Michael Myers is without a doubt the most iconic slasher villain of all time.  But his franchise is one that’s had its highs and lows.  One of the most divisive (other than the Rob Zombie remake) was 1995’s The Curse of Michael Myers.

It was the last movie of the original continuity before the series got in the habit of retconning itself every other movie.  Today marks its 25^th anniversary, so in honor of that, we thought it would be fitting to look at 25 fun facts, one for each year since release!

1. Following the lukewarm reception of Halloween 5 and a shift in ownership of the franchise, it took six years for this movie to get made, the project starting to be written in 1990.

2. The film’s original title was Halloween 666: The Origin of Michael Myers, which was hated by longtime Halloween producer Moustapha Akkad.

3. An earlier draft of the script portrayed Michael Myers as a “sexual deviant” (which explains the plot point of him impregnating his niece Jamie). However it was dropped for being too farfetched and unlike the character.

4. In order to reprise her role as Jamie Lloyd, Danielle Harris had to hire a lawyer to get herself legally emancipated so that she could legally do overnight shoots and longer hours (given that she was only 17 at the time).

However, after she did so, she was told that her pay wouldn’t even cover the money she spent getting emancipated, so sadly, she was left out of this sequel.

5. Originally, Christopher Lee was considered for the villainous role of Dr. Wynn (after he was originally offered the role of Dr. Loomis in the original film). However, the producers wanted Mitchell Ryan, after seeing him play the villain in Lethal Weapon.

6. Technically, it was Paul Rudd’s first theatrical movie, because it was filmed before Clueless (which came out in theaters first). Prior to this, Rudd had mostly acted in TV series.

7. Before casting Rudd, the producers initially wanted to be Brian Andrews to reprise the role of Tommy Doyle from the original Halloween when he was a kid. But apparently, he didn’t have an agent ad only acted sporadically here and there and they weren’t able to get ahold of him.

8. Screenwriter Daniel Farrand’s original plan was to bridge the narrative gap between the original Halloween and its sequel with Halloween 4 and 5.

9. This was the first Halloween movie to be produced by Dimension Films. They would go on to produce H20, Halloween Resurrection, as well as both of Rob Zombie’s Halloween

10. Shot in and around Salt Lake City, Utah in the Fall of 1994.

11. Filming actually commenced on Halloween itself.

12. The Cult of Thorn symbol does actually mean “thorn”, but it’s not Druid in origin as the movie suggests, rather it’s Germanic.

13. Michael Myers was played by George P. Wilbur who previously played the role in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, thus making him the first actor the play the masked killer more than once.

14. It was the first movie in the series to try and give Michael Myers some form of motivation with the whole Cult of Thorn subplot. Years later, Rob Zombie’s remake would be heavily criticized by fans for doing the same thing.

15. Donald Pleasance passed away in February 1995, seven months before it was released. So it remained one of his last roles, and the movie was dedicated to his memory.

16. Composer Alan Howarth (who previously worked on several Halloween movies as well as a few other Carpenter films) wrote an entire score, however it was completely redone in post-production by Paul Rabjohns.

17. Director Joe Chappelle didn’t direct very many movies afterwards. He would become primarily known for directing episodes of TV series like CSI: Miami, Fringe, and The Wire.

18. It was the first Halloween movie to not be released in October (albeit only two days earlier on September 29). In fact the next several movie were released in August and July and the next time that Halloween movie would come out in October would be the 2018 version.

19. The original cut was considered too boring and gothic, so there were extensive reshoots to make it “flashier” and more like a music video. The closest thing we have to original version is the Producer’s Cut.

20. For almost a decade, the iconic Producer’s Cut was only available via low quality bootleg, until a bluray was released in 2014.

21. It had the largest opening of any movie in the franchise, until 23 years later with the release of Halloween (2018).

22. The Curse of Michael Myers opened second at the box office, losing to another serial killer themed movie, Se7en.

23. Remains the lowest rated movie in the franchise on Rotten Tomatoes with a 9% score on the Tomatometer.

24. In the years that followed, many cast and crew have come to disown the movie, claiming that the film suffered from all the interference and infighting between the director, producers, and studio.

25. Originally, Kevin Williamson’s script for H20 was meant to follow the continuity of Curse of Michael Myers. But it had become some complicated and convoluted, that it was decided to retcon everything from Halloween II

Which of these did you already know?  Which ones surprised you?  Let us know in the comments!

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