Aimless Adulteration: Halloween 6: The Producer's Cut

Hello folks and welcome to Aimless Adulteration. I got tired of grab bag so we stretch the vocabulary once in a while and things tend to move smoother. So it's random choices once again as one of the treats to myself and always wanting to see a better version of it in spite of being a sequel to a much more clever story I opted to Amazon that bad boy to me and now you are stuck with this review. This is Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers. The Producer's Cut.

Is this where you hang?  Arnie puns and Myers!! Maybe not.

Six years after the police station's fire and her abduction by the "Man in Black" (Cue Johnny Cash) Jamie Lloyd (J.C. Brandy of Wolf, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Kindred: The Embraced, Dogstar and Promethus Bound) is alive and birthing a child in some secluded underground shelter lit with more candles than a Hammer film or Sting video combined. No sooner is the child sexed and cleaned these cultists/followers take the baby away somehow. Maybe Michael is on the move in this dank, subterranean recess slaughtering these cult members left and right like it's his own personal abbatoir. The midwife nurse wraps Jamie's baby, placing the child in Jamie's arms and demanding she run for both their lives... ya know right after an agonizing child birth scene. Not even a lie down or Tylenol for this gal. Strength! FYI, Danelle Harris offered to reaprise her role but her asking price of 5 grand wasn't in their budget or they just felt her performance wasn't worth it. Whatever.

A wool sweater is what keeps masked psychos at bay. That's just science.

Fleeing in a stolen pickup (Still, like her uncle no one had gotten around to giving her driving lessons) when she makes it to a bus station that appears to be off duty and yet all the doors are unlocked. While all this is going on a DJ on local radio has been mocking Haddonfield's ban on Halloween and Michael Myers bringing every nutter butter to the phone lines that Jamie uses a payphone as a desperate last chance call out to Doctor Loomis. People mock Jamie for not calling the cops but if you listen carefully the automated response said due to the storm, the switchboard was OUT. Hence she called the radio station about Haddonfield in the hopes this would bring her any help at all. Hiding the baby in the ladies, she pulls the old fake baby in the blankets to throw Michael off the scent for more than 5 blocks and is stabbed for it and left for dead. Yeah no horrific farm equipment impalement this time around.

This guy killed his big sister, tried to murder his little sister and mutilated and butchered more than 15 to 20 people per movie. Of the many callers is a grown up Tommy Doyle (Paul Rudd of Clueless, Overnight Delivery, 200 Cigarettes, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, The Ex, Night at the Museum and Knocked Up) survivor of the first Halloween is convinced that Myers is still alive and someone is attempting to harness his strength while Doctor Loomis (Donald Pleasence) is retired after all this time only to be called in on the mess that was Jamie and a burn mark is placed on the nearby barn which Loomis nonchalantly explains it is Michael's mark (the one we have NEVER SEEN until the 5^th movie). Also a simple scene of Loomis explaining why he was listening to the Chicago shock jock for Myers research in to his manuscript and he had plastic surgery for his face and hand from his burns in Halloween II. THAT CRAP IS NEED TO KNOW!

Sir, do you think I have what it takes to be an Ant-Man?

Meanwhile at Michael's former home resides the late Jamie and Laurie's family on the Strode side... these people were around and couldn't adopt Jamie. Just seems odd. As he had a psychic link to Jamie, perhaps he is tuning in to her son Tommy has named Steven. Conversing with Kara Strode (Marianne Hagan of I Think I Do, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, Dinner and a Movie and Stake Land) Tommy tells her of the danger her family is in if Michael is back.

Following the astrological end of things correlated with the events of each Myers attack with a constellation of Thorn (Rune of Icelandic or early Norse turned symbol of sacrifice but actually it means the or that) it seems to give the bearer of the mark near superhuman strength, fortitude and healing as its appointed task means to deplete one family in the village for the good of said village. Someone or some force has been guiding Michael all this time as far back as a 5 year old boy something always whispering in his ear that insists he slaughter his sister.

Will this curse continue to Steven? Can Tommy and Doctor Loomis put a final end to Michael? What of the Cult of Thorn? Hey, where are my pants?

And now a teensy bit of trivia. There are more than three different releases of this movie due to the eleven drafts. The neutered VHS later DVD 89 min has the most gore but the least amount of continuity. The producer's cut has unfinished dailies spliced into the final cut and is more coherent. Our film tops off 96 minutes giving a wilder concept to be held for all Halloween fans but less graphic death scenes. Weird, right? This version is amazingly better with more Loomis, a better handle on Rudd's character yet I always wondered what happened to little Lindsay Wallace of Halloween? Doyle has newspaper articles, conspiracies and a murder board yet nothing for Lindsay? The Wallaces move?  The continuation of what is referred among the fans as The Thorn Trilogy (4, 5, and 6) is actually been completed.

Watching the Producer's Cut of Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers. No seizure inducing strobes via the theatrical cut. More scenes with Donald Pleasence and him originally narrating the opening sequence rather than Tommy Doyle portrayed by Paul Rudd. Yup a total piece of crap with old guy yammering and being boring said the director. With these re-added scenes you have a complete movie. A beginning, a middle, character development and an ending. They even try to explain Michael's true behavior being altered. What made him this pure evil. Kinda clever idea but not genius. Of course summing up what became of a young boy this evil shape without a BS story of a bad childhood (Rob Zombie's take), a force of darkness grew inside the boy like a cancer.

Whereas a concept of a demonic force slowly warping a child over and over for Harvest season i.e. Hallow's Eve sounds vastly more creepy. As an avid Myers fan while the explanation was unusual, I am impressed to how this ended and felt it deserves a higher spot. This take was eerie, gave off a vibe of impending violence lurking in the shadows and had real presence. Halloween sequel fans will enjoy this version.

Mind you, this gets retconned due to Pleasance dying and we are off to H2O: 20 years later and sadly the first Halloween I got to see on the big screen opening night. Yawn. 

GIVE ME THE POWER I BEG OF YOU!!!  No wait. That's another flick.

Obscure Superhero Movie Week: The Pumaman

Hello there and sorry for abandoning you last week. Impacted tooth that will be tended to shortly and I am back on the case. Now this week is at the behest of my Rotten Ramblin' On co-host Shawn, who suggested an obscure superhero week. What does this mean for you and me? Well for me, it will no doubt be pain to rival that of my tooth and for you the reader, you may have to endure some bile and venom spewed at what I am reviewing. So if dredging through TV movies and failed movie potential sequels sounds horrific, then it is time to move on for the week. Those of you that are stout of heart and courage, I salute you all for the pain or humor you will be subjected to.

Today's film is brought to us by Italian director Alberto De Martino (The Invincible Gladiator, Perseus Against the Monsters, The Secret Seven, Hecules vs. The Giant Warriors, Operation Kid Brother, Crime Boss, Holocaust 2000 and Miami Golem) who shares two films on the MST3K roster of with Operation Double 007 starring Sean Connery's brother Neil and this day's film. This is The Pumaman.

I went tinkles now let me back in the damn house!

Paleontologist Professor Tony Farms (Walter George Alton of The Users, 10, The Pumaman and Heavenly Bodies) has been feeling a sense of dread while working in the British Natural History Museum and it is no wonder. The papers keep exclaiming fit brunette white guys are getting chucked out of windows high up in the air and murdered. Being a fit, brunette white guy naturally he feels on edge until he is stalked by an enormous Aztec named Vadinho (not the onion, Miguel Angel Fuentes of Fitzcarraldo, Herod's Law, Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell, The Knife, Gunmen, Blow and Texas Rising) speaks of Tony's father, the space alien gods that have brought the destiny that is written in the stars, a magic disco belt er um Aztec medallion belt to give Tony his birthright, powers and just about everything else that could get you locked away in a rubber room.

A mystical Christmas ornament!?!

But wait, should our would-be hero not have a villain to combat? Look no further as towering 5'6" balding, blue eyed voice that all Carpenter's Halloween fans know and love, Kobras (Donald Pleasence of The Great Escape, Night Creature, Halloween, Dracula 1979, Escape from New York, Halloween II, Phenomena, Warrior Queen, Prince of Darkness, Django Strikes Again, The House of Usher and Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers) proceeds to use an ancient Aztec gold mask to... take over the minds of political officials in England. Yeah that is something I had to write. Kobras and his cronies must dispatch the only thing standing in their way to total worldwide rule is the Puma Man of which Pleasence pronounces it Pewma. Gave me a little smile.

Sir, my sweatsuit is making its own gravy.

Perhaps where pummelings and gun-play failed we throw Pumaman a sultry dame instead? So enter the girl, Miss Jane Dobson (Sydne Rome of What?, Creezy, Just a Gigolo, The Pumaman, In the Heat of the Night, Tierra de canones, Pope John XXIII and Don Matteo) who if she and Tony were to mate would provide some pretty but dopey babies. With England and soon the world to be in Kobras' pocket, the Pumaman must embrace his powers, tacky costume and fly...like a puma to do battle and save the world.

Okay due to this being a TV movie made in 1980 with ADM Film Department, it did not hit the states via CBS until 1985 so shucks I missed it. The flying scenes will make you belt out laughing due to the blue screen shots transition from day to night in a matter of a few moments, so either Pewmaman can travel through time zones like the frickin Flash with his butt in the air (harness gag wasn't set right or they had him flailing in a static pose) or they might have goofed on the screenshots. My favorite part is when Onion, I mean Vadinho tells us his people are Aztecs from the Andes plateau (WRONG!!!! That would be the Incas!!! The Aztecs hailed from Mexico, the southern regions. Look at a history book, writer!) The Casio goofy synthesizer music which is his theme song is...charming and whimsical.  Not the sound I am looking for in my superhero flick but it beats hearing that damn power chord in EVERYTHING Christopher Nolan and Zach Synder direct these days.  So honestly this is good for a chuckle as they are clearly trying to treat this film seriously in spite of the writing and lack of budget. Do yourself a favor though, watch the MST3K or Mystery Science Theater 3000 version instead. Good riffing to be had.

Oh sure, just drape me like eye candy.  Gonna slap my agent.