Taking Shape

by Dustin McNeill

  As it turned out, Halloween wasn’t the only franchise the Weinsteins were sabotaging circa 1994/1995. They also had a meddling hand in Hellraiser: Bloodline, the fourth entry in the Clive Barker series. Like Halloween, Hellraiser was an already established franchise that Dimension acquired for sequelization. The Weinsteins hired famed effects maker Kevin Yagher to direct from a script by Hellraiser veteran Peter Atkins. Yagher delivered his first cut of Bloodline on budget and on time in January 1995. The Weinsteins strongly disliked what they saw and demanded extensive changes that included more Pinhead, more gore, and a restructuring of the film’s narrative timeline. Substantial reshoots were in order to implement these changes.

  Neither Yagher nor Atkins returned to work on the Bloodline reshoots, which were slated to film in April and May of that year. The Weinsteins instead turned to screenwriter Rand Ravich (Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh, The Astronaut’s Wife) and director Joe Chappelle, who was fresh off post-production on Halloween 6. Why exactly the Weinsteins would turn to the director of one troubled production in order to “fix” another may forever remain one of life’s biggest mysteries. Upon viewing the final cut of Hellraiser: Bloodline, Yagher demanded his name be taken off the film and replaced with “Alan Smithee,” an industry pseudonym invoked when a filmmaker wants to disown a project. Having only helmed the reshoots, Chappelle was ineligible for a director credit and instead received a special thanks at the end of the film. His cut of Bloodline would debut the following year to staggeringly poor box office and reviews. This would damn future Hellraiser installments to the direct-to-video market, a slump it has thus far been unable to escape from.

  Chappelle would wrap additional filming on Hellraiser: Bloodline in June 1995 and be back at work on Halloween 6 the following month for that sequel’s additional filming. While Daniel Farrands did write new material for the reshoots, his pages were rejected in favor of those written by Bloodline’s Rand Ravich. Chappelle himself took a stab at penning a new ending, part of which involved Kara Strode mowing down cult members with a machine gun. Farrands managed to veto this idea and several others, though he was soon warned by an assistant director that he was perilously close to being banned from set for his frequent protests.

  Who’s to blame for Halloween 6’s woes? That depends on who you talk to. The Weinsteins are certainly an easy target. Per one anonymous veteran, some blame falls to producer Paul Freeman: “He sent the crew home when crucial scenes needed to be shot. He deleted scenes indiscriminately, without regard for pacing, suspense, or story logic. He took it upon himself to direct second-unit shots which looked like a child experimenting with his first Super-8 movie camera. He rewrote dialogue and action sequences, turning them into unintentional laughs. And he supervised the post-production phase of the original cut and made a series of blunders so embarrassing that they resulted in Dimension taking control of the film, ordering reshoots, and turning it into the even bigger disaster that was released in theaters.”

  Farrands became so frustrated with Freeman on Halloween 6 that he wrote a subtle jab at the producer into the shooting script, which wound up in the finished film. Recall the scene in which Barry Simms argues with his own show producer (also named Paul) while trying to find the WKNB station van. “I’m taking this show to the real Myers house where we should have done it in the first place!” This references Freeman’s refusal to use the original Myers house location in Pasadena, which the screenwriter had repeatedly advocated for. Farrands was an admittedly vocal critic on the Halloween 6 set, taking issue with everything from the Shape’s mask to casting. Some battles were won, though many more were lost.

  THE THEATRICAL CUT

  The theatrical version of Halloween 6 - as supervised by the Weinsteins - is a strange creature. This presentation of the film is a profoundly different experience than the producer’s cut in many ways. In some respects, it’s an improvement. In others, it’s far worse. Sometimes, it’s neither better nor worse – just different. This was the version that would be released into theaters and onto home video. For millions of moviegoers, it remains the definitive cut of the film. The changes Joe Chappelle and the Weinsteins made were numerous and wide-ranging. The most noticeable difference involves the third act, which was entirely reshot. The two cuts go separate ways after Wynn kidnaps Kara and the children, never to converge again.

  In this new cut, Tommy and Loomis wake after being drugged by the cult. Loomis rightly suspects Wynn has retreated to Smith’s Grove and both men head there. Tommy searches the hospital’s psych ward while Loomis confronts his colleague. Wynn teases that Jamie’s baby has been genetically engineered to continue Michael’s evil and invites his old friend to join him. Outraged, Loomis tries to shoot Wynn but is knocked unconscious. Tommy locates and frees an imprisoned Kara, barely escaping the Shape. They stumble upon Wynn and his peers preparing for a mysterious surgical procedure involving Danny and Jamie’s baby. They are soon interrupted – and all slaughtered – by an angry Shape. Tommy, Kara, and the children escape to a genetics lab where Kara injects an unknown green substance into Michael. Tommy beats the disoriented slasher unconscious with a pipe. They encounter Loomis on their way out, who elects to stay behind for unfinished business. The film ends on a shot of Michael’s mask laying where he previously was – followed by Loomis’ screams of terror.

  The new Ravich ending appears tailor-made to address criticisms of the previous ending. This finale features a much longer chase, actual kills for the Shape, and slaughters most of the cult before any kind of ceremony can take place. Somewhat maddeningly, this ending still has Tommy walking away from an immobilized Shape without killing him, knowing he will surely live to take more innocent lives. (Why, Tommy!? Why!?) Still, frustrating questions abound. What was that green stuff in the hypodermics and why did it ooze from Michael’s mask when Tommy beat him? And what were all those fetal specimens about?

  This new version seems unsure what to do with Jamie’s baby. In the producer’s cut, the baby was clearly intended as Michael’s final sacrifice, but not here. Tommy still theorizes as such, but he is seemingly contradicted by Wynn in the reshot material. In this cut, the baby is somehow genetically modified to be Michael’s successor. Never mind that Mrs. Blankenship still suggests that Danny is going to be Michael’s successor since he hears the same voice telling him to kill. So, uh... who’s supposed to become the new Shape? We’re never told. Why does the cult kidnap Kara? We’re never told. And why do they dress her in ceremonial garb? We’re never told. And what surgery were Danny and the baby about to undergo? We’re never told. To call this new material poorly conceived would be putting it lightly. The film fails to give its audience even a rudimentary understanding of what is happening on the screen.

  In actuality, many of the filmmakers were as confused by the new ending as the audience – including but not limited to Halloween 6’s own screenwriter. Venting to 73 Miles from Haddonfield, Farrands said: “People ask me all the time, ‘What does that ending mean when they go into the lab?’ I have no idea. I remember being on that set and asking, ‘What is this about?’ I was told, ‘It’ll all make sense when you see it.’ Okay, sure. This was all a concoction of studio heads and the director and the other writers who just threw shit to the wall and figured something would stick. […] I can only glean from what I’ve seen in the movie, maybe they’re trying to harness some genetic source of evil and they’re using embryos to try to create it?”

  If Tommy’s final battle with the Shape, which is less a battle and more akin to a beatdown, seems to end abruptly, that’s because the scene was never actually completed. The filmmakers were running behind on the last night of reshoots and scrapped several pages of material on the spot. Think back to the Hellraiser-esque rustling chains in that scene. Those were supposed to feature prominently into the new ending with Tommy hoisting the Shape up into the air. In an effort to save on overtime, the filmmakers instead tossed the Shape’s mask onto the floor and hastily shot a pan-down to reve
al it.

  Judging by the many changes made to Halloween 6, it’s plain to see what Joe Chappelle and the Weinsteins disliked about the initial producer’s cut. They sought to fully erase or at least reduce all remaining ties to Halloween 5, which may be why the title card loses a numeral to simply read: Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. This sentiment also led to the removal of the flashback to Halloween 5’s ending. Going even further, the filmmakers slashed Jamie’s already minor role in the story by killing her off in the barn rather than later on in the hospital. It likely didn’t help the character’s plight any that original actress Danielle Harris refused to reprise her role due to a contractual dispute with the studio. Since Jamie no longer appears at the hospital, she no longer has the nightmare flashback to her uncle raping her. We’re also spared Kara’s line about the baby belonging to Michael, meaning that - theatrically – the paternity of Jamie’s baby is left unknown. Thank God.

  It’s also apparent that someone, rumored to be Chappelle, didn’t care much for the late Donald Pleasence, which would account for his drastically reduced screen time in the theatrical version. Despite receiving prominent pre-title billing in the opening credits, Loomis’ screen time here totals a scant seven minutes. The character also no longer delivers the opening narration, which is now provided by Tommy Doyle. This despite the fact that Farrands wrote this narration as an excerpt from the doctor’s journal. Several Loomis moments are removed entirely with the remaining being pared down to the bare minimum. In the producer’s cut, Loomis and Wynn’s visit to the barn lasts just over a minute. In the theatrical cut, this same scene runs a mere sixteen seconds. The character’s inclusion in the reshot ending was greatly complicated by the actor’s passing. Not that Loomis had much of a role in the producer’s cut finale to start with. In rewriting his and Wynn’s conversation in the latter’s office, the filmmakers were forced to keep Pleasence’s original dialogue while changing actor Mitch Ryan’s responses. The result is a disjointed back-and-forth where neither man appears to be responding to the other.

  Another clear goal of the theatrical cut was to de-emphasize the cult as much as possible. Though not directly stated, this version suggests that Wynn and his Smith’s Grove pals may have been using the cult as a front to pursue unethical medical experimentation. (“Okay, okay, okay. You can take that off now. Halloween is over.”) This drastically changes Wynn’s characterization from supernatural cult leader to manipulative mad scientist. Theatrically, the film no longer ends with a ceremony but with a mysterious surgical procedure that never quite gets underway.

  That Michael slaughters Wynn’s surgeon buddies speaks to a major shift in the film’s central theme. The producer’s cut suggests that you absolutely can control ultimate evil with the right magic. Both Tommy and Wynn successfully manipulate Michael using ancient powers. Theatrically, the filmmakers suggest the opposite, that you can’t control evil. In fact, they outright say this with Tommy’s new narration: “If there’s one thing I know, it’s that you can’t control evil,” and again in a call-in to Barry Simms’ radio show. This is nowhere better demonstrated than in the surgical room slaughter. Per the producer’s cut, Michael is a but a henchmen for the cult. Per the theatrical cut, he is an uncontrollable force who doesn’t choose sides. He simply kills.

  As originally filmed, Halloween 6 was light on violence and gore per Moustapha Akkad’s long running desire to limit bloodletting. He instead preferred that the Halloween films focus on suspense. It would seem that neither Chapelle nor the Weinsteins shared his preference as they used the July reshoots to make the film much bloodier. Originally stabbed offscreen, Jamie Lloyd is now impaled on farm equipment, which the Shape uses to grind up her internal organs. John Strode would still die by electrocution, except that his head now inexplicably explodes. Beth is still stabbed in the back, but the footage is dramatically slowed down to highlight the violence. In the producer’s version, the Shape doesn’t kill anyone during the ending at Smith’s Grove. In the new theatrical cut, he embarks on a bloody rampage throughout the facility. These additional deaths include forcing a surgeon’s face through metal bars, stabbing a mentally-ill patient in the abdomen, and the aforementioned bloodbath in the surgical room.

  Perhaps the most interesting perspective to be had in all of this is the one we’ve never gotten – that of director Joe Chappelle. The filmmaker has shunned the franchise in the years since his film’s release. He has turned down umpteen interview requests for magazines, books, and documentaries. He has also declined participation in anniversary screenings, convention reunions, and home video supplements, further shrouding Halloween 6 in mystery.

  SCRIPT DEVELOPMENT

  Sorting through the many alternate drafts of Daniel Farrands’ Halloween 6 is a surefire exercise in frustration. These pages are loaded with details and dialogue that could have greatly clarified and improved the film’s otherwise murky mythology. They also contain some of Farrands’ best ideas, many of which never made it to the big screen. Consider his original introduction to the Myers house. Theatrically, we get a drab establishing shot during a rainstorm. Yet in the script, Halloween 6 was to recreate the iconic tracking shot that began John Carpenter’s Halloween using young Danny Strode in place of Michael Myers. The sequence ended with Danny stabbing his mother in her upstairs bedroom. Though it’s only a bad dream, this would have ominously foreshadowed the boy’s dark destiny later in the film.

  As first envisioned, Tommy Doyle had a completely different characterization than in the final film. Farrands first wrote Tommy as the host of a college radio show along with girlfriend and fellow Halloween survivor Lindsey Wallace. Looking to exploit their own past, Tommy wants to do a show on Michael Myers, which Lindsey is firmly against. This early version of the sequel ended with Tommy and Loomis barely escaping a bomb blast that destroys the radio station and its broadcast tower.

  As the storyline evolved, Tommy became a paranoid antisocial living alone in a boarding house while the Lindsey role was dropped altogether. Elements of Tommy’s radio show eventually formed the basis for shock jock Barry Simms. Farrands based Simms on real-life talk show host Howard Stern, whom he hoped would play the role. After Stern declined, Farrands suggested comedian Mike Myers, though the producers refused to seriously consider this suggestion. (Fun fact: Jamie Lee Curtis later lobbied for Myers to have a brief non-speaking cameo in Halloween H20. The comedian declined.)

  Farrands originally used the Mrs. Blankenship role to reveal that Michael’s bloodline had been cursed by Thorn going back several generations. This plot point strongly evoked the expanded backstory found in Richard Curtis’ novelization of the original Halloween, which Farrands is an admitted fan of. Early script drafts saw Mrs. Blankenship telling Kara that Michael’s great-grandfather also heard voices telling him to kill. On Halloween night in 1895, he obeyed those voices by murdering his entire family in the Myers house. “Then the townspeople burned him alive. Our mother always told us when we were children, ‘Don’t go near the Myers house.’ We never did.”

  The Shape’s various kill methods also changed considerably throughout pre-production. The lead-up to John Strode’s murder was originally much longer. As first conceptualized, the drunken patriarch was to arrive home to find Halloween III playing on television. After a snide comment (“What the hell is this shit?”), he switches to the news and heads for the kitchen. Upon return, John finds the television turned back to Halloween III. Assuming Danny is behind this prank, he searches the darkened house for his grandson, unaware that he is being stalked by the Shape. John was originally killed similar to Bob in the first Halloween, though a bloody washing machine soon came into play as did his exploding head. Barry Simms also suffered a different fate as first envisioned. In both versions of the film, the shock jock is stabbed multiple times and strung up in a tree. Earlier drafts saw the Shape pack his mutilated corpse into a giant pumpkin piñata, which Haddonfield’s children burst open at the town festival. The end result? A sangui
nary baptism for the unsuspecting kiddies.

  In a departure from tradition, Halloween 6 lacks a law enforcement character à la Sheriffs Brackett or Meeker. Early scripts did, however, include a lawman known as Sheriff Holdt. This new character was nowhere near as cooperative as his predecessors were. While Holdt originally featured into multiple scenes, his part was whittled down to a single appearance in the producer’s cut. In it, Holdt scolds Loomis and Wynn for showing up to the crime scene where Jamie’s body is discovered, asserting that Michael Myers will surely follow wherever they are. Loomis angrily responds that Michael has already returned to Haddonfield as evidenced by Jamie’s murder. In cutting back on Donald Pleasence’s screentime for the theatrical version, the filmmakers wound up dropping the sheriff character altogether.

  One of the screenwriter’s earliest intentions with the sequel was to conclude the Jamie Lloyd storyline in a satisfying manner. Despite that, both versions of Halloween 6 manage to mess that up pretty badly. Farrands originally wrote that Jamie would survive the opening and be hospitalized to recuperate. In a nod to Halloween II, the Shape would have tracked her to the hospital – only to find that she had escaped and stuffed her bed with pillows. Jamie would later appear at Smith’s Grove in the final act to take on the cult. Badly wounded, she would have confronted the Shape and allowed for Tommy, Kara, and the children to get away. (Think about the dramatic weight of that for a moment. Jamie would be sacrificing herself so that complete strangers can save her newborn from the cult. Heavy.) Though she ultimately perishes by her uncle’s blade, Jamie dies on her feet fighting back against the evil that’s tormented her for a lifetime. This was a far more heroic death than, say, being shot in the face while sleeping (producer’s cut) or being impaled by farm equipment (theatrical).