Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995) Review

"It's his game, and I know where he wants to play it."

-Dr. Sam Loomis

It's been six years since the previous film and in that time Jamie Lloyd (J.C. Brandy) and Michael Myers (George P. Wilbur) have been held prisoner by the mysterious Cult of Thorn.  After Jamie gives birth to a son, she manages to escape from the Cult with Michael unleashed to go after her.  Jamie is quickly killed by her uncle, but manages to get her son into the hands of Tommy Doyle (Paul Rudd), the little boy from the first movie who Laurie Strode was babysitting.  As Michael returns to Haddonfield to hunt down Jamie's son, Tommy enlists the help of Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) to help him stop Michael once and for all.

What Works:

Once again, this segment will be short.  I will say that I liked Paul Rudd as our protagonist.  This character has been traumatized by his encounter with Michael and Rudd gives the character a little bit of crazy.  When he sees Michael again, he does a lot of twitching, which I think was a nice touch.  Paul Rudd is a good actor and does his best with the crappy character he is given.

There were also a few solid deaths in this movie.  I liked Jamie's death as well as the doctor who had his head pushed through the bars of a door, but the best of all was the death of John Strode (Bradford English).  He gets electrocuted by Michael and it ends with his head exploding.  I'm a sucker for a good head explosion, plus the character was an abusive jerk, so not only did he get a great death scene, but he was character we really wanted to see die as gruesomely as possible.

What Sucks:

This movie is an absolute train-wreck.  Hardly anything makes sense and it's not even competent on a technical level.  It's insane that this movie was released in theaters the way it was.  The Cult of Thorn stuff is utter nonsense, is poorly explained, and completely unnecessary.

Apart from Dr. Loomis and Tommy Doyle, none of the characters are interesting or likable.  I didn't care in the slightest when they got killed off and had no emotional investment in their survival.

Everything involving Jamie just feels wrong to me.  Not only do we have a different actress in the role (good for Danielle Harris for declining the role though), but she gets killed off right away.  Jamie is one of the best characters in the series and to see her go out the way she does is a bummer even if the death itself is solid.  I also don't like how suddenly she's been held prisoner by this cult for 6 years.  We never saw her get kidnapped in the 5th film and thinking about the logistics of everything she goes through is just unpleasant.  This was probably the worst way they could have wrapped up her story.

The massacre of the Smith's Grove doctors could have been a cool scene, but we just get a bunch of strobe lights.  It was headache inducing and could definitely cause some people to have seizures.  It's very distracting and it prevents us from seeing Dr. Wynn (Mitchell Ryan) from being killed, which is another bummer.

Verdict:

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers is the least competent movie in the series, though I find it less annoying than the 5th movie.  Paul Rudd does a fine job and there are some cool kills, but the Cult of Thorn stuff is a mess, the characters are terrible, the strobe lights gave me a headache, and everything involving Jamie was simply unpleasant.

 2/10: Awful