Violence/Gore: The more fan-friendly “Producer’s Cut” tones down the gore in favor of more classic-style HALLOWEEN murders, while the theatrical one adds exploding heads, a gruesome thresher death and other assorted nastiness.

Sex/Nudity: None, but the plot and editing is so stupefying, you won’t notice.

Best Line: “Dr. Wynn, you should know it isn’t wise to play Halloween pranks on me.”

Theatrical Cut:    Producer’s Cut:

Although the film makers didn’t know it at the time, this installment is the end of the road for the increasingly convoluted but occasionally intriguing mythology built into the series beginning with HALLOWEEN 4. When this movie finally limped into theaters after a savage editing, even the most die-hard fans had to agree that Michael desperately needed a very long rest, perhaps even a permanent one. He had already been absent from the silver screen for six years while the producers wrestled with the problem of digging themselves out of the hole they’d dug with HALLOWEEN 5, but trust me - this wasn’t the solution. And yet, oddly enough, even as this represents the absolute nadir of the HALLOWEEN series, CURSE also contains some of the most touching tributes to the original film and a poignant though ultimately squandered final performance by Donald Pleasence.

We’re told that the night the Shape was busted out of the Haddonfield police station by the Man in Black, he also took Jamie with him. When she turns up again, she’s older, pregnant - by her uncle Michael (!) - and on the run from a sinister cult that may or may not have been behind Michael’s rampage since the very beginning. As the movie continues to implode before your very eyes, an aging Dr. Loomis meets Laurie stand-in Kara Strode and the original HALLOWEEN’s Tommy Doyle, now played by on-the-cusp-of-CLUELESS-stardom Paul Rudd. The Thorn tattoos are explained - sort of - and the origins of the Shape and the Celtic cult that apparently controls him are laid out in confusing partial detail. When the Man in Black is finally revealed to be a character from the original film but with absolutely no logic to back it up, even the most die-hard fans will be hoping for another sequel to wipe away this hopelessly labyrinthine story and get back to basics. Fortunately…

As a fan, I was looking forward to learning the secret of Michael’s evil, but sometimes you shouldn’t get what you want, and CURSE is a perfect case in point. While there are some affectionate nods to earlier films, including a beautiful bit with Tommy reliving a ’smashing pumpkin’ moment from his childhood and even a monologue from the elderly Mrs. Blankenship that recalls similar material from the distaff HALLOWEEN III, the scientific basis for Michael Myers’ escapades rings hollow and cheapens everything that came before. Ultimately, the Thorn cult is an intriguing but woefully misguided addition to the mythos. By the end, viewers are left with a plethora of unanswered questions and an ending so vague, surreal, and poorly edited that “ambiguous” doesn’t begin to cover the level of exasperation and rage audiences felt - oh alright, me - when Loomis moans in agony and the closing credits rolled.

As for our Shape-specific critique, George Wilbur makes history as the only actor to date to play Michael more than once, following up his stint under the mask in HALLOWEEN 4. Wilbur seems to have packed on a few pounds since 1988, however, and since Myers almost becomes an afterthought in his own series while everyone else in the cast runs around playing X-FILES with the insane conspiracy plotline, he gets very little to do. As for the mask - eh, not the worst it’s been, but not exactly a stunning re-creation either.

Shortly after the film’s release, a “Producer’s Cut” alternate version surfaced via bootleg VHS copies circulated by fans, and while this curio was by no means a masterpiece, it was a much improved cut that not only enhanced the movie’s ties to the older installments but featured an entirely different final fifteen minutes that set up an even more bizarre cliffhanger that would never be resolved. It did manage to illuminate some of the theatrical cut’s ambiguity by pushing the conspiracy storyline toward a slightly more satisfying Celtic/magic explanation for the Shape and the cult’s activities rather than an X-FILES-style scientific one, and it also replaced Paul Rudd’s opening narration with a more pleasing (for fans) version recorded by Pleasence. The “Producer’s Cut” also clearly came down on the side of “less is more” by featuring far less gruesome murders than those seen in the theatrical version.

But no matter what version you watch, HALLOWEEN 6 is a frustrating experience that promises much but delivers little. Most tragically, it serves as our less than dignified farewell encounter with the great Donald Pleasence’s Dr. Loomis. And soon, even this last desperate attempt to make sense of it all would be written out of existence by a sequel that would go back to the series’ beginnings just in time for its 20th anniversary…

DVD Extras: The movie is enough, trust me.

ATB