Did anyone have any concept of who the Man in Black might turn out to be?
To be really honest about it, no one had a clue. We all kept asking each other, ‘Who in the bloody hell is this guy in black? What’s he about?’ And we kept getting the same answer. ‘Don’t worry about it. It’ll all be revealed later.’ I would’ve at least liked to know why he was doing what he was doing. He steps off a bus and kicks a dog. Why does he kick the dog? Why does he do anything in the film? I don’t think Dominique knew either.
I wanted to ask what you recall about several deleted scenes that were filmed but left out of the final movie. What do you remember about the original opening with Dr. Death?
Why that original opening wasn’t used, I don’t know. But we shot that in a set that was built on the edge of a stream. It wasn’t even a stream, really. It was more of a big culvert on the side of the road. I think we only shot one night in that shack, but we shot a lot of stuff having to do with that scene. Most of it involved the healing process of Michael Myers, how the voodoo guy slowly brings him back to life. To me, it was all pretty cool and moody stuff. I thought it was a decent way of getting into the new story, but as a cinematographer you don’t get a say in how that process goes.
How about the scene where Michael slaughters the SWAT Team at the clinic?
I had actually forgotten about that until you sent me the article on it. Looking back on it, we shot a huge scene at the clinic that was supposed to intercut with the cops sitting outside the Myers house. They would have heard all the people being massacred at the clinic over their walkie-talkies. That scene had so many visual effects in it, too. Greg Nicotero from KNB was handling all of it. He was really proud of the stuff he was able to do with Michael twisting people’s heads off and what not. And in the end, they communicated that entire scene with just audio over the walkie talkie. I don’t know if it would’ve made the movie better or not, but it was a spectacular sequence as we shot it.
The other big missing scene is the police shootout with the Man in Black. This was where Sheriff Meeker was supposed to die, which seems like kind of a big moment to lose, right?
Again, we shot so much on that. None of these deleted scenes we’re talking about were small. They were really elaborate pieces of film we put a lot of time and effort into getting. I remember we did a great handheld shot through this long corridor in the police station. We actually did that shot twice. The first time was while the shootout was unfolding, so there was a lot of action to it. The second time, it’s right after the shootout and there are dead bodies and debris everywhere. In the final film, you only see a small piece of the second shot in order to show the aftermath of what’s just happened. That seems like it was the less interesting of the two shots because the first pass through that hallway had all the shooting in it.
And I’ve never understood or known why these things didn’t wind up in the movie. I do know that certain things were cut from the film because they were deemed too violent. Remember the scene where Michael Myers takes the gardening tool and whacks the guy in the head with it? We shot that with a fake head that Greg had built. I was the camera operator at the time. I’ll never forget how realistic it looked when that tool went into the guy’s head. People on the crew were almost sick just watching it. They showed the full version of that to a test audience and they apparently couldn’t handle it, so it was mostly cut out. Maybe that was the case with the clinic and police station sequences.
FILM: HALLOWEEN 6
“Before you start shooting, you need a script that makes sense, one that everyone is happy with. The script is everything.” - John Carpenter, Fangoria
By most measures, Halloween 5 was poorly received, even by those within the genre community. Fear Magazine held nothing back in suggesting the sequel “spit on the grave of John Carpenter’s original masterpiece.” Fangoria published multiple letters from its disappointed readership, one of which read: “If Moustapha Akkad expects us to shell out more bucks for another stupid sequel with no ending, he’s sorely mistaken.” Even today, the film rates 13% among critics on Rotten Tomatoes.
Those cutting reviews might have stung less had the film not also disappointed at the box office. Halloween 5 would become the lowest grossing entry in the series with $11.6 million, a distinction it still holds today even when adjusted for inflation. That gross hardly made the film a failure, but it was an underwhelming performance in light of Halloween’s potential. This chilly reception led Moustapha Akkad to pump the breaks on the franchise. He openly acknowledged that Halloween 5 had been detrimentally rushed through every phase of production. It was a mistake he did not intend to repeat on Halloween 6.
A NEW DIMENSION
Development on the new Halloween quickly stalled in 1990 when Moustapha Akkad encountered a serious problem with the rights. In short, he no longer held them as they had expired. Akkad soon entered into a bidding war with John Carpenter to reclaim control of the franchise. Both men were backed by distributors hoping to acquire the next installment for release. Akkad partnered with Bob and Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax Films while Carpenter sided with Robert Shaye’s New Line Cinema. Carpenter’s pitch for Halloween 6 was rumored to involve shooting Michael Myers into space, which may or may not have been a joke. (For what it’s worth, Akkad insisted that Carpenter was not joking with this pitch, which is reported as fact on the official Halloween Movies website.) Both parties submitted sealed bids to win back the franchise with Akkad/Miramax ultimately prevailing. They would release the sixth Halloween through Dimension Films, the genre wing of Miramax. (Akkad’s Halloween 6 would later poke fun at Carpenter’s premise with a radio show caller claiming that Michael had been shot into space. This joke is exclusive to the producer’s cut of the film.)
Moustapha Akkad had previously produced the fourth and fifth Halloweens with complete creative autonomy. He could and sometimes did overrule even his directors on production-related matters. Simply put, he was the boss. That was set to change now that a studio was involved. The Weinsteins would not be silent partners, but instead wield considerable influence over every aspect of Halloween 6. This new power dynamic set the stage for a number of disagreements throughout production. On the Akkad side, Moustapha brought back Halloween 4 producer Paul Freeman in the same role. He also enlisted the help of his son, Malek Akkad, as associate producer. This would be Malek’s debut producing credit, the first of many.
Halloween 6 was originally set to begin production in November 1993 with director Gary Fleder at the helm. It was Fleder who brought on screenwriter Philip Rosenberg, who penned the script titled Halloween 666: The Origin. Fleder soon departed the project over irreconcilable creative differences. This version of Halloween 6 was notably different than the film we know today. The only similarity is the return of young Tommy Doyle from the original Halloween. Rosenberg envisioned Michael as being homeless and Loomis now hospitalized as a patient at Smith’s Grove. Per Miramax’s request, he also included a virtual reality plot device within his story. Not everyone liked this direction, however. It’s rumored that Akkad threw the Rosenberg draft across the room upon first reading it. The screenwriter’s brother, Scott Rosenberg, was later brought in to polish the script, though his version still failed to satisfy producers. For this reason, the November 1993 start date was pushed back to spring 1994.
In March 1994, Miramax offered Quentin Tarantino the chance to write Halloween 6, an opportunity he declined. Executive Vice President Richard Gladstein then asked Tarantino and partner Lawrence Bender to consider executive producing the sequel instead. In mulling the opportunity, they suggested filmmaker Scott Spiegel to direct the project, who was then best known for having co-written Evil Dead II with Sam Raimi. Bob Weinstein followed up on this suggestion in April by screening Spiegel’s only directorial credit, 1989’s Intruder, which he liked. Weinstein then met with Spiegel and gave him his blessing to helm the project. The directorial candidate next met with Moustapha Akkad, who was not as impressed
. The producer instead offered him a chance to rewrite the Rosenberg script. If that went well, he might have a shot at directing the sequel. Spiegel soon read a draft of Halloween 666 and deemed the material unsalvageable, even with a full rewrite. With this, he left the project.
Still unhappy with the script, the producers next gave screenwriters Irving Belateche and Larry Guterman a chance to rewrite the Rosenberg draft in May 1994. This same month, the Weinsteins hired filmmaker Matthew Patrick to direct Halloween 6, who in turn brought on cinematographer Billy Dickson. Patrick sought to take the film in a different direction and wrote his own script that also saw the return of young Tommy Doyle. Now an adult, an extremely paranoid Tommy hides away in a custom-built saferoom in constant fear that Michael Myers might one day return. With production drawing near, Patrick began scouting locations and casting performers. Unfortunately, disagreements between the Weinsteins and Akkads killed this version of the film two weeks before cameras were set to roll. Patrick left the project, though Dickson remained on.
Production was delayed yet again, this time until October 1994 in order to give producers enough time to find a new screenplay. This is when Akkad remembered a young fan he had met with four years prior who came recommended by Halloween 5 producer Ramsey Thomas. In 1990 at just twenty-years-old, aspiring screenwriter Daniel Farrands had pitched his own unique take on Halloween 6. He presented Akkad with an exhaustive franchise bible filled with intricate story details, family trees, and mythology breakdowns. While impressed by the young writer’s attention to detail, Akkad passed. Farrands would go on to launch his feature screenwriting career by penning the script to 1993’s Rave, Dancing to a Different Beat.
Akkad later revealed that he held onto Farrands’ Halloween bible and consulted it regularly across the next several years. In June 1994, after years of struggling to find the right script, the producer called Farrands back in to pitch Halloween 6 once more. This time, he won the job. His instructions were simple and few. Halloween 6 had to feature Michael Myers, take place in Haddonfield, be scary, and somehow resolve the lingering plot threads leftover from Halloween 5. Concerning this last requirement, Farrands had already done his homework. The writer’s extensive research on both Samhain (the ancient celebration that became Halloween) and Thorn (the mark on Michael’s wrist in Halloween 5) allowed him to incorporate these elements into the evolving mythology.
Farrands’ story charged that Haddonfield’s citizens were members of a secret cult presided over by the mysterious Man in Black from Halloween 5. Every few generations, the cult chooses one family to bear the cursed mark of Thorn, a demon spirit that delivered human sacrifices on Samhain. The cultists believed that by cursing only one bloodline everyone else would be spared famine, sickness, and death. For thirty-two years, Michael Myers has borne the mark of Thorn and now – Halloween 1995 – it is time for another to take his place. While Akkad liked this fresh direction, he felt that involving the entire town was too broad a scope for one film. Farrands subsequently scaled back the cult conspiracy to just the staff of Smith’s Grove Sanitarium rather than the whole town.
Chief among the screenwriter’s goals was to spiritually tie Halloween 6 to the first film as much as possible. This led Farrands to reintroduce two long forgotten characters from John Carpenter’s original. The sequel’s new protagonist would be Tommy Doyle, whom Laurie Strode babysat that fateful night in 1978. Now an adult, Tommy’s life is consumed by an obsession with Michael Myers. The sequel’s new villain would bring back a very minor role – Dr. Terrance Wynn – who had but one brief scene in the Carpenter film. (“Sam, Haddonfield is a hundred and fifty miles from here. How could he get there? He can’t drive!”) In fact, Wynn’s role in Halloween was so minute that you would only know him by name if you read the end credits. Yet Farrands saw great potential within the character and cast him as the secret identity of the Man in Black. Further connections to the original film include meeting a new branch of the Strode family, returning to the Myers house, and the reintroduction of Smith’s Grove.
In resolving Halloween 5’s cliffhanger ending, Halloween 6 needed to address the fate of Dr. Loomis, who was left for dead at the end of the last installment. Farrands wrote that Loomis had not died in that film’s conclusion but instead suffered a stroke. “I felt that I would never play Loomis again,” Donald Pleasence told Fangoria. “In a sense, I was relieved, because I felt Halloween 5 had taken a totally absurd turn and that it had lost a lot of what the previous Halloween movies had fought hard to create, which was a real sense of terror and suspense. But then I was notified about six months ago that they were doing another one, and I got excited about it. The script is good. So here I am again. […] I’m enjoying playing Loomis again. And I will most certainly be back for the next Halloween if they want me.”
Unlike his predecessors, Farrands was a serious fan of the franchise and littered his screenplay with homages to Halloween and its makers. Characters John and Debra Strode were named in tribute to John Carpenter and Debra Hill. The “stomach pounder” drink mentioned early on is a nod to Carpenter’s The Fog. Minnie Blankenship references Halloween III as Ellie Grimbridge’s father was scheduled to meet with a character of the same name before his untimely death. Speaking of Halloween III, Farrands also wrote that the Shape-less sequel was to be seen playing on television throughout Halloween 6. This was not unlike how Carpenter’s original film was seen on television throughout Halloween III. (Sadly, the producers would later nix this tribute to avoid having to license clips from Universal Pictures. They would instead feature the 1925 silent version of Phantom of the Opera, which is in the public domain.)
Moustapha Akkad may have discovered Halloween 6’s screenwriter, but it was producer Paul Freeman who found its director. Like Farrands, Joe Chappelle was a rising star who had but one feature credit to his name with 1994’s Thieves Quartet, a well-received caper that Variety called “a fine showcase for Chappelle’s directorial chops.” While Chappelle got along well with the Akkads on Halloween 6, his ultimate loyalty was to the Weinsteins, who grew quite fond of him. They would re-hire him to direct 1998’s Phantoms and 2000’s Takedown, both for Dimension Films. “The good thing is that expectations for this movie are not going to be very high,” Chappelle told Fangoria. “People are going to expect the worst. After Halloween 5, it can only get better. I think we’re going to surprise a lot of people, because they aren’t going to expect anything more than what the title suggests.”
It’s no secret that Halloween 6 suffered terribly from creative differences among the filmmakers. There was nothing even remotely final about Farrands’ final draft of the screenplay. His script was constantly meddled with, often without his involvement. Entire pages were re-written, scrapped, or supplemented by the director and producers. Even worse, these individuals had vastly different ideas of what the film should be while sorely lacking Farrands’ intimate knowledge of the franchise. As a result, character arcs went unfinished, questions left unanswered, and conflicts unresolved. Halloween 6’s shooting script was a slave to many masters, narrative cohesion be damned. If there’s a lesson here, it’s that screenplays ought be written by screenwriters. To echo the wisdom of John Carpenter: “The script is everything.”
The production soon split into two warring camps – the Weinsteins and the Akkads. The initial cut of the film, now widely known as the producer’s cut, mostly followed the original shooting script and was supervised by the Akkads. The Weinsteins strongly disliked this presentation of Halloween 6 and forcibly seized control of the project in order to oversee their own version. They would re-edit and re-shoot much of the film into what we know today as the theatrical cut. Their goal was to produce a better version of Halloween 6, though how successful they were remains a much debated topic. Sadly, neither version of the sequel reflects Farrands’ original vision for the project, though the producer’s cut strays far less than its theatrical counterpart. In all, the screenwriter was forced to pen no less than ten different
drafts of his screenplay, not counting the theatrical cut re-writes.
“It was like seeing my childhood dream turned into a living nightmare. I had no control. I was forced to stand by as producers took their hand to the script and cut out everything that was scary and suspenseful.”
- Daniel Farrands, 73 Miles to Haddonfield
THE PRODUCER’S CUT
The opening moments of the producer’s cut reveal that the Man in Black abducted both Michael Myers and Jamie Lloyd at the end of Halloween 5. Since that time, Jamie has remained imprisoned by a Druid-like cult who worship Michael as a deity. In present day, Jamie has just given birth to a son, whom the cult want for a human sacrifice. Both mother and newborn manage to escape their dungeon sanctuary with the help of a rogue nurse, whom Michael kills for her betrayal. Jamie stops at the Haddonfield Bus Depot but finds it abandoned. She overhears a radio program on Michael Myers and calls in hoping Dr. Loomis will hear her plea for help. Realizing she has been followed, Jamie hides her baby at the bus terminal and escapes to a nearby barn. In a final encounter with the Shape, she is stabbed and left for dead.
As fate would have it, Jamie’s call-in was heard by both original Halloween survivor Tommy Doyle and Dr. Loomis, who was mid-visit with an old Smith’s Grove colleague, Dr. Terrance Wynn. Fearing another slaughter, Loomis begs Wynn for help in stopping his former patient. News soon arrives that Jamie has been found near-death and hospitalized. Tommy tracks Jamie’s call to the bus station where he discovers her baby. He takes the child to Haddonfield Memorial where he encounters Dr. Loomis, who is there checking on Jamie. Tommy confides that the baby is Jamie’s and that a new family has moved into the Myers house. He then takes the child back to his room at old Mrs. Blankenship’s boarding house opposite 45 Lampkin Lane.
The Myers house is now occupied by a branch of the Strode family. This lot includes college-age Kara and her young son Danny, her brother Tim, mother Debra and abusive patriarch John, who knew of their new home’s ghastly history but kept it a secret. Danny has been troubled lately by disturbing visions of a man in black urging him to kill. Loomis visits Debra to warn her of the inherent danger of living in Michael’s former home. Alarmed, she attempts to leave but is killed by the Shape before she can do so. Tommy similarly confronts Kara and shares his theories about Michael’s power originating from an ancient curse known as Thorn. Mrs. Blankenship reveals that she was babysitting Michael the night he killed his sister and that he heard voices instructing him to do so – just as Danny now hears. Elsewhere, the Man in Black kills an unconscious Jamie in her hospital bed. As night falls, the town’s festivities begin. These include a live broadcast by the same shock jock whose radio program Jamie phoned in the opening. Michael kills the radio host at the festival as well as John Strode, Tim Strode, and his girlfriend at his former home.
Taking Shape Page 19
