Continuing on my review of the Halloween franchise, covering the final five films in the series. I hope that you all enjoy! xx
The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)
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| Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers Poster |
Six years after the events of the previous film it is revealed
that the man in black who kidnapped Michael at the end of the previous film as
also captured Jamie, who is now 15 and pregnant. Jamie gives birth to her son, on October 30th,
who is quickly taken away by the man in black who is the leader of a cult. Later that night one of the nurses helps to
free Jamie and her son, before being killed by Michael.
Jamie flees from the cult and takes shelter within an empty
bus station. She phones into a local
radio station, asking for help but is ignored by the presenter. Hiding her baby Jamie flees, pursued by Michael. Michael chases Jamie to a farm where he kills
her, he then discovers that she does not have the baby.
Meanwhile, Tommy Doyle, the boy that Laurie Strode babysat
in the first film is watching the family that has moved into the Myers house
across the street from him. The family
being relatives of the Strode’s. Tommy
has become obsessed with Michael Myers over the years since the original
Haddonfield massacre, and when he hears Jamies pleas over the radio he goes to
the bus station and finds her baby.
Tommy takes the baby into his care and names the baby
Steven. Tommy runs into Dr. Loomis at Haddonfield
Memorial Hospital
and tells him of the baby and the family living in Michaels old house. The two of them become convinced that Michael
is returning to Haddonfield.
Tommy approaches Kara Strode and her six year old son Danny and brings
them back to his home, where he reveals to them the story of Michael Myers and
tells them that he believes that Michael is being controlled by a druid cult to
kill people. The curse placed upon him
by the cult would explain Michaels seemingly supernatural abilities.
The mysterious man in black who kidnapped Michael arrives at
Tommy’s home and is revealed to be Dr. Wynn, friend and colleague of Dr. Loomis
from Smiths Grove Sanatorium. His
people, the ‘Cult of Thorne’, attack and drug Loomis and Tommy, taking Kara,
Danny, Steven and Michael back to Smiths Grove Sanatorium.
Loomis and Tommy follow them to Smiths Grove and rescue Kara
and the children, freeing Michael from the cult’s control, Michael proceeds to
attack and kill his former captors.
Fleeing from Michael, Tommy, Kara and the children find themselves in a
lab where the cult has been trying to create a baby that has the abilities and
evil of Michael inside them, which ultimately led to the birth of Steven.
Tommy fights Michael in the lab, injecting him with several tranquilizers
and chemicals before repeatedly beating him with a metal pipe. With Michael defeated Tommy, Kara and the
children leave the hospital. Loomis
remains behind because he has ‘a little business’ to attend to. Inside the hospital we see Michaels mask lying
on the floor, before we hear Loomis scream in the background.
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| Kara Strode and Tommy Doyle are chased by Michael. |
The Curse of Michael Myers takes some of the plot points
introduced in the previous film, the introduction of a supernatural element in
the series, and run with it in a whole new direction. They take Michael and turn him from a serial
killer into a magically controlled attack dog for a crazy cult that lives under
Smiths Grove Sanatorium. I don’t like
this.
Everything that I enjoyed about the previous films seems to
have been thrown out of the window with this film, and the film makers seem
more concerned with trying to create a back story for Michael and explain
events from previous films than to create a good film of their own. As a result the film feels out of place.
I discovered that many of the films problems have stemmed
from the amount of edits and cuts made to the film, and that the unreleased ‘Producers
Cut’ is a much better film that makes a lot more sense. So if you can manage to find one of the
bootleg copies, watch it instead of the release version.
This is the last film Donald Pleasence made, and his last
appearance as Dr. Loomis, and I think that it’s a shame that his last Halloween
film is one of the worst. 4/10.
Halloween H20:
20 Years Later (1998)
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| Halloween H20: 20 Years Later Poster |
Set twenty years after the events of Halloween 1 & 2,
and discounting the events of the other films in the series, the film returns
to the character of Laurie Strode, whom it is revealed did not die in a car
crash but instead faked her death and went into witness protection under a new
identity to escape Michael.
Now the head of a private school, Hill
Crest Academy,
she lives there with her son John and is in a relationship with the school
guidance counsellor Will. Despite this
Laurie is still haunted by the events of 20 years ago and is fearful of the day
that Michael might return.
Meanwhile Michael enters the home of the now deceased Dr.
Loomis and discovers that Laurie is living under a new identity. Killing the house’s new resident, Dr. Loomis’
nurse and friend, Michael heads to Hill
Crest Academy
to find his sister.
Laurie confides the story of her past to Will, revealing her
true identity, but in doing so realises that Michael will be returning as he killed
his older sister when she was seventeen, attacked Laurie when she was seventeen
and will be coming for John as he has just turned seventeen.
Unfortunately the realisation has come too late and Michael
is already inside Hill Crest and is stalking John and his girlfriend Molly. Laurie and Will attempt to stop Michael but Will
is killed in the confrontation. Laurie
helps John and Molly escape Hill Crest, but remains behind to confront Michael
and stop him once and for all.
The two siblings battle across Hill Crest and eventually
Laurie is victorious. However, Laurie
knows her brother too well and when his body is being taken away by the
coroners, steals the vehicle. Whilst
driving way Michael breaks his way out of the body bag and attacks Laurie. In the ensuing struggle the van crashes,
trapping Michael in the wreckage. Taking
her opportunity Laurie uses an axe to cut off Michaels head, finally bringing
her nightmare to an end.
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| Laurie and Michael come face to face once again. |
I love Halloween H20, it’s one of my all time favourite
Halloween films. It’s great to see Jamie
Lee Curtis back as Laurie Strode after so many films without her, and it’s
great to see her change from a victim to a fighter.
At the heart of it that’s what H20 is about, it’s not so
much about Michael and his quest to kill his family, but abut Laurie stopping
running and finally facing her fears and confronting them head on. It’s brilliant to finally see someone not
just running from Michael, but actively seeking him out in an attempt to stop
him for good, and Laurie does it in ways that Loomis never did.
The finality of the last five minutes is great, with Laurie
being the one to finally stop Michael forever.
A great film that celebrates the twentieth anniversary of the original film. 9/10.
Halloween:
Resurrection (2002)
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| Halloween Resurrection Poster |
Three years after the events of H20 we discover that Laurie
Strode is now a patient at a psychiatric hospital due to killing a man she
believed to have been Michael Myers. In
an attempt to explain away the apparent death of Michael in H20 it is revealed
that Michael injured a paramedic and switched clothes with him, allowing him
the chance to escape and causing Laurie to decapitate an innocent man.
Once Halloween night comes around again Michael enters the
hospital to find Laurie. Knowing he
would be coming for her Laurie has prepared for Michaels inevitable attack and
lures him into a trap on the roof.
Breaking free, Michael stabs Laurie in the back and throws her from the
roof, finally killing her after over twenty years.
One year later Michael is living in the tunnels beneath his
old home when a group of college students enter the house as part of an
internet reality show in which they must attempt to discover the truth behind
the legend of Michael Myers.
Michael begins stalking the students through the abandoned house,
killing them one by one until only one student and the shows producer remain
alive. In a final confrontation Michael
is electrocuted and trapped in the house as it burns to the ground.
In a final scene Michael’s body is taken to a morgue. When the coroner opens his body bag Michaels
eyes suddenly open and a terrified scream is heard.
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| Michael finally kills Laurie Strode. |
I hate Halloween: Resurrection. I think the explanation for how Michael
survived the last film is awful, and doesn’t make any sense. When you watch that scene knowing what they
plan on doing in Resurrection it just doesn’t make sense. Okay, so Michael crushed his larynx so that
the paramedic couldn’t talk, but he had loads of opportunities where he could
have just taken the mask off, and why did he attack Laurie. It’s stupid and it doesn’t work.
Killing Laurie off is a mistake as well, especially after
they put her in a psychiatric hospital for three years. It takes away all of the growth that the
character went through in the last film, all of the strength she showed and
throws it all away before casually killing her.
Resurrection ruins the character of Laurie Strode.
After the poor opening the rest of the film doesn’t fare any
better, with boring characters that are just there as cannon fodder for Michael
rather than to serve any story purpose or entertainment. The lead is so underwhelming and boring that I
almost found myself rooting for Michael to kill her.
A very poor movie that uses what came before it to create a
bad story, but shows no respect to the previous instalment. Watch at your peril. 2/10.
Halloween (2007)
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| Halloween Poster |
On Halloween night a ten year old Michael Myers, who has already
shown signs of psychopathic tendencies, murders the school bully, and later his
step dad Ronnie, his sister Judith and her boyfriend Steve. Returning home to find the slaughter His
mother Deborah calls the emergency services and Michael is taken into custody.
Eleven months later Michael is found guilty of first degree
murder and is sent to Smiths Grove Sanatorium under the care of Dr. Samuel
Loomis. Initially Michael co-operates
with Dr. Loomis, but eventually begins to slip further and further into psychosis. After he attacks and kills one of the nurses
at the Sanatorium Deborah Myers can no longer handle the pressure and kills
herself.
Fifteen years later Michael manages to escape from his room
and makes his way through the Sanatorium to freedom, killing anyone who comes
across his path. Now free Michael heads
to Haddonfield to find his baby sister.
In Haddonfield Michael’s sister, Laurie Strode, and her
friends are busy preparing for the Halloween season and the night ahead. Michael finds Laurie and follows her
throughout the day. Halloween night
arrives and Laurie heads out to babysit Tommy Doyle, with Michael not far
behind.
Dr. Loomis learns of Michaels escape and heads to
Haddonfield in hopes of stopping him from finding and killing his sister. Dr. Loomis manages to convince Sheriff Brackett
that Michael has returned to Haddonfield to find his sister. Brackett attempt to call the Strodes to warn
them, but Michael has already murdered them.
Michael attacks Laurie, and after a short confrontation
takes her captive and returns to his old family home with her. There Laurie breaks free from Michael’s hold
and tries to escape. Dr. Loomis arrives
in time to stop Michael and apparently saves Laurie. Unfortunately Michael attacks once again and
both Laurie and Loomis are both badly injured.
Laurie manages to gain the upper hand and uses Loomis’ gun
on Michael, apparently shooting him in the head.
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| Michael grows up in Smiths Grove. |
Upon first viewing I wasn’t very fond of the Halloween
remake. I found that focusing so much of
the film on Michael in the sanatorium was boring and unwanted. I didn’t need to see that, I didn’t want to
know what goes on inside his head or what made him who he is. This time round, however, I found that these
scenes help to make this film stand out from the original and give us something
that we’ve never seen before.
Rob Zombie manages to use a combination of the original
story and brand new content to create a film that feels very familiar and
completely new all at the same time.
His cast are great, with Scout Taylor-Compton giving a
wonderfully realistic performance as the new, up to date Laurie Strode, who
whilst is very different from the original portrayal by Jamie Lee Curtis, is
true to the spirit of the character. Dr.
Loomis is here performed by Malcolm McDowell and is once again a very different
version of a character we all know and love, and whilst he’s no Donald Pleasence
he does a good job with the role. Along
with a cast featuring many well known faces from horror the new Halloween also
returns Danielle Harris to the series, having originally played Jamie Lloyd in
Halloweens 4 & 5, she now plays Laurie’s best friend Annie Brackett.
With brand knew insight into the character of Michael, a
mixture of the familiar and brand new and a cast that portrays some very fun
and very realistic characters Halloween is one of the better movies in the
franchise. Rather than suffering for
being a remake of a cinema classic, this movie stands on its own as a great
piece of film making. 8/10.
Halloween 2 (2009)
The film begins with a short flashback of Judith Myers
visiting a young Michael at Smiths Grove Sanatorium, giving him a statue of a white
horse as a gift. Michael tells her that the
horse reminds him of a dream he had about Deborah’s ghost, all dressed in white
and leading a horse down the sanatorium hall towards Michael, telling him that
she’s there to take him home.
Jumping forward fifteen years we pick up where the previous
film ended with a bloodied and injured Laurie being found by Sheriff
Brackett. Police and ambulance crews
arrive at the Myers house and help the injured Laurie and Dr. Loomis. Michael’s body is loaded into a coroners van
and taken away. When the coroner had a
traffic accident Michael awakens and walks away from the accident towards a
vision of Deborah dressed in white.
Michael appears at Haddonfield hospital and kills several
members of staff in an attempt to get to Laurie. He chases and corners Laurie, but before he
is able to reach her Laurie wakes up, revealing the events at the hospital to
be a dream.
It is now one year later and Laurie is living with Sheriff
Brackett and Annie whilst attempting to put the pieces of her life back
together and come to terms with the horrific ordeal of the previous Halloween
night. Meanwhile, Michael is continuing
to have visions of both his mother and his younger self, who tell him that it
is time for him to return to Haddonfield. Whilst Michael approaches Haddonfield Laurie
begins to have hallucinations that mirror Michael’s, of a ghostly Deborah and a
younger Michael in a clown costume. She
even begins to see herself acting out Michaels murders.
After the events of the first film Dr. Loomis has gone on to
write a book about Michael and the events at Haddonfield. Touring around the country to promote his
book he receives criticism as people blame him for Michaels actions and for
exploiting the victims. Due to the
release of his book Laurie learns the truth about herself, that she is in fact
Angel Myers, Michaels sister, and that the events of the previous year were not
as random as she once believed.
Michael arrives back in Haddonfield and kills several of
Laurie’s friends before finally capturing her and taking her prisoner in an abandoned
cabin. When she awakens Laurie sees the
same visions as Michael, with the ghostly Deborah forcing her to say ‘I love
you mommy’.
The police arrive at Michael’s location and surround the
cabin. Loomis, having heard the news of
Michael’s return and the danger Laurie now faces, arrives on the scene to
help. He enters the cabin in an attempt
to get Michael to free Laurie. Laurie is
unable to leave with Loomis though as she believes that the younger Michael is
holding her down. Whilst telling her
that there is no one there and imploring her to maintain her sanity Michael
attacks and kills Loomis.
Sheriff Bracket sees Michael through the cabin window and
shoots him, knocking him back onto the spikes of some farming equipment. Apparently free of the visions, Laurie takes
Michaels knife and stabs him to death.
Laurie emerges from the cabin, covered in blood and wearing Michael’s
mask.
In the final shot of the film Laurie is in a psychiatric
ward, grinning at the camera whilst seeing a vision of the ghostly Deborah.
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| Michael brutally attacks the staff at Haddonfield Hospital. |
Halloween 2 is a very different animal from the other
Halloween films, even the movie directly before it. Whilst Rob Zombie’s first Halloween film took
what was already in place in the original film and expanded upon it, this time
round he is able to take the series in a whole new direction of his own
choosing.
The returning characters from the first film are all handled
well and have some great character growth, with both Laurie and Annie being damaged
survivors, Sheriff Breaker becoming an even more devoted father for the two
girls, and Dr. Loomis becoming something of a dick. No one could play Loomis like Donald Pleasence,
so instead of trying to emulate his character they have Malcolm McDowell create
a truly different interpretation of the character.
The exploration of Michaels psyche, and the similar ways in
which Laurie’s mind also work is a stand out and visually different experience
from anything else we have seen in the Halloween franchise up to this point,
and continues the theme of adding more depth to a character that has almost
always been portrayed as a blank slate.
They even have Michael vocalise for the first time in this film, with
grunts and yells as he viciously kills his latest wave of victims. Rather than taking anything away from the
classically silent slasher, it makes Michael all the more frightening.
An interesting new direction stylistically than the other
films that continues to build upon the success and innovations Zombie made in
his first film. 7/10.
Well there it is, my thoughts on the Halloween series. I hope that you all enjoyed it and that you
might be inspired to go out and watch at least one of them this Halloween
night. Have a great Halloween everyone.
Amy.
xx
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