⭐️1/2
All these years on, I still can’t believe this film wasn’t shot in Bulgaria. I mean, it feels like a penny-pinching exercise that should have been shot in Bulgaria. That’s just me. I opted to watch the theatrical cut because it was the one I didn’t have to go digging around for and my memory of the producer’s cut may be sketchy but I’m pretty sure it’s a film that deserves no extra effort. I’ll probably get to it someday… not anytime soon but someday. This is the culmination (and half-assed explanation) of the Mark of Thorn arch which goes to show that a heavy focus on this dumbass premise was never deserved because it blows. I’m sorry, we should have gone full-blown supernatural demonics or something to make this interesting. Hell, autumn aliens would have worked just fine for me, your movie was doomed to suck but at least it could have strayed so far beyond the premise of the series that I would have at least been impressed by the courage of the filmmakers. Alas. Here we are. Michael’s niece Jamie gives birth to a little baby in the evilest delivery room I’ve seen outside of a sleazy European horror flick and is soon murdered by her uncle after a sympathetic nurse helps her escape with her newborn child. The Cult of Thorn pulls the strings but also cursed Michael because… uhm… evil. So, Jamie manages to call into an irritating shock-jock’s radio program before getting slaughtered and it just so happens that Dr. Loomis (a thoroughly wasted Donald Pleasance in his final American film which just adds further insult) and Tommy Doyle (the boy Jamie Lee Curtis babysat in the original, here played by Paul Rudd, who would come a long way after this in acting ability and pay scale, in his first movie and billed as Paul Stephen Rudd) are listening in. Tommy is keeping a close eye on the Myers’ house because he knows evil will return. Jamie’s nebbish aunt and awful uncle who have, for some reason lacking any logic or plausibility, moved into the old Myers’ house along with their single-parent daughter (who has a derpy but possibly homicidal son) and “hip” teenage son. What the fuck? You’re just courting tragedy… dumbasses. Of course, Tommy manages to figure out where the call-in came from because socially awkward weirdos are always good at that type of thing and is able to find the stashed baby in a bus stop bathroom who really needs to consider hiring in a different janitorial staff. I mean, they missed blood splatter on a sink and a crying baby in a cabinet. Come on, team. Through coincidence, Tommy runs into Loomis when he takes the baby to the hospital and fills him in on some stuff. Michael is looking to slay Jamie’s son which has him returning to Haddonfield (which is in the process of throwing its first Halloween celebration in years) and wipe out the rest of the family in the process. The wonderful Mitchell Ryan is around as Dr. Wynn who is definitely up to no good whilst hanging around his retired colleague Dr. Loomis and Marianne Hagan is at least easy to look at as the Strode woman trying to survive the seasonal slasher and protect her spooky-ass son from the evil influence. Undeniably garbage outing is awarded some points because of how dumb it is but that will only get you so far. Pleasance is great, he always was no matter how little he was given to do and Rudd may not show any discernible talent in his debut but it’s fun watching him mishandle the character of Tommy. Laughable jump scares, a few despicable idiots, a mess of a plot, callbacks and some violent but lame murders (we do get an exploding head, I have never complained about an exploding head) keep things somewhat interesting in the right mindset. It’s still the weakest entry up to this point and would be followed by a much stronger outing a few years later… which would, in turn, be followed by a much weaker but hilarious outing and would then be thoroughly abused in the less-than-capable hands of Rob Zombie… but let’s not jump too far ahead.
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