In one regard it seemed like a pretty odd idea to have a reunion of actors from this obscure entry in the Halloween series at the HorrorHound Weekend on September 11, 2016. But then again, I ended up being glad that they chose go with these players from the sixth entry, The Curse of Michael Myers. Even though it’s just the type of movie that I can’t honestly remember whether I’ve ever seen it or not, the cast was made up of a pretty diverse group of performers who, if I didn’t want them necessarily for their participation in this, had done some other interesting things. And they all ended up being such lovely people that I’ve now actually anxious to visit – or re-visit, whichever the case may be – this film.
Originally HorrorHound announced that they had gotten Paul Rudd – the actor from the film who went on to a pretty major Hollywood career – but naturally it didn’t take long before they had to notify everyone that he had cancelled. Oddly enough they weren’t able to get George P. Wilbur, who had played Michael Myers in the film, but that didn’t bother me as I had already gotten him on the West Coast. Kim Darby also starred in the film, but didn’t make the reunion, although I had met her as well. Danielle Harris had also appeared in flashbacks in the Producer’s Cut of the film – and she didn’t make it either. Again, I had met her. But enough about who didn’t make it to the reunion, and let’s check out who did.
J.C. Brandy portrayed Jamie Lloyd in the film, the niece of Michael Myers, who had previously been played by Danielle Harris as a child. Although (spoiler alert) she gets killed early in the film, it is her who sets the events of it in motion.
It was a little surprising that J.C. Brandy didn’t have a more extensive filmography, although she had had parts in TV series such as Silk Stalkings, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Murder She Wrote, plus had had a starring role in the series called Wolf, she really hadn’t done much else with which I was familiar.
But I had no problem paying the $20 for her autograph, because she was as nice as could be, and utterly drop-dead gorgeous still. My friend Dean was so smitten that he bought an autograph from her even though he had never seen a single thing she had done. I ended up Facebook friends with her later.
Next up was Susan Swift. Her role wasn’t too massive in the film either, getting killed even before J.C. Brandy did. This movie was actually the last one in her filmography, having had a decent career from her early teenage years into her mid-twenties. She had starred in some TV series like Magnum P.I., Simon & Simon, and Amazing Stories, but what had interested me the most was her title role in the 1973 supernatural thriller directed by Robert Wise, Aubrey Rose. I had never actually seen the film, but after our meeting, I immediately sought it out and watched it.
We actually chatted for quite a while about how interesting it was to be contacted to do an autograph signing after being out of the business for so long. It was well worth the $20 for her autograph, as it came on an original head shot from Aubrey Rose, of which she only had one.
It’s always fun to meet child actors, to check out what they now look like after knowing them only as a child. Devin Gardner was no exception, and even though he had literally only done one other film besides The Curse of Michael Myers, I decided to get him as well.
He was $20, and very nice and down-to-earth… and I imagine lives a life where no one has any idea he was once in a horror movie.
Mariah O’Brien played one of those peripheral roles in the film, where she serves little purpose other than to be slaughtered. However outside of this film, she had one of the more interesting careers of the cast members. She had appeared on a couple of great shows, The Nanny and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But perhaps even more interesting was that she was the cover model for Spinal Tap’s single Bitch School, as well as being the model for the cover of Alice in Chains’ album Dirt. It was enough of an interesting fact that those two models were the same, but even cooler that she was no standing right next to me.
I went with the photo from Dirt, and plunked down the $20 for her and got my picture taken with this beautiful person, who had her daughter with her and now just seemed like a normal, down-to-earth mother. Incidentally her daughter’s daddy is actor Giovanni Ribisi.
Marianne Hagan might be considered the film’s ‘final girl’ and was thus its biggest star, but I couldn’t justify paying $20 for an autograph in addition to $20 for the photo that she was charging. This puzzled me as everyone else had been offering free photo ops with the signature. And making matters worse was that I wasn’t really prepared to walk, since she had also starred in an episode of Friends.
But I did walk – for a while – and came back to the table near the end of our visit to the show. I could swear that I heard J.C. Brandy, who was sitting next to her, give a snide little comment about how she felt about her charging for photos. Eventually I was able to convince her and I only ended up paying the $20 for an autograph/photo op combo.
During the course of collecting these autographs, I met the guy who was running HorrorHound and gave him kudos in bringing in these obscure names. He talked about how he often contacted them through social media and then had to convince him that he was running a legitimate operation. Fortunately and randomly, individuals like these get brought to shows like this on the strength of being in once certain film, but I always enjoy looking through their filmographies for the other interesting things.
It’s too bad we could just have an ‘obscure sitcom character actor/actress’ theme sometime. I’d be in seventh heaven. But that’s the curse of being Brad Farrell.
Celebrities of the Fall 2016 Indianapolis HorrorHound will continue…
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