Halloween 6 The Curse of Michael Myers About

The Birth of Steven and Demise of Jamie

The sixth film in the series opened with a 15 year oldJamie Lloyd pleading, gasping, and screaming as she was wheeled on a stretcher down a long underground corridor by masked physicians. [The location was eventually revealed to be the basement area of Smith's Grove Warren County Sanitarium.] She was hallucinating that her crazed, psycho serial-killer uncle Michael Myers was terrorizing her with a large butcher knife. The trench-coated Man in Black was also visible. Jamie was laid on her back, with her arms and legs tied, surrounded by a candle-lit altar with burning torches during a mysterious ceremony of satanic cultists. She then was seen in labor delivering a male baby, that was immediately handed to the Man in Black - she cursed him as her baby was taken away.

(voice-over, during the credits, later identified as Tommy Doyle) "When Michael Myers was six years old, he stabbed his sister to death. For years, he was locked up in Smith's Grove Sanitarium, but he escaped. And suddenly, Halloween became another word for mayhem! One by one, he killed his entire family, until his nine-year-old niece, Jamie Lloyd, was the only one left alive. Six years ago, Halloween night, Michael and Jamie vanished. Many people believed them dead, but I think that someone hid them away. Someone who keeps Michael, protects him, tries to control him. And if there's one thing I know, you can't control evil. You can lock it up, you can burn it and bury it and pray that it dies, but it never will. It just rests awhile. You can lock your doors and say your prayers at night, but the evil's out there waiting. And maybe, just maybe, it's closer than you think!"

Since the previous film, The Man in Black, over the previous six years, had kidnapped and cared for both Michael Myers and Jamie, during which time she was impregnated by Michael. On Halloween Eve in 1995, she delivered a male baby, marked on its stomach in blood with a rune symbol, and used on the altar in a ritual. That night, Jamie was rescued with her newborn by Nurse Mary and aided in an escape to save her baby - Jamie feared that she wouldn't be allowed to keep the baby. When Mary left her at the exit, masked Michael Myers grabbed her by the throat, choked her, picked her up, and impaled the back of her skull into a protruding sharp metal spike high on the wall . With Michael in pursuit, Jamie fled to a nearby road where she took the driver's seat of a vacated truck. The angry, drunken driver yelled at her: "What the hell are you doing in my truck?" and then had his neck violently twisted around and snapped. She drove off in the stolen truck into the rainy, thundery night.

In Haddonfield, Illinois, the old Myers home (at 45 Lampkin Lane) had been sold, by Strode Realty, to the Strode family. The young boy Danny Strode , who slept in Michael Myers' bedroom, was experiencing nightmares of a knife-wielding Voiceman ("He says things, bad things"), and was comforted by his single mother Kara Strode,Laurie Strode's cousin. The broadcast of a WKNB radio show called Back Talk, hosted by shock-jock Barry Simms, was airing a special Halloween edition of its show on Halloween Eve. Simms announced that their next night's show would be broadcast live from Haddonfield at the Halloween Harvest Fair, where Halloween had been banned since 1989, "when infamous serial killer Michael Myers and his niece, Jamie Lloyd, and about a dozen cops were killed in an explosion." [This was an obvious falsehood - Jamie did not perish in the explosion, and neither did Myers.] Living directly across the street from the Strode house on the second floor of a boarding house, grown-upTommy Doyle was using a camera telephoto lens to spy on the Strodes.

25 year-old Tommy phoned the talk-radio show, explaining how he saw Michael Myers when he was eight years old. He considered himself one of the lucky ones: "I survived." Tommy also asserted: "Michael's work isn't done in Haddonfield. And soon, very soon, he'll come home to kill again. But this time, I'll be ready." He seemed obsessed about the Myers legacy ever since he was a boy.

The "just very-much retired" Dr. Loomis, Michael's psychiatrist, was also listening to the show in his isolated country home. He was joined by Dr. Terence Wynn, an old friend and colleague, for a drink. Wynn stressed that he had chosen Loomis to return to Smith's Grove Sanitarium. Loomis refused, claiming he had buried the "ghosts" in a manuscript.

Jamie drove up to the local bus depot, as she listened to the broadcast on the PA system inside the darkened and empty terminal (a sign at the desk read "Back in 20"). Another female caller, from Haddonfield Junior College, spoke about a planned Halloween rally (and the radio broadcast) on the campus to revitalize the town after six years of banned celebrations. From a depot pay phone, Jamie called the 1-800-YOU-SUCK number to the radio station, and as Loomis and Tommy listened, they heard Jamie weeping and warning of Myers' imminent return: "They're coming. They're coming...Michael. Michael Myers." She asked for help, mentioning Dr. Loomis by name, but was regarded as only a wacko. Jamie's uncle relentlessly pursued her into the bus depot's bathroom, outside to her truck, and then followed her in a stolen van. After running her off the road near an old barn in the Haddonfield area where she crashed the truck into a pile of pumpkins, he followed her into the barn, grabbed her by the neck, and impaled her stomach through the spikes of a corn thresher. He pushed her further onto the spikes, as she gurgled and choked to death before his eyes. She muttered her final words to him: "You can't have the baby, Michael," before he activated the thresher's controls, causing the thresher to rip Jamie's insides apart. Only the baby's blanket was found in the truck.

Michael hunts down Steven

The next day, HALLOWEEN, in HADDONFIELD, We are introduced to all the members of the troubled and dysfunctional Strode family, including struggling single mother and red-haired college student Kara Strode and her six year-old son Danny, who had both returned to live with her parents in the household, after being away for five years. Kara's parents included a caring mother Debra, and an extremely abusive father John, who called Danny a "bastard" boy. He hates Kara for some unknown reason. He believed she had brought bad luck to the household. Also there was Kara's teenaged brother Tim, Danny's uncle, who was dating girlfriend Beth. Beth lived across the hall from Tommy Doyle in the boarding house across the street from the Strode house. Hard-of-hearing, elderly Mrs. Blankenship managed the boarding house.

At the Smith's Grove Sanitarium, Dr. Wynn and Dr. Loomis learned that Jamie Lloyd's body had been discovered near Haddonfield. The rune symbol or mark, tattooed on Michael Myers' wrist, and on the stomach of Jamie's baby, was seen at the crime scene painted (or burned) in black on bales of hay. Dr. Loomis interpreted: "It's his mark...He's come home."

Meanwhile, Tommy Strode listened intently to his reel-to-reel tape recording of Jamie's radio interview, and figured out the call came from the bus depot. Blood droppings from the pay-phone booth led to the downstairs restroom, where he found Jamie's baby crying in a wooden cabinet - he took the infant with him. The imaginative, young Danny Strode had drawn a prophetic picture of the Strodes: Mommy, Uncle Tim, Grandma and Grandpa, all with bloody knives sticking into them, as they stood next to a black object labeled "THORN." In the emergency room of Haddonfield hospital, Tommy was carrying Jamie's baby when he spoke to Dr. Loomis and introduced himself, and corrected his misconception about Jamie being the last of Myers' bloodline, now that Michael had come home ("No, Dr. Loomis, she's not the last"). Loomis was told about the Strodes, now living in the Myers old house. Tommy took the baby into his care for protective safe-keeping from harm, and names it Steven.

When Debra was in the Strode home struggling with a malfunctioning washing machine in the basement, she suspected someone else was in the house, but it was only Dr. Loomis who claimed he wanted to help the family. He warned her of the violent force inside serial killer Myers that contaminated his soul: "It was pure evil," and that he would return to his childhood home that was "sacred to him...with all his memories here." Loomis' tale terrified Debra with his rantings about the haunted house and all the terrible things that had happened there - and she understood the reason why her husband's brother couldn't sell the house and why they were living there. As she expressed her fears to her husband on the phone and then prepared to vacate, Myers stalked her, and then hacked her up in the backyard with an axe, and splattering blood onto her freshly-hung laundry on the clothesline.

Suspecting that the entire Strode family was in danger from Michael, Tommy befriended Danny, and led him and Kara back to his boarding house room for safety, although she thought he was crazy. She became more convinced of his sincerity when she saw the evidence of years of his collected newspaper clippings about Myers and the murders. He explained about the runes symbols and the meaning of Thorn: "Runes are a kind of early alphabet that originated about 500 B.C. They were symbols carved out of stone or pieces of wood used in pagan rituals to portend future events and invoke magic. Among the ancient Druids, Thorn represented a demon that spread sickness, brought death to hundreds of thousands of people. According to Celtic legend, one child from each tribe was chosen to be inflicted with the curse of Thorn, to offer the blood sacrifices of its next of kin on the night of Samhain [Halloween]. The sacrifice of one family meant sparing the lives of the entire tribe." Tommy felt that might be the contaminating force or reason that compelled Michael Myers, marked with Thorn, to commit evil - the method behind his madness.

He continued, explaining how Michael was seeking the baby, his next of kin, for a blood sacrifice (to save the tribe), and why he kept reappearing year after year - especially when the stars were aligned into a Thorn symbol: "The Druids were also great mathematicians and astronomers, but the Thorn symbol is actually a constellation of stars that appears from time to time on Halloween night. Whenever it appears, he appears. Coincidence? I think that's why these people, whoever they are, are after Jamie's baby. To make it Michael's final sacrifice." Tommy left to seek out Dr. Loomis, warning Kara never to return to her house.

In the boarding house parlor where she was watching the classic film on television The Phantom of the Opera, Mrs. Blankenship explained the origins of celebrating Halloween to Danny: "A long, long time ago, it was a night of great power when the days grew short and the spirits of the dead returned to their homes to warm themselves by the fireside. All across the land, huge bonfires were lit. Oh, there was a marvelous celebration. People danced and they played games, and they dressed up in costumes, hoping to ward off the evil spirits, especially the boogeyman." Then, she told Kara that her son could also hear the "voice" - "just like the other boy that lived in that house." She revealed that she was babysitting in 1963, 32 years earlier, when little Mikey Myers lived across the street, and he heard a voice the night that he murdered his sister: "It told him to kill his family." She was implying that Danny, who could also hear a voice, was the next "child" to be cursed with Thorn, if Michael succeeded in killing his entire family.

When John Strode returned home, he found everyone gone. Suddenly, the lights inexplicably extinguished, and he laughingly pondered: "It must be the boogeyman." In the basement, as he investigated the cause of the power outage and the loud, chugging and leaking washing machine, he found a bloody sheet inside. When he turned, Myers murdered him by stabbing him in the stomach with a butcher knife, lifting him up, and pinning him against the fuse box, where he was electrocuted - his face fried and then exploded.

At the Halloween Harvest Fair, Beth was interviewed by DJ Barry Simms in front of the crowd, asserting: "We will no longer let the powers that be control our minds. For years, Halloween has represented everything that's wrong with Haddonfield. But Michael Myers is long gone. There is no Boogeyman." Tim was surprised to learn that he lived in the notorious Myers house, once occupied by the "most brutal mass murderer in history." As a publicity stunt, Simms promised to move the shock-fest show to the Myers house: "Ten minutes in that house and I'll have every fruitcake medium in the country calling in, trying to channel the spirit of that pussy, Michael Myers." In his vehicle as Simms prepared to drive to the Myers house, he was knifed in the chest from behind. [Later, his half-naked body was wrapped in lights and strung up in a tree - his dripping blood was misinterpreted by a child as red rain.] Beth and Tim found themselves alone in Myers house when Barry didn't show - she spooked him by recreating the night of the initial murder. They kissed in the darkened house and then proceeded to make love in Kara's bed while surrounded by candles. After showering and then standing in front of a foggy mirror, Tim's throat was slit with a butcher knife, and Beth is stabbed to death by Myers, and Kara witnesses through the window inside the Blankenship's house. Kara then looks down and sees Danny entering the Myers House. Kara races over to the Myers House, and upon entrance, she witnesses her son going upstairs into darkness-where Myers is lurking. Kara brandishes a fire poker and creeps upstairs after Danny. She discovers Tim and Beth's bloody corpses and then finds Danny in the opposite room. Kara and Danny flee after Michael arrives and Danny runs downstairs, while Kara stays upstairs to fend off Michael. She manages to strike Michael in the head with the fire poker and send him down the stairs. As Kara goes back downstairs to retrive Danny, Michael comes to life and breaks Kara's ankle. She manages to hit him in the arm with the poker, and Kara and Danny run out of the hosue and back to the Blankenship's house, where several masked men appear, and it is revealed Mrs. Blankenship is part of the Thorn Cult! They come for Kara, but she is forced to leap out a window and is knocked out. Kara is sent to the Thorn Cult's hideout, and old asylum, where Tommy searches for Kara and the two children, and found Michael prowling the hallways too, having already knifed one of the Sanitarium patients in the stomach. The lunatic dying mental patient spooked him: "He walks amongst us, brother. He's come back and he's very angry. How does it feel to be damned?" before dropping dead. He then finds Kara locked in a room in the maximum security ward, just as Michael appears before stopping him for a moment. Afterwards they continue on to find Danny and Steven.

In the hallway, they see Dr. Wynn and several surgeons, some still wearing their Thorn Cult robes, talking about the genetic engineering experiment they're working on. They then walk into an operating room and Tommy and Kara walk into the room next to it, where they find the children. They watch through a two-way mirror as Dr. Wynn and the surgeons prepare to perform an operation. But Michael interrupts the procedure, walking in with a surgical machete in hand and promptly slaughtering them all. Tommy, Kara, and the kids run with Michael in hot pursuit until they come to a locked gate. With nowhere to go, the group hides in a high-tech med lab. Inside the lab, Kara notices some tanks with what looks like to be baby fetus' inside each one of them, with a chart underneath it with the ancient runes translated into scientific letter codes next to them. As what it appears to be, the Sanitarium crew are not the "Cult of Thorn" but doctors trying to recreate Michael's curse using in vitro fertilization on the women of the institution, including Jamie. As Wynn tells Loomis earlier in his office: "I've had my failures but this baby, Jamie's baby! We are at the dawn of a new age!" The fetuses are actually failed attempts of the crew to engineer a new child to harness the evil power of Thorn (the crew have possibly kidnapped Kara to test their experiments on her).

Michael breaks into the room and out of nowhere. Tommy walks up to him saying: "Michael. You've won. (he chuckled, then walked forward) He's yours." As he handed over Steven, he stabbed a cluster of large hypodermic needles (filled with corrosive chemicals or tranquilizers) into Michael's neck, and beats him into unconsciousness with a lead pipe. Dr. Loomis aids Kara's, Danny's, and Steven's escape in an elevator, and Tommy joined them. But when they were ready to drive away in a red Jeep, Dr. Loomis said: "No, I-I have a little business to attend to here." when Loomis goes back Inside the building, Michael's mask is lying on the floor, and Loomis is heard screaming in the background, implying that he knows that Michael is still alive or Michael snuck up behind him and killed him.

Wind whistled around the Myers house - causing a jack-o-lantern's candle on the porch to flicker and extinguish - cutting to black. The next screen read: "In Memory Of DONALD PLEASENCE" before the closing credits.