Halloween: Curse of Michael Myers (1995)
DIRECTED BY: Joe Chappelle
WRITTEN BY: Daniel Farrands and Joe Chappelle (uncredited)
MUSIC BY: Alan Howarth
DISTRIBUTOR: Dimension Films
STARRING: Donald Pleasence, introducing Paul Stephen Rudd, introducing Marianne Hagan, Kim Darby, Bradford English, Keith Bogart, Mariah O'Brien, Leo Geter, and Mitch Ryan as Dr. Terence Wynn
RUNNING TIME: 88 Minutes
Plot:
Six years after Michael escaped from the police station, and Jamie was captured, we see Jamie give birth to a baby who is taken away from her. She is a prisoner of people who appear to be part of a strange cult. She escapes with the baby and tries to contact Dr. Loomis by calling a radio show that is doing a story about Michael. Tommy Doyle hears the report, and goes to the bus station where Jamie hid the baby before being killed by Michael. Michael proceeds to kill the people who are now living in his old house. Tommy Doyle and Kara Strode work together to try and stop Michael and the people who have been protecting him. At the end Tommy thinks that he killed Michael (By injecting him with dangerous chemicals.) Dr. Loomis says that he has some unfinished business to take care of. He goes back inside and we see Michael's mask laying on the floor. We hear Dr. Loomis scream, followed by the sound of a knife slashing.
Mythos Information:
Back in 1963 Michael heard a voice that told him to kill his family. Mrs. Blankenship was baby-sitting him and he told her about it.
Takes place 6 years after part 5.
Jamie is 15 years old.
Jamie looks older than 15 years. Perhaps it runs in her family. Her mother, Laurie Strode, looked older than 17 in Part 1.
Jamie was captured by the people who got Michael out of the police station; after she walked in and discovered that everyone was dead. The people who did it set off an explosion, which destroyed the station. Michael & Jamie
were believed to have died in the explosion (elaborated on the Producers' Cut)
Dr. Wynn is the same man who Loomis argued with in part 1 before leaving for Haddonfield, even though he is now played by a different actor.
Dr. Wynn was The Stranger in black who killed everyone at the police station to get Michael out.
Dr. Loomis did not die at the end of part 5. His absence at the end was, no doubt, because he was in the hospital being treated for his injuries.
The Mysterious symbol on Michael and The Stranger's wrists is an ancient Druid symbol known as the Rune-of-Thorn. It is a representation of a constellation that appears in the night sky, from time to time. The constellation is tied to a legend that in each generation a child is born who is pure evil, when that constellation appears the child will try to sacrifice his family on the night of Samhain (the Celtic festival that eventually became Halloween).
Dr. Loomis was forced to retire, after suffering from a stroke. He moved out into the country side, hoping to stay away from Michael Myers for the rest of his life.
Dr. Loomis had plastic surgery, they did skin grafts to remove all of the burn scaring left from the fire in part II. (Producers' Cut only)
Laurie Strode's adopted parents are apparently dead. Mr. Strode's brother, John Strode, is now running the company. Because of it's history he could not sell the Myers house, so he moved his family into it.
Kara Strode had a child out of wedlock and than left her family. They did not hear from her until 5 years later. She came back, hoping to improve her life. Her mother, Debra, wanted to help her; but her father, John, thinks that she already blew her chance because of her past mistakes.
Tommy Doyle never fully recovered from his encounter with Michael Myers. After Michael kept coming back, Tommy detected himself to discovering the method behind Michael's seemingly random patterns of killing.
Dr. Wynn and several other people formed a group (could be considered a cult) that is detected to understanding Michael's powers, and controlling him.
Story:
In 1995 Dimension films, the genre films division of Miramax films, acquired the rights to the Halloween franchise. If they were going to make another film in the series the main thing was to resolve the cliff-hanger from the end of part 5. Daniel Farrands was chosen as the writer.
Farrands' original script was branded by Dimension Films as too expensive to produce. This was before Kevin Willamson (Scream) and Quentin Tarantino (From Dusk Till Dawn) brought Dimension into the main stream. At this time Dimension made direct-to-video quality flicks like Children of the Corn II & Hellraiser Bloodline. Farrands wrote a scaled back script, that would be cheaper to produce.
Joe Chappelle was hired as director. He took some of the cheapest elements to produce from both versions of the script, and assembled them into a single script. Farrands originally suggested bringing back Brian Andrews as Tommy Doyle.Paul Rudd and Marianne Hagan were eventually chosen to make their feature film debuts playing the leads in this movie. Donald Pleasence returned as Dr. Sam Loomis; as usual he shot all of his scenes in a few weeks, so that he would only have to be paid for a short time. This movie ended up being Pleasence's final film role. Shortly after the movie was shot he died.
After his death the production moved forward. The producers began assembling their cut of the film. Because making a sequel based on the original ending would be impossible, the ending featured Loomis becoming Michael's new guardian, Chappelle brought back Paul Rudd, Marianne Hagan, and Mitch Ryan to re-shoot a new ending. The ending makes much less sense than the original and seems to end with Michael killing Loomis. Chappelle made his own cut of the movie, which runs 12 minutes shorter and featured his new ending.
When it came time to distribute the film Dimension went with Chapelle's cut. I personally do not understand why they did this. Some directors are given final cut on their movies, but Chapelle is not nearly famous enough to have done that. The worst thing he could have done is gone to the Director's Guild and had his name removed from the producers' cut. (big loss their; a director that no one's ever heard of had his name removed from the better version of his film) I think the reason was 2 fold.
1. His cut was shorter, which would make it easier for movie houses to have 5 shows a day instead of 4 (distributors never understand that 5 shows of a film no one likes will not do as well as 4 shows of a film that people do like.)
2. They figured that his film would be easier to make a sequel too.
Ether that or Chapelle had photos of one of the Miramax execs having sex with Satan, just kidding guys;) Whatever the reason; Halloween: the Curse of Michael Myers was released to critical and audience scorn. It was released September 26, 1995. It opened up against Brad Pitt & Morgan Freeman in Seven. It was the number 2 movie in America. It's theatrical run brought in $15 million, respectable numbers given it's $5 million budget, but hardly setting the box office on fire. Another problem that any further sequels might face would be the fact that even the hard core fans were turned off by this one. Dimension still held the rights and were it not for Kevin Willamson the next Halloween may have ended up as a direct to video release.
Trivia:
The film was shot in with Spherical lenses at a ratio of 1.85x1.
If you don't know what I am talking about check out my artical on film aspect ratios.
Michael Myers is played by 2 people in this movie. George P. Wilbur, who played him in Part 4 as well, did most of it. A. Michael Lerner is credited as "Additional Shape", he played Michael in Joe Chapelle's re-shoots.
John and Debra Strode were named after Halloween's creators John Carpenter and Debra Hill
Originally radio shock jock Barry Simms was going to be named Harry Simms. The producers offered the role to real life radio shock jock Howard Stern. (Note with the original name the two have the same initials) Stern Declined
the part.
Note: TV and Movies frequently attempt to portray shock jocks and never get it right, this film is no exception. Guys like Howard Stern come off as rude and crude, but with a playfulness that makes them likable. Listeners know that whatever the guy says he is mostly kidding around. Guys trying to play shock jocks always sound like people who hate everything including their own fans.
In Barry Simms death scene he is bitching on the phone to a guy named Paul. He says "We're going to the real Myers house, where we should have gone in the first place". This was put in by writer Daniel Farrands as a jab at producer Paul Freeman, who decided to shoot in Salt Lake City, Utah instead of going back to the locations from the first 2 films.
Danielle Harris was originally asked to reprise her role as Jamie Lloyd for this move. She said that she would do it for $5000. Which is hardly an unreasonable amount to resurrect a popular character, especially for a talented actress like her. They would not pay, so she said no, and they hired a no name to play the role.
This version has a goof at the hospital where Loomis first meets Tommy. Their is no reason for Loomis to be at the hospital. In the script Jamie was not found dead, but nearly dead. She was taken to the hospital and Loomis was their watching after her.
After becoming a mansion in Part 5, the Myers house is now back to being a regular 2 story house. Note the changes from Part 1. This is still realistic given that the house would have needed major renovations after being uninhabited for nearly 30 years.
The ending (Dr. Loomis going back into the hospital and screaming, followed by that knife slashing sound) were part of a re-shot ending that was done after Donald Pleasence's death. It was meant to say that Dr. Loomis had encountered Michael Myers and been killed by him. Chapelle's complete lack of story telling ability is demonstrated by that fact that many people did not realize that Loomis was supposed to be dead. Loomis screaming could easily mean that he got back their and saw that Michael's body was gone. That knife slashing noise doesn't mean anyone was slashed with a knife because Chapelle used that damn slashing sound as background noise on the soundtrack about 3 dozen times during the course of the movie.
Deaths:
Mary (Susan Swift) - Head impaled on a spike coming out of the wall
Motorist (Tom Procter) - Neck Broken
Jamie Lloyd (J.C. Brandy) - Impaled on a piece of farm machinery
Debra Strode (Kim Darby) - Chopped with an ax
John Strode (Bradford English) - Electrocuted, causing head to explode
Barry Simms (Leo Geter) - Stabbed
Tim Strode (Keith Bogart) - Throat slit
Beth (Mariah O'Brien) - Stabbed
Dr. Terence Wynn (Mitch Ryan) & Several Smith's Grove Personnel (uncredited)
- Killed by Michael in different ways wiith a large blade
Smith's Grove Employee (Fred Lerner) - Face repeatedly slammed into a metal
gate
Sex/Nudity:
Kara Strode (Marianne Hagan) - Before going to bed she is seen in her bra and panties.
Beth (Mariah O'Brien) - While fooling around with Tim Strode (Keith Bogart) she lays on the bed with her breasts visible. First they are obscured by candles sitting in front of the camera. When the shot changes they are clearly shown for a short time.
