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Film: Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers
Year: 1995
Director: Joe Chappelle
Writer: Daniel Farrands
Starring: Donald Pleasence, Paul Rudd and Marianne Hagan
Review:
This film begins showing us an underground, dungeon like hallway. We see a woman played by J.C. Brandy. She is screaming and we learn that she is pregnant. She has a baby and it is taken from her. The baby has a symbol drawn on it in blood. The men doing this are wearing hooded robes. Brandy is then freed by a nurse who also gets her the baby. The woman is then killed by Michael Myers, played by George P. Wilbur. Brandy then steals a man’s truck as he is killed by Wilbur as well.
It is raining out and we see Haddonfield, Illinois. A boy, played by Devin Gardner, wakes up having a nightmare from a dark man talking to him and his mother comes in to calm him down; she is played by Marianne Hagan. She goes back to her room and undresses to find her neighbor, looking at her with a camera. The neighbor is played by Paul Rudd. Rudd is listening to a radio station and they are talking about Halloween that is tomorrow and how Haddonfield has not celebrated since 1989. There is a lot of talk of Michael Myers and if he is real or not. We see that Rudd is an expert on him.
Brandy is listening to the same radio station. We also see that Donald Pleasence, reprising his famous role of Dr. Loomis. Brandy stops at a bus station and calls the radio station. She makes a plea to Pleasence, which Rudd also hears. Wilbur is not too far behind though. Brandy flees the station and stops at a farm. Wilbur chases her there and kills her in the barn. He soon finds the baby is not with her.
Pleasence is then visited by another doctor, played by Mitchell Ryan. He asks Pleasence to come back to work with him. Pleasence is interested in what happened the previous night.
The film then shifts back to Hagan and her family dynamic. She lives with her parents, played by Kim Barby and Bradford English. It appears that English and she do not get along and they fight at the breakfast table. Hagan does have a younger brother, played by Keith Bogart, who is close to Hagan’s son. There is a scene where English and Hagan get into an argument and he slaps her. Gardner comes to her aid, with a knife pushed to his stomach.
Bogart is dating a woman played by Mariah O’Brien. They are on the committee that is out to bring back Halloween to Haddonfield. They even have convinced the radio personality from the night before, played by Leo Geter, to come to their town to do his Halloween broadcast.
The family does not realize though that they are living in the Myers’ house. Wilbur comes to visit, killing Darby.
Rudd replays the recording of the radio program from the night before and knows where Brandy was. He goes there to investigate and finds the baby. He takes it with him. He then goes to the hospital, where he runs into Pleasence. The doctor doesn’t recognize him at first and this is when we realize that he is Tommy Doyle, from the original Halloween.
Wilbur continues to claim more victims, trying to find this baby. Is anyone safe? Will he get his hands on the baby? Who were the robed figures and what is their end game? What is wrong with Gardner?
I have to say that this film did come in with a good premise. I don’t mind the explaining of Michael Myers, which according to this film is a Celtic curse that falls on a child when the thorn constellation is seen during Halloween. I also like the concept that Gardner could fall under it and become the next ‘demon’ like Myers. The acting is decent, but no one really blew me away. I also felt the death scenes were good, not always realistic, but having a supernatural killer like Myers, I can let some of it slide. I did like that they brought back characters from previous films to try to tie the story all together.
Now with that said though, I don’t like that they replaced the actors. I was okay with Rudd playing Doyle, since that actor never went on to do too much, but I do have issues with the replacing of Brandy over Danielle Harris. I also feel that the story was lacking and I believe this came due to rewrites. According to what I read, there was a very scary and deeper screenplay that was rewrote. I would have liked to see what was changed from that, because this one did not just flow well enough for me.
Now with that said, this one is the worst in the series when the film actually has Myers in it. The acting was decent, the premise was good and the death scenes weren’t bad. I liked the bringing back of characters from previous films to help tie the story all together. I did have issues with the replacing the actress of Jamie Lloyd with Brandy though. The story was disjointed though and I feel too many rewrites was a cause for this. Overall, a decent slasher film, but does fall short of what it could have been. I would recommend it to continue the Halloween series though, but avoid this if you are looking for a good horror film.
My Rating: 5 out of 10