Halloween : The Curse of Michael Myers - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Halloween : The Curse of Michael Myers



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
Like most of the 80s to 90s long running horror franchises (A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, etc) Halloween went off the rails right around the 4th film or so. The 5th film in 1989 pretty much put a nail into sequels for quite some time, with Dimension films and Moustapha Akkad basically not willing to put any money into the franchise after it made even less than Halloween III: Season of the Witch (which is actually a really good movie, but fans were disappointed that it didn’t feature Michael Myers as the main villain). 6 years later and Daniel Farrands was given the green light by Dimension films to try and piece together something that made sense of the bizarre 5th film (which introduced and hinted at the occult group of Thorns) by going full bore into the occult and supernatural world of Michael Myers being controlled by forces outside of his will.

Unfortunately Farrand’s work was a nightmare during filming, with characters being cut, and scenes being cut by director Joe Chappelle, and the entire last act being cobbled together at the last moment. Needless to say, the theatrical cut for The Curse of Michael Myers is legendarily the worst of the entire franchise. It’s a muddled mess, with entire scenes not making sense, interactions appear jaggedly, and the ending leaving the audience confused and rolling their eyes. A fear years later a bootleg cut turned up known as “The Producer’s Cut”, which basically re-did the entire film in many ways, changing the tone dramatically, and completely re-doing the last act to make use of Farrand’s original ideas.

The Producer’s cut is definitely the most coherent of the cuts. The theatrical cut really makes little sense considering how much was cut out of the film according to internet records. The scene where Tommy Doyle meets Dr. Loomis in the hospital makes a LOT more sense in the producer’s cut, as does the final few moments where Dr. Loomis tells Kara and Tommy that he has some business to attend to. However, those are just a few of the changes. The entire 3rd act has been reworked too to include a major storyline with the Cult of Thorns, as well as actually clueing us into the fact (or at least confirming) that the child is Myer’s son. Fans will forever debate which cut is better, but to be fair, neither is great. The Producer’s cut is more coherent, but it looses some of the terror and the brutal kills of the first half as well. Not to mention gets a little too “KALI MA!!” near the end for my tastes. Luckily Scream Factory has included each cut into the set with it’s own disc, so we can choose which one we like.

The story (as much as there is a story) opens up with a mysterious woman running from Michael Myers and a strangely dressed cult like man with her newborn son. She barely gets him to a safe space before Myers slaughters her in his search for the child. Fast forward a bit and we’re introduce to Kara Strode (Marianne Hagan) who is raising her young son Tim (Keith Bogart) alone. Unfortunately for her, she’s the last of the Strodes and not only is Micahel coming for the mysterious child, but she is going to be in his way. On her side is tortured Tommy Doyle (played by Paul Rudd in his first break out role at 26) who is still traumatized what he witnessed as a child 17 years ago. When Michael comes to town, it’s all out mayhem and Tommy, Tim and Kara do their best to evade Michael and figure out what’s going on with the help of Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence once more)




Rating:

Rated R for strong horror violence, and some sexuality (Theatrical) / Unrated (Producer's Cut)





4K Video: Video:

Scream Factory has listed the film as having a “4K scan of the original negative” but I’m not sure how old said 4K scan is, as there is no reference to if it is new or not. Either way, it appears to be light years better than my old Echo Bridge disc (yay! I get to throw that old 3 pack away!) with a nice hefty bitrate in the high 30s that really delivers the goods. The film has a few soft spots and some grain spikes during low level light shots, but overall is a fairly impressive encode on the details. Faces show a BIT white, with that 1990s ruddy red and orange push to the overall grading. Dark shots tend to have that cold blue filter that most of the Halloween films have, and I did notice some blocking in the darkest of shots under ground. Very good, not perfect, but the source appears to be in good condition with no major signs of speckles or print debris, so solid thumbs up (the 4/5 rating for the Blu-ray video above is for the Shout Factory disc found in the set, not the Echo Bridge disc, which I would give a 3/5)









Audio:

I don’t have the original 2014 Scream Factory release Blu-ray boxset, but I’m GUESSING that the 5.1 DTS-HD MA track is the same one found on that set (and is in the Blu-ray in this combo pack). Luckily it’s a “killer” (yes I did that on purpose) track that delivers on all the old 1990s ambiance, complete with a heavy metal riff (that’s heavy on the slide and the whammy bar) that delivers some chilling moments. Bass is punchy, dialog is a bit on the harsh side (my only complaint in this track), and some very active surrounds. Probably the single best part of the entire disc set outside of the extras)












Extras:

Theatrical Cut
• Commentary with screenwriter Daniel Farrands and Composer Alan Howarth
• Featurette
• Still Gallery
• TV Spots
• Trailer

Producer's Cut
• Acting Scared Interview
• Commentary with screenwriter Daniel Farrands and Composer Alan Howarth
• Haddonfield's Horrors
• The Shape of Things
• A Cursed Curse
• Full Circle Interview
• Jamie's Story
• Deleted and Alternate Scenes
• Behind the Scenes Footage
• Acrhival Interviews
• Tribute
• Teaser Trailer

Final Score: ​

The Curse of Michael Myers has always had a rocky history on Blu-ray. Back in 2012 the film was released a half dozen times by Echo Bridge and their miserable transfers, but Scream Factory actually got ahold of the film back in 2014 when they released their original 2014 boxset. Now it gets one more chance with a 4K UHD release that is not available in singles, but in the Halloween 4K Boxset with the final 3 original films. Luckily this set is cram packed with extras, a really cool chipboard slip box for each film OUTSIDE of the big chipboard box holding all 3 films together, and a nice new encode for the 4K. Fans will definitely be pleased.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Donald Pleasance, Paul Rudd, Marianne Hagan, Kim Darby, Mitchell Ryan, George P. Wilbur
Directed by: Joe Chappelle
Written by: Daniel Farrands
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 HEVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DTS-HD MA 2.0
Subtitles: English SDH
Studio: Scream Factory
Rated: Unrated / R
Runtime: 88 minutes (Theatrical) / 96 minutes (Producer's Cut
Blu-Ray Release Date: October 4th, 2022

Recommendation: For the Fans

 

[Asere]

Thanks for the review. I got the original and The Revenge of Michael Myers from Shout last month. I only bought The Revenge because I met Don Shanks who played Michel at a convention and got him to sign it.

 

[Michael Scott]

Thanks for the review. I got the original and The Revenge of Michael Myers from Shout last month. I only bought The Revenge because I met Don Shanks who played Michel at a convention and got him to sign it.

nice! I still am missing the Revenge of Michael Myers from the last Scream Factory sale when those came out (sadly we weren't able to review them). .... that was a stupid fun movie