Taking it back to the future is number2’s JA75. Arguably the most accurate Captain Kirk replica, this particular copy has something else that sets it apart. Owing to its partial conversion into a Michael Myers mask, it is mesmerizing and downright eerie.

Next, slasher75’s NAG Castle was given the unrivaled JC touch. Not only does this mask seem like it came right off the set of 1978′s HalloweeN, it looks as though Nick Castle is still wearing it.

It’s sequel time. In keeping with the high standards set by the previous 2 masks, cadburry420 has hooked us up with an early run Brad Hardin H6. This is, hands down, the apex of Halloween replicas.

Thank you for your time and thanks to number2, slasher75 and cadburry420. I just looked in the mirror and I’m green (green with envy, that is).

We have a great show for you this week!

- Vince and I decided to do a gentleman’s wager with our upcoming Sid Haig Interview and flip a coin to see who shall conduct the interview.

- We talk The Raven (for a second) then we discuss Vince’s big divorce and why he feels bad about missing out on the show.

- We talk about why we need Tony Todd back on the show.

- After that is the great Sid Haig Interview. Sid talks about coming up from dacing, singing, tv, acting and his breakout roles in horror. We finally finish up the show with talk about the Horror 64 and why I believe Trick r’ Treat will take the whole thing.

- Plus so much more on this show.

Rich

But, what about Michael Myers? Does it matter what he looks like without his mask on? This article will take into account the films Halloween (1978) and Halloween II (1981). The face of Myers as presented in other movies will be dealt with in future entries.

Michael Myers was unmasked in the initial moments of Halloween. He was 6 years old and he had just stabbed his sister to death. Young Michael didn’t look stereotypically insane or demonic. His expression was a mixture of bewilderment, innocence and joylessness. Michael appeared emotionally detached from what had transpired. His affect wasn’t entirely inappropriate for that situation (he wasn’t smiling, for example), but it was still a curious sight.

In the Extended Version of Halloween, Dr. Loomis spoke to a young Michael in the psychiatric hospital. During the brief meeting, the child lunatic appeared still and expressionless. Dr. Loomis’ recollection of having “met this six year old child with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and the blackest eyes” still applies to the Michael we see in the scene. Loomis’ words can also be used to describe the mask Michael later wears as an adult. Loomis obviously recognized  other aspects in Myers that went beyond physical appearance.

During Laurie Strode’s dream in Halloween II, she recalls visiting her brother at an asylum. Michael is a little older than he was when Dr. Loomis spoke to him in the previous film. As Myers was approached by Laurie, he turned around revealing a rather sinister facial expression. Michael made direct eye contact with her, but he didn’t utter a word.

A glimpse of Michael’s adult visage was offered as he escaped from the sanitarium in Halloween. Anyone would look crazy if they were lit by hellish red lights on a rainy night. The 21 year-old Myers looked like he was leaping out of hell. From that quick scene, Myers appeared to have an ordinary face (two eyes, a nose, mouth, teeth, hair). His actions, not his face, betrayed his violent nature: he jumped onto a car and smashed his way in.

Later on, Laurie stabbed Myers and poked him in the eye. She then unmasked her assailant. Michael revealed his swollen, drooping eye; a full head of hair; teeth; clean-shaven appearance; and thick eyebrows. Even with his injured eye socket and distracting eyebrows, Myers looked like an ordinary man.

There is a relationship between Myers and his mask. As Sheriff Brackett pointed out in Halloween, whoever broke into the hardware store took “some Halloween mask.” If Myers was the one who robbed the store, he stole one specific mask.

Interestingly, Michael’s mask sometimes has hair on the sides that looks like his hairstyle as a youth. The mask is expressionless, much like Michael himself was in the asylum. Michael’s facial features, as they appeared in Laurie’s dream, bear a slight resemblance to the features of the mask. Also, the mask is white and blank. It’s the color of Michael’s t-shirt, gown and room during his confinement to the mental hospital. Perhaps the mask is a way for Michael to preserve his warped childhood as well as a reference to the empty time he spent locked away.

What is unbeknownst to many fans is that a whole catalog of alternate cuts of these movies exists.   These alternate cuts often include entirely different scenes, different fates of characters, different storylines and even different endings!

This article will be the first in a series examining the different, unreleased versions of the Halloween movies. First up is one of my personal favorites: the TV cut of  John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN.

HalloweeN came to theatres in the Fall of 1978.  Eventually word of mouth and a couple of favorable reviews by Tim Allen of  The Village Voice and Roger Ebert helped catalpult the movie into a huge success.

By 1980 the movie was already one of the most successful in horror history.  It was during  this year that NBC decided to buy the television rights to HALLOWEEN  for $4 million.

NBC’s Standards & Practices Department demanded several scenes of the original movie be censored before airing on television.  Debra Hill and John Carpenter fought against the censorship but to no avail.  Due to these cuts, an additional twelve minutes of new footage had to be filmed in order to fill the two hour time slot for the movie’s network broadcast.  This additional footage resulted in four new scenes.

The first scene is entitled “BOARD REVIEW” and is excellent.
***SPOILER ALERT****  (Detailed info of each new scene follows)

In this scene Dr. Loomis is at the minimum security Smith’s Grove Warren County Sanitarium pleading to a board who is reviewing his request that Michael be moved to a maximum security facility ”immediately.”

Loomis states the staff isn’t “adequately prepared” and that “Michael Myers is the most dangerous patient I have ever observed.”

One of the two present board members snidely dismisses Loomis’ pleas and states that Myers is a “catatonic.” Loomis tells him that the catatonia is a “conscience act” and that “there is an instictive force within him…he’s waiting.”

However when asked by the other board member waiting “for what?” Loomis has to reply “I don’t know.”  At this point there is little more Loomis can say and realizes his efforts to have Michael transferred will be fruitless.

The board denies the transfer and Loomis exasperatingly walks out of the room.

I love this scene because Pleasance (as usual) gives a stellar performance, but also it gives more creedence to Loomis’  future claims of how he tried to warn everyone that Michael warranted more caution but no one listened.

The next scene “YOU FOOLED THEM, MICHAEL” ends where the last scene left off.

In this scene (which is another good one) we see Loomis walking from where he had just left the board review to a room down the hall in which sits a young Michael Myers staring out the sole window. You can easily see that “blank stare” in this scene that Loomis talks about later.

Loomis enters the room and for a few moments he just watches Michael staring out the window.  Then after awhile he speaks to him saying “You’ve fooled them haven’t you Michael?…but not me.”

The third of the four new scenes “THE EVIL IS GONE!” is my second favorite of the added footage and also helps tie HALLOWEEN and HALLOWEEN II together.

This one starts with a shot of Loomis back at the sanitarium walking down a hallway (toward Michael’s room) with a nurse who is telling him that it “took us most of the night to round up the patients”. A moment later he and the nurse enters the single windowed room (the same room as from the “YOU FOOLED THEM, MICHAEL”scene) where Michael stayed before escaping the sanitarium the night before.

As he and the nurse enter we see that the room is trashed and the windows (both the single window and the door’s small window) are broken out.  Another nurse is already awaiting them when they walk in and states to Loomis: “He must have broken the window with his hands.”  To this statement the nurse that walked in with Loomis adds: “He came down the hall, breaking through all the doors, pushing all of the patients outside.”

Loomis answers her only with: “What was it you wanted to show me?”  She closes the door they entered to Michael’s room and now we can see the word “SISTER” carved into the door in large letters.  The other nurse (who was already in the room) asks Loomis: “Dr. Loomis, Have they found him yet?” To this Loomis replies, “No, but I know where he is going.”

The fourth and final of the new scenes is “BORROWING CLOTHES”.

This scene begins with Lynda ringing the doorbell at Laurie’s house.  Laurie opens the door and Lynda runs in frantically pleading “hurry up, hurry up, shut the door, shut the door!”

Lynda tells Laurie that “Some guy is following me…I think it’s that guy that passed us on the street in that station wagon.”

The rest of the scene is basically small talk with Lynda wanting to borrow a blouse from Laurie that she received as a birthday gift, Annie calls while she is there wanting to borrow the same blouse.

One thing of interest is that Jamie Lee is wearing a towel on her head during this scene and a robe.  These additional scenes were filmed during the production of HALLOWEEN II and at this time Jamie’s hair was shorter than she wore it during HALLOWEEN.  This is probably why the only new scene featuring Jamie showed her with her hair hidden.

Just a couple of final notes about the HALLOWEEN TV cut:

The television cut has never been released EXACTLY as it appeared on television but it has seen a slightly less censored release both as an accident and also as a limited release a couple of times.

Some early copies of the “slightly less censored” television cut were mistakingly released to VHS and laserdisc when the movie first became available for home viewing.  I do not know how many exist but they are rare and would be a nice addition to any collection.

In addition to the accidental releases, this version also saw two official releases.  In 1999 Anchor bay released the 2-dvd THX limited edition set that featured the restored version of Halloween as the first disc and the television version as the second.  In 2001 the television version was offered once again this time as a single disc and renamed “The Extended Edition”.  Both the THX Limited Edition set and Extended Edition are out of print.

Michael-Myers.net and Realflesh Masks (www.realfleshmasks.com) are teaming up to offer a FREE Silicone “Fried Revenge” Mask. If you haven’t seen a silicone mask, you will be very impressed with these, as they move with your face and are super realistic! Realflesh Masks will blow away any silicone mask enthusiast by its quality and craftsmanship. These masks are normally $500 or more, but you can enter to win quickly and FREE!

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All steps must be completed to win! Once Realflesh Masks reaches 2,000 “Likes” on their facebook page, a winner will be selected.

Check out the photos of the “Fried Revenge” below:

Best of Luck!
Derek

Also check out: FANGORIA May 2012 issue and Interview with Mark Crow

This looks like Captain Kirk in his prime (back when he was bangin’ green women in space). This mask has better hair than I do (and no, I’m not bald). That’s a stylish and lively head of hair. However, what really sets this mask off (literally) is the light up feature. That’s right. By pressing a button on the mask, the thing lights the f**k up thanks to strategically placed strobing bulbs. If something goes wrong and you catch on fire, don’t worry. Just tell people you’re dressed as Ben Tramer (it would help if you’re a drinker as well).

Halloween means fun for children, too. October 31st is not just for collectors who spend thousands on masks and max out their credit cards to score their holy grails. The mask companies haven’t forgotten about the kids with this release:

While this Michael Myers Kids mask has some simian/monkey features to it, it has some potential. At least it doesn’t have thick, hairy eyebrows and the mask appears to be smiling a bit. It also has a mild widow’s peak in the hairline. My question is: Why is the kid who is wearing the mask sporting two black eyes? Or is the kid wearing eyeliner? I don’t know which would be worse for the kid. You can recover from two black eyes, but what about from wearing eyeliner? Can you recover from that?

Finally, it’s time for Leatherface to make his appearance. Again, I’m digging the funky hair on this one. Leatherface has some nasty yellow teeth, chapped lips and potatoes for ears, but he doesn’t look all that menacing. In fact, he looks like a laid-back disco dude who enjoys parties, unsafe sex, FUN, burritos and wearing a dark cloak instead of an apron.

If you missed part one in this ongoing, infinite series, check it out here.

Closet Monster