Halloween Picks: The Return, Revenge, and Curse of Michael Myers

In continuance of our look at the Halloween franchise with the release of the complete collection that was released on Blu-Ray.

If you haven’t noticed by now that I have broken down the Halloween series down into eras. This brings us to the “Dr Loomis sequels”, which is what I call these chapters of the series.

Now the reason that these are broken up is because the Halloween series is like the DC Comics Multiverse featuring different timelines and the only films to be considered official cannot is infact Halloween and Halloween 2.

It is at this point that the films break up and follow different characters in the story. These three films follow Dr. Sam Loomis

I have to admit that these three films are some of my favorites in the series.

I have probably seen these films in the theatre as many times as I have seen the original and this was the era in the series that I was introduced to the franchise.

Today in the modern age Danielle Harris I consider a friend. I see her often at the conventions and we always exchange pleasantries and then go on with our own businesses at the show.

I had also had the pleasure of meeting and hanging out with Kathleen Kinmont at the 2008 Texas Frightmare Weekend.

I also had the pleasure of attending a special screening of the film in 2011 at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin Texas, which was hosted by Owen Edgerton who while attending the screening dressed as “Bucky” provided a live commentary on the film defending the film and telling the story of Good, Evil, and Innocence.

Now let us move on to the history of the film.

After the box office flop that was Halloween 3 it was decided that Michael Myers must return to the franchise and the Akkad family found itself in a legal battle with John Carpenter and Debra Hill over the franchise’s direction. Carpenter and Hill wanted to go in the direction of Michael Myers being blasted into outer space.   Needless to say the Akkads won the rights to the Halloween Franchise.

Jamie Lee Curtis by this point had grown too big for the franchise and there was no chance for her to reprise the role of Michael Myers’ sister Laurie Strode and the decision was made to kill the character off before the movie had begun.

Playing the role of The Shape’s intended victim was 8 year old child actress Danielle Harris in the role of Laurie’s orphaned daughter Jamie Lloyd who after the death of her parents is in the care of the Carruthers family with her foster sister Rachael as her primary caretaker.

Ellie Cornell plays the role of Rachael with the primary duties of the Babysitter and the main antagonist of Michael Myers in this flick. 

Many have stated that Donald Pleasence’s career was in a slump around this time and that he was in need of a good payday and that was the primary reason that he returned to the franchise to reprise his role of Michael Myers’ arch nemesis Dr. Sam Loomis.

I don’t know the facts of these claims, however I have always felt that this film takes the character to a different level and is one of the strongest performances and dialogue for the film.

One of my favorite scenes in the franchise is the scene where Loomis is heading to Haddonfield and after his transportation was destroyed by Michael Myers flags down a ride with Reverend Sayer who is another hunter looking for Damnation. Loomis and Sayer share a drink in this ride and bond in their hunt for evil.

The story of Halloween 4 should be called Halloween H10 as it takes place 10 years after the events of Halloween and Haddonfield has tried to put the events of 1978 behind them.

Sheriff Brackett has since retired and moved to St Petersburg and he has been replaced by Sheriff Ben Meeker, the tough as nails no nonsense Sheriff with his daughter Kelly.

Rachael has been seeing her boyfriend Grady who is more interested in getting nookie than committing to a serious relationship. Despite all of this Rachael loves him and is planning her future with him.

Michael Myers has been in Ridgemont sanatariam and is to be transferred to Smith’s Grove due to Federal Law where Dr. Loomis has remained his Doctor for more ceremonial reasons than medical and keeps close eyes on Michael however because he does not read his memos he is unaware that Michael is being transferred.

After Michael is placed in the ambulance he listens to a conversation between the doctors that are overseeing the transfer when it is revealed that he does have a niece living in Haddonfield and soon he is awakened and attacks the ambulance causing it to wreck and soon begins making his way to Haddonfield to kill his only living relative.

When Loomis learns this fact he soon begins to follow the trail of bodies to Haddonfield where Michael after taking out the power of the entire town begins to stalk Rachael and Jamie inside of Sheriff Meeker’s home.

Michael is far more of a force to be reckoned with in this film than many of the other incarnations as he takes out the entire police force as well as a band of revenge seeking rednecks that are searching for him as well as his basic slices and dices that he is famous for.

Now many have wondered what was up with the Ending of the film in the fact that Michael was shotdown by the entire Illinois State Police and then the last image that we are shown is young Jamie is stabbing her foster mother while Loomis screams and tries to kill her only to be stopped by Meeker.

The original plan was that Michael’s evil has allegedly been transferred to young Jamie and now she was to pick up where her uncle had started.

Now there was an issue with lighting in the filming of the school scene which is why Michael's hair is blond. 

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers was a massive success at the Box Office and in order to capitalize on the success it was decided that Halloween 5 would be rushed into production to be released one year later.

Mustafa Akkad admitted on the Halloween: 25 Years of Terror that this was infact a mistake as the film found itself competing with with Halloween 4 on the video market.

When Halloween 4 and 5 were released by Anchor Bay in 2006 they received what I call the full treatment where it featured trailers commentaries making of specials and even video introductions by Danielle Harris and Ellie Cornell. The commentaries alone were worth the purchase however The BluRay release was mostly barebones and and only featured trailers for the films.

That being said the complete collection most of these features are restored on the films. Halloween 4’s special features can be found on the second disc that is located in the Halloween 2 (2009) case.

Now I have to admit that I am not a huge fan of part 5 but I honestly feel that you can’t have one film without the other.

Taking place one year later it is revealed that Michael Myers is in fact not dead but he has been taken in by a local hermit and nursed back to health and that he now has a psychic link to young Jamie and this is the reason that she was made to stab her foster mother.

Naturally Michael awakens once again on Halloween Eve and begins to work his way to Jamie and many young party animals along the way.

While all of this is happening Dr Loomis is working to convince Jamie to aid him in stopping Michael Myers believing that she is to key to this task.

Now one of the many issues with this film is the fact that Ellie Cornell who was one of the primary protagonists in the previous entry was quickly dispatched by Myers rather unceremoniously and this was also recalled by Akkad that he felt that this was a mistake due to the popularity of the character which was at that time unknown as the series rarely used focus groups while making their films.

This was the last entry in the series to not use this tool in their production.

There are also a few continuity issues with this film such as The Myers House it’s self which has become a practically a gothic mansion in the past 10 years.

The only Issue was it was built up that Michael Myers takes off his mask in this film and when he does take it off in the film you don't see his face as it in shadows. It is funny when Jamie calls him "Uncle...Boogey Man."

Donald Pleasence at the time was uninterested in returning to the series for a sixth entry and his character dies of a stroke after he captures Myers. Pleasence would later on return for the 6^th installment.

The Director was interested in returning to the series for the 6^th installment and decided in what would help him is if he treated the audience to a cliffhanger ending and scenes were shown in the film of a mysterious man in black with silver tipped boots that gets off a bus and has a tattoo on his wrist that we are shown for the first time that Michael has this same mark as well. And in the end of the film This mysterious Man in Black breaks Michael Myers out of jail and sends the franchise in a brief new direction.

Halloween 5 needless to say did not perform as expected at the box office and the series was dormant for six years while searching for the new direction in the series.

The Akkads soon entered into a joint arrangement with Miramax for their Dimension Films subsidiary and brought in longtime series fan and screenwriter Daniel Farrands to write the 6^th installment in the Halloween franchise.

You find out that Michael and Jamie have been kidnapped by a mysterious cult from Smith’s Grove and after 6 years Jamie has become with child and after giving birth to a son Jamie escapes and is pursued by her uncle back to Haddonfield where Michael catches up to her and she meets her fate after three films.

Haddonfield has since banned Halloween in the town and the local college is rallying to bring the holiday back to the town.

A relative of the Strode family have since moved into the Myers’ House and across the street is the Blankenship boarding house and one of the residents is Tommy Doyle the child that Laurie was babysitting on Halloween Night in 1978. Tommy manages to find the newborn and alongside Loomis must face off against both Myers and the Cult of Thorn while rescuing Kara Strode and her young son.

Halloween 6 features both a beginning as well as and ending not just for the Halloween franchise but to Hollywood as well.

The Halloween Franchise as well as the Horror genre in general has always been the launching pad for many actors and actresses that go on to greener pastures and major players in the industry.

The Curse of Michael Myers is no exception as it introduced Paul Rudd to audiences. Now many will consider Rudd’s first role to be Clueless but the truth is that Paul Rudd was on the set of Halloween 6 and one of the actresses recalls on the BluRay that she ran lines with Rudd before he auditioned for the role of Josh in the film.

Sadly Halloween 6 was also the last film for franchise star Donald Pleasence. Soon after the film wrapped production Pleasence died from complications from a heart valve replacement surgery.

One person missing from Halloween 6 was Danielle Harris who was in talks for the 6^th film and could not come to terms with Maramax on either creative of financial terms and she was replaced by actress J.C. Brandy.

After the film wrapped production in early 1995 the film was soon sent to focus groups who found the plot and film too complicated and the film was sent back into production and many key scenes, subplots and developments were changed.  

As a result of this there are two different cuts of the film The theatrical cut and the producer’s cut.

The theatrical cut was made after the death of Pleasence and the ending reflects this as the Producers cut follows a different plot and then ending has another cliffhanger.

Personally I prefer the Producer's Cut.

For all of the details on these aspects of the film I definitely recommend the Halloween Complete collection on BluRay and the Special Features tells the whole story.

 I had been wondering for years why The Producer’s cut had not been officially released as I had always felt that it was a superior cut than what was released theatrically and when Highlander Endgame was released on DVD in 2001 there were two different cuts on the two disc set. So Why not release it in a two disc set.

Well the awnser is in fact in this box set and it all makes sense here to me.

Now I have to admit that this movie does have a special place for me if you were in my studio in the late 2000s you would notice that there was a poster of the film by my editing computer.

Why is that I honestly don’t know but it is in fact one of my favorites. I received that poster from the video store that I worked at when I was in High School and it had always been by my editing computer and it stayed there until my studio was lost in a fire in 2012.

This is the era in the series that many will claim is their favorite while others will try to ignore it as it would eventually be retconned out in the next chapters of films and that will lead us to our next entry.