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Jamie Lloyd, Michael Myers and the Man in Black disappeared from Haddonfield after the events of H5, and the town has attempted to forget the nightmare by banning Halloween in the six years since. Even though Dr. Loomis has retired from his practice, now writing his memoirs, he would be the first to admit that one cannot suppress evil by ignoring it. Indeed, THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS is about to be visited upon Haddonfield once again.
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Following the disappointments of HALLOWEEN 5, creative battles over the direction of the script and the concept of the Thorn cult's influence on Michael Myers' character, the sixth HALLOWEEN installment did seem cursed after all.
While legal battles ensued over five years to determine who would take over production and distribution of the sixth HALLOWEEN film, the story floundered in fits of story development and rejected concepts.
In a seemingly fairytale scenario, a lifelong fan of the franchise ended up being the creative catalyst for the direction HALLOWEEN 6 would finally take. Dan Farrands first got hooked on Michael Myers' exploits in 1981, when Carpenter's original HALLOWEEN had its network television debut, and HALLOWEEN II stormed into theaters. Farrands began writing his own scripts and plays, yearning one day to make his mark on the Shape's mythology.
Having moved to Los Angeles shortly before HALLOWEEN 5 debuted, its release prompted Farrands to write his own script for the sixth chapter. The fledgling writer proceeded to break his way into the business slowly and patiently, while the franchise was consigned to limbo amid a coven of studio lawyers.
When the legal skirmishes ended, Miramax had secured the rights to the HALLOWEEN series, with the next film to be produced and distributed under their Dimension genre-film banner. With clearance to proceed, the studio immediately felt the void where a script for HALLOWEEN 6 should have been.
At least a couple teams of scribes were assigned to draft scripts for the project, all of which were rejected — largely because they either diminished or ignored the events of HALLOWEEN 5. Godfather of the series, Moustapha Akkad, felt compelled to maintain continuity across the sequels, perhaps having learned the lesson of icon-abandoning HALLOWEEN III.
According to Farrands, his initial treatments, notes and script draft called 'HALLOWEEN 666' were kept by Akkad as a franchise reference, so thorough was his knowledge of the film series. Akkad having rejected several other scripts and with production deadlines looming for the Salt Lake City shoot, Farrands was called in after the five-year gap to rework the story yet again.
Alas the approach to this sixth chapter had changed substantially over the intervening years, and producers were quite focused on telling a story explaining the evil possessing Michael Myers and why he kills during the Halloween season. This approach may have been a mistake, since the mystery of Michael was the true source of his power as a lasting franchise icon.
In the end, the Thorn cult concept grew to incorporate celestial star alignments, ancient rune marks, and Celtic legends, all in attempt to explain the mystery with plot-bound reasons. Farrands' intention was to link up the events of H1 and 2 with the subsequent developments of 4 and 5, at least as much as possible. At least his efforts made sense to a die-hard fan on paper.
Yet once again, those with on-set control of the production quickly began deviating from the playbook and calling audibles in the story, rewriting or outright deleting scenes to streamline production. One major point of contention begat controversy early on, as Farrands and Danielle Harris fought to give Jamie Lloyd a stronger (but not leading) presence in the plot. Producers balked at paying Harris a rate consistent with her prior involvement, so Danielle backed out of her reprisal.
Many of Farrands intricately interwoven references and tying of loose ends from the prior films were either misunderstood or ignored. It quickly became apparent that once again another HALLOWEEN sequel was put in the hands of a director who cared little about the franchise or maintaining its integrity as a connected series.
Like Dominique Othenin-Girard before him, CURSE director Joe Chappelle was intent on forcing his own stamp on the story, even at the sacrifice of look, logic and continuity in the Myers mythology.
One significant deviation from Farrand's script hinged on the returning character of Tommy Doyle. As written, Doyle was a traumatized survivor set up to inherit Sam Loomis' obsessive crusade against Michael's evil. Instead his actions and significance were diluted into Tommy being a strange recluse who merely deciphers the Celtic code supposedly powering Michael's murders.
It was Farrand's intent to feature a passing of the torch in HALLOWEEN 6, maintaining the crucial story element of good's eternal war with evil. Tommy Doyle's return to the storyline picked up thread from HALLOWEEN where Michael left his traumatizing mark on Tommy. Thus the boy who survived that fateful night would grow up just as committed to defeating Michael as was Loomis — two survivors alike who knew what evil existed under the mask.
While Tommy services some of these plot points, the direct exchange is never made between Loomis and Doyle. As a difficult production continued in Salt Lake City's harsh winter weather, more and more such crossovers from the prior films were dropped from production, rewritten by Chappelle to either serve his own vision or hasten (cheapen) the production.
Unavoidable hurdles also arose due to the ill health of returning franchise veteran Donald Pleasence. While the actor was reportedly very pleased with the script for HALLOWEEN 6 and his character's mission in the story, such enthusiasm waned as filming drifted farther away from its original intent.
Indeed, Farrand had written Dr. Wynn's character as on-par with Loomis, with ideal casting to have been Christopher Lee — a true peer of Pleasence in their careers. Since such fantasy casting never occurred, Wynn's role was diminished in scope and logic to vaguely fit the improvised set up of the Thorn cult and Man in Black from HALLOWEEN 5.
With Loomis having little dramatic interaction with Wynn and much less direct conflict with Michael himself, Pleasence's character suffered both in terms of screen time and dramatic relevance. Certainly the actor became disenchanted by the missed opportunity to deepen the story as shooting was rushed along in favor of more gory murders.
Farrand maintains that the final fifteen minutes of the film bore little resemblance to his original script. Producer Paul Freeman and director Chappelle reportedly rewrote the ending on-set, even from shot to shot as production deadlines loomed large.
An early preview of THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS received negative comments, and Dimension took over the film and ordered immediate reshoots to save their first investment in the franchise..
This may well account for the baffling lapses in logic amid CURSE's finale. Even while reviewing the film again for my story synopsis, I struggled to make sense of disjointed scenes such as Wynn and his med team preparing for some operation procedure — but on whom as the patient? The dialogue gives no clue, and the only non-cultists in the room are Jamie's infant and a dazed Danny, staring blankly at x-ray negatives on the wall. When Michael kills the operating team, what exactly is he preventing?
Similarly, as Tommy, Kara, Danny and the baby seek refuge in the high-tech lab room, we are shown several 'bottled' fetuses and vaguely designed signs implying some blend of genetics and runic symbols — but with no explanation at all what was their intent. When Michael is stabbed with the syringes, what's he being injected with... Poison? Growth hormones? Botox?!
Once again, the filmmakers (not necessarily the writer) seemed either to have no clue what or who Michael Myers is, or simply didn't care about thinking outside of their own hurried production to enhance the overall mythology of the franchise. What was originally scripted as a battle of wits and disguises between Michael, Wynn and Tommy, attempting to cut the cult's power over Michael at the source, was instead reduced to a pipe-bashing brawl in a basement.
Alas, the death of Donald Pleasence in February 1995 made his participation impossible, and reshoots worked around his stand-in just to give Loomis some peripheral presence in the new scenes. Thus both Loomis and Michael's fates are left awkwardly incomplete and dramatically unsatisfying.
Revisions and replacements in Alan Howarth's score (his last participation in the franchise), plus even greater emphasis on gory kills in lieu of terrifying suspense pulled HALLOWEEN 6 farther away from the series' origin, as nearly one-third of the film was reshot to meet the notes from Miramax/Dimension.
Bloodier and flashier than ever, THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS still failed to satisfy or attract fans in theaters, and soon revelations about the 'HALLOWEEN 6 that should have been' ignited greater interest to fans who yearned for the originally intended tale. While the HALLOWEEN franchise was losing its prowess in theaters, it was just discovering its power on the internet. |
Ambitious as its original script was in solidly reconnecting the sixth film to its predecessors, reshoots prompted by studio panic after an early screening drew poor comments turned THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS into a jumble of best intentions and weak results.
Some fans of the franchise rightly argue that the elaboration on the Thorn Cult, inherited from the sketchiest notions planted into HALLOWEEN 5, explains away too much of Michael’s deeds and therefore his power as an iconic horror film character.
From John Carpenter’s original suspense classic, the precedent was set that Michael Myers had insanely evolved into The Shape: an evil void of inhuman shadow which lurked behind the pale visage of a humanoid mask.
The very fact that his motives where unclear and irrational gave Michael his menace — he was a walking cinematic cousin to the shark from JAWS, driven to kill by instinct and thus unstoppable by any civilized means of defense. Because Michael’s motivations were unknown or unknowable, he terrified audiences within a relatively bloodless tale of suspense and dramatic tension.
CURSE attempts to place rational, if still supernatural, causes behind his murderous rampages, quantifying and calculating his actions according to some ancient Celtic clock of the heavens.
By giving character faces to the Thorn cult, explaining their beliefs and actions to support Michael’s killings as a ritual sacrifice to save Haddonfield, the story puts the Shape at the service of a small town plot instead of the town shivering in fear at Michael’s return.
As well intended and thoroughly thought out as Farrands’ original script was (let’s avoid how his story was butchered for now), tying up all the various and often conflicting loose ends from four prior films with one overall premise devalues Michael’s iconic and enigmatic persona.
Michael now kills because an old-world religious sect acts as the puppet master over his destiny. The Thorn cult doesn’t control his actions per se, but it explains away all the dark, shadowy mysteries of Michael’s soul.
While Michael’s identify remains hidden by the mask, the Dr. Wynn and the Thorn cult put a face on the evil which drives Myers to kill. As many horror fans would agree, the moment you quantify a monster, it is diminished because the audience's imagination is preventing from projecting their own worst fears onto an unknown.
Michael Myers, as The Shape, is the perfect example of this phenomenon: his pale, relatively featureless face mask allowed viewers to pain their own terrifying portraits of what lived and killed behind the mask.
The more of that mystery which is explained away and given reason, the less irrational and horrible Michael can be, simply because his unknowns are now defined objectively. This short circuits the audience's own subjective interpretation of the character's inherent power and evil.
Dissatisfied with controversial changes in the theatrical version of CURSE, fans flocked to the internet discussion groups to discuss its flaws and strengths. It was this growth in the online realm of HALLOWEEN fandom that word of the supposed Producer's Cut of the film spread rapidly.
What was dubbed the Producer's Cut represented a re-edited version of HALLOWEEN 6 as originally scripted and what was shot from that script. It restored many of the scenes which were jettisoned in favor of the reshoot, drastically changing the last half-hour of the story.
Yet one early and prominent change was that Jamie Lloyd survives her attack from Michael (who merely stabs her in the back), only to be shot by the Man in Black as she recovers in the hospital.
This extended but non-heroic role for Jamie backs up Farrands' attempt to give Jamie (ideally Danielle Harris reprising) a more satisfying and plot-strengthening demise.
Instead, Jamie was sacrificed on a ridiculous piece of gut-sawing machinery (every farm has one!) to amp up the gore in reshoots. Perhaps wasted is a more accurate description of Jamie's brief appearance in CURSE, an early signal of the film taking a wrong turn.
Other excised scenes include more character development for Loomis: Dr. Wynn is about to retire from running Smith's Grove, and wants Loomis to replace him.
This would have put Loomis directly back on conflict with Michael and the Thorn cult, restoring Sam's relevance in the story which withered in the theatrical cut. Since it's the dynamic opposition of good and evil which beats at the heart of HALLOWEEN, the decision to eliminate this core element speaks loudly about how poorly the filmmakers understood the franchise.
Just as such scenes deepening Loomis were ripped out, so too went much of Tommy Doyle's intended take over as the new Ahab charged with destroying Haddonfield's murderous beast, as originally scripted by Farrands.
Tommy's research into the Thorn cult was meant to empower him with a weapon to defeat Michael, hidden in the ancient rune language which spawned the black magic aiding Michael's sacrificial rites.
While Loomis confronted Wynn on his treachery, Tommy laid a supernatural trap for Michael powered by the positive energy of rune spells to combat the Thorn.
Alas, the powers of evil foiled the crusaders once again, as a defeated Michael is revealed to be Wynn under the mask, having traded places with Michael who escaped destruction once again.
While the switcheroo twist of this ending might be a bit gimmicky, at least it would have restored the lethal game-playing aspect of Michael's madness.
As first set up in 1978 by Carpenter and Hill's script, Michael's success and menace as a predator arose from his devious, quasi-demonic concentration of setting up his victims for the kill.
Those who died in Michael's hands failed to see the warning signs or avoid the traps which ensnared them. Michael's first escape from Smith's Grove was facilitated by his everyone except Loomis underestimating Myers' patience and cunning. The hunt is Michael's psychopathic payoff, the thrill before the kill is his true reward.
While this trait in HALLOWEEN's iconic villain was either distorted or forgotten by sequel makers, at least the intended finale of CURSE would have resurrected Michael's insane ingenuity as a formidable, credible antagonist.
Until the widely bootlegged Producer's Cut, titled HALLOWEEN 6: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS, gets an official release by Dimension Films — and rumors have persisted since the HALLOWEEN 25th Anniversary event that interest in this possibility persists — the legacy of CURSE's theatrical release is all the franchise has to offer.
The sixth chapter marked George Wilbur's second portrayal of Michael Myers, being asked by Moustapha Akkad to reprise the role he occupied in HALLOWEEN 4. While Wilbur was never my favorite actor/stuntman to play Michael — I always found him a bit too thick and lumbering — one cannot blame him for how poorly represented the character is in the film.
The hasty and illogical reshoots for the finale basically scrapped all character development and the meaning of the Thorn cult, and Michael is reduced to a bloodspilling shell of his former identity.
His supposed opponent, Tommy Doyle, is robbed of his intellectual weapons meant to turn the Thorn's power against its users. Instead of using the same supernatural power to defeat the cult as Loomis might have done, Tommy ends up as a pipe-wielding thug. His brutal battle with Michael offers as little story logic as it does third-act thrills, containing no reason why The Shape is so easily beaten down. Thus Michael's inexplicable escape into the ether — his empty mask left on the floor of the genetics lab — is painfully unsatisfying and short-sighted in terms of HALLOWEEN's future.
The damage done to the character, where indeed was Michael to go from there?
It's little wonder that THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS resulted in a creative and box office dead end for the franchise in 1995. Its performance in release pleased neither fans nor Miramax/Dimension who had just stumbled out of the gate with their first installment.
Despite Farrand's scripted attempt to connect HALLOWEEN 6 with its Michael-starring predecessors, an even bolder and more drastic step was taken with in developing the next franchise entry: forget HALLOWEEN 4 and 5 entirely and pick up where HALLOWEEN II left off . . . with Jamie Lee Curtis back as Laurie Strode in HALLOWEEN: H20! |
