So I picked up the new Halloween 5 Collector’s Edition yesterday and finally saw the long lost “Dr. Death” footage. A couple years ago we found out that they were digging through the archives to finally unearth this old footage, along with anything else salvageable from Halloween 5. The entire original Dr. Death opening sequence had finally been found and restored for this release. If you ever heard Don Shanks describe this opening sequence, he remembered it very well because it plays out exactly how he described it.
Let me get this out of the way first: Halloween 5 is a unique take on the world of Michael Myers. It really stands on it’s own and is either loved or hated by many. I personally have fun with it for what it is, even though it’s a haphazard, fly by night film. When you see the Myers house is a gothic mansion, you know you aren’t in Kansas anymore toto. It’s a weird one, but I have fun with it none the less. I’ve always been very curious about this lost footage, and now it’s finally here to see. They let you know in a caption before the footage starts that they had to cut this sequence together, as the footage was raw and unedited. They did a good job editing this together.
I watched it last night and I must say, they should of probably just kept it in. Considering how H5 had its own unique “gothic” vibe, it seems odd that they would remove it. Maybe they just wanted Michael to come back to life without this “Frankenstein” type revival, but then to go on and add the man in black and have someone watching over him anyway just doesn’t make much sense.
The sequence shows Michael struggling more after getting out of the river, and we see him more clearly here. This plays out a bit longer than the cut we are used to. We see Dr. Death going over some tarot cards, and also performing some sort of ritual. Michael struggles and grabs onto a tree to stay standing, but ends up falling. Dr. Death hears this and grabs a spear-like weapon to go investigate the noise.
He notices blood on the ground, and decides to taste it. Michael then appears and falls on him, seemingly dying. Dr. Death goes to stab him with the weapon, but then decides to take his mask off instead and looks at it. Flash forward a year later.
The part with Jamie is slightly longer as she struggles in the middle of the night, then we cut back to Dr. Death doing some sort of fire ritual. He’s wearing some crazy headdress and chanting things. He stands over Michael and continues this ritual, and then we see the thorn tattoo. It’s insinuated that he put the tattoo on Michael, as we see the symbol on the table, but we don’t actually see him put the tattoo on him.
Michael then moves and sits up and Dr. Death is excited and happy to see him rise up and put his mask on. However Michael grabs him right away, slams him down on the ritual table, and stabs him with an object of some sort and kills him. End of sequence. Some of this scene is still in the final cut, but it’s cut in a way that you don’t see who he’s killing. Here it’s in full view with wider shots.
It was very interesting to finally see this original opening play out. It doesn’t change the movie in any way, but it’s cool to see. It had a bit of a Frankenstein’s monster vibe about it when he was bringing Michael back to life. It came off a bit hokey, but in a world where squeaky clown music plays when the cops are on screen, it honestly fits right in.
The question is would I of rather had this sequence or the old hermit sequence? I think I would of rather had this sequence, just because it makes a bit more sense as to why Michael would be laid up for a year, with an evil witch doctor scheming to bring him back to life. An old hermit keeping a stranger in his shack for a year makes absolutely no sense what so ever.
The quality of this footage is excellent, they did a great job restoring it. All in all, it doesn’t change the fact that Halloween 5 is a convoluted fly by night operation, but it is quite satisfying to finally see this play out.
On another note, as for the cut gore scenes, it’s very quick and over with. We get a longer shot of Spitz getting the pitchfork to the back, with a wider shot showing it going through him, we get a longer shot of Michael slamming the garden tool into Mikey’s head and it holds on that shot for a bit showing blood gush out of his head before hitting the ground, and finally we see Jamie in the laundry chute get stabbed in the leg with the knife going up and down while in her leg with blood flowing out. That’s it.
No Swat scenes at all, so that footage must of been beyond repair. I’m happy they put in the effort to get what they could for us though, it’s definitely cool to see it.
