Loomis' Last Hurrah

I own the Halloween Part 6: Producer’s Cut (1995) on blu and watched it last year. But this year I just watched the theatrical version because focusing on the Druids and how Michael is attached to them wasn’t of any interest to me. Remember Strode Realty? Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) dropped by the Myers house in the first Halloween (1978)? A family is living in that Myers house, only it is renovated and the patriarch is an abusive asshole. This version of the film has Bradford English electrocuted in the basement, where the laundry’s done, by Michael resulting in a head exploding. I remember how random and unexpected that was. Never was a head exploded Scanners-style in a Halloween movie until here. In the Producer’s cut this is absent. Yes, I’m a sucker for a head explosion. And English’s is so over the top it falls right in line with the whole Thorne/Samhain curse storyline involving Myers. Poor Paul Rudd…I can only imagine how he feels looking back on this, if he does. And being that the Halloween movies are always on during this time of year, even as his film is rather lousy, Rudd must realize there’s no shortage of eyes on Part 6. He’s little Tommy who was babysat by Laurie, and all grown up as a young man, Rudd is rather creepy. He watches the Strode house knowing Michael will eventually return. And he does. I did want to say that I don’t blame Danielle Harris at all for not wanting to participate in this sequel. Jamie Lloyd is a beloved character for many Halloween franchise fans so how Part 6 just diminishes her (her death is as unflattering if not more as Laurie’s in Resurrection) with Michael not only pressing her completely through the prongs of a corn thresher, he turns it on so it will eviscerate her. JC Brady, to her credit, doesn’t coast but I remember when I turned 17 in 1995 and went to watch this as my first (with no adult accompanying me) R-rated film, thinking that Jamie, the character, was just dumped in the film to unceremoniously die. She has a baby, though, so Michael wants to kill it, too. Rudd listens to her phone call in a bus depot and finds the baby. So attempts at keep-away-from-Michael-and-the-Cult-of-Thorn (with Mitch Ryan of all people as Wynn, the “Man in Black” inexplicably introduced in the fifth film of the franchise) are in the film. So is Michael picking off the family of college student and single mother, Marianne Hagan. Hagan has a boy hearing voices urging him to do bad things. Hagan is unusual for a final “girl”. But Hagan, Rudd, Hagan’s boy, and Loomis find themselves in Smith’s Grove Sanitarium (ironically fitting to feature this film at the place where Michael escaped and had since returned) with Mitch Ryan and his staff of cultists. With the cut taking out most of the Thorn stuff, Part 6, recalling the experience in the theater, left me quite taken aback. This is probably at its best when Myers returns to Haddonfield to do what he does best…kill an obnoxious radio serial killer show DJ, Hagan’s family and brother’s girlfriend (after they have sex [natch]), Ryan and his staff later at Smith’s Grove, and presumably Loomis. I always mourn a bit when I watch this knowing Pleasence would no longer be allowed to don the persona of Dr. Sam Loomis. Loomis is the character for which Pleasence is immortalized. In Part 6, Loomis is certainly weary, with a voice quite rough and scratchy, and his use in the film is sparse. Kim Darby, as Hagan’s victimized and meek mother, gets the Loomis warning but Michael and an ax introduce themselves to her, appropriately enough, near sheets on the clothesline in the backyard. I think the film did get the October/Halloween feel down rather well. Not enough to save it, though.