Don Shanks Talks About Halloween 5 and 6
Don Shanks, who played Michael Myers and the Man in Black in Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, recently disclosed some HalloweeN tidbits. During a discussion panel held at Monster Mania 21 on March 10, 2012, Shanks expanded on the alternate opening scene of Halloween 5. Shanks revealed that there was a deleted sequence where Myers is rescued from the river by a man and is tattooed on the wrist. The man performs “incantations” over Michael’s motionless body.
Shanks also told of how Michael Myers killed the man who rescued him. He stated that on the eve of Halloween, Myers awakens and hoists the man over his head and slams him down on an altar. He then stabs the man with a rock. Shanks stated that this scene was cut out of the film because it was deemed too violent. The Hermit storyline was introduced instead.
This information makes one wonder why this alternate scene hasn’t been formally released. All the Halloween 5 DVD editions up to this point have only included a lousy, behind the scenes style segment where this other man removes Michael’s mask.
Shanks also shed some insight on Halloween 6. He stated that he was to reprise the role of Myers in Halloween 6. Furthermore, according to Shanks, scenes that were not in the script for Halloween 5 were shot during the production of H5. However, these scenes were not meant for H5. Shanks says that he was informed by H5 director/co-writer Dominique Othenin-Girard that the extra scenes were intended for Halloween 6.
Shanks recalls that Othenin-Girard told him that in Halloween 6 Shanks was to be the revealed face of both Michael Myers and the Man in Black. Shanks compared this storyline to that of the film Raising Cain (1992). In Raising Cain, the same actor plays different characters because he suffers from dissociative identity disorder (a.k.a. multiple personality disorder).
A contract dispute with an actor stalled the production of H6, according to Shanks. Ultimately, the Michael Myers/Man in Black story was taken into a different direction obviously with Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. This information would’ve been great for the previous articles on the Hermit and Tim Strode.
I would love to see that scene. Had it been included it would have definitely changed the course of the mythology. H6 would have been very different.
Thanks for commenting, Jason. Looks like Halloween 6 was destined to have a strange story whether or not Dominique had his way. If he did tackle H6 when he wanted to, maybe they could’ve squeezed out a Halloween 7 as well.
However, i do believe that the franchise would have gotten rebooted in 1998 no matter what happened. Jamie Lee wanted that 20th anniversary film.
Funny, we just discussed a topic about the man in black.
/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=90519
Someone mentioned the “twin” idea plus another crazy concept that Myers was supposed to “give birth” to a spawn….glad they skipped this! LOL
Anyone know who had the contract dispute that stalled H6?
@knowbody
I agree that H7 was going to reboot the series due to Jamie Lee’s involvement. Curtis wanted the anniversary filmed and I sure she was not about having a child in H4-6 as well as the Thorn storyline.
hey maverick! According to Don Shanks, the contract dispute involved Danielle Harris. I’ve heard several different people blame this dispute for several different things regarding H6.
At Monster Mania, Shanks also confessed to feeling as though the Halloween 6/Man in Black idea made no sense (even when the director explained it to him).
It’s also strange that the director H5 didn’t mention none of this in his audio commentary for the H5 DVD. He also admits to not knowing who the Man in Black really was (it’s an unintentionally hilarious commentary).
Oh yeah, when Daniel Farrands was finally given the go-ahead to write H6, the producers guess who the Producers wanted the Man in Black to be? They wanted Dr. Hoffman from H4 to be the MIB. However, it was Farrands’ original idea for the Man to be Wynn.
Ah, totally forgot about Danielle Harris contract deal!
I think the idea of Wynn would have been better in H6 if they were able to get the original actor from H1.
This was a very interesting read, nice article knowbody!!
thank you, betelgeuse! What startles me is that Halloween 5 and the man ib black may not have been so random after all. It seems the story had a plan (however strange).
Michael did give birth to a “spawn” it was Steven, Jamie’s son!!
Originally H20 was going to ignore the ‘Thorn’ story line but mention Jamie along with a flashback sequence and we were to see how that effected Laurie.
Halloween H20 was great and personally i think that maybe they should have kept Jamie in H20’s story line so that Halloween 8 could have been to where maybe Laurie hears about Jamie having a son and wants to meet him and Laurie and John (along with Molly) return to Haddonfield to find him…keep it in the family story line. Ressurection was a bit…well…lame and i think Michael was pointless in that movie besides killing because they were in his house…he killed Laurie he didnt really have any other purpose ya know? It would have kept Laurie alive and he could have still switched bodies and she only returned to Haddonfield to get her grandson because she thought he was officially dead. Not staring out a window like a crazy person for 3 years Lol
hey john! i like your idea regarding the Halloween continuity. i would’ve liked H20 more if they had referred to the stories that came before (H4-H6) and not all out ignored them.
We have an article available that deals with some of the concerns brought up by Halloween H20. You can find it here:
/halloween-h20-discussion/