror-thon.

The dudes from Exhumed Films

Back in the late nineties when Exhumed Films started screening old horror movies at the Harwan Theater in Mt Ephraim, New Jersey, I was a pimply-faced, teenage horror-movie fanatic who was continuously one failed math test away from never being allowed out again. The dread of missing a single Exhumed show pretty much kept my grades above a solid D for the duration of my high school career and eventually led to my graduating in the traditional four years.

A decade later, thanks to college, poverty, the shifting priorities of becoming an adult, and a pervasive lameness, I had dropped completely out of the Exhumed scene. The gossip I overheard that night might have been awesome had I not become such a faithless fan.

The Horror-thon's humble beginnings.

In all those years as a dedicated Exhumed Films audience member, there was always one particular film that I wanted to see on the big screen. Whenever Exhumed spokesmen Dan and Joe would announce a surprise feature I would get my hopes up, like a lot of people in the audience, only to hear, “Don’t get excited. We can’t show that one.”

The proverbial cat that came out of the proverbial bag that drunken night was that they would finally be screening this film. It might as well have been a dead cat though, since I didn’t have a ticket and the show had been sold out for months. The insult garnishing this particular injury was that if I had stuck with them over the years, I would certainly have had a ticket to this, their fourth annual horror-thon.

I wasn’t completely dissuaded though. There were still a few days left. I needed a ticket to that show. But how?

I went home and rewatched my copy of WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY for inspiration and tips. I didn’t think eating chocolate was gonna help, so instead I asked my guardian spirit to do something — anything — to get me into that show. My guardian spirit quickly responded by shattering a friend of a friend of a ticket-owning friend’s kneecap.

Score!

I was going to the show . . . but would the overheard drunken gossip prove accurate? Would I see that film?

Stay tuned for PART TWO to find out!

]]> http://www.videoferox.com/2010/11/exhumed-films-24-hour-horror-thon-part-iv-part-one/feed/ 0 http://www.videoferox.com/2010/11/the-walking-dead/ http://www.videoferox.com/2010/11/the-walking-dead/#comments Tue, 02 Nov 2010 00:10:12 +0000 Jason http://www.videoferox.com/?p=944 AMC’s new series THE WALKING DEAD premiered on Halloween, and like a lot of other zombie fans I drank a lot of beer and sat down to watch it. It’s based on the Image Comic series that came out seven or so years ago. I’ve never read the original, as I think comic books are glorified coloring books for lazy, stupid people.

Primetime television sitcoms, on the other hand, are something I have no problem indulging in. Generally, I expect from TV something intelligent, witty, and thoughtful, and I’m seldom let down. Yet, I gotta say, this new offering disappointed me.

The plot was about as slow as the zombies, and the action scenes were — well, about as scarce as the zombies. Where did THE WALKING DEAD go wrong? I mean, the show started out great. I liked when the guy shot that little girl in the beginning. That got me interested enough to sit through the first set of commercials, and then when the show came back with some full-on, guns blazing misogyny, I was pretty hooked.

But then it was all downhill from there.

Dude wakes up in a hospital. Dude wanders around. Meets some people. Has some dinner. I guess this is more fun than watching the cut scenes on the 28 DAYS LATER DVD, right?

The producers didn’t do much to create a sense of tension. The world is supposed to be a dangerous zombie infested war zone, right? Then why are characters sitting around talking out in the open, in broad daylight, without any concern for what might be creeping up behind them. (Hordes of zombies, maybe?) I mean, do the zombies only come out at night? Are they actually vampires? Are they looking for a guy named Neville?

Also, did one scene show people surviving the zombie apocalypse in a tent? I’m sure a good explanation for that will be revealed later, but right now it does seem a bit odd.

If my memory hasn’t failed me, it isn’t until the end of the episode that we see the zombies actually attack anything. And when they do, it’s a horse. So any horses watching the show really had the zombie threat driven home to them and in a way that we human watchers have to wait for.

Of course, we’re told that the zombies attack and eat humans (which of course anyone who’s ever seen a zombie movie already knew, anyway). I wish this information had been shouted as characters were running from zombies though, instead of calmly discussed over tea in a comfortable dining room.

If I seem a bit disappointed, I suppose it’s okay, since judging by their sponsors, I wasn’t really the kind of person they were pitching their sitcom to anyway. I’m not in the market for a new car or a dependable boner pill.

In all fairness, let’s remember that it’s hard to tell how good a series will be from its first episode. It might explode into something awesome. I mean, the special effects were pretty much what they should be, and it was cool seeing on American television the kind of gore that got cut out of the NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD remake back in the nineties. So even if the story sucks at least we’ll have something bloody to look at. I mean, if gore and story are the bread and circuses of the modern horror tale, then we can certainly survive on bread alone.

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

How many more HALLOWEEN movies are there, anyway?

Despite being completely burned-out on all things Michael Myers, I feel obligated to take a look at this follow-up to 2007’s HALLOWEEN.

Weird Al is still Weird Al.

Since the terrifying events of Halloween night (one or) two years ago everyone involved have become assholes. Laurie and Annie are now quick-tempered, fiery-tongued sassaholics. Loomis is a Hollywood-style fame-mongering d-bag. Weird Al Yankovic is still good old Weird Al Yankovic, though. Thankfully.

What about our main man Michael? After surviving the magnum blast to his cranium that Laurie administered at the close of the previous film, the Dread of Haddonfield is now a forest-dwelling, coyote-eating survivalist. Pretty brilliant move on filmmakers’ part, as they solve that pesky problem of previous HALLOWEENers: Where was Michael to spend his time between movies? Instead of introducing a Mountain Man to care for Michael, they just turn Michael himself into the Mountain Man! My hat is off, gentleman.

Michael Myers: Mountain Man.

The newest HALLOWEEN sequel manages to avoid another problem faced by previous sequels: Where do the victims come from? This is a problem I like to refer to as the “Puppet Master Problem.” PUPPET MASTER is a film about a group of horrifying little puppets who kill the shit out of a bunch of jerks. At the end of the movie though, you find out the puppets are good guys! Problem: How do you make a successful series of horror films when your monsters are good guys? Who are these monsters supposed to kill?

As you can see, filmmakers eventually solved PUPPET MASTER's own Puppet Master Problem by introducing demons from hell for the puppets to battle.

Previous HALLOWEEN sequels faced a similar problem. Not that Michael Myers was ever a good guy. Rather that he had very specific target victims. So it never made much sense why, if he was so intent on killing Laurie Strode or Jamie Strode, he would take so much time out to routinely kill a bunch of nobodies who were only loosely connected to his primary victims.

Past sequels’ answer to the Puppet Master Problem wasn’t really much of an answer. They just sorta distracted viewers with gore, hoping no one would pause long enough to questions Michael’s motives.

The newest HALLOWEEN successfully avoids the problem by making Michael just generally keen on killing whatever comes into his purview. This includes hunters, hunter’s girlfriends, nurses (maybe?), strippers, strip-club owners, strip-club trash taker-outers,¹ dudes peeing against a tree, dudes not peeing against a tree, girls who know Laurie Strode, and girls who do not. The only exception to his general rule of carving up anything that moves is his self-restraint in his sister’s presence and also, to a lesser extent, in Loomis’ presence. (He also doesn’t kill children, as he knows it would piss off Gamera — and nobody, not even Michael Myers, wants to piss off Gamera).

Now, as in movies like FRIDAY THE 13th and SLEEPAWAY CAMP, filmmakers have a recipe that provides for the constant parade of fresh victims. As soon as one group is sufficiently mashed and bashed, the next group can be gently nudged down the slaughter shoot, arriving safe, sound, and soon-to-be dead at destination sequel.

Michael's ghost family. Or something.

Another thing this sequel has in common with sequels past is a somewhat confusing psychic connection between Michael and another character. This story-telling device is, of course, similar to that used in HALLOWEEN 5. In that movie Michael and his niece Jamie had some strange connection, the nature of which was never made terribly explicit. In the newer movie, Michael’s connection with his sister Laurie involves, at one point, Laurie’s vomiting as Michael, many miles away, gobbles down something nasty.

Their connection also allows both Michael and Laurie to see and interact with visions of a young Michael Myers and his dead mother. Are these two familiar faces objective spirits, dual psychoses, or a mere story telling device? Seeing something so supernatural after the 2007 HALLOWEEN and its commitment to uber-realism is a little jarring at first,  but you soon realize that this metaphysical connection — the connection between Michael, Laurie and their dead mother — is what the movie is about. You can ask why Michael’s older sister Judith isn’t involved in this little clan, but then this question ultimately leads to the question, why did Michael kill Judith in the first place. You get the feeling it really doesn’t matter and that those are questions beyond the scope of the story with answers of as much weight as Lady Macbeth’s children.

Michael in a hospital. Where have I seen this before?

Along with the previous HALLOWEEN’s commitment to realism, abandoned as well is the decision to avoid anything “cute.” The extended dream sequence involving Laurie’s flight from Michael within a hospital is a conscious (and cute) echo of the original HALLOWEEN II of 1981. While the scene is fun and suspenseful, and provides necessary back story (Michael’s escape, Annie’s survival, and Laurie’s general psychological state), when it ends with Laurie’s waking up in bed, you realize you’re watching a movie of a different style than the film whose story it continues.

One thing HALLOWEEN II has that its progenitor hasn’t is comic relief. Loomis on the “David Newman” show along with fellow guest Weird Al Yankovic is a short but funny sequence, and Loomis’ flagrant assholery punctuates the film, providing some much appreciated laughs².

Every sequel needs a magic horse.

HALLOWEEN II is a movie worthy of its predecessor 2007’s HALLOWEEN and manages to accomplish all that a sequel in a long tradition of sequels should. It continues the story, introduces slightly more outlandish plot elements, ups the gore, has a scene with a magical horse, and keeps us entertained for a couple hours. I understand that this movie disappointed a lot of fans, but I think if you’re going to blame a sequel for not being GODFATHER II, you might want to blame the first for not being GODFATHER.

And of course, there’s going to be a HALLOWEEN III — or should I say HALLOWEEN 3D, or maybe just H3D?. The director/writer of the movies it follows, a man named Rob Zombie (I’m sure you’ve never heard of him), refused to sign on for this one. He hasn’t stated his reasons, but I’m hoping it’s because this newest installment is going to be the most absurd, unbelievable, and stupidly awesome HALLOWEEN yet. (Michael in Space! Michael in space! Michael in space!)

But for now, that’s all the HALLOWEENs there are. Right?

Right?



Notes:

¹ Or maybe Michael killed the folks at the strip club because that’s where his mother used to work.

² Comic relief would have been completely out of place in sequels past, which were obliged to take themselves very seriously. Generally in a horror movie, providing opportunities for laughs is a sign of confidence and competence on the part of filmmakers. Real tension can be broken with laughs and then quickly restored; the illusion of tension, with only one simple joke, bursts like a bubble.

A remake was a wise decision. Not only was the slashing and stalking fans expected from Michael Myers getting pretty old, but so was Michael himself. A new HALLOWEEN sequel in 2007 would have featured a fifty year old Michael Myers (although estimates vary). Too old to be wearing a mask? Maybe not. But old enough to join AARP? Definitely.

An artist's interpretation of what a poorly Photoshopped retired Michael Myers might look like.

While we all know Michael could surely use some bitchin’ health insurance after being continually pummeled and mistreated by both movie victims and movie writers alike, the idea of him being able to reminisce about Vietnam, Watergate, and other parent-related historical events over a free cup of coffee doesn’t exactly fill us with fear. It pains us to see so many of our elders in this day and age having to continue working past the age of retirement, and it would have been in poor taste to force Michael to count himself among their numbers.

Of course, this wasn’t a retirement in the normal sense. A better word might be “reincarnation.” Or perhaps “reconstitution.” Or we can use a neologism suggested by the new filmmaker himself: Reimagining.

This word is indeed a clever word. Reimagining allows you to evade certain accusations. You got this wrong. You missed the point. No, I didn’t. I was reimagining.

Thanks to this single-worded disclaimer we can’t really bash the new HALLOWEEN over the head with the old HALLOWEEN. We can, on the other hand, still badmouth it till it’s bloody so long as we have some bigger and badder denunciations than that it shows Michael Myer’s face.

Michael Myer's face. As a child, anyway.

Honestly though, there are very few occasions when the movie pauses to offer contributions to the critical arsenal. The two hour film (I’m watching the unrated version) isn’t bad. It’s violent as all hell, sure. And there’s a lot of sex too. But when have I ever heard you complain about either of those two things?

The cast listing (if I may steal a metaphor) has more names of veteran genre actors than the flyer for an upcoming horror-con: Udo Kier (ANDY WARHOL’S DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN), Sybil Danning (THE TOMB), Clint Howard (every movie ever), Ken Foree (DAWN OF THE DEAD), Sid Haig (SPIDER BABY), Danny Trejo (FROM DUSK TILL DAWN sequels) Bill Mosely (TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2), and little Danielle Harris who played Jaime Strode in HALLOWEENs 4 and 5.

This guy! Udo Kier as the equivalent of Dr. Whyn. A perfect choice if they ever decide to remake THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS.

All these faces, along with the package-deal of their noteworthy performances, help the movie look really cool. And the apt soundtrack (Misfits’ “Halloween II,” BOC’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” somebody’s cover of that Alice Cooper song from that one Alice Cooper album) helps it sound really cool too. It’s got all the little peripherals correct. Now how’s the writing? And in what way is it a reimagining?

A major departure from the original HALLOWEEN is the amount of time the new film spends focusing on Michael’s early years. We get almost forty-five minutes of back story before we meet a teenage Laurie Strode and her soon-to-be-dead girlfriends on October 31 of the present day. While I really enjoy the first part of the movie and even find the account of Michael’s childhood more interesting than the story that follows, it does sort of give the movie a barbell shape, with the weight of the film distributed between two sides without very much connecting them.

"When there's no more room in hell, I'm gonna kick your ass!"

The first part of the HALLOWEEN remake focuses on Michael (and to a lesser degree Loomis), while the remainder of the film focuses on Laurie Strode, who though shown as a child in the earlier half, is effectively a new character that we’re suddenly introduced to halfway through the film. Of course Michael appears in the later half as well, but as a mute and deranged maniac, so there’s little to connect him psychologically to the character we had seen developing in the early part of the film. Just as in the course of the sequels, Michael is divested of his humanity, only the remake of HALLOWEEN accomplishes Michael’s dehumanization within the course of its own story.

This dehumanization of Michael ultimately throws the film off balance, as we no longer know who to follow in the remaining hour and fifteen minutes. Loomis is the only character to remain present for the duration, but he’s certainly underutilized in the latter half and unfortunately seems less the dramatic foil to Michael than he might have been. And Michael, of course, as in sequels past, has no psychology¹.

Some new characters in a totally familiar scene.

Nevertheless, the new HALLOWEEN is a pretty fun horror flick, and it even manages to resist the urge to be “cute” as few sequels have. No overt references to other horror movies (like H20’s hockey mask joke) take us out of its reality, and the filmmakers even manage to avoid exploiting our knowledge of the plot.

A perfect opportunity for this kind of exploitation might have been the final moments of the film. This scene brings to mind the conclusion of the original where Michael crashes to the lawn only to disappear a few seconds later.

In the remake, both Laurie and Michael fall and Laurie blacks out. This would have been a fitting opportunity to rehash the ending that we all expected: Michael’s disappearance. Laurie would awaken to find herself alone on the lawn. Here filmmakers might have confounded our expectations. Just as we think the theme is about to cue and the movie end, Michael jumps out and a final battle ensues.

An ending almost similar to the original.

Nothing like this occurs in the film. When Laurie awakens she finds herself next to Michael who is himself — realistically — blacked out on the lawn. This restraint on the part of the filmmakers is a clear sign that they didn’t want to indulge in any “cute” twist but rather present a gritty and real film that wants us to forget as much as possible the original HALLOWEEN and see this new offering as a story of its own.

Of course, it’s implausible to expect audiences to completely forget the classic movie that is being restaged before their eyes. The absence of one detail in particular, present in the original but left behind in the new treatment, certainly has a powerful effect on the reception of the new story: Michael’s supernatural aspects.

The original HALLOWEEN suggests that Michael was a normal child — the kind of child any of us might see playing in the yard next door, walking home from school, or attending our church’s Sunday service. Michael’s parents, though we get only a brief glimpse of them, look like anybody’s parents. And his house looks like anybody’s house. Yet unlike other children, Michael one day picked up a knife and killed his sister. This confounds our expectations of how normal six year old boys behave, because he did it for no reason — or no reason we can fathom.

Michael loves his sister Laurie.

The new HALLOWEEN suggests a reason — a few of them actually. Michael’s psychopathic episode — his murders — may have been influenced by his family life, the bullies at school, and a resulting lack of self-esteem. Furthermore, the mutilation of small animals is a psychopathic precursor that points towards brain abnormalities. These things fit into our understanding of the world — fit in a way that a normal six year old, with a good family life and no urge to mutilate animals, grabbing a knife and stabbing his sister does not.

The new Loomis, who unlike the old Loomis is not much interested in the metaphysics of Evil.

The new Michael Myers fits into our picture of the world — our weltanschauung. We don’t have to reinterpret the universe in order to make sense of this new Michael. There’s nothing confounding or irreconcilable about him. We expect and accept that some people are criminally insane. That’s awful and scary, certainly, but it’s not chilling in the way the original Michael was.

The original Michael’s existence was something of a “prime movement,” an “acte gratuit,” an effect without a cause — and thus something that cannot be predicted or accounted for, an event beyond understanding, something wholly other.

I won’t say that the new filmmaker “got it wrong” because, as he said, the new HALLOWEEN is a reimagining. I will suggest that the film might have been more powerful, though, had he not reimagined this particular aspect.

Still, even with all reimaginings intact, HALLOWEEN’s new beginning is a pretty gory and violent movie. So if you like that sort of thing, definitely check it out!

Moustapha Akkad. 1930 - 2005

P.S. Sadly world politics has its devastating influence on even things as remote as horror movies. Longtime HALLOWEEN producer Moustapha Akkad — who was himself a filmmaker with a genuine vision of bringing to life the beauty of his Muslim faith through film — died previous to work on this movie through injuries sustained during a terrorist attack in Jordan. The remake of HALLOWEEN was dedicated to his memory.

Notes:

¹ I should qualify that statement. In an interesting twist, Michael doesn’t want to kill Laurie Strode so much as he simply wants to keep her in his presence. We can ask the following questions: Why does he go out of his way to find her? Why does he kill her friends and family? An answer might be, so that he can protect her — as though the only role in which he could take any pride in his early life has now been monstrously distorted. If this is the case it’s a subtle suggestion indeed, especially since by the end of the film Michael seems to want to bash the shit out of his sister with a two by four.

The concluding moments of HALLOWEEN H20 provided an entirely too satisfying conclusion to the Michael Myers saga, so producers insisted on reinterpreting them (much as they had done the final moments of THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS) in order to keep the series — and the much abused leading monster — alive.

Not Michael Myers.

Viewers had thrilled to Laurie Strode’s final confrontation with her demon, who was now very much without a head, but HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION reveals that the mask-faced, jumpsuit wearing gentleman she had decapitated at the conclusion of H20 (a fine, dramatic and powerful conclusion, I might add) was not Michael Myers at all.

In point of actual fact, wily Michael had switched clothing with a paramedics worker (off screen, mind you), zipped up the unfortunate wardrobe-donor in the body bag which was meant for Michael, and then stalked away into the night — no doubt chuckling with satisfaction over the success of his ruse.

Of course, Laurie Strode was privy to none of these off-screen goings-on, and like the rest of us, had no idea that the dopey, mute Michael Myers-looking fellow she had finished off with an ax was not in fact Michael Myers but an unfortunately outfitted first responder with a crushed larynx.

Wow. I mean, can you believe they’re pulling this shit on us?

Texting!? Why, this movie has everything!

With H20, I thought that the filmmakers behind the HALLOWEEN series had finally learned their lesson. I thought they had learned that viewers don’t need an explanation. Just have Michael show up and start killing if that’s what you really want him to do. Let viewers create their own reconciliations. If fans have a taste for bullshit, they’re perfectly capable of making their own and frying it up in their own kitchens. We don’t need filmmaker’s asinine confabulations. They just take us out of the movie. (If you need this maxim spelled out, see the first lines of my previous review.)

But now we get this horse-pill of an explanation and the gag-reflex invoked by our trying to swallow it sets the tone for the rest of the movie.

In an opening sequence that has no specific relevance to the story that follows (except that it gives the unnecessary above-mentioned justification of Michael’s having a body part to keep his mask on) we learn that Laurie Strode is now the inmate of a sanitarium. (So much for having overcome the trauma of her past and effecting a full psychological recovery). Here in the sanitarium, we see an emotionally unhinged Laurie battle Michael yet again — and almost win.

How terrifying.

The sequence actually might have made a satisfying conclusion to a film, but as a beginning it’s dimwitted and artless. Showing in the first scene of a movie the bloodthirsty killer — the killer who is supposed to strike fear into the hearts of audience members for the next hour and fifteen minutes — over-powered, defenseless, strung up like an animal to slaughter and on the verge of defeat, is not a very efficient way of creating and sustaining fear of your monster.

These first ten minutes effectively divest Michael of any power he might have had to frighten us during the rest of the movie. All he is able to do now is jump out and say “Boo!” — which is about all he does anyway in HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION.

Cavalcade of celebrities! Courtney Love, Busta Rhymes, and Frank Black all in the same movie!

As the film continues we follow a group of college students who are members of an online ghost-hunting group called Dangertainment. This forgettable tribe of easily recognizable stereotypes spends the night in the Myers House, while the cameras glued to their heads pump a live feed to the internet.

Meanwhile Michael shows up and kills them all. The end.

It’s actually a pretty cool premise. The idea of a POV film in the style of BLAIR WITCH PROJECT would have been an awesomely clever inversion of the stalker trope of seeing events through the killer’s eyes. We might have had a suspenseful and eerie film, tension building as viewers waited for the smallest indication that Michael had shown up ready to kill again. We might have had an interesting and unexpected (if perhaps unbelievable) twist if Laurie Strode suddenly appears at the end to help fight Michael (surviving just a little longer than Scatman Crothers’ character in THE SHINING). We might have had a realistic, entertaining, and satisfying film.

"A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside an Enigma." The Myers House has something more in common with Soviet Russia than just facilitating mass murder.

But filmmakers failed even to commit to a completely first-person perspective. Instead, we get disjointed cinematography, forgettable stock characters who have no pasts, a needless “life-line” character whose only role is to provide direction via texting to one of the characters, a few sore-thumb references to popular culture, some sorer-thumb references to Jungian psychology, another silly scene involving multiple Michael Myerses (it was already done in part 4), another scene of Michael doing the laundry (already done in CURSE), a magically appearing chainsaw, and an answer to a question nobody asks: What does Michael eat when he’s not out killing people?

Rats.

I wish I could say that HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION is a film that can’t decide what it wants to be, but it’s pretty clear that it knows exactly what it wants to be — terrible – and goes out of its way to be just that.

I don’t want to keep saying bad things about HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION, because quite frankly I think it’s an easy target — a far easier target even than the defenseless college kids it has Michael slashing up. It honestly saddens me that a series — I won’t call it a “franchise” because I think even the worst set of films has a status in the realm of the arts slightly higher than a Burger King — a series that began so promisingly can be so ill-served by its sequels.

H20 proved that it was still possible to make a good HALLOWEEN sequel despite a legacy of bunkum. And yet HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION falls very far of the mark set by that film, not to mention the mark set by the original — or even the crappiest of the sequels. It does on the other hand manage to rise slightly above someone’s camcorder recording of a walk through a Halloween-themed funhouse.

At least it’s got that going for it.

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.