267 - Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers

After a contentious bidding war with New Line Cinema, Miramax was determined to revamp the Halloween franchise with this jumbled mess. It's 1995's Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, starring Donald Pleasance, Marianne Hagan, Kim Darby, and Paul Rudd. When Michael Myers and his niece Jamie (J.C. Brandy) are kidnapped by cultists at the end of Halloween V: The Revenge of Michael Myers (don't worry, we get into the series chronology in the episode), Jamie is forced to give birth to a baby for we assume child sacrifice purposes. She escapes with her newborn but is murdered by Michael; the killer is singularly determined to wipe out his entire bloodline (but is shockingly not very adept at it). Meanwhile, a new Strode family has moved into Michael's murder mansion. Kara (Hagan) is a young woman trying to get her life back on track with her six year old son Danny (Devin Gardner). Much like his namesake in The Shining, Danny has special murderer powers and voices in his head, but unlike The Shining, this is unimportant and barely comes up. Tommy Doyle (Rudd, credited as Paul Stephen Rudd in this pre-Clueless role) is the kid from the first movie who talks about the Bogeyman. This run-in with Michael 17 years prior has left him traumatized and obsessed with the killer, researching occult reasons for his murder spree on the mid-90s internet. He finds Jamie's baby at a bus station and lackadaisically decides to take care of it while they kinda figure out a way to do something. Also Dr. Loomis (Pleasance) is back on his perpetual mission to find and apprehend Michael. Will these characters intersect? Does this movie have a purpose? Is Michael's mask too large, thick, and lumpy? Will someone get electrocuted so bad his head explodes? You'll have to listen to find out.