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Remember, we're going from worst to best, which means that we've got a real stinker today. I'm talking about:
Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers
Concept: No, it's not just Michael shouting "fuck!" Although that would have been a lot better than what we got. Instead, we get handed the most nonsensical conspiracy this side of a Dan Brown novel. Turns out that Michael wasn't just a nutjob who killed one sister and wanted to kill his other one (and his niece). No, he's actually the product of a mad social engineering experiment by mad druids who believe they've created the ultimate evil. And when Michael's pregnant niece escapes from their secret lab and manages to give birth and hide the baby on a train before Michael can kill her, Michael goes on a killing rampage that just happens to take him back to his old hometown of Haddonfield, and his long-lost (to the point of never having been heard of until now) relatives. All but Kara Strode and her illegitimate son Danny (who might be insane) bite it. We also see the return of Dr. Loomis, as well as little Tommy from the first movie, who finds the abandoned baby and hides it, just like you or I would do. Michael Mayhem ensues. People die. Tommy claims that this is because of the Curse of the Thorn ("Fuck," says the Thorn), which requires someone to kill their entire family for the good of the world (so how does that explain the other people Michael kills?).
Body count: Ten for sure, thanks to Michael's handywork. He also kills a number of druids/scientists off-screen near the end.
Really Bad Kills: Personally, it takes a lot for me to enjoy a head explosion. Cronenberg got it right, of course, but for the most part, nothing says gratuitous like an exploding cranium. So having the electrocuted John Strode's head fly apart was just a little silly. Actually, it was incredibly silly.
Really Good Kills: None, really. With the exception of his visit to the hospital in Part 2, Michael's generally been more a straightforward villain. While Jason might be thinking, "oooh, a rusty nail, a bucket, and a duck -- I could kill someone in a really nifty way with these," Michael's usually thinking something along the lines of "stabby, stabby, stab." He's a meat and potatoes kind of killer. He does try a few things here, including spiking a woman's head and using a motorized garden thingee, but the effort just isn't there.
Celebrities: Paul Rudd is the adult Tommy (and what is it with little kids named Tommy growing up to fight slasher villains, anyway?). Donald Pleasance gives his final performance as Loomis. Mitch Ryan, who plays the conniving Dr. Wynn, is a character actor who's been in everything under the sun, but will probably be best known to lots of people as Will Riker's dad on Star Trek: TNG and as Minnie Driver's dad in Grosse Pointe Blank. Kim Darby, who gets axed in the yard, is another great character actor, likely known to everyone as the mom in Better Off Dead.
Denouement: Hey, looks like the whole Druid plotline was just a red herring! Turns out that they were all really just mad scientists, led by none other than Dr. Wynn, who supervised Michael at the sanitarium. He believe that they've isolated the gene for "pure evil," and since the only people to possess it -- a serial killer named Michael and a South Dakota Senator named Dick Chaney -- are likely to die soon, he wants to use the baby's genes to help engineer more evil. Or maybe Danny's genes. The speech really doesn't make any sense. But anyway, while we're finding this out, Tommy helps rescue Kara, Michael escapes and kills all the doctors, even his beloved Dr. Wynn, and eventually, Tommy beats Michael to death with a lead pipe.
I'll repeat that.
Scrawny Tommy beats Michael to death with a lead pipe. The guy who survived stabbing, multiple gunshots, falling, getting blown up, and drowning can't fight against a guy with a pipe.
We get a final teaser ending in which Loomis goes back to look at Michael's body, then we hear a stabbing sound and a shout. Oh noes! What will happen?
Miscellany: This was the final film that Donald Pleasance filmed. It's also damned clear that he wasn't doing well while filming this.
Of interest, there's a "producer's cut" of this movie floating around as a bootleg. It's infinitely better, in the same way that the "renegade" cut of Highlander 2 is better than the theatrical cut. In other words, it sucks less, but it still sucks. That said, it's much more coherent, actually keeping (for better or for worse) the Druidic plotline intact, and removing some of the dumbest elements from this film. Had that film been the one actually released, I'd probably be kicking these reviews off with a different film. But I'm reviewing the film you can actually find at your local store, not something you need to find as a bootleg.
The director of this film, Joe Chapelle ("I'm Michael Myers, Bitch!"), is uncredited as director on Hellraiser: Bloodline, a film that almost makes this one look good.
Overall: This film sucks. No two ways around it. That said, it's so unbelievably bad, it's actually somewhat watchable as an MST3K piece. It does, in a way, attempt to answer the questions brought up at the end of Part 5, but in doing so, it muddies things up more than it answers them. I could go into more details on the various specifics (from Tommy's obsession with cults and Michael, to the silly shock jock, to the fact that the producers didn't want to pay Danielle Harris $5k to reprise her role as Michael's niece, to Michael's ability to travel around town using a hitherto-unknown teleporter, etc), but really, pick almost any scene, and it's guarenteed to blow.
Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers
Concept: No, it's not just Michael shouting "fuck!" Although that would have been a lot better than what we got. Instead, we get handed the most nonsensical conspiracy this side of a Dan Brown novel. Turns out that Michael wasn't just a nutjob who killed one sister and wanted to kill his other one (and his niece). No, he's actually the product of a mad social engineering experiment by mad druids who believe they've created the ultimate evil. And when Michael's pregnant niece escapes from their secret lab and manages to give birth and hide the baby on a train before Michael can kill her, Michael goes on a killing rampage that just happens to take him back to his old hometown of Haddonfield, and his long-lost (to the point of never having been heard of until now) relatives. All but Kara Strode and her illegitimate son Danny (who might be insane) bite it. We also see the return of Dr. Loomis, as well as little Tommy from the first movie, who finds the abandoned baby and hides it, just like you or I would do. Michael Mayhem ensues. People die. Tommy claims that this is because of the Curse of the Thorn ("Fuck," says the Thorn), which requires someone to kill their entire family for the good of the world (so how does that explain the other people Michael kills?).
Body count: Ten for sure, thanks to Michael's handywork. He also kills a number of druids/scientists off-screen near the end.
Really Bad Kills: Personally, it takes a lot for me to enjoy a head explosion. Cronenberg got it right, of course, but for the most part, nothing says gratuitous like an exploding cranium. So having the electrocuted John Strode's head fly apart was just a little silly. Actually, it was incredibly silly.
Really Good Kills: None, really. With the exception of his visit to the hospital in Part 2, Michael's generally been more a straightforward villain. While Jason might be thinking, "oooh, a rusty nail, a bucket, and a duck -- I could kill someone in a really nifty way with these," Michael's usually thinking something along the lines of "stabby, stabby, stab." He's a meat and potatoes kind of killer. He does try a few things here, including spiking a woman's head and using a motorized garden thingee, but the effort just isn't there.
Celebrities: Paul Rudd is the adult Tommy (and what is it with little kids named Tommy growing up to fight slasher villains, anyway?). Donald Pleasance gives his final performance as Loomis. Mitch Ryan, who plays the conniving Dr. Wynn, is a character actor who's been in everything under the sun, but will probably be best known to lots of people as Will Riker's dad on Star Trek: TNG and as Minnie Driver's dad in Grosse Pointe Blank. Kim Darby, who gets axed in the yard, is another great character actor, likely known to everyone as the mom in Better Off Dead.
Denouement: Hey, looks like the whole Druid plotline was just a red herring! Turns out that they were all really just mad scientists, led by none other than Dr. Wynn, who supervised Michael at the sanitarium. He believe that they've isolated the gene for "pure evil," and since the only people to possess it -- a serial killer named Michael and a South Dakota Senator named Dick Chaney -- are likely to die soon, he wants to use the baby's genes to help engineer more evil. Or maybe Danny's genes. The speech really doesn't make any sense. But anyway, while we're finding this out, Tommy helps rescue Kara, Michael escapes and kills all the doctors, even his beloved Dr. Wynn, and eventually, Tommy beats Michael to death with a lead pipe.
I'll repeat that.
Scrawny Tommy beats Michael to death with a lead pipe. The guy who survived stabbing, multiple gunshots, falling, getting blown up, and drowning can't fight against a guy with a pipe.
We get a final teaser ending in which Loomis goes back to look at Michael's body, then we hear a stabbing sound and a shout. Oh noes! What will happen?
Miscellany: This was the final film that Donald Pleasance filmed. It's also damned clear that he wasn't doing well while filming this.
Of interest, there's a "producer's cut" of this movie floating around as a bootleg. It's infinitely better, in the same way that the "renegade" cut of Highlander 2 is better than the theatrical cut. In other words, it sucks less, but it still sucks. That said, it's much more coherent, actually keeping (for better or for worse) the Druidic plotline intact, and removing some of the dumbest elements from this film. Had that film been the one actually released, I'd probably be kicking these reviews off with a different film. But I'm reviewing the film you can actually find at your local store, not something you need to find as a bootleg.
The director of this film, Joe Chapelle ("I'm Michael Myers, Bitch!"), is uncredited as director on Hellraiser: Bloodline, a film that almost makes this one look good.
Overall: This film sucks. No two ways around it. That said, it's so unbelievably bad, it's actually somewhat watchable as an MST3K piece. It does, in a way, attempt to answer the questions brought up at the end of Part 5, but in doing so, it muddies things up more than it answers them. I could go into more details on the various specifics (from Tommy's obsession with cults and Michael, to the silly shock jock, to the fact that the producers didn't want to pay Danielle Harris $5k to reprise her role as Michael's niece, to Michael's ability to travel around town using a hitherto-unknown teleporter, etc), but really, pick almost any scene, and it's guarenteed to blow.