Halloween XVII: The Return of the Revenge of the Reupholstery of Michael Myers

During this hectic, moist, and rather inflammatory election season, let us remember the real reason for the season: Halloween.  Halloween seems to take a backseat during every election year and I for one am taking a stand.  If I were more than just me, I would be piling all the stands that I would be able to take into a nice pile to prove that I had taken them in the first place.  That would show the standless hordes for sure once and for all.

Halloween doesn’t even get acknowledged aside from the occasional tired editorial cartoon that has one of the candidates the cartoonist opposes made out to look like a carved jack o’lantern without the candle lit inside and we’re all supposed to chuckle knowingly as this hack gets a Pulitzer prize for having the audacity to retread this worn idea once again.  (Budding editorial cartoonists: no, you may not use this idea if you’ve never heard of it before and yes, you must acknowledge me when you get your Pulitzer.) 

So in order to avoid this electoral quagmire, come with me to the safer confines of Halloween.  After all, Halloween is certainly less scary than most if not all politicians.  Plus, you can feel safe here.  This blog takes on the hard hitting issues of frivolity and nonsense and turns them on their respective ears, if they have ears to begin with once I started.  What was I talking about again?  Oh, yes: Halloween!

Now how can one go through Halloween without mentioning that the season manages to have the best array of motion pictures compared to any other time of year?  One cannot.  The Columbus Day people fall silent.  The Thanksgiving Day fans just have Planes, Trains, and Automobiles and the Charlie Brown special and that’s it.  Ultimately, the bullying Christmas crowd will mash their way on in and throw their weight around on this topic.  However, and I want to state this in my best poor grammatical manner: there are more better Halloween movies than there are Christmas movies.  I know it boils down to personal taste and as I am the one writing this, those people are wrong.  In my correct opinion I can watch Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee all day instead of watching Jimmy Stewart fall into the pool yet again and Bing Crosby croon one more time.  (It’s A Wonderful Life is barely a Christmas movie folks.  Let’s face it.  Clarence could have come at any moment during the year to point out the obvious to George Bailey and you’d get the same result.*)

But soft, let us away from those Christmas nebbishes with their delusions of grandeur and dive into the world of Halloween horror movies, namely the Halloween movie series.  Now entire volumes have been written about this franchise and chances are there’s not much I can offer in the way of new material.  Yet I feel compelled to mention a few things about this much loved and very frustrating film series.  Consider them my Cliff’s Notes for people that won’t even be read because they’re obviously too lazy to watch a movie let alone read something.

Now as far as franchises go, Halloween fits the definition by having lasted with ten movies and sadly still counting.  However as they have Halloween in the title of the movies, they must reflect the greatness of the season.  A friendly word of warning: this franchise has some real peaks and valleys, mostly valleys.  Michael Myers isn’t as pithy as Freddy Krueger or as showy as Jason Voorhees.  He’s creepy and spooky and all together ooky and tends to stalk around more than kill nubile teens in gory ways.  However you can do a lot when you play with the house money that the first movie created over 35 years ago.  

HALLOWEEN

The legendary modern horror films are easy to rattle off: Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Night of the Living Dead, The Evil Dead, Tootsie.  Together with those titles, one can easily put the 1978 classic that started everything: Halloween.  It still holds up rather well even to this day.  Director/screenwriter/composer John Carpenter rightfully made his nut on this flick.  Carpenter hit every note so amazingly well it is hard to believe that this is the same man that made Memoirs of an Invisible Man with Chevy Chase.  Dean Cundey has beautiful cinematography throughout.  The atmosphere is just right, the gore is non-existent, and suspense rules the day, even up and through the ending which they always say they didn’t plan on for a sequel.  Yeah, sure.  Jamie Lee Curtis comes off very well, acting-wise not clothing-wise and Donald Pleasance as Dr. Loomis proves to be an admirable anchor for not just this film, but for the entire series.  (Always try to remember Pleasance in full Blofeld from You Only Live Twice-mode chasing evil.  It makes it fun!)  The character of Michael Myers enters our hearts as the ultimate boogeyman.  The teen characters are not irritating, aside from the relative lack of nudity, and the rest of the cast has very believable performances.  All in all, this film still stands as a cornerstone of the horror film.  It was just one of a remarkable streak of superior pictures that Carpenter made from 1976-1988.  (Yes, I’m including They Live! and I don’t feel guilty about that.)  And they used Don’t Fear the Reaper, which was just the right touch.  Needed more cowbell though.

HALLOWEEN II

 

Of course Halloween also kicked off a slew of imitators with a holiday theme.  My Bloody Valentine, Friday the 13^th, Prom Night, Happy Birthday to Me, Graduation Day, Mother’s Day, Groundhog Day, etc. all followed and some were good, many were not.  Why Arbor Day was never made is still an unanswerable question.  (I can see the poster now: “Are you Green?  Now you’re Red…with BLOOD!”)  But not to be outdone, the producers of Halloween decided to follow the cash with their own follow-up.  As Michael Myers was seemingly alive and free at the end of the first one, they made the first sequel just a continuation of the first movie which makes this the longest Halloween night on record.  Surprisingly the film works and somehow makes itself a worthy companion to the first film.  Others may argue about the subsequent sequels as to their respective merits or lack thereof, but Halloween II basks in the afterglow of the first movie and completely shreds the subsequent sequels.  My arguments against the film would be the rash of victims that are introduced just to be killed is mundane and the introduction to the plotline that Jamie Lee Curtis is actually Myers’ sister is rather unnecessary.  They should’ve just had Dr. Loomis be Michael’s uncle too.  But Donald Pleasance once again can’t shoot enough bullets into Michael Myers and future Last Starfighter Lance Guest gets his first movie role.    

HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH

Has a film angered shrill fanboys in one fell swoop more than Halloween III?  (I would have to say that it finally took Rob Zombie’s second Halloween effort to break the spell of this second sequel on fans.)  Obviously the first sequel printed money, so they rushed into the fray with a third entry.  But they decided against using a Michael Myers storyline because that would be the obvious route to further box office success, I guess.  (I like to think that it was John Carpenter’s idea so that he could finally kill any future attachments to the series, but I digress.)  No Michael in a Halloween movie?  Why, that’s as foolish as having a Friday the 13^th television series and you don’t use Jason Voorhees at all.  (Oh, wait...) However despite that seemingly large gaping Mammoth Cave-sized gaffe, the film itself is a tight little sci-fi horror gem on its own.  Dan O’Herlihy comes across as a great sinister villain and Tom Atkins is a good choice as leading man.  There is much to recommend rediscovering this flick including some great direction by Tommy Lee Wallace.  Alas, this film would be the last in the series that would benefit from the hands of John Carpenter, producer Debra Hill, and cinematographer Dean Cundey.  Had they called the film Season of the Witch and not have it connected with the Halloween series, it might have done better.  Then again, they could have called the movie Free Money or Open Bar and Buffet and had it come out better.  As far as the series goes, each sequel or remake that brings back Michael Myers again and again since this film has come out hasn’t compared with how good Halloween III actually is.

HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS

So after all that audience complaining, Michael Myers comes back from the seeming fiery death he encountered at the end of Halloween II.  (Why isn’t fiery spelled firey?  Why change the order of the letters?  This frustrates me.)  Now to make it even more interesting I would have called this film by the same title and yet never have Myers show up.  You think fans were ticked off before?  That would have been great!  Fortunately this sequel has some things to recommend to it, especially once again compared to a lot of the dreck that follows after this point.  Danielle Harris is introduced as Jamie Lee Curtis’ daughter, which gives Michael Myers a reason to come back to kill some more.  Donald Pleasance is back as well, peppering Michael with as many bullets as he can.  (I like his psychiatric style: if he cannot get through to the patient, either confine him or kill him.  We need more gun-toting doctors to deal with the damaged beyond repair humans that infiltrate our planet.)  My major complaint is that with this film we see the start of how they will never get Michael’s mask right ever again in every sequel.  It is just plain irritating when you see some of the versions that will come out in the films.  The vigilante rednecks story point is a cul-de-sac and once again Michael Myers is blown up.  However, honorable mention goes to Beau Starr, as the police chief who is not just a clichéd small town cop.  Thank you also to the filmmakers for making an entry that wasn’t completely embarrassing despite it still looking throughout like a glorified TV movie.

HALLOWEEN 5: THE REVENGE OF MICHAEL MYERS

Hoo boy, strap in because we’re coming to a downhill slalom starting with this entry.  Taking place one year after the events of Part 4, Michael Myers isn’t blown into Myers bits after all, but instead convalesces under the care of a hobo for the next 365 ¼ days.  Realizing that it is Halloween again and he has relatives to kill, Michael then whacks this guy and comes back to try to kill his niece who is all of a sudden telepathic because it is convenient to the plot.  First the good points: Danielle Harris is a trouper and acquits herself well during the proceedings.  Also Donald Pleasance is the reliable stalwart that have depended on for his relentless pursuit to quash evil.  And that’s about it.  This film is the turning point in the Halloween series because it really is the first time where we are rooting for Michael Myers more than we are hurt when the well-developed characters are eliminated.  Case in point: any film that relies on wacky cops for forced comic relief needs to be stopped at all costs.  Michael couldn’t whack these numbskulls quick enough and even then the film disappoints by not having Michael killing them over and over again.  Then again once more after that.  We have our moment of revenge stolen.  This is reason enough for vitriol.  And the ending where someone in black, probably Johnny Cash, walks around town is confusing and forced and head-scratching.  But this ending is enough to carry over to…dare I say it…

HALLOWEEN: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS

Holy cow, you’re still reading?!  It’s bad enough having to write this stuff, but isn’t there something else more constructive you could be doing?  Well, okay, I’ll continue by saying that the worst sin a film can commit is to be boring.  A close second is everything that Halloween 6 did.  In a futile effort to explain away why Michael Myers is who he is and what he is and why he does what he does beyond what we knew from previous films, we are led down a path of cults and Celtic markings and a just plain angry movie.  Through it all we have Donald Pleasance pop up and he does try valiantly to bring some sanity to this mess, but even he gave up and passed away before the film was even released.  Michael Myers’ niece was recast only to have her character killed thereby ending one of the only redeemable things to have come out of the previous two movies.  However, it is fun to see Paul Rudd in a pre-“I Know Who Paul Rudd Is” role.  Legend once had it that there was an infamous Producer’s Cut of the film that existed that explained some of the rougher patches that the released version butchered through the editing.  This cut of the film was recently released and yes, it is better, but between the two movies, there just isn’t a good movie in there to be had.  It’s like trying to edit Police Academy 4: Citizens On Patrol and Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach together and try to get something barely watchable out of it.   So the series was seemingly dead, but then…

HALLOWEEN H20: TWENTY YEARS LATER

For the 20^th anniversary of the first film, fans were treated with the return of Jamie Lee Curtis to the series!  Horror veteran Steve Miner was directing and a young We Don’t Know Who You Are Yet Josh Hartnett was cast as Curtis’ son.  All the storylines that came after the 2^nd movie were jettisoned to accompany the movie, which consisted of Jamie’s character becoming a teacher at a prep school, trying to live her life after the events of that Halloween night H20 years ago.  Janet Leigh, Jamie Lee’s real life mom and Norman Bates’ favorite guest, pops in and is a welcome sight.  LL Cool J is cast as a security guard and Mr. Cool J is a surprise pleasure.  The film is arguably the best one since the 2^nd one and is a definite highpoint of the series, such as it is.  This is mainly due to Curtis who proves that she has come a long way from the first two movies and My Girl 2.  (Does anyone else notice that the only characters Jamie Lee has repeated in her film career have been in either Halloween movies or the My Girls?  Is that good or bad?)  I remember that the ending was amazing and resulted in cheers from the audience after Jamie Lee takes care of Michael Myers once and for all.  Well…

HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION

Okay, so this movie went ahead and proved that you can suck the air completely out of the film that preceded it.  Jamie Lee didn’t really kill Myers, Myers instead comes in the first 15 minutes and kills Jamie Lee Curtis.  Ahem.  So now we’re left with what?  A group of kids wanting to be part of a reality show filming inside of the old Myers’ house and Michael comes back and hijinks ensue.  Busta Rhymes is in there somewhere, trying like mad to be as good as LL Cool J and just cannot do it.  What happened aside from the producers killing all of the good will created in the previous film?  Outside of the first 15 minutes, take away Michael Myers from the story completely and make it just a random serial killer’s house.  See?  There’s nothing special to Halloween there which makes this film yet another in a long line of “Hey we started a new storyline in the middle of all these sequels and now we’ve squashed the potential completely” films that consistently dog the Halloween series.  Think about it: the Friday the 13^th series was pretty tight in comparison, which is sad for other reasons.  So now we’ve had at least three mini-series within 8 sequels.  What could possibly happen now?

HALLOWEEN

Well, you get Rob Zombie in to perk the series up.  Now I love Rob Zombie.  I’ve followed his music from White Zombie’s Astro Creep 2000 to the present day solo efforts.  I think that his love of the horror genre knows no bounds.  He is very well read on the topic and one of the smartest creative minds we’ve seen.  His first movie House of 1000 Corpses was reedited away from him and we have yet to see a director’s cut coming.  His next film The Devil’s Rejects was an amazing ride.  So he wasn’t a bad choice for this project at all given his pedigree.  But I think the film’s major shortcoming comes in trying to explain the faceless Michael Myers by giving him a sympathetic past.  Why Zombie chose this path is a mystery.  It certainly doesn’t make the film as tight as it could have been.  Then again when you have a 4.5 hour documentary on the making of this film perhaps you like over explaining things beyond the level of typical audience patience.  Malcom McDowell is no Donald Pleasance, but he still is not a bad choice for Dr. Loomis.  The usual array of Zombie regulars and his use of genre players comes off well.  His choice for the Jamie Lee Curtis role, Scout Taylor-Compton, is excruciatingly bad to the point that you really want Michael Myers to drive several knives into her.  Danielle Harris from Parts 4 and 5 was also cast and does a very good job, so good you wonder why Zombie didn’t cast her in the lead instead.  Unless his goal was to make us hate Taylor-Compton and he just couldn’t do that to the much loved Harris.  What is irritating is there are so many things that Zombie got right, it is frustrating that the film doesn’t come together as a whole.  Yet it made money so we got…

H2: HALLOWEEN II

Remember what I said about over explaining?  Here I’ll refresh your memory: But I think the film’s major shortcoming comes in trying to explain the faceless Michael Myers by giving him a sympathetic past.  I give Zombie credit by not just doing a rehash of the first sequel.  He could’ve taken that path, which would have been easier, but instead he went in a “I’m going to beat Michael’s motivation into your head and you’re going to like it” mode.  Well, I didn’t like it, quite the opposite.  And Taylor-Compton proves that she could be even more irritating and grating than in the first movie.  As she set that bar so high previously, it is comforting to know that she didn’t blow her entire talents on the first movie.  This is just an angry, confused mess of a movie.  Danielle Harris once again is wasted in the role.  This entire film just makes me want to walk away and enjoy Friday the 13^th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan instead.  And I hate that movie. 

Well, you made it this far and I think you’re just completely mad to have made it this far.  However, I hope that my little ranting diatribe on this series hasn’t put you off of it.  At the very least, see the original first film and go from there.  Besides, the Halloween series has much to commend to it.  First off and foremost off, it isn’t the Nightmare on Elm Street series.  Whew, you want to talk about beleaguered?

Have a happy, enjoyable, and fattening Halloween everyone!  And in the words of Dr. Loomis replying to someone saying that they've been trick or treated to death tonight: "You don't know what death is!"

* There are eleven Christmas classics that I will heartily endorse in no particular order: The Bishop’s Wife, the George C. Scott version of A Christmas Carol, the original Miracle On 34^th Street, A Christmas Story, Batman Returns, Die Hard, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Scrooged, Die Hard 2, Lethal Weapon, and Gremlins.