Written by Daniel Farrands
Directed by Joe Chappelle
Tommy (re Michael Myers): "If there's one thing I know, you can't control evil. You can lock it up, burn it, and bury it, and pray that it dies, but it never will. It just... rests awhile. You can lock your doors, and say your prayers, but the evil is out there... waiting. And maybe, just maybe... it's closer than you think!"
If ever there was a movie in this franchise so marred by everything, it would be this. It went through so many rewrites and behind the scenes disaster, it's actually a miracle the bloody thing ever saw the light of day to begin with. Saying that, there are probably some fans who wished it never did. I am not one of them, though that doesn't mean I don't have my own issues with this film.
Before going any further, I am reviewing what was released in cinemas and not the producer's cut and now that I have that bit out of the way, let's proceed, shall we? It's been six years since the event of the fifth film and both Michael Myers (George P. Wilbur) and Jamie Lloyd (JC Brandy) have been missing. Except they haven't really as we quickly learn that the Creepy Cult of Thorn have been keeping both prisoner for that amount of time.
The movie begins with a captive Jamie giving birth to Michael's baby, who later will be called Stephen as the Cult want to maintain Michael's killer bloodline while a compassionate nurse helps Jamie to escape only for the latter to get a grisly death from her uncle but not before managing to hide baby Stephen away from his father/grand uncle and that freaking awful Cult.
The baby however is found by a grown up Tommy Doyle, now with brown hair, played by Paul Rudd and exhibiting a similar fixation on Michael akin to Dr Loomis (Donald Pleasence), who more or less does his best to protect the kid from both Michael and the Thorn with Loomis's help while also getting involved with the other Strode family of the movie.
Nicely trying to tie things back to the original movie in a way, the other Strodes have moved into the Myers family and they're comprised of abusive father John (Bradford English), put upon wife Debra (Kim Darby), college student, Tim (Keith Bogarth) and estranged daughter, Kara (Marianne Hagan) and her son, Danny (Devin Gardner). There's an entire story with Danny in this movie that is completely abandoned as it's implied that he too might be a future mass murderer in the making, which leads to a big problem with this movie.
Choppy editing and a rushed ending, the biggest problem is that there are too many elements here to deal with. Danny's story is abandoned while the cult focus on kidnapping our main players as Michael goes around killing Wynn's (Mitchell Ryan) acolytes off one by one while things end on the note that Loomis himself, in a far more subdued role compared to previous outings might also be tied into the Thorn cult whether he likes it or not.
Still though, in spite of the many problems this movie evidently has, it's still watchable in most parts. Tommy and Kara are charming enough protagonists and most of the supporting characters, including Tim's girlfriend Beth and a radio host named Barry are better utilised compared to any of the characters the previous movie had and Michael gets in at least one or two rather gruesome kills, so there's that at least working in it's favour.
- This movie dropped the numbering as well as the pumpkin style openings. I miss those to be honest from the later movies as well.
- George P. Wilbur along with Nick Castle and Tyler Mane are now in the exclusive club of being the only actors to have played Michael Myers in two movies each.
- Other titles for the movie included The Origin Of Michael Myers but the one they went with was a nice commentary on the chaos they had making this one.
- Donald Pleasence passed away shortly after this film was made.
I don't hate The Curse Of Michael Myers and within the review, I did point out the positives I found with it but it's so easy to see why so many other fans loathed this one. It's undeniably a mess to watch and the cult stuff (along with that awful pronunciation of Samhain) simply doesn't work but there are three worse movies on the horizon, so I'm willing to cut this one some slack.
Rating: 6 out of 10
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