This Day in Horror History: HALLOWEEN: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS Opened in 1995
Mike Sprague
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On this day in horror history, director Joe Chappelle’s Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers with Donald Pleasence and Paul Rudd opened in 1995.
The film features Donald Pleasence’s final film appearance. Pleasence died eight months before the film was released. The film was dedicated to his memory.
The sixth installment in the Halloween series, it was shot in Salt Lake City in 1994–95, it underwent a series of reshoots after it performed poorly with test audiences.
After it’s release, the original workprint, featuring 45 minutes of alternative footage and a different ending, was discovered. Dubbed The Producer’s Cut, this version developed a cult following, with bootleg DVD copies sold on eBay. Eventually, online petitions resulted in the Producer’s Cut official release on Blu-ray in 2014.
The first Halloween movie distributed by Dimension Films, it grossed $15.1M at the box office on a budget of $5M. It was followed by Halloween H20 in 1998.
Written by Daniel Farrands, this installment marks the return of the seemingly indestructible masked murderer Michael Myers who is targeting Tommy Doyle (Paul Rudd), a young man tied into the legacy of the killer and his connections with the Strode family. As the supernatural elements of Michael’s macabre abilities are explored, his longtime adversary, Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence), is also back in yet another attempt to stop the psychopath’s brutal rampages.
Rated R for strong horror violence and some sexuality, the film sports a 9% approval rating over on Rotten Tomatoes with a Critics Consensus that reads: Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers trades the simple, brutal effectiveness of the original for convoluted mysticism, with disastrously dull results.
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