MOVIE REVIEW : Horrors! Michael Myers Has Returned

It is considerate of the shlockmeisters still toiling in the realm of slasher movies launched in the late ‘70s to put the name of their immortal bogey men in the titles. You wouldn’t want to be sitting next to a horror buff expecting Jason and getting Freddy.

So, hats off, in that respect, to the producers of “Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers,” the latest in a numbing series begun in 1978 by John Carpenter, and repeated five times since, with only a few plot and casting changes to detract from the brilliant slice-and-dice work of its masked hero. Mike may be getting older, but he can still sling a knife around like a chef at Benihana.

In Part 6, Michael Myers, who died in an explosion at the end of Part 5, returns unsinged to trick-or-treat the folks in his hometown of Haddonfield, where he began killing as a child on Halloween, and where the holiday has been outlawed in his memory.

His agenda, we are told by old Doc Loomis (the late Donald Pleasence, almost unrecognizably frail) and Tommy Doyle (Paul Rudd), a young man who survived an earlier slaughter, is to murder the family now living in his old house, and--as a special bonus--a newborn baby who bears the sign of evil.

The body count mounts quickly as Michael picks off members of the targeted family, along with the doctors, nurses, real estate brokers, deejays and other rubes who amble into his view. A slit throat here, a crunched skull there, here a hatchet, there a pitchfork, eee-iii-eee-iii-ohhhh!

“Enough of this Michael Meyers B.S.!,” says a disgruntled Haddonfielder, as news spreads of the returning native son.

Dream on.

* MPAA rating: R, for strong horror violence, and some sexuality. Times guidelines: Numbing gore and dialogue.

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‘Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers’

Donald Pleasence: Dr. Loomis

Mitch Ryan: Dr. Wynn

Paul Rudd: Tommy Doyle

George P. Wilbur: Michael Myers

Marianne Hagan: Kara Strode

A Nightfall production, released by Dimension Films. Director Joe Chappelle. Producer Paul Freeman. Screenplay by Daniel Farrands. Cinematographer Billy Dickson. Editor Randolph Bricker. Music Alan Howarth. Production design Bryan Ryman. Running time: 1 hour, 26 minutes.

* In general release throughout Southern California.