NOTE: This is a review for the 'Theatrical' cut of this film, and is really more of an addendum to my main review for the film which can be found under the 'Producers' cut.
Its got to be approaching 2 decades since I sat down and watched the theatrical cut of 'Halloween - The Curse of Michael Myers'...and having rewatched it tonight, I can see why.
The film is basically the inverse of the 'Producers cut', neither particularly make much sense, or hold much coherency. But at least the 'Producers cut' bothers to try and give us a story, TRIES to give the audience something resembling a 3 act structured piece that TRIES to pay something of a tribute to Donald Pleasence and his portrayal of doctor Loomis.
The theatrical cut is hideous frankly, an incoherently arranged mish mash of half baked ideas hastily recut together, with very little rhyme or reason. Honestly? it feels like they started editing it, got about a third of the way in, and then they were told the money had run out and that they had to recut the whole thing to make it make sense within their means.
The main plotting, which just about makes sense in the 'producers' cut, here? is non existant. We get introduced to characters in the first act, who'll basically dissapear till about 10 minutes off the end, and then even when they do return, its only briefly before they get lost in the mix. Michael in this cut is seemingly just popping in and out of existence depending on what the editors needed him to do. Sometimes he's under the control of a cult, sometimes he's stalking people who are in his house, sometimes...he's just...there...with no real explanation.
Loomis is the same, they basically bring him in in this cut, almost exclusively to have him sit in Tommy Doyles house, say one, maybe two plot progressive things...and then he's written out till the last 10 minutes of the movie more or less. His ENTIRE reason for being in the film is cut from this version.
When they cant decide how to transition the end of one scene into the next, they'll play super slowed down, bit crushed audio cues and flash cuts of stuff that was cut out of this version of the movie to disorient viewers into not quite realising we've transitioned to a new location briefly. which is an AWFUL way to move your film along and has essentially left me with a 'flash' headache.
there isnt really any kind of act structuring here, it literally just feels like 'happenings' hard cut together...you get a vague sense that its something involving runes and it may possibly be tied into some kind of bloodline cult. But its just, so badly assembled I dont know how anyone took ANYTHING away from this thing when it first came out.
The direction here is pretty decent, it has a distinctly mid 90s feel to it (given...that WAS the year the thing came out) I quite like the visuals here, it feels especially halloweeny, something that is missing from some of the later entries in this franchise. I will also say, the one good thing this film has that the producers cut is SORELY missing is the deleted scenes and gore sequences.
There were seemingly reshoots between the 'producers cut' and the theatrical release, and as such, the theatrical cut gets some pretty nice and gory kills that are 100% missing from the 'producers' cut. They're really well handled, particualrly the main 'electrocution' sequence.
In an ideal world, those gore reshoots would be reinserted into the 'producers' cut to create a best of both worlds situation...but unfortunately, currently thats not the case.
Direction of the cast is a little slapdash, everyone feels a bit awkward and delivery isnt as confident or naturalistic as i'd like.
The cine is solid enough, but that horrendous edit really does burn any goodwill I could have had towards it.
As for the performances, well...having seen the other cut, I know Donald Pleasence really puts in a good turn here as Loomis...But you wouldnt know that from the theatrical cut, because they removed all his better moments. an intro credit for Paul Rudd here yeilds similar results which is a real shame.
Probably the most dissapointing aspect of this is the soundtrack, because this film is seemingly ashamed of using the 'Halloween' theme tune...preferring instead to embrace experimental screeching noise and alternative/grunge music. this is one of the few Myers led Halloween entries to not have the Halloween theme in the intro or credits...which is frankly just bizarre to me.
The theatrical cut, to me? is hideous. its an aggressive, noisey, badly edited, badly sequenced, poorly executed cut of a film that was struggling to begin with. quite possibly the worst outcome of a bad hand it was possible to get.
I'll be sticking with the producers cut going forward, but I really would love to see a version of this that takes the strengths from both and slams them together, we may then finally get a cut of this thing that isnt frustrating.
source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/halloween-the-curse-of-michael-myers/1/
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