PopCult Reviews

Movie Review – Halloween (2007)

Halloween (2007)
Written & Directed by Rob Zombie

For a minute, we almost had a Michael Myers vs. Pinhead (from Hellraiser) movie. With the success of Freddy vs. Jason, Dimension Pictures seriously looked at pitting those movie monsters against each other. I don’t think that would have been a great idea. An idea was pitched to bring back Jamie Lloyd. That didn’t go anywhere. This was around a time when reboots and reimaginings were becoming a hot thing. Texas Chainsaw Massacre had a moderately successful reboot based on its budget, and telling the characters’ backstory was the thing to do (see the Star Wars prequels, Batman Begins). Setting a standard that would be followed by Freddy and Jason a few years later, Rob Zombie was brought on board to flesh out the origin of Michael Myers.

Movie Review – Halloween: Resurrection

Halloween: Resurrection (2002)
Written by Larry Brand & Sean Hood
Directed by Rick Rosenthal

Jamie Lee Curtis said she was done. So at the end of H2O, she beheads Michael, and the movie ends. But the producers wanted to keep milking the franchise. Moustapha Akkad, the producer who owned the Halloween film rights, provided a clause in his agreement with Dimension Pictures that Michael could never be killed. So when the inevitable sequel was announced, they went to Curtis and asked if she would play Laurie Strode again. Exasperated, the actress told them that if they couldn’t kill off Michael, they would have to kill Laurie in this next movie. So they did. The result is the worst entry in the entire franchise. It’s disjointed, with the first twenty minutes feeling like a short film with Laurie. Then the rest of the film is a poorly aged god-awful mess that completely misunderstands the entire series.

Movie Review – Halloween: H20

Halloween: H20 (1998)
Written by Robert Zappia & Matt Greenberg (Kevin Williamson uncredited)
Directed by Steve Miner

It was clear from the box office returns that the Thorns trilogy of Halloween was not a success, particularly the final butchered entry of The Curse of Michael Myers. It just so happened that the series’s twentieth anniversary was coming up in 1998, so it seemed appropriate to recapture some of the original film. Unfortunately, Donald Pleasence had passed away in 1995, so he wouldn’t be part of the story. This meant the producers would have to try and lure back Jamie Lee Curtis, who had distanced herself from the series. It also meant the last three films would be retconned out of the timeline.

Movie Review – Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)
Written by Daniel Farrands
Directed by Joe Chappelle

One of the most infuriating things about the Thorns trilogy is how both Return and Revenge end on promising cliffhangers only to have them dashed with the next film in the series. Likewise, the Curse of Michael Myers takes all the character development of Jamie Lloyd and subsequently flushes it down the drain. For what purpose? To apparently introduce a whole host of new characters whom we never really care about and tangentially connected to Laurie Strode. It seems at times that this movie exists in the same universe as the previous two, and then at other moments, it ignores anything we might have learned during them.

Comic Book Review – Superman and Justice League America Volume 2

Superman and Justice League America Volume 2 (2016)
Reprints Justice League America #69-77, Annual #6
Written by Dan Jurgens (with Dan Mishkin)
Art by Dan Jurgens (with Dave Cockrum)

For a collection with Superman in the title, he is gone from the book two issues in. This collection presents stories told just at and after the infamous Death of Superman storyline. We get a tie-in with the League attempting to fight and getting obliterated by Doomsday. That’s followed by a Funeral for a Friend crossover as the League, and other DC superheroes come together to mourn the passing of the great hero. From there, we have Wonder Woman coming onboard, and Dan Jurgens begins to wind down his relatively short-lived run on the book. Jurgens’s departure feels abrupt as he barely slides into home base to finish off the Bloodwyn arc, and then it’s over. There’s a strong sense of a lack of closure for characters that were personal additions like Maxima and Agent Liberty.

Movie Review – Halloween V: The Revenge of Michael Myers

Halloween V: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)
Written by Michael Jacobs, Dominique Othenin-Girard, and Shem Bitterman
Directed by Dominique Othenin-Girard

So after leaving audiences hanging with a pretty great cliffhanger in Halloween IV, the producers decided to retcon it immediately and handwave it away as a dream. I wish I could say I was joking. Jamie Lloyd kills her foster mother in the final scene of Halloween IV, wearing a clown costume similar to her uncle’s. It was a daring, shocking frame to close the movie on, hinting at the hereditary nature of the evil within Michael. But then this movie opens by showing where Michael ended up after being riddled with bullets and proceeds to show that the whole foster mommy stabbing was a bad dream Jamie had. It was a clear sign we were bullshit territory.

Movie Review – Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers

Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
Written by Alan B. McElroy
Directed by Dwight H. Little

After the box office failure of Halloween III, likely because audiences weren’t keen on the anthology angle, the producers decided to pivot back to Michael Myers. The franchise would be centered around him, causing the slasher to join the ranks of the constantly returning killers like Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhies. John Carpenter was pulled back in along with Debra Hill, but they wrote with horror author Dennis Etchison this time. Whatever was in that script was rejected as “too cerebral,” and the desire to just have a meat & potatoes slasher movie was reiterated. Finally, Carpenter & Hill were done with the series and sold away all their rights. They didn’t see anywhere else you could go with Myers other than a cheap by-the-numbers slasher. And that’s basically what the franchise became.

Movie Review – Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
Written & Directed by Tommy Lee Wallace

After 1982, John Carpenter and Debra Hill honestly had zero interest in making more movies about Michael Meyers. The producers, however, saw there was still money to get out of the Halloween brand. The compromise was that Halloween III not be a direct sequel to the preceding two films; this meant zero Michael. Instead, they proposed that Halloween movies could become an annual horror anthology. Each film would be set on the holiday but feature original characters in a plot divorced from previous entries. To start this off, writer Nigel Keane penned a script but was so displeased with changes that he asked for his name to be removed. Director Tommy Lee Wallace did a rewrite; therefore, he receives the story credit.

Movie Review – Halloween II (1981)

Halloween II (1981)
Written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill
Directed by Rick Rosenthal

Little did John Carpenter and Debra Hill know that their low-budget indie slasher flick would spawn so many sequels and reboots, creating a veritable multiverse of Michael Meyers. Timelines branch hither and thither so that the casual viewer will immediately be confused by which reality the story takes place in. Is this the Thorns Trilogy, or is it the Rob Zombie reboot, or is it the one where they bring back Jamie Lee Curtis or the other one where they bring back Jamie Lee Curtis? This October, we will be watching every single Halloween movie post the original 1978 feature. Will we be making sense of it? Hell no. But it should be an interesting journey through one of the most confounding horror franchises of our time.

PopCult Podcast – The Move, Malignant, and Many Saints

Something big happened and Ariana & Seth talk about it here. Plus a double feature of reviews.