October 23, 2012
Cursed Indeed
The sixth entry in the Halloween franchise picks up some years after the conclusion of Halloween 5. Jamie Lloyd is now a full grown adult, and she’s just given birth. Unfortunately for her, Jamie has been kept in the basement of Smith’s Grove Sanitarium (the facility that has housed Michael during his stints in and out of custody) by the likes of an underground Druid cult that seeks to somehow restore the once great night of Halloween to its former glory. What that former glory entails is anyone’s guess; some gibberish about mayhem, bonfires and star alignments is thrown into the mix, but said references are every bit as vague as they sound.
The question you likely have is this: How does Michael Myers fit into all this ridiculousness? Well, as the previous movies have indicated, he’s somehow connected to the Druid sacrificial rite, but a lucid explanation of the exact role he plays is—yet again—conspicuously absent. I suppose it doesn’t really matter, though; he’s still alive, still pissed off, and still killing people. Once again he’s after the last living remnant of the Myers bloodline, the newborn baby of his aforementioned niece. Oddly enough, Tommy Doyle—one of the children from the original Halloween that Laurie babysat “the night he came home”—has become obsessed with the persistent rumors about Michael and has rented a room across the street from the Myers house to keep tabs on its residents, one of whom is a kid with the same penchant for murder that Michael himself demonstrated so many years ago.
Loomis is back, too. He is, of course, not surprised in the least when Michael reappears in Haddonfield, and the usual hijinks ensue (namely, people don’t believe the famed serial killer is still alive, 
make the mistake of writing him off, and end up getting axed in oh-so-creative ways). The atmosphere generated in the movie is admirable, and this is one of Michael’s more menacing outings. Still, one can’t help but feel disappointed by the lack of story development, and the movie’s conclusion feels much too abrupt. This almost certainly is a direct result of director Joe Chappelle’s apparent distaste for Pleasence. According to the Internet Movie Database, Chappelle found many of Pleasence’s scenes “boring,” and thus engaged in heavy editing in an effort to trim down his presence in the movie. The result is a disjointed affair that’s not nearly as effective as it could have been.
In short, The Curse of Michael Myers is a convoluted mess that only pretends to answer some of the longstanding questions surrounding the Halloween mythology. The movie has its moments, and the presence of Paul Rudd as the now adult Doyle adds some memorability to the cast of characters.
out of 5
There have been plenty of movies about deadbeat family members, but it’s hard to imagine that any of them have been quite as lovable as Ned (Paul Rudd). Okay, so maybe John Candy as Uncle Buck comes close, but Ned is on par with “The Dude”—he’s a younger, infinitely more naive version of the Jeff Bridges persona that has become the stuff of cult legend.
out of 5
out of 5