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EXCL: On Its 25th Anniversary, Writer Daniel Farrands Looks Back at Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers – Part 1

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“It’s shocking, as it doesn’t seem that much time has passed!” Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers writer Daniel Farrands told us when he recently sat down with HalloweenMovies to discuss the film, his attachment to it, and its legacy on its 25th anniversary.

Daniel Farrands

Released on September 29, 1995, the Trancas International Films, Miramax and Nightfall Productions-produced Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers continues to engender conversation to this day. A direct follow-up to 1989’s rather rushed-into-production Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (an entry which presented more questions than it answered), the sixth film in the Halloween franchise, released by the newly-launched Dimension Films, inarguably polarizes fans to this day.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the production of Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers proved a bit of a challenge for all involved, from conception and development through its production and post, which included shifting budgets and narrative disagreements, to clandestine reshoots and  studio meddling.

But how did Farrands, a horror fan with an undying love of the Halloween film series, who heralded in part from Santa Rosa, California (a then bucolic town notable to slasher fans for its school system’s famous rebuff of Wes Craven’s Scream production), get involved?

As we found, it’s a bit of a “small town kid makes good” story, and one which should prove both inspirational and educational to horror filmmakers eager to follow their dreams, and fascinating to Halloween fans alike.

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers

EARLY BEGINNINGS

“I was raised in a strict, Catholic household,” Farrands told us of his early childhood in the ‘80s in the northern California enclave of Santa Rosa, California, “and because of that, horror movies were simply taboo, even pre-VHS. But of course, I found a way to see them. The first R-rated horror film I saw was in 1981, and it was Friday the 13th Part 2, which a neighbor of ours named Kathy Dunn, who was in 12th grade and who was babysitting me, took me, after much cajoling and maybe blackmailing, to a Saturday matinee to see. I was in sixth grade at the time, and to say the least I was terrified!”

“And it all stemmed from the fact that her older brother had these magazines that I’d never seen before: Fangoria,” he continued. “Kathy would sneak them out of his room for me to look at, and it was like experiencing a Playboy for the first time, because I knew they were something I wasn’t supposed to see. And I can still recall vividly the first picture I saw within those pages. It was a still from Friday the 13th Part 2, a shot of Mrs. Voorhees’ severed head in the refrigerator, and I looked at it in horror, and then immediately said to Kathy, “You have to take me to see this movie! I’ll never tell my mom!”

Fangoria Issue #12

“And so,” Farrands chuckled, “because she was kind of a bad babysitter, she took me to see the film, and that horrified me even more than the magazine. I truly felt that I had seen the face of hell, and that I was never going to be the same.”

“And then,” he paused, “came Michael.”

As Farrands recalls, his first introduction to the iconic character of Michael Myers occurred later that same year, when John Carpenter’s immortal classic Halloween aired, albeit edited, on television as an NBC “Movie of the Week.”

Armed with the then-new technology of VHS, Farrands set out to both watch and to record it.

“We were some of the first families on the block to get a VCR,” remembers Farrands of the device, which at the time was duking it out with its rival, the Betamax. “So, I considered myself lucky. And I sat in the corner of our couch with a remote control, so that I could record it without the television commercials, which I thought was important, and with the pillows piled high around me so that I could peer through them, because I was at once both utterly horrified and exhilarated by the film. And at the end of the airing, I had a VHS copy of Halloween! And that was truly the beginning of my absolute obsession with horror, and with the Halloween series.”

“And that obsession grew the very next week,” Farrands effused, “when Halloween II opened in theaters! It was playing at the Coddingtown Mall in Santa Rosa, and there was no way that I wasn’t going to see it. I told my mom I’d go on a hunger strike if she didn’t take me. So, she did one of those things moms did in the ‘80s: she dropped me off at the movies. I recall that it was a rainy, Saturday afternoon, and that I literally had tears of joy while watching Halloween II, and also that at that moment I had the epiphany that it was what I needed to do with my life: make horror movies.”

Having already written and directed plays and skits during his elementary school days (roping his friends into the process), as well as shooting short films on Super 8 (also starring his school-yard chums), the die was cast early for Farrands, whose interest in filmmaking continued to flourish as he grew, both during his time at Rincon Valley Junior High and then later at Santa Rosa High School.

“I look back on those years fondly,” said Farrands, “and my corralling of groups of kids, some of whom probably didn’t like me, just to make blood-drenched films in the school’s hallways. Which later I found ironic, because when Wes Craven attempted to shoot the original Scream there many years later  — Santa Rosa High first accepted the production, but the Santa Rosa City School District Governing Board then denied it. They literally banned the production because of the script’s violent content!”

Santa Rosa High

“And as that happened right on the heels of Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, and as Dimension Films was behind both films, a Dimension executive – having gotten wind that I’d gone to Santa Rosa High – asked me to call the school, and to try to talk some sense into them. But what was I going to say? The school board just didn’t care.”

“Many years later, when I was shooting the 2011 documentary Scream: The Inside Story, I returned to Santa Rosa High School in order to interview the board members, and I said to them, ‘You know how interesting it is to me that you banned Wes Craven, a very respected filmmaker, from making a horror film here, when as a student I literally dragged headless, blood-gushing human props up and down these hallways while making my own short films?’”

“But I’m getting ahead of myself,” he continued. “Before any of that, as a kid, I just wanted to make films. And you know, my life as a teenager revolved around it.”

Catching endless horror films in both wide distribution at local cineplexes and otherwise (the latter at Santa Rosa’s Park Cinema, known for screening indie horror flicks one couldn’t see anywhere else) and purchasing the latest issues of Fangoria in downtown Santa Rosa’s sketchy “Anarchy Alley” (a backstreet frequented by mohawked punks and ‘80s counter culture misfits, who Farrands mused about casting in a film he conceived but never shot humorously called Escape From Santa Rosa), Farrands’ path to Hollywood was forming.

“So yeah, to say that John Carpenter’s Halloween, and his other films of the time, influenced me, is an understatement,” mused Farrands, who like many a young cinephile worked over a summer in a local theater, which allowed him to more efficiently consume ‘80s fright fare. “I can’t express enough how absolutely life-changing Carpenter’s movies were to me personally. They helped me through difficult times and were also personally inspirational. You know, as a teen, you are thinking about becoming an adult and about, ‘What will my life be?’ And for me, I think the reason that people succeed at things is because they believe they really didn’t have any other choice. And I think that’s kind of what it was for me. I didn’t really give myself something else to fall back on. There was no other option (than film).”

Farrands’ first stab at Hollywood (years prior to moving to Tinsel Town, where he’d eventually become part of the Halloween franchise) came at the young age of fourteen, when he boldly decided to personally reach out to the producers of that other slasher franchise, Friday the 13th, in order to tell them exactly what he wanted to see in the fourth installment.

“I decided that I needed to write the next Friday the 13th movie,” Farrands recalled with a laugh, after having seen 1982’s Part III in 3D, “and I needed to let the producers of that franchise know that I was there for them. So, somehow I found the address of the production office of Frank Mancuso, Jr., who was the producer of those films, and I typed him a letter over Christmas vacation, explaining in great detail what Friday the 13th Part 4 should be, and I mailed it off. Well, a few weeks later, I opened my mailbox, and there was an envelope in it with a return address that read: Friday 4 Incorporated! And I opened it, and inside there was a type-written one-page letter with a signature at the bottom that read ‘Frank Mancuso Jr.’ And the letter said, ‘Even people twenty years your senior do not write like this, and I had to pass your letter around my office to see if this could be real. This is the first time I’ve responded to anyone about Friday the 13th, and I think you have talent. I think you are smart. I think you have passion. And I think that that is the foundation of this industry, so let me be the first to welcome you.’”

“To this day, I have that letter framed in my office,” said Farrands, “and it will always be there, as long as I’m alive, because that for me was the moment when things became tangible. The moment filmmaking became doable. And that I could make it happen.”

Four years later, many horror film screenings later and upon graduation from Santa Rosa High School, horror fan Farrands packed up his 1978 Datsun 200SX and set off for Hollywood, and onto his journey to Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers.

You can find part two here, in which we discuss his path to Michael Myers, his initial meetings with Halloween series producer Moustapha Akkad, and his script originally titled Halloween 666.

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Writer’s note: this interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Excl. Interview & BTS Photos: Dan Roebuck Talks Halloween, River’s Edge & More

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The Rabbit in Red. For horror audiences watching John Carpenter’s classic film Halloween in 1978, the crimson book of matches which bore that name served merely as a quasi MacGuffin: a piece of strategically placed production art intended to communicate antagonist Michael Myers journey from Smith’s Grove to a remote set of train tracks outside Haddonfield. For Halloween fans though, who often obsess over minutia, the lounge’s name itself would become a ‘deep cut’ as emblematic as the film’s iconic poster art, with the Rabbit logo finding its way first onto black market merchandise, and later licensed product.

The Rabbit in Red – Rob Zombie’s Halloween 

Rockstar turned writer and director Rob Zombie also took notice, and in penning his 2007 reimagining of the film he appropriated the Rabbit name, transforming it from a simple Midwestern lounge to a full-blown strip club in which young Michael Myer’s mother Deborah works. The Rabbit in Red would also go on to make an appearance in Zombie’s follow-up to his remake, 2009’s Halloween II. And as with most cinematic portrayals of strip clubs, it wouldn’t be complete without a colorful owner.

Enter prolific actor Dan Roebuck, who as The Rabbit in Red’s proprietor “Lou Martini” not only inhabited the role Zombie had written, but also imbued it with some of his own monster loving tendencies.

Sitting down recently with Roebuck in his Los Angeles home-cum-museum (the actor and filmmaker has over time amassed an entirely awe-inspiring collection of antiquities and artifacts, which combined work as a living history of the horror genre itself), we chatted of his involvement in Zombie’s divisive take on Halloween, as well as his early beginnings as an actor opposite Dennis Hopper in 1986’s infamous River’s Edge, and a whole lot more.

Dan Roebuck (Photo Copyright: Dan Roebuck)

“I first saw John Carpenter’s Halloween in 1979 at the Boyd Theatre in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania,” recalled Roebuck of his teenaged introduction to the film, “and I was obsessed. What Carpenter presented in that movie was something lacking in modern horror film, which was, he re-introduced suspense to the story, as opposed to the William Castle approach of it simply being, “Thrills and Chills!” So, it became a mixture of the two. And I remember being absolutely 100% interested in how that was different.”

Not content with simply being a passive viewer (Roebuck had already at an early age shown an interest in movie monsters and magic, as evidenced by his self-applied makeups using Imagineering products, in direct emulation of his film idol Lon Chaney), the actor decided to augment Michael Myers’ silver screen scares by terrifying captive theater-goers himself.

“I actually made myself up with a rubber white face, because I don’t think anyone knew then that Myers’ mask was actually a (modified) William Shatner mask,” said the now fifty-seven year-old, “and I came back later and ran through the theater while Halloween was playing, just like they used to hire people to do during screenings of The Tingler (in 1959). Bob Clausen, the theater’s manager, he knew I liked to do makeup, and as some friends and I had already started a Rocky Horror Picture Show revival there called the Lehigh Valley Rocky Horror Players, he’d asked me to do it. I guess it didn’t bother him that my fifteen year-old self was running around a screening of a R-rated horror film. But being killed on the screen by Michael Myers himself so many years later? I couldn’t have seen that coming.”

Roebuck’s pubescent interest in Halloween didn’t wane, and following Rick Rosenthal’s follow-up Halloween II in 1981, he like many was eager to see what next the series would bring, and for him the Myer’less third film, 1982’s Halloween III: Season of the Witch, didn’t disappoint.

“By Halloween III they had me,” remembers Roebuck, “because by then I was reading Fangoria magazine, and I was well aware that the masks in the film, the glow-in-the-dark skull, the lime-green witch and the jack-o’-lantern, were made by Don Post Studios, and I lusted after Don Post masks.”

From Dan Roebuck’s Collection. (Photo Copyright: Dan Roebuck)

While his love of horror and sci-fi continued to grow, so did his passion for performing, and a move to Hollywood, California, would soon follow. Roles came quickly, and  his second feature film (following his top-billed 1985 comedy Cavegirl), Tim Hunter’s previously mentioned River’s Edge, found Roebuck inhabiting the role of a teenaged murderer opposite the late Dennis Hopper.

Written by Neal Jimenez and co-starring a young Keanu Reeves, Ione Skye, Crispin Glover and Joshua Miller (who had made his own film debut in Halloween III), the suburban, post-punk flick is based on an actual 1981 crime, in which a sixteen-year-old Milpitas, California resident raped and murdered his fourteen-year-old girlfriend before boasting about the crime to his peers, who then took over two full days to report it.

In River’s Edge, Roebuck portrays a representation of that murderer, the unhinged and disassociated “Samson.”

“I went in as the character,” Roebuck recalled of the audition. “I greased my hair down and put on clothes that were very similar to the (eventual) costuming in the film, like a plaid shirt over some kind of t-shirt, and I walked into the room with a can of beer, cracked open the can and said, ‘Go ahead.’ As far as (director) Tim Hunter knew, I was just some dirty, crazy kid (casting director) Carrie Frazier had found. And the scene I was reading was the scene at the river with (Dennis Hopper’s character of) Feck. You know. ‘So, why’d you kill her? She tell you to eat shit?’ All of that stuff. It was crazy.”

(left-to-right) Actors Roxanna Zal, Josh Richmond, Daniel Roebuck and Ione Skye between takes on River’s Edge (Photo Copyright: Daniel Roebuck)

Already a legend having appeared in such iconic American films as Rebel Without a Cause and Easy Rider, prolific actor Hopper (1936-2010) was however at the time working on a career revival following a recent stint in rehab. Of the trio of films which helped him attain it, one was David Lynch’s Academy Award nominated Blue Velvet, which he had wrapped just prior to principal photography of River’s Edge.

“I only remember the Blue Velvet thing because when we were shooting outside of Feck’s house,” remembered Roebuck. “River’s Edge cinematographer Fred Elms, who had also served as director of photography on Blue Velvet, gave Hopper a wax ear acupuncture model, and none of us knew why. But Dennis was very entertained by it, and I remember it so well.”

As for working with the seasoned actor (many of their scenes together found the two shooting nights on the banks of the American River outside Sacramento, California), “I probably wasn’t smart enough to be intimidated by him,” Roebuck said. “And that’s not a joke. I was such a fan of his. But it was so intimate, him and me. I mean, he’d work with the other kids, then they’d all leave, and I’d have night upon night upon night with just him, and only him. All to myself. And I was elated, actor to actor.”

Daniel Roebuck and Dennis Hopper share a laugh on the set of Rivers Edge (Photo Copyright: Dan Roebuck)

Of those scenes which they share in River’s Edge, inarguably the most disturbing revolve around the two characters’ admissions to one another of the unrelated murders of two women, an act Hopper’s character of Feck tearfully regrets onscreen.

“I remember him saying to me off camera while he was crying, that he was thinking of (actress) Natalie Wood,” recalled Roebuck. “She had just died, and she’d been his friend who he’d acted with in Rebel Without a Cause. It was very weird too. Rarely does an actor share the emotional place they go to in order to ‘get there.’ It’s such a personal thing, and I started to weep while watching him cry.”

(left-to-right) Roxanna Zal, Crispin Glover, Josh Richmond, Keanu Reeves, Ione Skye, Phil Brock, Daniel Roebuck and Danyi Deats relax between set-ups on the Rivers Edge (Photo Copyright: Dan Roebuck)

Upon theatrical release in 1986 River’s Edge achieved critical acclaim and cult status, and as a result Roebuck’s career was in full swing. Over the next two decades he’d book well over one hundred film and television roles, including turns in 1987’s Dudes, 1993’s The Fugitive and 2000’s Final Destination, but it wouldn’t be until the late 2000s when his career came full circle. The Pennsylvania teen and monster enthusiast, who’d once frightened theater-goers in his self-applied faux Myers makeup, was about to be murdered on the silver screen by that very masked killer in Rob Zombie’s reimagining.

And that’s what we jump into in part two, which you can read here.

Halloween 2018’s Michael Myers Talks His Excitement in Scripted Murder

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Monsterpalooza, the world’s longest running celebration of the art of monsters and movie magic, hosted this past Saturday in Pasadena, CA a panel on 2018’s Halloween, and we were there to live stream it.

Moderated by Fangoria’s editor emeritus Tony Timpone, panelists included Halloween 2018’s makeup effects designer Christopher Nelson, actress Rhian Rees (the film’s “Dana Haines”) and The Shape himself, actor and stuntman James Jude Courtney, who during the Q&A volunteered his – excitement – in performing cinematic acts of murder, both as Myers, and as the antagonist in 1989’s The Freeway Maniac.

Said Courtney when asked how he felt when he did the murder scenes in Halloween, “Killing is so much fun. It’s the most fun in the world. It’s a very, very deep place, to be honest. As an actor, if you are really in touch with murder, it’s very sexual. I learned that in the very first film I did.”

“(In preparation for it),” Courtney recalled, “I went and stayed in a psyche ward in central California for a weekend, and I had a psychiatrist with me and several orderlies. And I actually spent nights there, sleeping in a ward with paranoid schizophrenics. It was a criminal ward. But these guys were all doing the ‘Thorazine Shuffle.’ They couldn’t catch a fly if they wanted to, they were so drugged up. But I got to interview some of the guys who had murdered (people) twenty years (before), and who had had time to process it and (who) had gone through therapy. And they taught me how I’d create dominance in the ward, and what the pathos was.”

“So, when I started killing in this movie,” offered Courtney, “I called the psychiatrist up and I said, ‘Doc, there’s something going on here, and I have to talk to you about it. When I’m killing these people I’m getting a fricking erection.’ And he goes, ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you. I’m so sorry! During Vietnam, guys in firefights would have multiple orgasms.’ And I was like, ‘Dude, you could have helped me out with that.’ So the point is, if you are going to kill people, you need to be prepared for that. Maybe bring a little protection.”

You can watch a video of the full panel (and to see Nelson’s humorously stunned reaction) below.

For more information on Monsterpalooza, you can visit their official site here, ‘Like’ them on Facebook here and follow them on Twitter and Instagram.

Fangoria Noms Halloween as Best Wide Release Movie – Cast Your Ballot Now!

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With Fangoria having returned to glorious circulation, so too have the Fangoria Chainsaw Awards, the magazine’s annual celebration of excellence within the field of horror cinema. And for the 2019 awards, Fango has nominated filmmaker David Gordon Green’s 2018 smash-hit Halloween in the category of ‘Best Wide Release Movie.’

Also receiving nominations in the category are director Ari Aster’s Hereditary, Julious Avery’s Overlord, John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place and Leigh Whannel’s Upgrade.

Other Fangoria Chainsaw Awards Halloween nominations include ‘Best Actress’ for Jamie Lee Curtis, ‘Best Actor’ for James Jude Courtney and Nick Castle, and ‘Best Makeup FX’ for Christopher Nelson.

You can cast your ballots here.

Thank you, Fangoria! We’re honored to be held in such esteemed company.

Currently available on VOD and easily accessible by visiting Movies Anywhere, Halloween is now also available on Blu-ray, DVD and 4K Ultra HD (all of which can be ordered on Amazon here).

The eleventh film in the franchise and co-written by director Green, Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley, Halloween is intended as a direct sequel to John Carpenter’s 1978 classic. Trancas International Films’ Malek Akkad, Blumhouse’s Jason Blum and Miramax’s Bill Block produce, with McBride, Green and returning star Jamie Lee Curtis serving as executive producers, along with Ryan Freimann and series originator Carpenter, the latter who also serves as the film’s composer.

Horror’s Hallowed Grounds’ Sean Clark Talks Halloween in Collection Complete

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The docu-series Collection Complete (which takes an in-depth look into the lives of filmmakers and artists and the collections that fuel their work) has returned for 2019, and the first episode of the new year takes a deep dive into Horror’s Hallowed Grounds’ filmmaker Sean Clark’s life-long fascination with terror.

From his childhood introduction to Fangoria magazine and that publication’s famous Weekend of Horrors conventions to his jaw-dropping collection of screen-used props (notably here the clown from the classic 1982 film Poltergeist), the episode offers a look into Clark’s rarely-seen personal collection of artifacts from scary cinema.

In addition, the episode also chronicles his evolution from that of a self-proclaimed horror nerd to respected business man via not only his co-shepherding (with Trancas International Films) of the 25th, 35th and 40th Halloween anniversary conventions (which have over the years taken place in Pasadena, CA to much fanfare), but also through the creation of his own celebrity appearance booking company Convention All Stars, which features many of the Halloween film series’ creatives within its roster (the grande dame of final girls, Jamie Lee Curtis, among them).

You can watch the episode below.

Myers Menaces on First Cover of Re-launched Fangoria Magazine

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Last night HalloweenMovies.com attended the re-launch party for revered Fangoria magazine in Burbank, CA, and with the 114-page issue jam-packed with Halloween goodness, here’s a peek within.

Held at Slashback Video (the celebrated faux indie horror video rental shop art installation created by Ciara Aumentado and Halloween 2018 co-producer Ryan Turek, which is housed within Magnolia Park’s Bearded Lady’s Mystic Museum), the re-launch was hosted by Fangoria’s new publisher Dallas Sonnier and Editor-in-Chief Phil Nobil Jr., and included (among the dozens of attendees) Halloween 2018 executive producer Ryan Freimann and Academy-award winning FX artist and Myers mask sculptor Chris Nelson.

First published in 1979, Fangoria served as essential monthly reading for horror fans worldwide, until its collapse in 2015 due to financial woes.  With the assets of Fangoria having subsequently been purchased by Texas-based entertainment company Cinestate, the genre mag has now however returned as a quarterly publication, and it’s first issue is chock full of Haddonfield horror, with no less than seven articles on the series, including set visit coverage to David Gordon Green’s upcoming Halloween.

Additional Myers-centric articles include The Two Shapes Speak (an interview with actors Nick Castle and James Jude Courtney), David Gordon Green: Detour through Haddonfield (an interview with the writer and director), articles titled The Changing Shape and Halloween’s Abandoned Continuity (which delve into the franchise’s various installments and narratives), The Bastard Sons (and Daughters) of Michael Myers (a look at the original film’s impact on the slasher genre) and Lifers: My Myers House, which focuses on North Carolina resident Kenny Caperton’s recreation of the Pasadena, CA home which appeared in John Carpenter’s 1978 classic.

In addition, the magazine’s heavy with images from the latest Halloween, including the exclusive cover photo by Dan Winters.

Fangoria issue #1 is shipping now. To get your hands on a copy, subscribe here. For more on Slashback Video, ‘like’ them on Facebook at and follow them on Twitter and Instagram @SlashbackVideo

Halloween next plays on October 6th at Beyond Fest in Hollywood, CA at the Egyptian Theater as part of ‘Halloween Day’ (along with 1974’s Black Christmas and 1978’s Halloween, with Halloween series producer Malek Akkad in person, and more) before opening wide in theaters on October 19th, 2018 via Universal Pictures.

Co-written by director Green, Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley, Halloween is produced by Trancas International Films’ Malek Akkad, Blumhouse’s Jason Blum and Bill Block, with McBride, Green and star Jamie Lee Curtis serving as executive producers, along with Ryan Freimann and John Carpenter, the latter who also serves as the film’s composer.