tuckerconstable-07055 To say "Halloween The Curse of Michael Myers" is a jumbled up, muddy, watered down mess is an understatement. Gone is the intense claustrophobia and the merciless tension of John Carpenter's original, and instead we have a completely half baked attempt to explain Michael Myers backstory and lame, heavily edited jump scares. The film opens with Jami Lloyd from the previous two films being held captive by a cult. It's here that we find out that Jami has now birthed a child that is the last in the Myers bloodline and Michael and the cult are trying to off the baby. Why they couldn't have just gotten on with it and killed Jami is beyond me, but this is Halloween 6 logic I guess. So, Jami escapes and is then immediately chased by Myers. She leaves the baby in a bathroom sink cabinet so Myers can not find it. But it's OK, Michael just kills Jami.The next day Tommy Doyle (remember that super minor character from the first film) finds the baby in the bathroom and takes it under his wing. Doyle does some investigating and finds it's related to Myers and that Jami must have been killed. The rest of the film is just Tommy Doyle and Kara Strode (a far removed relative of Laurie's) trying to find out the origin of Michael Myers in order to stop him and the mysterious cult of Thorn.The main problem with the film is that it's a complete, incoherent mess. The subplot of Michael being a pawn for a cult makes the once terrifying killer, a poor, tragic soul under the command of a faceless cult and whenever the film tries to make sense of the plot it just digs itself deeper into a hole. Donald Pleasance returns (for the last time) as Dr. Loomis, and it's nice having him here, but he has absolutely nothing to do. Instead the film focuses way too much on Tommy Doyle, who the audience has no connection with other than he was a very minor character in the first film. The only decent parts that can be found in the film are Donald Pleasance's impassioned speeches every once in a while and occasionally the film will be creepy. But, only occasionally does it do these things. Supposedly the film went through rewrite after rewrite, resulting in a different cut of the film known as "The Producers Cut". And having seen the infamous "Producers Cut" I can say it's an improvement over the original. Donald Pleasance is not completely wasted and it does manage to be genuinely scary in places. But, it's still INCREDIBLY flawed-proving that, whichever cut you watch, "Halloween The Curse of Michael Myers" is an unsalvageable mess of a picture.

TheMovieDoctorful To date, "Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers" is the worst critically received Halloween film to date. Earning a mere 6% on Rotten Tomatoes, it's often regarded as the franchise's ultimate failure by fans and critics alike. I'm here to tell you that, in my opinion, they couldn't possibly be more wrong. Apart from a couple minor goofs, (And, contrary to popular belief, nothing that clashes with canon) I found "Curse of Michael Myers" to be the best acted, best characterized, most atmospheric and, most shocking of all, scariest film in the whole franchise and one of the most underrated slashers of all time."Curse of Michael Myers" was released in the mid 90s, a time when many popular horror franchises had descended into pure camp and borderline obnoxious self parody completely devoid of character development or even a hint of depth, let alone scares. ("Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare", "Jason Goes To Hell", both noxious) How unexpected it is then to find that "Halloween 6" is not only a dark and serious slasher film, but remains the darkest franchise entry to date. Michael's kills here are more than just brutal, they're truly painful and sadistic in nature. They're the kind of kills that had me tensing up before they even began and outright cringing when they were executed. More frightening still, the film makes it clear nearly right off the bat that nobody is safe from Michael's wrath here; EVERYONE is fair game to be grotesquely murdered at a moment's notice. When Michael is on screen, the film makes a real note to have him often be unseen by his victims, his appearance briefly shown in lightning or flashes of light. Add in George P. Wilbur's frightening and imposing screen presence as The Shape and you have a genuinely frightening ride. Even the atmosphere of the film is significantly darker than the other "Halloween" entries. It's hard to describe, but there's a real sense of evil in the air throughout the production that really made me uneasy and just generally uncomfortable. Maybe it's the heavy use of dark blues, maybe it's the unnatural and ominous music. Either way, more than any series entry, "Curse of Michael Myers" has that Halloween FEELING. The creepy, off-putting nature of the film is greatly boosted by the performances. Paul Rudd is criminally underrated as the tortured Tommy Doyle; the constant trembling of his voice and his twitchy facial expressions do an excellent job portraying the character's disturbed and haunted nature. Particularly impressive is a scene near the end where he confronts Michael in a hospital, the unimaginable stress and horror of the scene causing him to almost laugh out of pure shock. Donald Pleasence has never been better as Dr. Loomis, giving nothing short of his all in the final acting role before his tragic death. Janice Knickrehm's performance as Mrs. Blankenship has been tragically overlooked by fans of the franchise. While her screen time is limited, her almost babying vocal delivery when describing Myers' origins and the cults intentions is downright bone chilling. Particularly frightening and disturbing are her interactions with the young, impressionable Danny Strode; the faux motherly sincerity combined with her sadistic intentions for the child make their scenes together scary as Hell.The social commentary in the film is incredibly well done as well. The main theme of "Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers" seems to be individual and community reactions to tragedy. Michael Myers has almost become a celebrity in this film; a boogeyman to most, an icon to some and even, in one of the film's few light hearted and comedic moments, a sex symbol to a few. The common connection between everyone seems to be the focus on Michael rather than his victims. Tommy Doyle's mental and emotional scars run deep from witnessing Michael's horrific rampage as a young child in the original "Halloween", to the point of severely stunted emotional and social development. Yet, despite all the trauma and pain he suffered, the town of Haddonfield is less concerned with the well being of the victim then they are in their borderline worship of Michael, even going so far as to dismiss Tommy as a "creep." Most concerning of all, despite Haddonfield's borderline obsession with Michael, they don't even remember Doyle was one of his victims. This kind of celebrity treatment of mass murderers over the innocents whose lives they destroy is as prevalent and relevant to American media today as it was back in 1995, if not moreso.The biggest criticism that I constantly hear people bring up when discussing "The Curse of Michael Myers" is the revelation of The Shape's origin; that Michael was raised and helped by the mysterious Cult of Thorn rather than simply killing on his own. First of all, the Mark of Thorn already made a physical appearance in "Halloween 5", along with a scene involving Dr. Loomis explaining that once Michael completed his task he would be destroyed by the rage inside him. Second, there are multiple scenes in nearly ALL previous Halloween movies where Michael pulls of teleportation like escapes and seemingly impossible cheats of death downright impossible without outside help. In the end, the only real retort "Halloween" fans seem to have to that point is "He's evil, he's a shadow, he's a Shape!" Yeah, after 6 movies, that already BS excuse to explain illogical events in the "Halloween" universe begins to grow from annoying to insufferable. On every level that matters, "Curse of Michael Myers" is leaps and bounds above its predecessors and successors in the "Halloween" franchise. I may have been able to understand if the film had mixed reaction, but for it to be the most hated film in the series baffles me (Seriously? Critics thought Halloween III and Resurrection were better than this? Wow...Words escape me.) Don't listen to the critics. "Curse of Michael Myers" is truly the gold standard of "Halloween" movies.

Pumpkin_Man This is where things get weird. The 6th film in the franchise tries to explain why Michael is the way he is. He's being controlled by a cult who gives him the Thorn curse. (The Producer's Cut is a much better film if you want to make any sense out of it. The theatrical version is too watered down and difficult to understand at times) Tommy Doyle is back, and he fears for the people living in the Myers house, who happen to be related to the Strode family. When Jamie Lloyd is found dead and her newborn baby turns up, Dr. Loomis comes out of retirement to try to find and kill Michael for one final time. He teams up with Tommy and Kara Strode. Dr. Loomis is baffled when he comes face-to-face with the man who has been controlling Michael all these years. This film is a lot better than part 5. I highly recommend HALLOWEEN: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS!!!

MaximumMadness The "Halloween" franchise is a strange beast indeed. Covering the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows in it's thus far ten entries and a near forty-year history. From the ground-breaking and trend-setting 1978 original from cinematic mastermind John Carpenter, through a slew of hit-and-miss sequels from a small army of fellow directors, to the most recent rebooted franchise courtesy Rob Zombie... "Halloween" is very much a franchise that has remained relevant and recognized in the public eye, even as audiences grow and change with each generation.One of the more peculiar entries in the franchise, however, is 1995's "Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers"- a film that suffered a strange and turbulent production rife with writing and editing problems, and ultimately was released in a more-or-less butchered format in theaters. Many major sequences were re-written and re-shot for it's theatrical edition, and even several key plot points were completely removed and left on the cutting room floor, where they remained for nearly 20 years before the long-fabled original cut of the film (from before the re-shoots and re-edits) was finally released on Blu-Ray as the "Producer's Cut."However, I'm not going to focus exclusively on this long-fabled alternate edition, and instead am going to focus predominately on the original theatrical edition- the version of the film that was most readily available in theaters and on home media since 1995. And the theatrical version is... well, a bit of an interesting failure.It's fun and even somewhat nostalgic to revisit, and is most definitely a quirky time-capsule of its time period, feeling "oh so 90's." But it's plot is messy and clearly negatively swayed by the troubled production, the acting is mixed, and it feels very much a movie that is missing key pieces of the puzzle.Tommy Doyle (Paul Rudd) must team up with his beautiful neighbor Kara (Marianne Hagan) and the troubled former psychologist Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) in a desperate bid to stop the psychotic killer Michael Myers once and for all. However, revelations about Myers' past and the dark forces at play just might change the twisted game of cat-and-mouse that they are struggling to survive...To get things out of the way, there are some strengths to the film. Pleasence, in his final turn as the iconic Sam Loomis, is a joy, and is able to elevate the material he is given to work with. He's easily the best performer on-screen and he is able to make any and every sequence he's in thrilling and compelling with the class he brings to the screen. Hagan is also quite good and makes for a compelling heroine and makes for a good team with Rudd, who is portraying one of the troubled child survivors from the original movie, though I personally found Rudd so socially awkward and subdued, he's frankly boring. Which is a shame as Rudd is one of my favorite actors and he's been great fun in films like "Role Models", "Knocked-Up" and "Ant-Man."There's also some very good moments of blood-n-guts, a handful of creative kills and some suitably moody, 90's-music-video esque visuals that make it one of the more visually interesting and stylish entries of the series. It may be a bit of a jarring contrast to the slow-building and deliberate original... but it's still quite well put-together....it's just a shame the story is such a huge pile of dreck. This is one of the most disjointed, random and head-scratching films of the slasher genre. Plot points seem to crop up and disappear on a whim, there's too much reliance on convenience and coincidence (Strodes living in the old Myers house... really?), tropes and clichés run abound... And the film can't decide what to do with itself. It begins to build up a misguided but slightly amusing plot line revolving around curses and evil runes and whatnot, presumably to explain the supernatural side of Michael Myers in a pseudo-magical way, yet this is basically kinda dropped and changed-up halfway through the film... it's like they realized how silly it was and then tried to re-cut the second half to ignore this as much as possible, which is just strange and gives the viewer story-whiplash. (Surprise, surprise, this is the biggest change that was made from the original Producer's Cut, which focused much more on this side of the story.) It lends to the film feeling like two completely different scripts that accidentally got mixed together in some sort of accident.Add to that jarring pacing and tonal issues from the well-known re- shoots and re-edits, characters that are barely defined and written out haphazardly, a few scenes that are clearly thrown in for nothing but padding, and some nauseous attempts at satire (a woman on a radio show is in love with Michael... come on!), and it's just a mess."The Curse of Michael Myers" is just such a weird little flick. It's probably the worst-written film in the entire media franchise, and it's clear that the production troubles have all but ruined the original intent of the script. And that does make it hard to take seriously. But the likable performances, creative kills and stylish camera-work do make it something of an enjoyable watch... you'll laugh and wince at the proceedings. You'll just also be scoffing and rolling your eyes a lot.The theatrical edition of "Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers" gets a below-average 4 out of 10. Hardcore series fans might get a kick out of it. But it's not really worth seeing for anyone else. Although I would highly recommend checking out the Producer's Cut, which is a slightly better film. Yes, it's silly with it's occult and magical elements... but at least it isn't butchered by re- shoots and bad re-editing like the theatrical edition.