Season of the Mask 6: Nostlagia

The 25th anniversary of Halloween really was a one of a kind event for fans because it marked the first time so many cast and crew members from Parts 1 thru 8 were gathered under one roof.

For some of the actors (like Part 6’s Marianne Hagan), it was a new, bewildering and perhaps somewhat nervous experience, while others clearly enjoyed the energy, the fans, and what’s probably the first time many of the actors had seen each other since they appeared in a Halloween film(s).

A documentary as well as a wealth of material from the convention (interviews, panel discussions) have been archived in a 2-disc set (although why Disc 2, basically an extras disc, was left off the 30th Anniversary Commemorative Set is a puzzle, since there was room in the boxed set).

In addition to a review of Halloween: 25 Years of Terror, we have another documentary from Starz that was made in 2006 – Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film.

Based on Adam Rockoff’s book, the doc gathers interviews from many genre pioneers and exploitation filmmakers, and supports their comments with R-rated film clips to trace the genre’s success and eventually disappearance, until the early nineties when Scream made the stalking of sex-crazed coeds cool again (even though it never really lost its cinematic appeal).

Coming next: reviews of TV scores – Bear McCreary’s Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Joe Harnell’s The Incredible Hulk: Prometheus Parts 1 and 2, and Sean Callery’s 24: Retribution.

And imminent: book reviews of Lalo Schifrin’s Mission Impossible: My Life in Music, and Lalo Schifrin: Entretiens avec Georges Michel.



- MRH

Season of the Mask 5: Peaks and Valleys

Note: this column contains significant spoilers!

When Miramax/Dimension took over the Halloween franchise, it’s fair to say the resulting films were the nadir of the series with one sole exception: Part7, Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later (1998), where Jamie Lee Curtis came back to reprise the role of Laurie Strode and show us what happens when you live in fear for 20 years.

The reason the film works is more than Curtis owning the part; it’s the fact that fear from a serial killer is no different than fear of a delusional stalker who won’t go away, or an abusive spouse bent mangling the life of another. Michael Myers is a person with a singular drive to gratify himself by meting out some bizarro justice that goes beyond wiping out his family; it’s wiping out the sister who also won’t freakin’ die.

She’s an equal, and it’s bloody annoying.

But what if Michael finally reached that goal and eradicated every trace of his family?

The finale of H20 was written as the formal end of the Strode saga; the only recourse for the franchise godfathers was to have Laurie herself transforms into Michael and go after her son John, but that would’ve been too stupid.

Michael is done with, and Laurie is now free, although she has some legal issues to contend with, alongside the realization that she lopped off her big bro’s noggin in a strangely bloodless coup. That alone should, in a normal person, craft some recurring nightmares for, what, twenty years?

Part 8, Halloween: Resurrection (2002), kind of goes there, because we do see Michael finally getting rid of his sister, and unless she’s made of rubber and Jamie Lee Curtis needs some serious cash, that character is done with. The only recourse is to follow her in some prequel, and make up some lame scenes where toddler Michael maybe shoved a grapefruit in her face, or peed on her favourite dollie, or cooked her pet rabbit in the soup pot.

Beyond sibling fisticuffs and generic cruelty, the saga of Laurie Strode is over.

That’s more or less what Part 8’s screenwriters accomplish in the opening reel. After getting rid of Laurie, they’ve set up a scenario whereby six coeds become contestants in an online reality show, and must spend a night in the decrepit Myers home and explain to viewers how Michael Myers became a serial killer.

With no Dr. Loomis (he dead in Part 6, and again in 7), no Laurie and no John (her son) in Part 8, Michael has no raison d’etre beyond experiencing a minor annoyance with trespassers.

Whether he still retains any claim on the property is a legal issue. One assumes the assets of a serial killer – in this case, Michael – were seized and sold off to compensate the victims, so even Michael might be considered a trespasser on government/private property.

In any event, Part 8 shows that without a Strode roaming planet Earth, Michael is just another serial killer, and that’s kind of dull. The reasons Part 8 – directed by Part 2’s Rick Rosenthal – stinks like rotting potatoes, though, is more complex.

So as I continue to wade through the diminishing logic of the franchise, do check out reviews of Part 7 and Part 8, after which I’ll cover a lengthy documentary, and movie on to Rob Zombie’s ‘re-imaging’ or ‘rebooting’ of John Carpenter and Debra Hill’s classic.



- MRH

Season of the Mask 3: Moustapha goes back to basics

Although it took five years before the next Halloween film was produced, one gets a sense executive producer Moustapha Akkad was very patiently working through negotiations during those years to buy back the film rights to his most successful property - the first film that became the most successful independent film at that time.

In letting producer Dino De Laurentiis and Universal take over the franchise, Akkad probably felt like a disappointed parent; seeing a fellow colleague (Dino) as well as the creators (kids John Carpenter and Debra Hill) bungle a formula that worked so well in the first and argubaly the second film. Seen in a different view, he may have felt it was also a matter of professional survival.

Akkad's first feature films as director were the epics Lion of the Desert (1980), and The Message (1976) - two big budget, star-studded desert epics that were designed to capture the spirit and showmanship of David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, but with an Arabian twist.

Even though each film has its admirers (Message has evolved from a work of alleged blasphemy to a kind of spiritual historical classic for some), they failed to earn the large-and-fast dollars, and maintain an ongoing legacy. For all the grand production values that went into his desert diptych, it was a low-budget slasher/thriller that put Akkad on the map, and perhaps eased some of the (financial) pain lingering from his epics.

Akkad's own efforts to reclaim the franchise have been successful - the movies are still being churned out - but as the formula of a vengeful boy further morphs into an unstoppable, demonic force, one realizes it's impossible to capture the simplicity and narrative economy of the first.

Carpenter and Hill's original script has its share of teens doomed to die, but Hill's characterizations of the teen girls (mostly played by tall twentysomethings) are more believable than the more over-sexed equivalents in Halloween Part 4 (1988) and Part 5 (1989).

The decision to make the heroine of the new stream a 10 year old child was maybe kind of brilliant; who wouldn't cheer for a child being horrifically stalked by a monster? The small bits of character backstory were enough to make little Jamie (Danielle Harris) compelling, but transplant a grown adult into the same scenario, and the effect is more generic: that cliched adult/teen achetype, seen in countless slashers.

The resilience and limited potential of the Halloween formula perhaps means each film is more of a social and filmic time capsule of the genre. Parts 4 and 5, while considered slashers, are very eighties in their look, editorial style, and portrayal of teens. More overt of the era are the bad source tunes sung by mostly nonames in the soundtrack mix, which the producers had hoped would sell the film's album, or at least make it more pallatble to the youth market.

As filmmakers, Carpenter and Hill were more about maintaining a chilly atmosphere, whereas Akkad always had his eye on a more colourful presentation of subsequent films towards a youth audience. Part 1 may have been intended as a youth product, but it's maintained far more crossover appeal than much of the sequels (the exceptions perhaps being Halloween H20, with the return of Laurie Strode/Jamie Lee Curtis, and Rob Zombie's 2007 re-imagining).

So where does that leave the franchise? Since we're still moving through the series, in terms of Parts 4 and 5, it's headed towards increasing silliness. Just as Hellraiser 4 (aka Bloodline) gave us Pinhead-in-space, Halloween Part 5 was lightly peppered with Druidic mythology, setting up Part 6 as the strangest of the lot.

Ergo, uploaded are reviews of Part 4: The Return of Michael Myers, and Part 5 from Anchor Bay / Starz, to be followed by, yes, Part 6: The Curse of Michael Myers, and more. (Eventually we'll also cover Akkad's desert epics, too, which were given deluxe releases by the label not long ago.)



- MRH

Season of the Mask 2: “Edited for Television”

Back in the seventies and eighties, when films were bought by major TV networks, it was a big thing. Producers getting $4 million for the broadcast rights wasn’t unusual, and the movie was treated like a major TV event. Pay TV was still an expensive alternative, so most people still relied on antennas to get their signals.

Movies, like TV shows, were subject to a network’s Standard and Practices guidelines, and that usually meant snipping naughty bits so anyone could watch the film, shorn of profanity, nudity, violence, or religious epithets. Saying “Goddamn!” and “Hell!” were quite verboten.

I grew up quite used to that nonsense. In 1983, buying a movie on VHS (or DiscoVision, or CED) was cost prohibitive. Shogun, on VHS, was displayed in a glass case at Eaton’s, and if memory serves correct, the set was somewhere around $100-200 for the whole thing. A blank T-120 tape cost anywhere from $36-32.

Seriously.

And yet, after much nagging, I was able to convince Dad to buy a VCR. The RCA Selectavision machine was around $1700, but we got a deal for an RCA 14” TV as well (just under $500) – the first colour TV we ever had. I distinctly recall seeing a Magnavox laserdisc player for over $2,000.

$2,000+ for a laserdisc player.

The VCR meant you could tape and actually own a copy of whatever TV signal you got, and although my first 14-15 years involved a dinky Admiral black & white television, WE HAD CABLE TV.

No, you don’t understand. WE HAD CABLE TV.

It was a window into movieland, and before garbage paid programming littered airwaves at night, and garbage talk shows cluttered up the afternoon schedules, TV stations aired movies.

Whether during prime time or daytime, there were movies, and many were preceded by this “Edited for Television.”

That disclaimer was even applied to From Russia with Love, a 1965 James Bond film that U.S. and Canucklehead S&P censors felt was too risqué. The edits left over from the chopped footage were sloppy, and you always knew something wasn’t right when a strange word uttered by an actor didn’t match the lips. (For a period piece on the snipping of films, check out this 1971 article in TIME magazine HERE.)

That was the kind of roadblock director John Carpenter and producer Debra Hill faced in order to sell Halloween to NBC for $4 million. If the proposed trims were applied, the film would’ve run shorter than desired, so Carpenter and Hill wrote a handful of new scenes designed to fill out the film’s PG-styled edit, and give NBC enough room to lard the movie with ads.

Major films are no longer aired as often or treated as an event on network TV anymore. VHS, DVD, and Pay TV killed it, and that loss also signaled an end to shooting filler scenes for network airings. Sometimes the new footage – material not in the theatrical cut – was comprised of genuine outtakes and deleted scenes, but there were examples when a lot of footage was shot, probably with an eye towards a TV sale.

Classic examples include Superman, The Deep, Two-Minute Warning, Earthquake, The Towering Inferno, Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, Waterworld, and Far and Away. Waterworld has just been released in an expanded DVD release, the extra footage from Towering Inferno is on the DVD, and some of the Superman material is also on disc. But as for the rest, nuh-uh.

The inclusion or re-editing of a movie with extra footage, when it happens on DVD, does give viewers the chance to see whether the movie still works, and that’s more or less the main question we try and answer in our review of Anchor Bay’s extended edit of Halloween.

We’ve also uploaded reviews of Halloween II and Halloween III: Season of the Witch (both produced by Dino De Laurentiis and released by Universal) to compare the changes and sharp turns that affected the franchise’s early installments.

Coming shortly will be reviews of Halloween IV and V, although I have to admit I am getting tired of the theme music, something at least the poopy Halloween III didn’t have in its score.

Coming next: soundtracks reviews, Cult Epics’ new 2-disc edition of Slogan, another rare work featuring Serge Gainsbourg-Jane Birkin, and more installments in the Halloween series.



- MRH

Visit KQEK.com’s Main Page HERE!
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Season of The Mask

Like the Friday the 13th series, to own the complete Halloween franchise under one roof (and in one great big box) isn’t possible because some parts and franchise streams branched off through other studios imprints.

Friday the 13th is easier: Parts 1-8 belong to Paramount; Parts 9-11 are New Line.

Done.

With Halloween, Parts 1, 4 and 5 are Falcon International / Anchor/Bay Starz, Parts 2 and 3 are Universal, and Parts 6-8 (Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, Halloween Resurrection) are Disney, via the Miramax and Dimension imprints. Rob Zombie’s ‘re-imagining-prequel-whatever’ was a joint venture between the Weinsteins, and the owners of 1,4,and 5.

All clear?

In light of Anchor Bay having the rights to the bulk of the franchise wrought by director/co-writer John Carpenter and producer/co-writer Debra Hill and executive producer Moustapha Akkad, the label has released a 30th Anniversary Commemorative Set that features the theatrical cut (on standard DVD and a bonus Blu-Ray disc), the expanded TV version, Parts 4 and 5, and the documentary Halloween: 25 Years of Terror).

The box also beholds a Michael Myers mask. If you place the box and its protective sheath on your TV, The Shape is either an amusing icon of pop culture, or a ghostly visage that will, when you fall asleep one night (probably during Rob Zombie’s thingy), GET YOU.

Before that happens, though, we’re going through the series. Already in the archives are reviews for the theatrical cut of the first film in its two chief incarnations:

- the 25th Anniversary Edition, the 2003 2-disc set which contains oodles and oodles of extras

- the 2007 single disc edition

We'll have a new review of the TV version shortly, plus Halloween 2 and 3, since 2 follows 1’s twist finale, and 3 is the dead-end attempt to spawn Halloween-themed tales under the franchise banner.

Coming next: soundtracks reviews, Cult Epics’ new 2-disc edition of Slogan, another rare work featuring Serge Gainsbourg-Jane Birkin, and more installments in the Halloween series.



- MRH

Visit KQEK.com’s Main Page HERE!
Technorati Tags: DVD Reviews