The Halloween series has to be the most troubled major franchise in the history of genre cinema, topping even The Terminator with multiple retcons, recastings, and retreads of increasingly tired tropes in the hopes of squeezing a few more precious dollars from the deep well of an original iconic film. When the continuity of your series is more fucked up than one that has TIME TRAVEL as it's core plot device then you've got problems!
Despite how terrible, compromised and ill-conceived many of these films are, I must confess that there isn't a single entry that I've only seen once, much to my own peril. But sometimes the mystery as to why a film went wrong can be just as interesting and worthy of deep pondering as the wonder and majesty of a perfect piece of cinema.
Why is it that this franchise all too often swirled down the drain into the miasma of the stink of it's own imitators, defying it's iconoclastic origins and miring amongst the drivel and dreck of those who couldn't even dream to reach the heights of the originals vanguard?
Well, here's one reason:
For better or worse, Moustapha Akkad is responsible for keeping The Shape (as Michael Myers was referred to in the credits and in the original script written by John Carpenter & Debra Hill) lurking in the hedges and darkened doorways of Haddonfield for decades. The resulting series became so messy and convoluted (resulting from both creators and stars absolving and recommitting themselves from the series repeatedly and a producer interested primarily in profits) that when Blumhouse found the property in their clutches at last they opted to throw the whole mess out with the bathwater and start from scratch.
That said, in the weeks leading up to the release of David Gordon Green's Halloween, I re watched the entire series, beginning with the now-erased entries (2-8) in the theater and concluding with a double feature of the classic original and it's now only official sequel. Here's how they stood the test of time, at least in my eyes, from worst to first. (Note: I won't be covering Rob Zombie's remake and it's sequel here, only the films that fall under the original "Carpenter" umbrella):
What can be said about this mess? Aside from the opening sequence, which erases one of the most definitive demises of a film villain in history in a manner so shameless that it made the makers of Friday The 13th: A New Beginning blush (we learn that after being incapacitated by Laurie at the end of Halloween: H20, Michael crushed the larynx of the attending EMT, switched clothing, and it was HE, not Michael who had his head lopped off at the end of the film). The premise is so laughable that it almost makes the deus ex machina forgivable, but only almost.
Jamie Lee Curtis, held hostage due to clever contractual maneuvering (more on that in the H20 entry), gives it her all here as a now institutionalized Laurie Strode, hoarding her meds in her Raggedy Ann doll in an attempt to stay razor sharp as she awaits The Boogeyman's return, snaring him in a booby trap that would seem implausible only in a film where the incidents described in the previous paragraph didn't exist. Since it's only the first 15 minutes of the film, The Shape outwits Laurie and finally murders her with a knife to the back, which I must presume is how Jamie Lee felt when she realized that her genuine desire to send the series that made her in a honorable fashion had been countered with the crassest of cynical commercial machinations.
Once Laurie is gone, the film falls into the snare that typifies most of the series' problems: following the horror trend du jour, this time the "found footage" craze that spawned in the wake of the success of "The Blair Witch Project", which ironically enough, was the film that broke the original Halloween's record as the most successful independent film of all time ($140 million which adjusts to about 60 million in 1978 numbers compared to Halloween's 47 million).
With the two constants of the Halloween series, Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasance now gone, the producers resorted to stunt casting of the worst sort to fill the void, hiring rapper Busta Rhymes (in the same vein as LL Cool J three years earlier in H20). Busta plays Freddie, an internet impresario who takes over The Myers House (it's never explained how he manages to gain possession of the house, or why this eyesore that stands as a monument to Haddonfield's most horrible history would still be standing after being unoccupied for 40 years and falling into serious disrepair, heck the real house they used in the original film was raised and moved to a new location!), setting up cameras and inviting a band of wanna-be real world contestants to spend Halloween night inside and inevitably be slashed by a Shape who seems only slightly less bored to be here than people in the audience though he does feature the best mask since Halloween II and is leagues ahead of his H20 predecessor, even if he is presented too matter-of-factly for much of the film.
All Tricks, No Treats...Motherfucker!
If you're considering the film in the "So Bad, It's Good" vein, then Busta is one of the few things that enlivens and otherwise dull paint by numbers slasher flick. The scene where he confronts The Shape also dressed in the killer's costume, berating him until he retreats seemingly confused is good for a laugh or two, and the final karate fight in the burning garage of the Myers House where Michael is subdued by having his testicles electrocuted feels like the final and complete absolution of everything that made Halloween great in the first place that all you can do is throw up your hands and laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.
I'm probably being too generous here. Halloween: Resurrection is little more than a classless, ill conceived cash grab that should never have existed and was so poorly received that it killed off the original series for good and compelled the producers to hand the reigns over to Rob Zombie. The fact that it finally convinced Moustapha Akkad that while a decapitation couldn't kill this incarnation of The Bogeyman but this film was enough to do him in is a testament to it's enduring legacy as the worst of the series.
Rating: 1/2 *
Halloween: The Curse Of Michael Myers (also known as Halloween 666: The Origin Of Michael Myers) had the unenviable task of following the mess that was left from Halloween 5, both commercially and critically. The developmental hell that this project endured over the 6 years leading to it's troubled production is rivalled only by that which befell Freddy vs. Jason and Alien vs. Predator.
The various plot lines that were considered for the film included one where our titular character was homeless and living on the streets of Haddonfield (in case you were wondering, yes, it could have been worse). Finally, Daniel Farrands, a Halloween super fan who had orbited around the Akkad's circle for years, was allowed to pitch his idea for the film, impressing Moustapha with his encyclopedic knowledge of the franchise and a multitude of concepts through which to expand it (and most importantly, one must presume, provide a sufficient arsenal of twists and turns to be explored in many more films.)
The film itself ended up living up to it's title. Firstly, Harvey & Bob Weinstein who purchased the rights to the film after several years of legal battles that had caused halt to the production, refused to pay Danielle Harris more than the basic scale rate, as the role of Jamie in this film was reduced to that of the victim of incestual rape who was quickly murdered by Michael in the first 20 minutes of the film, as the producers wanted to leave the Jamie Lloyd storyline behind. Regretably, Harris was only informed of their intentions to compensate her according to her marginalized role in the film and not in regards to her status as a returning legacy star in her third film, and feeling insulted that the $5,000 offered would barely cover the funds she had spent to have herself legally emancipated so that she could participate in night shoots, she left the project.
Test audiences, most of them having no doubt long forgotten the overwrought and underdeveloped plot threads of Halloween 5, did not respond well to the film and reshoots removing as much of the mystical Thorn plotline as possible were ordered. Unfortunately, Donald Pleasance, who returned to portray Dr. Sam Loomis in this film for the fifth and final time, died in February 1995. Paul Rudd, cast in his first role here as a grown Tommy Doyle, the little boy who Laurie Strode babysat in Halloween, was intended to carry the torch on from Loomis and become the new Captain Ahab to The Shape's Moby Dick. His performance is so over the top twitchy that he's lucky that Clueless came out 3 months before this or his career could've been derailed forever. Pleasance's death forced their hand in this regard, and the original ending where Loomis' colleague Dr. Wynn, a very minor character with thirty seconds of screen time in the original, is revealed to be the mastermind behind the Thorn cult ("I even taught him how to drive!") and Michael's keeper, passes the curse onto Loomis after he is attacked by Michael (who switches clothing with Wynn,which at least provides a bit of credibility to the reveal at the beginning of Resurrection) trading it in for a more literal yet somehow equally bizarre ending where Tommy beats The Shape with a pipe until green goo inexplicably out of his eyes and mouth. The final shot in the theatrical release is of Michael's mask (now strangely absent of said green goo) laying on the floor with Loomis' screams from the original ending dubbed over, one of the most disrespectful and abbreviated denouements ever inflicted upon a beloved legacy franchise character.
Dad Bod Shape Tries To Kill Paul Rudd's Career Before It Can Even Begin
The reshoots led to a marked differentiation betweens the two cuts, the original "Producer's Cut", which planted storyline seeds in the hopes of producing many more sequels in the same vein, and the "Theatrical Cut", which was basically the filmmakers trying to rescue the film from what they saw as inevitable failure and also the fact that the original ending was now null and void given the fact that Pleasance had passed.
The theatrical cut of "The Curse Of Michael Myers" was the first Halloween film that I saw as a sixteen year old Halloween superfan in the theater on opening day, and I remember coming out of it just absolutely dumbfounded at how atrocious the film was. Having no clue about the problems that plagued the production, it was beyond me how it took them 6 years to come up with this. From the incomprehensible motivations of the storyline (if Michael needed to kill off his relatives to pass on the curse, why didn't he just murder Jamie? Why make another Myers and complicate the process?) along with the obvious logic holes of Michael living under the protection of the Thorn cult in a state run mental facility, undetected in his coveralls and William Shatner mask for 6 years, the film was about as far away from the tone and concept of the original Halloween as you could get without just abandoning the premise completely.
In the years that followed, the legend of the lost, and supposedly superior, "Producer's Cut" circulated amongst the Halloween fandom, and once we entered the digital age, bootlegs and finally a proper release became available. The Producer's Cut is a wash with the theatrical version: It's more carefully paced, allowing the characters more room to breath and fits in better with the classic Halloween style, but the plot is far more convoluted, while the theatrical cut is a barrage of MTV-style quick cuts, over the top brutal violence, and an overbearing soundtrack that screams mid-90s.
Halloween 6 was the point of no return for the series, and led to the first instance of massive retconning in the series (or any series, as far as I can tell). They tried to hit the proverbial homer off of a curve ball and it bounced off the fence.
Rating: *
Fans were so delighted with the return of Michael Myers that Halloween 4 topped the box office for two weeks straight, and thus Halloween 5 was rushed into production mere months after that film's release. With Halloween 4 director Dwight Little wanting to move onto something non-horror related, Akkad hired French Director Damien Othenin-Girard (who's name is mispelled in the credits, a sure sign as any that this thing was hacked together as quickly as possible).
Unfortunately, Akkad was not willing to give up on his cash cow so quickly and even though Michael had been buried in a mine shaft at the end of the previous film and his evil transferred to Jamie in the absolutely chilling and effective coda of Halloween 4, this transference was quickly shifted to a "psychic connection" between Michael and Jamie, and that Michael had merely taken over Jamie's body and forced her to commit her violent act against her stepmother when his own vessel had become incapacitated.
There is a sinister, gothic and chillingly effective horror film hiding in the mess that is Halloween 5, including two sequences (the chase in the forest and the laundry chute) that are as effective as anything in any except the original film, and the last act measures up to that of any of the higher quality slasher films of it's era, save for the ending, which brings us to the big problems in Halloween 5.
Halloween 5 makes some really, really weird choices. The first is the Psycho-type twist of the early murder of Rachel, Jamie's step-sister and defacto final girl of Halloween 4. The scene itself is fine, and unlike most murder scenes in 80's slashers, you genuinely mourn Rachel's death and feel for her and Jamie, especially when Jamie discovers Rachel's corpse later in the film. All of that is fine in good, save for the character that Othenin-Girard deemed a suitable replacement for Rachel: Tina, played by poor Wendy Kaplan, who really does give her all in an absolutely hopeless role, the most annoying film character this side of Jar Jar Binks. According to Kaplan in the Halloween 5 documentary, the audience at the premiere of the film cheered in appreciation when her character was finally murdered, which I'm guessing was not the director's intended reaction.
Sorry, We Can Only Pay You Scale!
But perhaps the most perplexing choice made in the film was the inclusion of the goofy cops, and their absolutely tone killing, suspense stiffening horn and whistle music in the middle of the sequence where Rachel is being stalked and eventually killed. Lots of the stuff in this film feels like a European's idea of American culture and humor but it's just a little off.
The big thing in Halloween 5 however, that takes the film in an entirely different direction and threatened to derail the entire series was the inclusion of the mysterious "Man In Black" character, who shown lurking in the foreground of several scenes throughout the film and eventually busting Michael out of the Haddonfield jail and leaving audiences with one more cliffhanger than this series really needed at this point. Othenin-Girard suggested this plotline (along with the Thorn tattoo both Michael and the mystery man sport) about halfway through production (again, the film was so rushed that they started filming with a treatment rather than full script), and this carelessness almost destroyed the franchise forever.
That said, I do think that time has been kind to this film. I used to see it as an absolute wash but now there are a few factors that redeem it, including the aforementioned gothic creepiness, Danielle Harris in another excellent, sympathetic turn as a severely damaged Jamie Lloyd, Don Shanks, an actual actor, does what he can to inject a touch of pathos into his portrayal of The Shape, and Donald Pleasance chewing up the scenery as the most batshit crazy as a loon Dr. Loomis that we've seen.
Rating: *1/2
Ah, Halloween III: Season Of The Witch, a film that inspired mostly confusion upon it's inital release in 1982, and even more so in the decade or two following it's release on home video. Imagine, before Halloween 4 heralded the triumphant return of the bogeyman to our nation's cinema screens, grabbing all three existing Halloween movies on VHS, getting super caffeinated with your buddies, and then when directly after seeing Michael Myers blown to smithereens at the end of Halloween II, popping this bad boy at around midnight, only to get some weird tale of a Warlock's attempt to sacrifice the children of the world in a Pagan ritual using a television commercial as his vehicle?
After Halloween II, John Carpenter & Debra Hill believed they had effectively laid Michael Myers to rest for good, but still felt that the Halloween name was strong enough to carry a film franchise. They proposed an anthology series, much like Creepshow or Tales From The Crypt, but rather than do several short films, every year would see a new film set around a Halloween type plot or theme. Such a concept would probably do very well today, especially in an age when trailers are readily available and there is tons of information available about a film before it is released. That was not the case in 1982, when someone buying a ticket may not have even seen a trailer for Halloween III if they hadn't been to a movie in a couple of months or happened to catch a TV spot. Most went to the film expecting another Michael Myers slasher film and when that wasn't delivered, the film suffered miserably.
For years, Halloween III suffered simply for the fact that it refused to give audiences more of the same. Now that we've gotten 8 more films (many of them quite bad) with Michael Myers stalking the residents of Haddonfield, the very element that was once a liability has become a virtue. The film has become newly romanticized in the past few years, particularly since the Scream Factory release that restored the film to it's original glory, not to mention that the "Silver Shamrock" is so insidiously catchy as to reside for days in the mind of any who happen to be unwary enough hear it. The film is a time capsule of sorts to the primitive days of the kitschy commodification that many of us who grew up in the 70s and 80s were constantly subjected to, filtered through the lens of horror.
That Witch Has The Knowing Look Of Someone Who Is Destined For The Discount Bin Come November 1
Personally, while the film is not as terrible as it was originally made out to be, it still has some significant problems. The first resides in the premise itself. Conal Cochran's plan to burn out the brains of every child wearing a Silver Shamrock mask at 9 o'clock in a mass sacrifice. However, the film blatantly ignores the notion of time zones, as the action of the film takes place in the fictional hamlet of Santa Maria, California, so presumably tragedy has already struck on the East Coast by the time Tom Atkins is screaming into phone at 9 p.m., Pacific time. The microchips being activated by chips that are fashioned by "pieces of Stonehege" is dubious enough, but the fact that the masks are left crawling with snakes, spiders, and other creepy crawlies is a little too preposterous. I would've preferred instead if they took a page from the original Halloween and instead of the masks killing the children, they took over their minds and caused them to turn on and murder their families in their living rooms, much like little 6 year old Michael Myers. Children murdering is always scarier than children being murdered.
Additionally, the romance that springs up suddenly between Atkins' Dr. Challis and Ellie, a young woman who is searching for her father, a missing former employee of the Silver Shamrock factory, is so implausible and borderline skeezy that it took me right out of the film. There is the possibility that Ellie is one of Cochran's robot agents from the beginning, but I would've appreciated being hit over the head a little harder with that fact to avoid feeling like my protagonist wasn't a lecherous creep.
Overall, Halloween III is an okay film that was released at the wrong era. There are rumors that Blumhouse is considering doing a Halloween TV series, and it seems improbable that such a series would have Michael going on a weekly killing sprees, so perhaps finally the Halloween anthology series that Carpenter & Hill once pondered will finally become a reality?
Rating: **
After Halloween 6, the series had hit a brick wall with a giant Thorn symbol drawn on it. The franchise had been allowed to fetter itself into an overwrought, convoluted mythology, the heart and soul of the series that had carried the series in its first two decades, Donald Pleasance, was dead, and Paul Rudd, whom they'd pegged as the Loomis replacement as Tommy Doyle, was suddenly a major star and presumably no longer interested in involving himself in the late entry horror sequels, especially in a mess like Halloween had become. There was seemingly nowhere to go.
Luckily for Akkad and company, in 1996 one year after the release of Halloween 6, Miramax, the same company that produced The Curse Of Michael Myers, had a surprise hit with Scream, helmed by iconic horror director Wes Craven, and the second wave of slasher films, now snarky, hip, and terminally self aware had hit and suddenly there was new hope for the series that had initiated the first wave of slasher films.
Fortunately, Jamie Lee Curtis was also boldened by the return of slasher films to the vanguard, and feeling a bit of nostalgia as well as the opportunity to cash in, expressed interest in returning to the franchise that made her a star in time for the 20th anniversary of the original film. Originally, Curtis recruited John Carpenter for the project hoping that he would direct the film. Carpenter, who'd sold his interest in the franchise to Akkad in 1988 when his premise for Halloween 4 was rejected, has long held that Halloween was a dead story and while he had no creative interest in making the film, decided that he would at least cash in on the years of earnings that the franchise he'd originally given life to, demanding $10 million to write and direct the project. Miramax balked at this notion and Carpenter bailed, but Curtis was not to be dissuaded. Having worked with Steve Miner on the film Forever Young, and Miner having directed Friday The 13th Parts 2 & 3, was deemed by Curtis to be a suitable (and much cheaper) replacement for Carpenter.
Retrofitting a previously existing script where The Shape stalked an all girls school, it was decided that instead of dying in a car crash as purported in Halloween 4, Laurie had faked her death, changed her identity, and was now living as the headmistress of a now co-ed private school in rural California. Originally, the film had a snippet of dialogue where Laurie's daughter Jamie's fate is mentioned by a student, causing her to retreat to the bathroom and vomit when faced with these truths. However, Miner decided that the film needed a clean start and insisted that this scene be excised from the completed film and thus we had our first major instance of Halloween retconning.
A CGI Mask?! Are You From The Future?!!
The film doesn't stand out particularly from others of the same time period, suffering from a score that is too divergent from the original, trading orchestral flourishes for the synth stingers that had become trademark of the series, an immediacy that kills the tension of the film, unneeded comic relief from L.L. Cool J's character, and while the cast is one of the better in the Halloween series (a young Michelle Williams and Josh Harnett along with Adam Arkin all make turns here), they aren't given much to chew on character wise before they're butchered or run screaming into the night, which is generally part and parcel for Halloween films but not for a project that was marketed as a cut above, so to speak.
Curtis, while having a few shining moments, doesn't seem to really lose herself in the character of Laurie as she does in other entries in the series. Perhaps it's simply because she neglected to don a wig for the role and simply looks too much like Jamie Lee Curtis, but I never really buy that it's the same person from Halloween & Halloween II. Perhaps she was miffed when she discovered halfway through production that there was a clause in the contract that stated that Michael Myers could not be killed decisively and what she intended to be a final goodbye to the character and franchise was not to be?
The biggest liability this film suffers from, however, is The Shape himself. This absolutely without a doubt the worst incarnation of Michael Myers that has ever been put to film. Chris Durand doesn't carry himself at all with a sense of malicious purpose like the previous stuntmen in the role have, but even if he had dedicated himself completely to the role, any sense of dread or fear that The Shape might inspire in this film is highjacked by the god-awful terrible masks, yes masks that they used in this film. The story of the ever-changing visage of Michael Myers in this film is too lengthy and involved to explore in this forum, but you can find the whole story here. Things got so wonky that they even used a CGI mask in one scene! How the Akkads, who had made 7 Halloween films at this point hadn't managed to settle on an acceptable design for the Myers mask by this point is beyond my pay grade.
Ultimately, Halloween H20 suffers from being too much of a product of it's time, and in retrospect seems more like a cash grab than ever. It tries too hard to emulate the feel of Scream, and Halloween films always seem to suffer when they sink to the levels of their imitators rather than attempt to reach the heights of the timeless original.
Rating: **1/2
After years of languishing in aborted reboots and potential sequels following Rob Zombie's divisive remakes, the rights to the Halloween series expired Miramax and were swooped up by vanguard horror producer Jason Blum, who had coveted the opportunity to add a proper Halloween film to his repertoire for some time. Convinced that he didn't want to step into Haddonfield without it's creator on board, Blum approached Carpenter and offered him the film. Carpenter balked at directing when Blum informed him that he wasn't willing to give the horror master final cut on the project, but when Blum relayed to Carpenter that he wasn't willing to go on with the project without his involvement and insisting that "whether or not we're involved, they're going to make another one of these, so we might as well make sure it's done right", Carpenter agreed to serve as Executive Producer and compose a new score for the film. He was also assigned the task of putting the call out to any and all writers & directors to pitch him on their ideas for the film.
David Gordon Green, an acclaimed director of both comedy and drama films over the past two decades, and his collaborator, Danny McBride, most famous for his role as Kenny Powers in the popular series "Eastbound And Down", delivered the winning pitch, which once again erased the existing continuity aside from the original film, telling a story that is somewhat similar to Carpenter's original concept for Halloween II, with a paranoid and prepared Laurie Strode hiding out in her compound on the outskirts of Haddonfield, warning the townspeople of the inevitably of Michael's escape and return while secretly hoping that her prophecy becomes reality so that she can enact revenge of him for the trauma he inflicted upon her on Halloween 40 years earlier. Curtis took to the pitch also and signed on not only to star in the film but serve as executive producer alongside Carpenter, accepting the scale pay of a mere $14,000 with points on the back end should the film be successful.
Green and McBride craft a sharp, brooding and mostly effective update of the original film. The film thrives when it focuses on Laurie and her struggle with sanity, having failed to fully recover from the terrible events that she suffered as a teenager. Curtis brings a feeling and believability to the role that was missing in H20, managing to be both strong and vulnerable, addled yet focused as she awaits her showdown with the bogeyman of her past. The film suffers when it diverts itself from Laurie's story. While the character of Alyson, Laurie's granddaughter proves relevant to Laurie's overall arc in the film, the subplot with her friends seems unnecessary and tacked on only to appeal to the teenager demographic when Alyson's confrontation could have been organically linked to her relationship with Laurie and streamlined the narrative of the film a bit. Judy Greer has the thankless role of Laurie's duaghter, Karen, who was taken away from her Mother at age 12 and has mostly disavowed herself of the seemingly crazy notions she was raised to believe, though she was given a moment of redemption near the end of the film. There are a couple of points where the film's humor betrays the tension that's been effectively established and takes the viewer out of the film, albeit briefly.
Hey, This Wasn't In The Movie!
The podcasters provide necessary exposition for those who haven't seen the original film (which seems crazy to me, but they're out there) as well as updating viewers as to where everyone is at this point in the story and most importantly, triggering Michael and awakening the evil inside that has been dormant for four decades. (Not to mention providing him with his trademark mask in a somewhat unlikely but necessary plot twist because branding!) Also, I found my interest in the narrative screeching to a halt in the unnecessary segue ways to the drama going on between Laurie's granddaughter and her douche bag boyfriend. I get that they probably felt they needed some teen characters in here to help the film appeal to the younger audience, but it feels so shoehorned and any length of time we spend with them feels better served exploring Laurie and her struggles.
The plot twist near the end has been deemed by some as original by some and completely laughable by others. I would say that it's a choice. Ultimately it's only there to get a certain character from point A to point B and doesn't have a long term effect on the outcome of the film, and one wonders if perhaps it's a bit too inventive and in some ways a weird nod to the plot of Part 6. If it was up to me, I would probably leave it on the floor but it didn't hurt my enjoyment of the film too much, especially when I watched the film a second time and noticed the little cues that teased the moment.
The two points in the film to me that are most effective are the period from when the Father & Son discover the bus crash to the point when Michael follows the podcasters to the gas station, and the final showdown between The Shape and Laurie & family, which redeemed the shaky plot point at the end of Act 2.
I admire Blum, Green, McBride, Curtis & Carpenter for using the recent wave of horror to attempt to restore one of the most troubled franchises in history to it's former glory. It may not be a perfect film and at times it definitely feels like its trying to serve too many masters, but it's a worthy love letter to all of the things that made the original Halloween an all-time classic film with a few modern touches.
Rating: ***
As everyone reading this very well knows already (and if you don't, go to bed or go to Church, you don't belong here!), the success of Halloween spawned a myriad of Halloween clones that not only sought to imitate the formula of Halloween, but more essentially, the enormous profits that the film reaped from it's miniscule budget. Really though, most of the films that emerged in the first wave of slasher films from 1978-1984 didn't exactly copy Halloween, more accurately, they aped the first Halloween rip-off, Friday The 13th, which most would consider to be the ultimate slasher film franchise. Making the film with little artistic ambition and grand financial ones, producer/director Sean S. Cunningham eschewed the tension and suspense of Halloween and replaced with unrepentant sex and unrelenting gory violence, employing the services of famed special effects wizard Tom Savini to create brutal kill scenes that were the cornerstone of the film.
Three years passed, and a slew of holiday themed horror films (My Bloody Valentine, Happy Birthday To Me, Prom Night) had come and gone, and finally it was decided that it was time to capitalize on the craze and produce a new Halloween film. Carpenter, feeling like the story had already been told, was less than interested in the prospect, but realized that the film was going to happen with out without him and recognized this as an opportunity to put the creation that had made him but also hovered over him as an artistic sword of Damocles for the past 3 years to rest for good and move on with his career.
Carpenter's original concept for Halloween II took place 5 years after the events of the original film, with an agoraphobic Laurie Strode living in a technologically advanced, ultra secured high rise apartment building in Chicago. Rather than another straight slasher film, Carpenter imagined Laurie confronting The Shape within the first 30 minutes of the film and spending the rest of the run time in an extended chase sequence in a locked down building that presumably had lost power or incurred some other failing that caused it's most attractive feature to transform it into a prison and Michael's killing ground.
Ultimately, Carpenter moved the setting to a hospital, immediately following the events of the original film. Writing out the script in a frenzy over one night and indulging in a six pack of beers, Carpenter found himself backed into a corner trying desperately to concoct any type of device that might add a new twist to what was basically a repeat of the first film in an update setting. Seemingly inspired by Darth Vader revealing his fatherhood to Luke Skywalker, Carpenter decided that Michael and Laurie would be siblings, giving the killer a method to his madness and hampering the franchise with a storyline that would at times embolden and at others hinder it's storytelling potential.
Can I Borrow A Cup Of Sugar? Oh, This'll Do...
Disinterested in directing the film, Carpenter tapped unknown Rick Rosenthal to helm the film, having been impressed with Rosenthal's short film, The Toyer, after Tommy Lee Wallace, who had worked as production designer on the original Halloween and later went on to direct the 1990 version of IT, turned the job down feeling that he couldn't live up to the legend of the original.
Perhaps wanting to prove a point, and reportedly unhappy with the original cut of the film, which in classic Carpenter fashion he compared to "an episode of Quincy", Carpenter went in a filmed additional murder scenes and inserts of added gore in what can only been seen as an attempt to outdo all of those who had followed in Halloween's wake. Additionally, Laurie Strode, the heart and soul of the first film, is relegated to a virtual non-factor as her character is relegated to a hospital bed for the first two thirds of the film before being discovered by The Shape, upon which the tension and energy of the film picks up incredibly. Dick Warlock has been praised for his portrayal as The Shape, but to me he's shown far too much in the film, and has a stiff, elbow locked, robot like quality that fails to match the cat-like swiftness of the shadow lurking Nick Castle.
The final result is a mixed bag. As a slasher film, it stands as one of the classiest and best produced of it's era. Compared to the original film, however, it lowers itself to the level of its imitators rather than allowing dread and suspense to build to a fever pitch as the original did. The look and tone match the first film absolutely perfectly, with Carpenter doubling down on the deep synth tones and creating a score that many feel is superior to the original, and the return of Dean Cundey as cinematographer results in a look that makes it for both films to blend as one in a marathon viewing.
Rating: ***1/2
So disappointed were horror fans after the release of Halloween III, the franchise went dormant for 6 years, an eternity in terms of the passage of trends in the genre. Feeling that the time was right to capitalize on the property again and tapped Carpenter & Hill, co-owners of the franchise to create a concept for the film. In the midst of directing Prince Of Darkness, Carpenter called on Dennis Etchison, who had written the novelizations of Halloween I-III, to write the script. Etchison concocted a more ethereal take on the material, creating a scenario where Haddonfield, still in shock from Michael's crimes a decade ago, were haunted by the ghost of The Shape rather than the killer himself. The script also featured teeneaged Lindsey Wallace and Tommy Doyle as it's main characters. Akkad balked at the notion of a Michael Myers ghost story, insisting that after the disapointment of Halloween III that fans would accept nothing less than a straight up slasher film starring the origina masked bogeyman. Having grown weary of the creation that made his name, Carpenter and Hill declined to participate in what they felt was simply another retread and sold their interest in the franchise to Akkad, absolving themselves of any further involvement.
With a writer's strike looming, Akkad hired screenwriter Alan B. McElroy, a huge fan of the first films, to pen the script. With the deadline hanging over his head, McElroy hammered out the script in 11 days. With Jamie Lee Curtis, having moved on to major Hollywood films, McElroy created what must be considered the first "soft reboot" of a franchise, essentially combining the concept of the first two films, replacing Laurie Strode with her daughter, Jamie Lloyd, now living in foster care following the death of her parents 11 months previous. While being transferred to a different mental hospital (on Halloween Eve, of course), Michael hears of his niece for the first time and this springs him back into action, just in time for the 10 year anniversary of his first killing spree.
Director Dwight H. Little crafts a fine, workmanlike slasher film that stands up well with the best of the latter half of the 80's. There are few sequences more frightening in the film than Jamie's dream of her Uncle, whom she calls "The Nightmare Man", appearing suddenly in her bedroom, lightning illuminating his ghostly white mask as he inexplicably moves from place to place.
The real discovery in the film is young Danielle Harris, portraying Jamie Lloyd, which in my book is the best performance of a child in a horror film this side of Linda Blair in The Exorcist. While many children in horror movies have a strong tendency to be annoying or unbelievable, Harris creates a sense of vulnerabilty that is tangible and you never once question that this is all really happening to this little girl. Throughout the film, it is established that Jamie feels somewhat lost and is looking for a place to belong in the world in the wake of her parents' death, and she finally finding it at the end of the film with chilling effect. It's one of the best scenes in any Halloween film and perhaps the best ending to any Halloween film.
A Fantastic Ending! I Wonder How They'll Follow Up On it?
Providing support for Harris is Ellie Cornell as her foster sister, Rachel Caruthers. Cornell has an earnest, everygirl quality that helps the viewer sink into the reality of the film despite it's somewhat preposterous premise, and while no one could live up to the legend of Jamie Lee Curtis, she's certainly more effective in her role than most if not all of the final girls in other slasher films of the era. Donald Pleasance returns as Dr. Loomis, having somehow survived the explosion at the end of Halloween II with no more than a quarter-sized scar on his face. In reality, it seems that Loomis may have suffered a head injury in the explosion as the decade has not been kind to our resident psychiatrist's mind, and Pleasance hits the high notes of Loomis' seeming madness with verve and passion, ranting and raving to anyone who will listen about the evil that lives in Michael. Despite this, he manages to carry the necessary expositional moments in the film, chewing the scenery with great relish while also keeping things grounded and credible.
The one big liability that the film has is the titular character himself (or itself, as Loomis might insist). Aside from H20, this is quite simply the worst presentation of The Shape in the entire series, at least in appearance. While George Wilbur does his best to make Michael seems like an absolutely barbaric force of nature, sticking his thumb through foreheads, shoving shotguns through torsos and tossing power station workers into transformers with destructive glee, the mask that he is saddled with is absolutely laughable. The mask has a warped, almost surprised look to it and leaves an object of fear more resembling someone imitiating him at a cut rate spook house in the rural South. As in H20, this film also uses multiple masks (including inexplicably, one that is completely uncoverted with pink skin and blond hair during the scene where he attacks Dr. Loomis in the schoolhouse). More about the Halloween 4 masks can be found here.
Halloween 4 was a promising restart for a series that had seemingly gone of the rails with the release of Halloween III, with a killer ending that held promise for exciting new directions, but ultimately it ended up as an abberation for a series that fell into a serious decline in the years following. If you want a quintessential later 80s slasher flick that actually tries to be scary and is classier than a Friday The 13th film, Halloween 4 is worth your time.
Rating: ***1/2
Halloween is the bridge between two eras of horror film, the classic, Gothic era and the modern era where horror has moved from castles and laboratories into our very homes. Borrowing from films like Psycho, Black Christmas, and the work of Dario Argento, Carpenter spun the techniques of the masters behind those films into his own unique web of looming dread and suspense.
The premise is as simple as it gets: A young boy murders his older sister on Halloween night in 1963. 15 years later, despite warnings from his psychiatrist, he escapes and returns to his home town of Haddonfield, Illinois, intent on reliving his crimes. He becomes fixated on Laurie Strode, a teenager similar in look and age to the sibling he murdered, and spends the day and night murdering her friends and attempting to lure her into the trap that he's set for her across the street where she babysits one of the neighbor kids.
The plot of Halloween, while essential is beyond the point. Halloween isn't successful for what it does, but rather how it does it. Carpenter lurks on wide shots giving the viewer to peer into the background subconsciously searching for the killer as he leers behind bushes and peers through window, often utilizing POV or over the shoulder shots, indicting the audience as party to the crimes as they occur. Carpenter masterfully builds up a sense of dread over the course of the film into an absolute frenzy of anticipation (the first murder occurs in the opening scene of the film and the audience is forced to wait nearly 50 minutes for the next to occur).
One Of The Creepiest Shots In Cinema History
Aside from John Carpenter & Debra Hill, the durability of Halloween as a cornerstone of modern horror cinema can be attributed to the efforts of one man: Moustapha Akkad. The Syrian born film producer and director was brought into the Halloween fold by Producer Irwin Yablans, who concocted the original premise for "The Babysitter Murders", a film about a serial killer stalking babysitters, later adding the twist of the film taking place and Halloween night and giving the concept the added flourish it needed to be truly iconic. Yablans sent John Carpenter to Akkad's office to pitch his investment in the film (it was recently revealed on The Ringer's "Halloween Unmasked" Podcast that Akkad's primary financial benefactor in his cinematic endeavors was one Muammar Gaddafi, definitely one of the more interesting and controversial financiers of independent cinema in history).
In a bit of supremely effective stunt casting, Carpenter hired Jamie Lee Curtis, daughter of Janet Leigh, who earned her fame in the original slasher film, Psycho. (In another nod to Psycho, Dr. Sam Loomis is named after Leigh's character's boyfriend in the film). The original, and still the greatest, final girl, Curtis gives a pure, sincere performance as Laurie, the one character caught between the world of adults and children, the only amongst her friends who notices the stranger in the station wagon lurking in the bushes while conversely chiding the child she babysits authoritatively about his ardent belief in "The Bogeyman".
Though he'd been a working actor for several decades, appearing notably as Bond Villain Blofeld in You Only Live Twice, Donald Pleasance creates the role of his lifetime here as Dr. Sam Loomis. Pleasance was actually the third choice for the role, as Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing of Hammer Film fame both turned him down. Pleasance is measured perfection as what essentially amounts to an expository device, warning the citizens of Haddonfield about the evil that lurks within his enigmatic patient. While the character would become far more eccentric in later entries, Dr. Loomis endures as one of the quintessential protagonists in horror cinema.
What can be written about the original Halloween that hasn't been written already? The film is an absolute all time classic, enshrined the National Film Registry, it's score the most recognizable in the history of horror cinema, deceptive in its chilling simplicity. It has been lauded as the greatest horror film and if it's not then it's definitely the most important horror film of all time. It's influence is so deep on modern horror cinema that it's influence is practically invisible, and younger uneducated viewers are often bored by the film because the techniques that it utilized to incite fear have been marginalized and overused by lesser film-makers.
Halloween is absolutely my favorite horror film of all time. It scared the daylights out of me as a pre-teen, and I can recall countless nights where I went to bed absolutely terrified that The Shape was going to peer in my window at me while I slept. The tag line of Halloween, "The Night He Came Home", couldn't be more appropriate. It brought horror into the supposed safety of suburbia, where it has remained ever since.
Rating: *****
