International Horror Film Review: Nosferatu in Venice (dir by Augusto Caminito, Klaus Kinski, Luigi Cozzi, Mario Ciaino, and possibly others)

Posted on October 13, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Nosferatu the vampyre is back! Well, maybe. It’s complicated,

This Italian production from 1988 was originally envisioned as being a semi-official sequel to Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu, which was itself a remake of F.W. Murnau’s silent classic. The idea was that Klaus Kinski would reprise his role and this time, his feral version of Dracula would haunt Venice. Kinski agreed, initially, to reprise his role. However, after arriving on the set, Kinski lived up to his infamous reputation for being difficult. He announced that he would, under no circumstances, don the famous make-up that he wore in Nosferatu. And while Kinski was undoubtedly a good actor who was capable of giving performances that kept him employed despite reportedly being insane, Nosferatu without the makeup is not really Nosferatu. He’s just another vampire.

Still, Kinski was a big enough star that he got his way about the makeup. He also attempted to get his way during the first day of filming, when he refused to take any direction from director Mario Ciaino. When Ciaino attempted to figure out why Kinski was being so difficult, Kinski declared that he had been promised, by producer Augusto Caminito, that he would be allowed to direct the film. This led to Mario Ciaino quitting during the first day of production. Producer Caminito took over as a director, though apparently Kinski did end up directing several of his own scenes. Reportedly, other scenes were directed by Luigi Cozzi.

However, Kinski didn’t stop with getting the director replaced. He also demanded that nearly the entire cast be replaced as well. Kinski, in fact, was such a terror on the set that it was common for members of the crew to refuse to work with him, which perhaps explains why Kinski seems to spend so much of this film wandering around Venice by himself.

As for the film itself — well, yes, it’s exactly as big of a mess as it sounds like it would be. Kinski plays a vampire who may or may not be Dracula. Actually, very few of the traditional vampire rules seem to apply to him. He wanders around in the daylight. He looks at his reflection in a mirror. He does, however, drink a lot of blood so I guess some things never change. Because he refused to wear the vampire makeup or shave his head, Kinski spends the entire film looking like the aging lead singer of a 70s prog rock band. At the same time, it must be said that Kinski actually does give a fairly good performance. He’s a vampire who is desperate to find someone pure of heart who can end his ennui-stricken life. Kinski’s screen presence is undeniably powerful and he looks appropriately miserable.

Christopher Plummer has the Van Helsing role and Donald Pleasence plays a priest who always seems to be somewhat nervous. (In other words, a typical role for Donald Pleasence.) Plummer is in Venice because, back in the 18th century, it was the last place that Kinski’s vampire was seen. This leads to several confusing flashbacks, all of which are somewhat randomly sprinkled throughout the film.

There’s not really any story beyond Kinski walking around with a stricken-look on his face but, oddly, the film kind of works. Despite all of the directors who worked on it, the film is often visually stunning. I think it’s the power of Venice. No other city has quite the same atmosphere as Venice and it turns out to be the perfect location for a film about an ennui-stricken vampire.

(I know that when I visited Venice the summer after I graduated high school, I often found myself thinking about vampires. That’s just the type of city it is.)

Anyway, the film will be best appreciated by Italian horror enthusiasts and Kinski completists. Others will probably be bored out of their mind. If you just want to see a good horror film set in Venice, I recommend Don’t Look Now.

When It Comes To Halloween, Should You Trust The IMDb?

Posted on October 1, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Dr. Sam Loomis

Like a lot of people, I enjoy browsing the trivia sections of the IMDb. While it’s true that a lot of the items are stuff like, “This movie features two people who appeared on a television series set in the Star Trek Universe!,” you still occasionally came across an interesting fact or two.

Of course, sometimes, you just come across something that makes so little sense that you can only assume that it was posted as a joke. For instance, I was reading the IMDb’s trivia for the original 1978 Halloween and I came across this:

Peter O’Toole, Mel Brooks, Steven Hill, Walter Matthau, Jerry Van Dyke, Lawrence Tierney, Kirk Douglas, John Belushi, Lloyd Bridges, Abe Vigoda, Kris Kristofferson, Sterling Hayden, David Carradine, Dennis Hopper, Charles Napier, Yul Brynner and Edward Bunker were considered for the role of Dr. Sam Loomis.

Now, some of these names make sense. Despite the fact that Sam Loomis became Donald Pleasence’s signature role, it is still possible to imagine other actors taking the role and perhaps bringing a less neurotic interpretation to the character.

Peter O’Toole as Dr. Loomis? Okay, I can see that.

Kirk Douglas, Sterling Hayden, Charles Napier, Steve Hill, or Lloyd Bridges as Dr. Loomis? Actually, I can imagine all of them grimacing through the role.

Walter Matthau? Well, I guess if you wanted Dr. Loomis to be kind of schlubby….

Abe Vigoda? Uhmmm, okay.

Dennis Hopper? That would be interesting.

Mel Brooks? What? Wait….

John Belushi? Okay, stop it!

Dr. Sam Loomis

My point is that I doubt any of these people were considered for the role of Dr. Loomis. Both director John Carpenter and producer Debra Hill have said that they wanted to cast an English horror actor in the role, as a bit of an homage to the Hammer films of the 60s. Christopher Lee was offered the role but turned it down, saying that he didn’t care for the script or the low salary. (Lee later said this was one of the biggest mistakes of his career.) Peter Cushing’s agent turned down the role, again because of the money. It’s not clear whether Cushing himself ever saw the script.

To be honest, I could easily Peter Cushing in the role and I could see him making a brilliant Dr. Loomis. But, ultimately, Donald Pleasence was the perfect (if not the first) choice for the role. Of course, Pleasence nearly turned down the role as well. Apparently, it was his daughter, Angela, who changed his mind. She was an admirer of John Carpenter’s previous film, Assault on Precint 13. Carpenter has said that he was originally intimidated by Donald Pleasence (the man had played Blofeld, after all) but that Pleasence turned out to be a professional and a gentleman.

Laurie Strode

Of course, Halloween is best known for being the first starring role of Jamie Lee Curtis. Curtis was actually not Carpenter’s first choice for the role of Laurie Strode. His first choice was an actress named Annie Lockhart, who was the daughter of June Lockhart. Carpenter changed his mind when he learned that Jamie was the daughter of Janet Leigh. Like any great showman, Carpenter understood the importance of publicity and he knew nothing would bring his horror movie more publicity then casting the daughter of the woman whose onscreen death in Psycho left moviegoers nervous about taking a shower.

There was also another future big name who came close to appearing in Halloween. At the time that she was cast as Lynda, P.J. Soles was dating an up-and-coming actor from Texas named Dennis Quaid. Quaid was offered the role of Lynda’s doomed boyfriend, Bob but he was already committed to another film.

Not considered for a role was Robert Englund, though the future Freddy Krueger still spent some time on set. He was hired by Carpenter to help spread around the leaves that would make it appear as if his film was taking place in the October, even though it was filmed in May.

Robert Englund, making May look like October

Interestingly enough, Englund nearly wasn’t need for that job because Halloween was not originally envisioned as taking place on Halloween or any other specific holiday. When producer Irwin Yablans and financier Moustapha Akkad originally approached Carpenter and Hill to make a movie for them about a psycho stalking three babysitters, they didn’t care when the film was set. It was only after Carpenter and Hill wrote a script called The Babysitter Muders that it occurred to Yablans that setting the film during Halloween would be good from a marketing standpoint. Plus Halloween made for a better title than The Babysitter Murders.

And, of course, the rest is history. Carpenter’s film came to define Halloween and it still remains the standard by which every subsequent slasher movie has been judged. Would that have happened if the film had been known as The Babysitter Murders and had starred John Belushi?

Sadly, we may never know.

Horror Scenes That I Love: Dr. Loomis Explains Michael Myers in the original Halloween

Posted on October 14, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Now, this is good acting!

In this scene from the original Halloween, Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) attempts, as best he can, to explain the unexplainable. I’ve always felt that Pleasence’s performance in the first film is extremely underrated. People always tend to concentrate on the scenes where he gets angry and yells or the later films where an obviously fragile Pleasence was clearly doing the best he could with poorly written material. But, to me, the heart of Pleasence’s performance (and the film itself) is to be found in this beautifully delivered and haunting monologue.

In this scene, we see that Dr. Loomis is himself a victim of Michael Myers. Spending the last fifteen years with Michael has left Loomis shaken and obviously doubting everything that he once believed. Whenever I watch both Halloween and its sequel, I always feel very bad for Dr. Loomis. Not only did he have to spend 15 years with a soulless psychopath but, once Michael escapes, he has to deal with everyone blaming him for it. Dr. Loomis was literally the only person who saw Michael for what he was.

Moldy Horror: FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE (Warner Bros/Amicus 1973)

Posted on May 1, 2018 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

I’ve discussed the Max Roseberg/Milton Subotsky Amicus horror anthologies before on this blog. All are good, if uneven, little entries in the genre, and FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE is no exception. This was the last of the Amicus tales of terror, a quartet of creepiness based on the work of British horror writer R. Chetwynd-Hayes. I’ll admit I’m not familiar with Mr. Cheywynd-Hayes’s work, so I couldn’t tell you if the movie’s faithful to it or not. I can tell you FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE is about 50/50 in the chills department.

An all-star British cast gives it a game try, though. The segments are linked by horror icon Peter Cushing , looking rather gaunter than usual as the proprietor of Temptations Ltd., an antique shop which serves to set the stories in motion. Unfortunately, the part is a waste of Cushing’s talent; I could see him in any of…

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A Movie A Day #307: River of Death (1989, directed by Steve Carver)

Posted on November 12, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

In the Amazon, natives are dying of a mysterious disease. Could it have anything to do with a German war criminal named Wolfgang (played by Robert Vaughn) who is living in a cave that is decorated with a Nazi flag? A scientist (Victor Melleney) and his daughter, Anna (Sarah Maur Thorp), are determined to find out. They hire a tough explorer, John Hamilton (Michael Dudikoff), to lead them up the river but John does not do a very good job because the scientist ends up dead and Anna ends up kidnapped.

Everyone tells John to forget about Anna. Colonel Diaz (Herbert Lom) says that she is dead. John’s best friend, an arms dealer named Eddie (L.Q. Jones), says that she’s dead. John refuses to accept that and he organizes an expedition to help track them down. A strange man (Donald Pleasence) and his assistant (Cynthia Erland) approach John and offer to help. What John does not know is that the man is actually Heinrich Spaatz, yet another Nazi war criminal.

River of Death is a ridiculous movie but it is entertaining in a way that only a late 80s Michael Dudikoff movie can be. Though River of Death was a Cannon film, it was produced by the legendary Harry Alan Towers, which is probably why the production standards are higher than the average Menahem Golan quickie. Dudikoff does a passable imitation of Indiana Jones (and he even gets to do some Apocalypse Now-style narrating) but the real reason to watch the film is to watch veteran actors like Robert Vaughn, Donald Pleasence, Herbert Lom, and L.Q. Jones ham it up. Vaughn doesn’t even attempt to sound German while Pleasence gives a performance that is strange even by his own considerable standards.

One final note: River of Death was the second-to-last film directed by Steve Carver, who also did Capone, and Big Bad Mama, along with helping to make Chuck Norris a star by directing Lone Wolf McQuade and An Eye For An Eye.

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: I Don’t Want To Be Born (dir by Peter Sasdy)

Posted on October 31, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“I don’t want to be born!”

“That’s too bad, kid! YOU’RE COMING OUT!”

Now, admittedly, that dialogue is never heard in the 1975 British horror film, I Don’t Want To Be Born. However, if I had heard that particularly exchange in this film, I would not have been surprised. That’s just the type of movie that I Don’t Want To Be Born is. It’s a thoroughly ludicrous, totally ridiculous movie and what makes it all the more memorable is that it doesn’t seem to realize how silly it all is. This is a batshit crazy movie that tells its story in the most serious way possible. This damn film is almost somber, it’s so serious.

Lucy (played by Joan Collins) is a stripper who performs her act with a perverted dwarf named Hercules (George Claydon). When Hercules tries to force himself on Lucy, he is tossed out of the club by Tommy (who is played by John Steiner, a good actor who somehow always turned up in movies like this one.) After she and Tommy make love, Lucy is confronted by Hercules who curses her, telling her that she will have a baby “as big as I am small and possessed by the devil himself!”

Oh, Hercules, you weirdo.

9 months later, Lucy’s life has somehow completely changed. She’s no longer a dancer. Now, she’s married to a rich Italian named Gino (played by Ralph Bates, speaking in a bizarre accent). When Lucy has her baby, it’s a long and difficult delivery. The baby is huge! Not only is he huge, but he also has a bad temper and unnaturally sharp nails. The first time that Lucy holds him, he attacks her. Whenever the baby is introduced to anyone new, he responds by biting them. When Tommy drops by to take a look at the baby that might be his son, he ends up with a bloody nose!

But that’s not all this baby can do! Anytime he’s left alone in a room, the room ends up getting destroyed. Eventually, he apparently figures out how to climb trees and how efficiently slip a noose around the neck of anyone who walks underneath him. And don’t think that you can escape this baby simply because you’re taller and faster. One unfortunate person is decapitated, even though he’s standing at the time. How did the baby reach his neck? Who knows?

Does this baby need an exorcism? Lucy’s sister-in-law, Sister Albana (Eileen Atkins), certainly believes that it does! As Lucy thinks about whether the baby’s behavior is in any way odd, she glances over at the baby and — OH MY GOD! The baby has Hercules’s face!

And it just keeps going from there. Again, I feel the need to repeat that this film is meant to be taken very seriously. The script may be full of awkward and clichéd dialogue but most of the cast attempts to act the Hell out of it. Speaking of the cast, there’s a lot of familiar horror people in this one. Along with John Steiner, there’s also Caroline Munro and Donald Pleasence. Those three give performances that somehow manage to remain credible, perhaps because they had the experience necessary to understand what type of movie they were in. But the rest of the cast … you feel bad for them because they’re just trying so hard.

It’s a terrible movie but it’s so weird that I have to recommend that everyone see it once. If for nothing else, see it for the scene where Hercules responds to an attempt to exorcise the baby by swaying drunkenly on the stage. It’s weird and it’s hard for mere words to do it justice.

“No wonder this baby didn’t want to be born!”

That line is also nowhere to be found in this movie. It’d be nice if it was, though.

A Movie A Day #200: A Breed Apart (1984, directed by Philippe Mora)

Posted on July 27, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Sometimes, the story behind a movie is more interesting than the movie itself.

Rutger Hauer stars in A Breed Apart, playing an eccentric environmentalist named Jim Malden. Malden loves nature but he hates people, with the exception of a local storekeeper named Stella (Kathleen Turner) and her young son. The local fishermen (one of whom is played by Hauer’s Blade Runner co-star, Brion James) may hate him but they are no match for Malden’s guerilla tactics. Recently, a new breed of bald eagle has been discovered and Malden is determined to protect it. At the top of a cliff, there is a nest full of eagle eggs and Malden will not let anyone near them.

Rich collector J.J. Whittier (Donald Pleasence) is determined to get those eggs for himself. In order to deal with Malden, Whittier hires famous rock climber, Mike Walker (Powers Boothe). Disguising himself as a nature photographer, Walker attempts to befriend Malden so that he can get to the eggs. Even as Malden shows Walker why it is important to protect the environment, Walker falls in love with Stella.

With a cast like this, A Breed Apart should have been far more interesting than it was. It provides a rare chance to see both Rutger Hauer and Powers Boothe playing heroes but neither seemed to really be into their roles. Kathleen Turner was sexy but saddled with a terrible accent while Donald Pleasence seemed to be in a different movie. When I watched A Breed Apart last night, I thought it seemed like a very disjointed movie. For instance, the movie abruptly jumped from Stella and Walker first meeting to the end of their first date. There was a random scene of Malden putting on war paint, while remembering the sound of helicopters. War paint combined with helicopters in an 80s movie usually means that someone is having a Vietnam War flashback but Malden’s military background is never mentioned again. Even Walker’s conversion to Malden’s cause and rejection of Whittier’s money seemed to happen offscreen.

According to Wikipedia, It turns out that there was a reason for all that. A Breed Apart was filmed in North Carolina. After principal filming was completed, four reels of film were sent back to Los Angeles. However, only three reels ever arrived in California. One reel disappeared and has never been found. The footage that actually did make it to Los Angeles was reorganized and edited to try to disguise the fact that a huge part of the movie was missing.

It didn’t work.

(ADDENDUM 9/4/2017: Originally, both myself and a lot of other reviewers, were under the impression that one reel of film went missing and, as a result, the film had to be reedited to make up for the missing footage. This story is presented as fact on Wikipedia, which is where I and I assume a lot of other people originally got it. The lesson here is not to use an online encyclopedia that anyone can edit for a primary or even a credible source. In the comments below, Director Philippe Mora has let me know that there was no lost reel and that, instead, there are several different cuts of the film kicking around, some of which are incomplete and some of which are ok. Since Mora actually worked on the film, he is a far more credible source than an anonymous Wikipedia article. I apologize to Mr. Mora for the mistake.)

A Movie A Day #175: Telefon (1977, directed by Don Siegel)

Posted on July 2, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Across America, strange things are happening. Seemingly ordinary, middle-aged citizens are, without explanation, attacking formerly top secret government facilities. The attackers are from all different walks of life. One was an auto mechanic. Another was a priest. There was even a housewife who, after blowing up a power station, committed suicide with a poison pill that the KGB stopped issuing a decade ago. Before launching their attacks, each one of them received a phone call in which a Russian man recited a poem by Robert Frost.

The Americans may not understand what is happening but the Soviets do. Immediately after the Cuban Missile Crisis, the KGB planted sleeper agents across the United States. They hypnotized and brainwashed the agents so thoroughly that they no longer remember that they are agents. The Frost poem was the trigger designed to activate the agents, all of whom were meant to attack what were then valuable parts of America’s infrastructure. With the arrival of détente, the program was abandoned and the sleeper agents were simply left behind in the United States. But now, a former hardliner (Donald Pleasence), is activating the agents one by one. Because he has a photographic memory, KGB colonel Charles Bronson is sent to the United States to track down and kill Pleasence before the United States discovers the truth about what is happening. Lee Remick, as an American KGB agent, is assigned to work with him but is also ordered to kill him once the assignment has been completed.

That Telfon is one of Charles Bronson’s better post-Death Wish films is largely due to the presence of Don Siegel in the director’s chair. As a director who specialized in intelligent genre films and who helped to make Clint Eastwood one of the world’s biggest stars with Dirty Harry, Coogan’s Bluff, The Beguiled, and Escape from Alcatraz, Don Siegel was the ideal director to bring out the best in Bronson. Like St. Ives, Telefon features Bronson in an uncharacteristically cerebral role. For once, he spends more time analyzing clues than he does shooting people and Bronson is surprisingly credible as a man with a photographic memory.

As directed by Siegel, Telefon is almost a satire of the type of violent action films that Bronson usually made for directors like Michael Winner. In Telefon, both the bad guys and the good guys are equally clueless. All of the KGB sleeper agents are dumpy and middle-aged and the film continually emphasizes that they’ve all been brainwashed to attack targets that are no longer strategically important. Donald Pleasence, playing one of his raving villains, wears a blonde, Beatles-style wig for much of the film.

Though the ending is a let down, Telefon is still one of the best of Bronson’s late 70s films.

20 Horror Icons Who Were Never Nominated For An Oscar

Posted on February 26, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Though they’ve given some of the best, iconic, and award-worthy performances in horror history, the actors and actresses below have never been nominated for an Oscar.

Asia Argento

Perhaps because of charges of nepotism, people are quick to overlook just how good Asia Argento was in those films she made with Dario Argento. Her work in Trauma especially deserves to be reevaluated. Outside of her work with Dario, Asia gave great, self-directed performances in Scarlet Diva and The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things.

2. Jamie Lee Curtis

“Prom Night! Everything is all right!” Did you know that Jamie Lee Curtis received a Genie Nomination for her performance in Prom Night? That could be because, in 1980, there weren’t that many movies being produced in Canada but still, Jamie was pretty good in that film. And, of course, there’s a little film called Halloween…

3. Peter Cushing

The beloved Hammer horror veteran did wonderful work as both Frankenstein and Van Helsing. Personally, I love his odd cameo in Shock Waves.

4. Robert Englund

One, two, Freddy’s coming for you…

5. Lance Henriksen

One of the great character actors, Lance Henriksen gave one of the best vampire performances of all time in Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark.

6. David Hess

In just two films — Wes Craven’s Last House On The Left and Ruggero Deodato’s The House On The Edge of the Park — Hess defined screen evil. If nothing else, he deserved an Oscar for composing The Road Leads To Nowhere.

7. Boris Karloff

As our own Gary Loggins will tell you, it’s a crime that Boris Karloff never received an Oscar nomination. He may be best remembered for Frankenstein but, for me, Karloff’s best performance was in Targets.

8. Camille Keaton

Yes, Camille Keaton did deserve a Best Actress nomination for I Spit On Your Grave.

9. Klaus Kinski

The notorious and talented Klaus Kinski was never nominated for an Oscar. Perhaps the Academy was scared of what he would do if he won. But, that said, Kinski gave some of the best performances of all time, in films for everyone from Jess Franco to Werner Herzog.

10. Christopher Lee

That the amazing Christopher Lee was never nominated is a shock. Though he will always be Dracula, Lee gave wonderful performances in films of all genres. Lee always cited the little-seen Jinnah as being his best performance.

11. Bela Lugosi

The original Dracula, Lugosi never escaped typecasting. Believe it or not, one of his finest performances was in one of the worst (if most enjoyable) films of all time, Ed Wood’s Bride of the Monster.

12. Catriona MacColl

This English actress gave three excellent performances in each chapter of Lucio Fulci’s Beyond Trilogy, with her performance in The House By The Cemetery elevating the entire film.

13. Daria Nicolodi

This Italian actress served as a muse to two of the best directors around, Dario Argento and Mario Bava. Her award-worthy performances include Deep Red and, especially, Shock.

14. Bill Paxton

This great Texas actor gave award-worthy performances in everything from Near Dark to Aliens to Frailty. RIP.

15. Donald Pleasence

Dr. Loomis! As good as he was in Halloween, Pleasence also gave excellent performances in Roman Polanski’s Cul-de-Sac and a nightmarish Australian film called Wake in Fright.

16. Vincent Price

The great Vincent Price never seems to get the respect that he deserves. He may have overacted at times but nobody went overboard with as much style as Vincent Price. His most award-worthy performance? The Witchfinder General.

17. Giovanni Lombardo Radice

The greatest of all the Italian horror stars, Radice is still active, gracious, and beloved by his many fans. Quentin Tarantino is a self-described fan so it’s time for Tarantino to write him a great role.

18. Michael Rooker

To many people, this great character actor will always be Henry.

19. Joe Spinell

This character actor will always be remembered for playing the lead role in the original Maniac but he also appeared in some of the most acclaimed films of all time. Over the course of a relatively short career, Spinell appeared in everything from The Godfather to Taxi Driver to Rocky to Starcrash. He was the American Klaus Kinski,

20. Barbara Steele

Barbara Steele has worked with everyone from Mario Bava to Jonathan Demme to David Cronenberg to Federico Fellini. Among her many excellent performances, her work in Black Sunday and Caged Heat stands out as particularly memorable.

Even Ant-Man Had To Start Somewhere: Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995, directed by Joe Chappelle)

Posted on October 28, 2016 by Jedadiah Leland

halloween6cover Long before he was either Ant-Man or Judd Apatow’s favorite leading man, Paul Rudd was just another young actor looking for his first break. He got it in 1995 when he was cast in the latest entry in the Halloween franchise. Though Clueless was released first, the man who would be Brian Fantana got his introducing credit for Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. (He’s credited as Paul Stephen Rudd.)

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers was Miramax’s attempt to reboot the franchise by ignoring everything that made the first Halloween such a success in the first place. John Carpenter’s Halloween was the epitome of simplicity, with Michael Myers portrayed as being an almost entirely motiveless killing machine. One reason why Michael was scary was because he didn’t have any reason for killing other than he was evil. (It was not until Halloween II that Laurie was discovered to be Michael’s sister and Samhain came into play.)

In Halloween 6, Michael (played by stuntman George P. Wilbur) is suddenly revealed to be afflicted with the Curse of the Thorn. Because of the curse, he is required to serve as some sort of indestructible hit man for a cult of Druids (!) who are operating out of the basement of Smith Grove’s Sanitarium (!!), the same mental hospital that Michael escaped from at the start of the first film. The head of the cult is Dr. Wynn (Mitchell Ryan), who was Sam Loomis’s boss in the first movie.

963589_032 Donald Pleasence is back as Dr. Sam Loomis but it is not a happy return. This was Pleasence’s final film and, in his few scenes, it is obvious that he was not in good health and his famous voice had been reduced to a hoarse rasp. Pleasence died shortly after filming his scenes, which meant that he wasn’t available for the reshoots that Miramax demanded after the first cut of the film tested badly. Add that to the fact that director Joe Chapelle reportedly had not seen any of the previous Halloweens, did not find the Loomis character to be interesting, and cut him out of several scenes and Dr. Loomis is barely in The Curse of Michael Myers.

Instead, most of the film is centered around Tommy Doyle (Rudd). Yes, the same Tommy Doyle for whom Laurie babysat in the first Halloween. Tommy has figured out that, because of the curse, Michael has to kill his next of kin every Halloween. How did Tommy figure that out? I don’t know and the film doesn’t know. It’s like trying to figure out how Sean Connery knew where the Holy Grail was in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade.

Michael’s next of kin was Jamie Lloyd but, at the end of Halloween 5, she was kidnapped by the Cult of Thorn and held prisoner for six years. For some reason, Michael did not kill her while she was being held captive. Instead, Jamie was impregnated, gave birth to a baby boy named Stephen, and then escaped. Though she was eventually killed by Michael, Tommy found the baby and has to protect the baby from Michael and the Cult.

list12 Why does the Cult want the baby? Why do birds suddenly appear whenever you are near? There is no explanation, it’s just something that happens.

Michael comes back to Haddonfield to track down his grandnephew. He also finds time to kill more members of the dysfunctional Strode family. Luckily, Kara Stroe (Marianne Hagan) and her son, Danny, survive. Danny is having dreams about killing people which would seem to suggest that he has inherited the Curse of the Thorn, except that the Strodes are not actually related to the Myers family so it doesn’t make any damn sense.

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After six films, it not always easy to keep track of how everyone is related. Let’s see if I can do it:

Laurie Myers is the younger sister of Michael Myers and Judith Myers. In 1963, when Michael is 6 and Laurie is 2, Michael murders Judith. Michael goes to Smith’s Grove Sanitarium, where he is treated by Dr. Loomis and secretly raised by the Cult of the Thorn. Mr. and Mrs. Myers die in 1965 and Laurie is adopted by the Strodes. Laurie has no memory of being a Myers.

jamie-lee-curtis-mar-5-2011-2-600 In 1978, Michael “escapes” from Smith’s Grove and tries to kill Laurie. Both he and Dr. Loomis get blown up at the hospital.

Between 1978 and 1988, Laurie marries someone named Lloyd and they have a daughter named Jamie. But then Laurie and her husband die in a traffic accident and Jamie is raised by her foster family, the Carruthers. Except Laurie didn’t really die but instead faked her death and abandoned her daughter which seems like a shitty thing to do.

In 1988, it turns out that both Michael and Dr. Loomis survived being blown up and consumed by a raging inferno. Michael again escapes from custody and goes to Haddonfield. He tries to kill Jamie but instead ends up falling down a mine shaft. Jamie goes home and tries to kill her foster mother.

In 1989, Michael turns out to be alive again and tries to kill Jamie for a second time. The Man In Black, who is somehow connected to the the Cult of Thorn, shows up and breaks Michael out of jail and kidnaps Jamie.

Then, six years later, Jamie has a son named Stephen and is finally killed by Michael. Meanwhile, Laurie’s uncle, John Strode (Bradford English), has moved into the old Myers house because why not live in the house formerly inhabited by a serial killer who tried to murder your family? Living with them is Laurie’s cousins, Kara and Tim (Kieth Bogart) and Kara’s son, Danny.

Meanwhile, Laurie is in the witness protection program and teaching school but you don’t have to worry about that until Halloween: H20.

Got all that?

halloween-6

I haven’t even gotten to the sleazy radio DJ who wants to do a live Halloween broadcast from inside the old Myers House. There’s not much to say about him beyond noting that the role was originally offered to Howard Stern.

There are two versions of The Curse of Michael Myers floating around. There’s the producer’s cut, which goes into more detail about the druids and attempts to fill some of the continuity gaps in the franchise. Then there’s the theatrical edition, which was what Miramax released into theaters. I have only seen the theatrical cut, which is a confusing mess.

While the producer’s cut features Michael being defeated by Celtic magic (which sounds stupid but would actually go with what’s already been established in the movie), the theatrical cut ends with Michael, who has previously survived being shot six times by Dr. Loomis, falling down a mine shaft, and literally blowing up, somehow being beaten into submission by Paul Rudd and a lead pipe. Is there nothing that Paul Rudd cannot do?

Mr. Rudd, the town of Haddonfield owes you a debt of gratitude.