Halloween 6 is the most non-committal film in the franchise, despite introducing one of the wackiest plot elements of the original continuity. It’s a curious title because the whole thing reeks of desperation – clearly a product that is trying very hard to be successful and unique from it’s predecessors, while simultaneously not really doing anything with the new material it brings to the table.
The movie is about Michael trying to kill a baby, his last surviving relative, who is the daughter of Jamie from Halloween 4 and 5. Doctor Loomis and Tommy Doyle (the kid Laurie babysits in the first movie) must prevent Michael from doing what he always does, while also looking out for a vulnerable family who have moved into the old Myers house. Oh, and also there is a cult that’s all like “we are evil and want Michael to kill because we are evil”, who are the ones responsible for breaking Michael out of jail and capturing Jamie at the end of Halloween 5.
Forgive me for being brief, but there simply isn’t a lot to say about this film; It is bad. In fact watching it made me feel as though I should have been much less harsh on Halloween 3, 4 and 5. I still stand by the criticisms I gave of those movies, but at least they entertained me on some level. Halloween 3 still had a lot of suspense even though the concept of the film wasn’t executed as well as it could have been. Halloween 4 introduced some solid new characters that were easy to become invested in. Halloween 5 gave an interesting interpretation of Jamie’s and Loomis’ PTSD after the previous film, and used it to give them an unhealthy relationship. None as good as they could have been (Halloween 5 being particularly awful), but all with a shimmer of hope somewhere within. But Halloween 6 doesn’t have anything and it’s not entertaining at all. For the first time, I found myself bored watching a movie with Michael Myers in it.
In the spirit of being fair, I liked how they made Michael a bit more spooky – He is more violent and has a decent mask in this one, so he is much more visually imposing. But then the movie ends not with him getting shot, blowing up or buried… But with Paul Rudd (who plays Tommy) putting green stuff in his veins and hitting him with a pipe. So even the one positive thing about this movie is undercut by the anticlimactic way Michael is defeated.
In fact, this whole film is abrupt. Scenes will frequently cut in nonsensical places or have massive lapses in time between them for really no reason at all. Watching the film, you can see on the screen where the script would have read End Scene. The ending is also like this. It literally cuts from Michael being defeated on the floor of a top secret facility to Paul Rudd and company in a car saying “let’s get out of here”, as if an entire death cult wasn’t running the building they were just trying to escape from. Everyone tells Doctor Loomis to join them in the car, but he stays behind to wrap up some business with the cult. It’s supposed to be ambiguous whether he stays to destroy the cult for enabling Michael’s evil or to join it because his curiosity is getting the better of him. The whole thing is dumb.
It’s kind of sad to see Doctor Loomis so wasted in this movie because it was Donald Pleasance’s last appearance in role as he would die soon after. Coincidently, he also put on the best performance (as is to be expected by now) in this stale instalment in the franchise.
But Paul Rudd, our leading man, isn’t particularly good here. It’s not that he’s a bad actor, but that he’s so grievously miscast in the role of a creepy stalker with good intentions. It actually took me out of the movie seeing him in it; I saw Paul Rudd the actor, not the character he was playing. He’s a guy who’s at his best in more heartfelt or comedic roles, not when he’s playing a creep.
Of course I am not going to recommend this movie on any basis at all. Even if you adore the rest of the series, you should just save yourself the effort of having to watch this. It’s just so boring and devoid of a reason to watch it at all.
On the bright side this is the end of the original Halloween continuity that started from a point so high, it’s hard to imagine (even after watching the films back to back as I have) how far they had fallen. Coming up soon will be H20, which I have fond memories of and hope will give the series another positive review.
At the end of every Halloween review I rank the movies I have reviewed so far from best to worst. Find the updated list below.
- Halloween (1978)
- Halloween 2 (1981)
- Halloween 3: Season of the Witch (1983)
- Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
- Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)
- Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)
Alex's Review Corner 
Hmmm. I sense a certain progression, or regression, in your rankings.
This was crap, but then the franchise as a whole is such a chaotic mess it seems somehow fitting to wind up what I guess counts as the initial run of these things. I agree seeing Rudd was weird.
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Yes, the original continuity of these movies is truly one of the most notable nose dives in quality I’ve seen a film franchise take. Even so, everything above 6 – however crap those other films like 5 and 4 may be – is comparatively master class. Something in those films made me want to watch them, at the very least, and this one wanted me to turn the TV off. They were stale and generic, but competent for what they were. 6 is just… well, crap like you said.
Without spoiling anything I am a couple of films ahead of this now and have drafts of the next two films – future rankings will certainly break the progression. It’s something I was ever so thankful to happen.
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