This article looks at the films released from 1989 – 2002.
Halloween V:
The Revenge of Michael Myers (Dir. Dominique Otherin-Girard , 1989)
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And there we have
it, we have reached the mark of thorn, its finally time for this series to go
full and desperately downhill. Halloween V was a film so incredibly
rushed into production that it infamously had no final script when shooting
began, the holes are evident all over and this is truly one of the more
baffling entries in any long running horror franchise, without even a glimpse
of knowingness regarding how far it has come from its humble beginnings. This
is also the doldrums for this sort of long-running franchise entertainment, Halloween,
Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th were all
facing similar issues and in many ways were struggling to revitalise their
previous lustre. Revenge of Michael Myers did no such repair to the
series. Directed by Dominique Otherin-Girard, recommended by Debra Hill as one
of her final contributions to the franchise, the film is a hodgepodge of
different abysmal ideas cobbled together by a director with some minor
flourishes, but no grasp on tone, pacing, story or in many places even horror.
The film was written by Michael Jacobs and Otherin-Girard, with Shem Bitterman
still credited despite his totally different script being all but completely
unused, and is by far the films worst asset. The films first failure, after a
pretty fun pumpkin reverse expectations opening credits sequence, is to
backtrack and completely undermine the great ending to the fourth film and have
the reveal that Danielle Harris’s Jamie is now a killer, be simply a
misunderstanding… now she only cut her mom a little and is now a physic mute in
a children’s facility. Michael too is no longer dead at the bottom of a mine
shaft, but is instead revived by an elderly hermit after a year of dormancy by
some fashion of healing that is never explained in this film. The film’s opening was even re-shot entirely
by the films producer Ramsey Thomas after the voodoo elements of it didn’t work
well for Mustapha Akkad or Thomas himself. However of course there are still
elements of this voodoo mythos left over, including most importantly the new
mark of thorn being there on Michael’s wrist. The completely unexplained rune
symbol that also appears on the wrist of the completely unexplained Man in
Black (played by Don Shanks, the same actor playing Myers) – now for better or
for worse these things will be explained in the next film, however to have them
have absolutely no resolution or even hint that they will come back is
preposterous when watching this film as its own rushed, awful and baffling
entity. It isn’t long in-fact before the film makes another farce of continuing
the solid fourth film, by killing off without rhyme or reason or craft Ellie
Cornell’s Rachel, removing the joyful and wonderful relationship shared between
her and Harris’s Jamie. The murder scene is even edited and directed so poorly
that it actually feels open-ended like a fake-out and that she will come back,
but no, it was just badly made, she’s very much dead. And with those three
choices, dead is also the chance of this franchise having any new exciting life
or quality at this stage of the game.
Cornell’s death is just made ten times worse and far more baffling by the choice to then have the character be more or less wholesale swapped out for Wendy Kaplan’s Tina, a character who varies between the somewhat likable to the intensely annoying, and is of course made all the more unlikable by her complete uselessness as a character compared to Rachel. It’s a fine character, but her troop around her are just all so annoying and so blatantly fodder for Michael. It’s just the exact sort of stuff you could see the fourth film doing for its big Michael return if it weren’t so fun and solid. However the film’s new bizarre crux is a new mythology of psychic abilities with our dear Jamie, who again is now mute in a children’s clinic. Harris though is really really great for what she has been given, which is some truly awful crap. She’s believable and manages to convey the wackiness of what this Frenchman has given her with a lot of power. But again, it’s ridiculous in nature. However the films shining star, after sitting on the bench for the last film, not really giving it his all, Donald Pleasance is back as crazy Loomis and by God does he go for it in this film. He is absolutely on true insane Loomis form and is really in many ways the films true villain. Whether he be trashing a childs room, grabbing a child by the legs and shaking her, using a child as bait, screaming with sincerity about “a cookie… a cookie woman”, screaming in children’s faces, pulling guns on the police… Our man Loomis is back and by God does he make up for his average turn in part four. Now this is probably the first bad Pleasance performance in the series and whereas Harris rises above the badness of the screenplay, Loomis kind of chews it all up, goes for it and drowns in it. But it goes without saying of course that it is incredibly entertaining to watch. Alan Howarth’s score also is truly baffling and bad. Of course his work on the original Carpenter music is solid again, but not deployed or used as efficiently as it was in Return, plus the film has this atrocious electric guitar theme that occurs whenever the Michael fodder teens are on-screen that just grates on you. Of course no where near as much as the genuinely insane choice to have goofy whistles and whacky trumpets underneath the two bumbling cops we receive. I can’t even describe how bad a choice this is. It really does have to be seen and heard to be believed. Around every corner there is another person who once did great work, really dropping the ball. Cinematography by Robert Draper and the editing of Charles Tetoni and Jerry Brady, led by the direction of Otherin-Girard feel cheap and bizzare. Sure, it does some interesting visual elements here and there, but these are so few and far between and the script is so plainly awful that one fails to give this film any credit at all. Otherin-Girard just has no handle or craft over this whacky and unwieldy farce of a film. Even its attempt at a classic shocking Halloween finale backfires and is a rushed and empty farce, that is only made somewhat affecting by Harris (again) really genuinely great performance. Certainly the worst in the series so far.
Halloween: The
Curse of Michael Myers (Dir. Joe Chapelle, 1995)
In the case of The Curse of Michael Myers there’s really more to talk about behind the screens than on, which many different articles have discussed and toiled over in far more detail and with better intel than I will here, however it can’t be remiss to mention when discussing the final product (or at least the theatrical final product) we did receive with this wild beast of a film. Firstly one must discuss one central thing; all of the runes and the man in the black and the cliff-hanger ending regarding young Jamie from the last film was on nobody’s mind to actually interrogate or explain, all bar a screenwriter and Halloween super-fan Daniel Farrands. Farrands is the mvp of this film in no uncertain terms, it was his direct mission to take all mythology touched upon in the rest of the previous films and collate a screenplay that managed to at least on the page it seemed gel all of these elements together. Over the course of the production and the handling by some overseeing partners (primarily the Weinstein’s) the film became the messy, even more convoluted and only marginally effective film we received. For me this is still better than the fifth entry in the series on many levels. The ideas, although whackier and less sensical do feel more cohesive in this entry. It’s the acceptance of what this series has become that makes this film work in the few ways that it does, however these really are few and far between. It’s ultimately a very mixed bag but from the beginning there is a sincerely confidant hand at the helm even if the film itself is very much unwieldly. For instance the opening introductions to our characters, those new and returning is efficient and well directed, bar a repeated atrocious insertion of a series of jump cuts and flashing montages to take us scene to scene to allegedly impact the pace of the film. Chapelle’s direction is firm and does a good job of building tension, and again of introducing the few different tones this film straddles. Farrands dealing with where the film left off and fully leaning into the Mark of Thorn side of things specifically regarding how the Jamie character was last left is interesting, if again absurd when one recalls how this series actually began, but it’s never boring in this film’s first half and as aforementioned is even at times pretty solid. To enjoy Curse one must yes engage on its own ridiculous terms, but can be found to have a fun time. A lot of the unintentional humour of Loomis from the fifth entry is lost in this one and overall unintentional humour is not to be found, bar one dreadful kill where a grown woman gets lost in her own garden and pinned up sheets left to dry. As the film goes on change after change cut to cut grow bigger and bigger due to studio interference and many other factors, the most important of which being the tragic death of Donald Pleasance, whom the film is atrociously dedicated to following the most abrupt and abysmal ending of the whole series, and to be awful offers up one of the darkest and supremely unintentional laughs of the film. Paul Rudd appears here in one of his earliest roles as a grown up Tommy Doyle and despite his weird vocal affectations does fine work that leads one to peg in that this is going to be a star in some way or another in the future. The rest of the performances and characters are all equally fleshed out by Farrands and do offer a nice differential from the atrocious teens we got in the last film, here we have some more descendants of the Strode lineage once again caught up in what I can only describe as the Curse of Michael Myers. The film eventually loses grip on itself in the final stretch and feels more and more of a piece with a Jason movie more than anything else and ends up betraying much of the mythical elements that Farrands spend so much time solidifying in some semblance of proper story. End it all with that atrocious final scream and you get a very, very messy and ultimately despite best intentions bad film.
Halloween H20:
Twenty Years Later (Dir. Steve Miner, 1998)
And now from this point on the “choose your own adventure” element of the series begins, with this new entry taking the angle to make parts 3-6 no longer cannon and instead go from where Halloween 2 left off, with Laurie Strode now in hiding of her own making by faking a car crash death and going into hiding as a head mistress at a secluded private school in California under the name of Keri Tate with her son played by Josh Hartnett. Now, this is simultaneously one of the best sequels in the whole franchise and also one of the more irrelevant with time. Now if one does have the mental dexterity to reckon with this film as a solo entity (including still the first two parts) then one can have a great time, despite some minor and major caveats, but overall one can’t help but feel that the massive impact the finale of this film maintains has been diluted greatly with time. The film itself is compellingly directed by Steve Miner and for the most part really is a sturdy and effective slasher, even if the logical consistency of the whole thing doesn’t exactly all string together with cohesion, many of the set pieces are great and again are largely consistent, much of the acting and writing is better than many of the other films in the franchise, however there is just something missing. Now one can point the finger at a few different options, but a lot can be placed upon the simple fact that this may have the worst Michael in the whole franchise. The mask is awful, the performer is completely wrong for the role and does nothing physically with the role and in many ways comes off as goofy, there is even a bizarre shot where the mask is awful CGI due to complications on set regarding the mask. The actor Chris Durand is just wholly wrong for the part and it does have a greatly negative effect on the film which for the most part is very strong, despite having a middle that feels slightly flabby despite the film in actuality still being under 90 minutes. The films biggest strength for me is not really with the plotting or narrative but in the dialogue and the actual character interactions that bolster the film, largely down to Curtis and Adam Arkin as her lover. Arkin and Hartnett and many others return to the series to the likable supporting characters of the past, making their deaths far more impacting than in parts 5 or 6. LL Cool J in a role here also offers some light and believable comedic relief that never hampers the horror, which is again mostly effective. The screenplay is credited to Robert Zappia however the film was largely re-written and penned by Scream author Kevin Williamson, the touches and feel of Williamson are all over this and the dialogue in relation to Laurie’s traumas and relationships all come off as believable and compelling, even if again as I already said at times a little soap opera-esque. The music for the film takes the original score of Carpenter and makes it entirely orchestral, led by composer John Ottman, the effect is a little jarring but not too distracting, however the best score moment in the film remains the final blast of the original theme at the very closing moment of the film. The final moment of course being the reason this film is taken to another level entirely. A true shock, blast of originality and gutsiness that finally offers what so many fans have wanted for so long. This film lands the moment here and really does tear the roof down, even if by the next film, they betray themselves with regret on our end and I’m sure on theirs too.
Halloween:
Resurrection (Dir. Rick Rosenthal, 2002)
Now, this is the
worst, oh most definitely this is the worst. One of the worse films I’ve seen
in my life in-fact. Not only is the main body of the film an abysmal attempt at
bringing Michael Meyers into the modern world with an internet streaming reality
TV plotline, but the film also has a 15 minute prologue that completely
bastardises H2O and the character of Laurie Strode, to boot. The film
comes to us directed by Rick Rosenthal, who made for my money the best Halloween
sequel, Part 2 and here now directs the absolute worst entry of them all.
Overall the film looks awful and is shoddily made, especially compared to very
solid work Rosenthal did on his earlier effort with Meyers. It all has this
atrocious glare of modernity to it that so painfully does not gel with what Halloween
should be, the cinematography of David Geddes is bland and at times with
the usage of found footage even ugly and incomprehensible. The film also never goes all the way with any
of its conceits, neither its found footage angle or its haunted house angle.
Now the twist on the haunted house (that this all in actuality has been a setup
from the team behind the show) is a badly handled but interesting twist that
actually has more effect because you’re just thankful the film does not go
through with the idea of Michael being tortured as a child in a dungeon, but
the found footage element overall is so very badly fumbled and half-stepped
into it, that you’d be remiss to say the film has any ideas that it sticks with
or successfully delivers upon at all. The film even boasts a completely
irrelevant subplot that it seems is only there to avoid the plot hole question
of “if people were watching these murders happening live on their internet
wouldn’t somebody report it?”, we have a Blade Runner fan nicknamed
Deckard who is an internet pen pal with our female lead and is watching the
live stream and sending her helpful messages about Myer’s whereabouts. This
lamest of the lame version of When a Stranger Calls is probably the most
cringey of the film’s plethora of painful cringey elements. The performances of
those involved range from the awful to the ‘best they could do with this
material’, big names like Tyra Banks even get very little to do, and actors who
are barley in the film like Sean Patrick Thomas get unintentionally funny
“special appearance by” credits. The only standout, for better or for worse is
that of Busta Rhymes as the character of Freddie, the producer of this
“dangertainment” product. Rhymes reportedly wrote many of his own lines and is
the exact sort of jolt of bizarre energy that this film needs to make it in
anyway bearable, I dare even say that Rhymes is good in this performance… apart
from the most unintentionally hilarious moment in the whole franchise, an
attempt at a contemplative and touching speech performed by Rhymes at the end
of the film in some guise of King Kong’s “it was beauty that killed the
beast”… but then nothing will beat “trick or treat mother-f*cker”. The film
concludes with the weakest cliff-hanger sting of the series, with such an empty
attempt at a jump-scare with the lamest of ‘eyes bursting open’ – the word
“lamest” is the only one I can think to keep using. This movie is above all
else, lame, and should be put down. The energy heading into the next incarnation
of the series is one of defeat, if not even despair.
- - Thomas Carruthers
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