Don't fix what isn't broken. If only the filmmakers of this sixth and next-to-worst "Halloween" episode had kept that in mind. Up until now, his story has been pretty consistent. Some evil force was born inside Michael Myers, or took hold of him somehow, and made him kill his family and whoever else happened to be around.

Now we "find out" that this wasn't the case after all. In reality, Michael Myers is an agent of the Druids, who took him, put a mark on him, and told him what to do with their telepathic voice. At least that's what I understood, but this movie is so ridiculously incoherent, I could be wrong. Maybe the modern day Druid cult group worshipped him or just wanted to follow his example or something. But it really is incoherent -- while Michael Myers is going around killing people at random, in the bloodiest possible way, these Druid people are running around knocking people out and locking them up in psycho wards or something. Then Michael Myers comes and mows them all down. Dr. Loomis makes a reference to the "game" these people are playing, and that that was why he and the person he was talking to weren't killed when they were captured. Remember the end of the fifth movie, when an unrevealed cloaked man in steel-tipped boots rescued Michael Myers? We find out who he is in this episode. Skip to the next paragraph now if you care the least bit about being surprised. It was none other than the doctor in charge at the mental hospital where Dr. Loomis used to work. It turns out he's a Druid, too, in league with Michael Myers somehow, though how this particular relationship works is never explained. This "relevation" is perhaps the film's only "bad movie laugh," just because it's such a ludicrous and even unnecessary contrivance.

Then there is a young Strode boy, Laurie's first cousin once removed if I understood the relationship correctly, who also hears the Druidic telepathic voice that drove Michael Myers to evil. But this plot point never comes into play, except to have a contrived reason for the boy to go walking off into danger and forcing his mother to brave deadly perils to go get him. And then there's the matter of Laurie Strode's newborn grandchild that the Druids and Michael Myers both seem to want to abduct. Give me a break. This movie has more plot than many full blown dramas, and yet it still manages to be nothing more than a routine, exploitative, and downright disgusting slasher flick. It doesn't help that none of its complex plot is given comprehensible treatment. The movie looks more like a brainstorming session than a final product: a scratchpad of ideas somebody thought of, wrote down, and developed no further.

It doesn't help that the film isn't scary. Even the obvious and time-tested shock devices don't work. When the heroine has to climb over an unconscious Michael Myers to rescue her child, I was able to predict the exact moment at which Myers would jerk to life and grab her leg -- so accurately, in fact, that I made the jump chord sound at EXACTLY the same time the movie did. Advice to horror movie makers: when your viewing audience doesn't care about any of the characters, when they don't care what happens, and when they know what's going to happen anyway, it ain't scary.

The worst part was the dedication at the end to Donald Pleasence, a great actor who has been in a great many films. It's a shame that this stupidity was his last. Maybe it's what killed him.

Rating: one turkey.