Halloween Retrospective: Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers

Halloween Retrospective | #6 | Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers

After the release of Halloween 5 in 1989, the conclusion of this mini trilogy of Halloween films languished in production hell for six years before finally being released in 1995. Directed by Joe Chapelle and starring Donald Pleasance, Marianne Hagan and, of all people, a young Paul Rudd as adult Tommy Doyle (the little boy from the original film), Halloween: The Curse of Micheal Myers is… a truly strange film that’s simultaneously interesting to talk about but extremely frustrating to watch.

Before I keep going, I want to specificy that I sought out and watched the unrated producer’s cut of this film, as it seems to be generally considered the definitive version. I’ve heard that the theatrical cut is a confusing, incoherent mess, and I can see how that would be the case if this were improperly cut. I’ll go into more later, but it’s a very convoluted film even in its coherent form.

I should probably start with the good stuff just to get them out of the way. Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers is undoubtedly a step up from Halloween 5. There’s an actual plot this time that has an actual point to it; an attempt to close the book on the Michael Myers mythos that the previous two films had been hinting at and provide a closing chapter to the story of Dr. Loomis, Haddonfield and the Strode family. The cinematography, editing and set design craft a much more palpable autumn atmosphere than the largely toneless Halloween 5 did, and Paul Rudd’s performance is great as a well-meaning but ever-so-slightly off young man. Whenever he was on screen the movie became noticeably more interesting, and his hallway showdown with Michael Myers towards the end was genuinely suspenseful even if the content of it was utterly ridiculous.

At that, “ridiculous” really is the word to describe this film. I don’t even think it’s all that difficult to understand in theory, but the way its presented is so slapdash and tonally removed from the previous films that it at times feels like one massive infodump. I blame this mostly on Halloween 5; supposedly, there were quite a few storylines in that one that built up to the twists in this film, but they were all cut, and what we get is a film that vaguely hints at what was to come without actually doing anything to set the stage.

The film opens up with an overwrought scene where Jamie, the little girl who was the star of the first two films, now a teenage mother, gives birth to a baby that is taken away by a mysterious cult leader for a ritual, while Dr. Loomis monologues about Michael Myers in a way that shatters the minimalistic legacy of the series thus far. Another member of the cult helps Jamie escape, but Michael Myers, now under the control of the cult, chases her to Haddonfield where she’s eventually killed – but not before hiding her baby. Sam Loomis, now retired, receives a message from her over the radio and returns to Haddonfield to finally solve the mystery of Michael Myers once and for all. Also, the Strode family lives in the Myers house now for some reason and they’re a part of it too.

This is the end of a trilogy of Halloween films starting with Halloween 4, and because of this, the aforementioned events are really, really jarring. None of this was properly set up by the previous films and since this film took so long to finish production there had to be a time skip, and Jamie was killed off and the cast is comprised of mostly new characters. Most of the character arcs and themes from the previous two films are cut off here, and what’s left is a massive sequence of loud set pieces, convoluted info dumps and silly plot twists that make this feel like the least Halloween Halloween film yet. The questions that are answered are done so in ways that make so little sense that they just raise more questions, and the mystique behind Michael Myers is completely ruined as he’s essentially reduced to a previously un-developed villain’s hunting dog.

It’s fairly well known among horror buffs now that this film posits Michael Myers as being the result of a secret cult’s druidic ritual putting a curse on him that causes him to murder his family. Obviously, this is an incredibly ridiculous notion that could almost be fun in a silly, campy way if this were a franchise like A Nightmare On Elm Street, or just a standalone story. But it just doesn’t work as a story that’s trying to provide any sort of conclusion when the franchise has been best known for minimalist style and mysterious atmosphere over complicated mythology.

Even within the context of this film, things just sort of happen. The presentation, editing and atmosphere do a better job covering it up than the previous installment, but there’s still barely any thought put into most of the characters here. Characters and arcs are introduced in the first act only to be abandoned as Micheal Myers starts killing people to set up for the gonzo finale. When the characters discover clues, they feel as if they’ve been put there artificially by the writers instead of being discovered organically. The finale has some interesting implications but it’s so rushed that it’s difficult to really process them, and even then I question if any of them really have a point beyond providing that last bit of shock value for the audience.

I know I shouldn’t have been expecting much for these sequels, but after I ended up quite enjoying Halloween 4 I guess I was expecting something that was at least fun. Instead, I got one of the most pointless horror films ever made with Halloween 5, and a marginally better but still insufferable conclusion that mistakes plot twists for substance and seems to be trying to write over both of its predecessors on the fly. This frustration overpowers any sort of dumb fun I was able to have with it. Ultimately, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers is a spectacular failure; somehow not the worst in the series, but still frustrating and insufferable.

I still intend on finishing this series, but it’s probably not going to happen before Halloween. I’ve been moving this month and to be honest these last two burnt me out a bit. I may need to take a few days off before I can move on to the next one. Luckily, I’ve heard pretty decent things about Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, so maybe that one will reinvigorate my stamina for this franchise.