This is the next part of the series I entitle “Movies I watched in case I bumped into Danielle Harris“. I watched half of the movie before I went to the Con, then watched the second half after I missed my opportunity, and felt like a failure the whole time. Supposedly, this film was one of the worst in the franchise. As in, the Halloween franchise, not my Danielle Harris series, because all films were equally unsuccessful in that endeavor. This one came out a year after they had success with Halloween 4, and everything was rushed so that they could capitalize on their new-found success. Rushing the film meant it kind of sucked, and is the least successful Halloween movie to date, when it comes to box office numbers. So now that the disappointment is out of the way, here we go!

Dr. Loomis was looking all “Man Without a Face” in this one.

This film starts right where Halloween 4 left off, at least as far as Michael Myers is concerned. Michael pulls himself out of the ditch he fell into, and ends up in a river, floating downstream. He is found by a weird hermit, who nurses him back to health, before getting himself killed. Surprise surprise. The trauma of killing her foster mother with scissors has left Jamie, still played by Danielle Harris, without the use of her vocal chords and is exhibiting further evidence of the psychic link she has to her uncle, Michael. Michael Myers makes his way back to Haddonfield, kills some people, kills a dog, changes masks at one point and lets a girl kiss him. YUP, IT WAS AS WEIRD AS IT SOUNDS. Dr. Loomis is back, and teams up with Jamie to lure Michael to his old house, in hopes of connecting him with some form of humanity. Believe it or not, that fails, so instead, Loomis shoots him with a tranquilizer dart, DROPS A GODDAMNED CHAIN NET ON HIM, then beats him into submission with a wooden plank. Michael is then taken to a maximum security prison, only to have the prison “mysteriously” burn down, everybody inside dying, except for the cell where Michael was being held, which is now empty.

Rake to the face! Not to mention the pitchfork to the guts. Rampaige wouldn’t shut up about that damned pitchfork scene.

I gotta say, if this is the worst of the Halloween films, they should consider themselves lucky. Was it good? No, not at all, but I have seen far worse films, so it could’ve been worse. I would say the thing that stands out about this film most is incorporating The Thorn cult into the franchise. We see a tattoo on Michael’s wrist that is some weird triangle line thingy. We also see a figure, dressed in black, shadowing Loomis a few times in the film, and we catch glimpses of this figure also having the same tattoo on his wrist. The curse of “The Thorn” won’t be fleshed out until the sixth film, which came out six years later, so I can see why people would be pissed that something was hinted at, and really never developed for another six years. However, I will give them credit for having the balls to start explaining why this guy was evil and how he couldn’t be killed, rather than just a mindless killing machine. Sure, you could have movie after movie of Michael Myers coming to life, killing people, then getting “killed”, knowing full well that there would be another. So to come up with any idea at all of why he was the way he was, was a bold move, albeit an unpopular and half-assed move. I agree, that from what I have seen, this is probably the worst of the franchise, but it’s still better than most garbage that’s out there.

Wolfman Moon Scale