The Ultra Depressing Life of Halloween's Jamie Lloyd Part 3

Check out parts ONE and TWO!

Quick recap:  Jamie Lloyd is the daughter of Laurie Strode.  Her mom is dead.  She's also the niece of slasher Michael Myers.  He wants to kill her.  At the end of part five, she had been kidnapped by a mysterious Man in Black who is seemingly in league with Michael.  Could things get worse for the poor girl?  Oh yeah, they sure could.

"Hey guys, I'm new."

Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers takes place 6 years after five and is the end of the loose Jamie trilogy (though it is clear she was more of an after thought in this one than the previous two).  It has to be noted that the actress who had brought us this character in parts four and five, Danielle Harris, is absent from this installment.  There's been a lot of speculation over the years as to why Danielle didn't come back but it seems to come down to money and her not being happy with the way her character was to be treated this time around (that should say something).  In her place is an actress named J.C. Brandy.  I have to be honest here, I didn't even realize that she was supposed to be the character of Jamie when I was younger.  The last time we saw Jamie she was 9 years old which means she should be 15 in this entry but the girl playing her always came across as being in her mid-twenties to me.  J.C. does a fine job with what she was given but I still wish Danielle would have been there to give the character closure.

So, let's get down to how things could possibly get worse for Jamie.  The Man in Black who kidnapped her is actually Dr. Wynn (the dude who apparently was giving Michael driving lessons) from the first Halloween who has secretly been a part of a cult manipulating the actions of Michael all along.  The Cult worships the Thorn rune and use blood sacrifices of the family members of their pawns to prevent a curse that would cause a plague upon the land.  Oh yeah, they also are scientists using the power of Thorn for weird experiments.  Something like that.  I don't know if anybody knows exactly what they are supposed to be up to honestly.  Anyways, the point is, when we first see Jamie this time she is giving birth.  She's supposed to be 15 years old and has been kidnapped for the past 6 years and has gotten pregnant somewhere along the way.  This is already really shady as it's clear that the cult have apparently raped her.  Rough.  But wanna get rougher?  It's implied that the father of this baby is Michael.  Her uncle.  Yep, things got worse. 

"Now I'm dead."

A nurse that helped deliver the baby has a change of heart and helps Jamie escape the cult.  Jamie is on the run but Michael is not far behind and ends up killing Jamie after all this time.  The baby is safely hidden but the heroine of the past two movies just died within the first ten minutes of her third appearance.  Michael takes her out by impaling her on some farm implement which he turns on and we get to see Jamie get churned up real good.  I've never understood why they got rid of her so early and easily but it's always kind of annoyed me.  It seems they wanted to turn their attention to the exploits of Tommy from the first Halloween and new character Kara who would be Jamie's adoptive cousin I guess. 

But that wasn't always how it went down.  As most horror fans know part six was a bit of a mess behind the scenes.  The infamous producer's cut of the film included a lot more information on the Thorn Cult and also some different plot elements.  In the original cut Jamie didn't die at the hands of Michael but instead was taken to a hospital.  There, later in the movie, she was taken out by the Man in Black with a gun.  Still not a very satisfactory ending to her character if you ask me.

The writer of Halloween 6, Daniel Farrands, is a true horror fan (he helped bring us the untouchable documentaries Never Sleep Again and Crystal Lake Memories recently) and a good writer.  I like how he fleshed out the Thorn concept that was established in part five and I personally really enjoy Halloween 6, I just don't think Jamie should have went out that way.  She definitely could have been a part of the plot, helping Tommy and Kara fight against the Thorn Cult and get some revenge for the terrible life she had to endure at their hands.  Alas, it didn't happen, and a couple of years later Steve Miner and crew effectively made the Jamie movies pointless with the retconning of H20 so does any of it really even matter? - TG