Danielle Harris began her film career as Michael Myers' niece, in the 1988 slasher
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. Running from Myers for most of the film, she proved a perfect foil for the demonic killer, even donning a Halloween costume nearly identical to the clown outfit Myers wore when he murdered his sister as a child, the event that kicked off the
Halloween story in 1978. Fans of the successful
Halloween 4 were left, at the time, to wonder if the precocious Jaime Lloyd would be donning a mask for good in the next film, continuing her uncle's murderous legacy. (Fortunately) that wasn't the case, and the following year, Harris returned as Jaime for
Halloween 5. The fifth film in the series was a bit of a bore, and couldn't stand up to
4 (or, obviously, the original classic), but Harris pulled off a great role, continuing the Jaime Lloyd character, this time as a mute child with a tenuous psychic link to her again-resurrected uncle.
In the nineties, Harris had some few notable film roles (
Marked For Death,
Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, The Last Boyscout, City Slickers, Free Willy), but made her name mostly in television series such as
The Wild Thornberries and
That's Life.
The storyline begun in
Halloween 4 and
5 was continued in
Halloween 6, though Harris' Jaime Lloyd character was only briefly seen onscreen and was played by J. C. Brandy, after Harris balked at the character's treatment in the script and at the low salary offered for the role. This was probably the right decision; the producers of
Halloween 6 really did take kind of a shit on the character in the first ten minutes of the film.
Harris surprised
Halloween fans by returning to the franchise years later, in the "second series" of films directed by shock master Rob Zombie. When she came back to the franchise, it was due to her own pursuing of the part of Annie Brackett (originally played by Nancy Loomis in the original 1978 film), as Zombie originally had no interest in bringing back any of the cast of the original series.
Both the new
Halloween (2007) and its followup,
Halloween II (2009), have some pretty serious flaws, but then, that's the case with every film in the original series as well, with the exception of John Carpenter's first. But there's a lot to like about the new ones. I'm one of the few out there who actually enjoyed Zombie's second outing in Michael Myers territory more than his first. One of the issues I took with his first
Halloween is the film's bizarre structure, which leaves the traditional Laurie Strode story with a mere forty-five minutes to play out, after following Myers through his troubled childhood and subsequent breakout from the mental asylum. The audience is never allowed to get to know Laurie Strode and her friends.
Harris gives a solid performance as Annie Brackett, but she isn't given enough time. In this respect,
Halloween II gets the job done much better. Harris's Annie from the second film is a much tougher character, cocky and rough, but still a sweet kid; that side of her just remains a bit further below the surface. The dynamic between Annie and her father, Sheriff Brackett (played by the always excellent Brad Dourif) is particularly enjoyable to watch; she teases him and gives him shit nearly constantly, but it isn't hard to see the love evident between the two.
As a side note, there's really no point in comparing Harris's take on the character to Nancy Loomis's from the 1978 film. They're both energetic, confident, and somewhat rude, but the two acting styles are fairly opposite, making for two similar but very different portrayals of the Annie Brackett character.
In addition to preferring Zombie's second
Halloween to his first, I'm probably also in the minority when I say that I think the theatrical cut of this film plays a little better than the fifteen-minute-longer director's cut. It's faster-paced, and you don't get so many close-ups of a shaggy-ass, bearded Michael Myers without the mask on (Myers works better as a character when you see less, not more, of him, and when he has less screen time). One thing the director's cut does better, however, is to include more between Annie and Laurie (Scout Taylor-Compton). Their relationship is significantly more complex in the director's cut, with the two of them antagonizing each other much more, evidencing the fact that a lot has changed between the two best friends since the events of the last film. It isn't like the verbal sparring between Annie and her father; in this case, you begin to wonder if the girls are even friends anymore, and if their mutual attack by Myers one year before screwed them both up to the point that they'll never be able to connect like they once did.
[Spoiler warning] Also, the director's c
ut features a fairly heartbreaking death scene for Annie. In the theatrical cut, Sheriff Brackett finds her body, falls down, shocked, jaw dropped, and is carried away by his deputies. The longer version extends this moment, giving the Sheriff an extended flashback to moments from Annie's past, from her childhood. On its own, it's a wonderful scene, but, like much of the rest of Zombie's
Halloween films, it doesn't quite fit with the other scenes, and is a great example of why these movies are good candidates for the "sum of their parts" designation.
Harris appeared in last year's darkly humorous gorefest,
Hatchet II, further cementing her reputation as a modern scream queen. And unlike some actresses who've shown up in horror films only to later scorn the genre in the press (Jennifer Connelly, Jodie Foster, etc.), she clearly has a sincere love for the genre. Her appearances at horror conventions always draw a crowd, and she seems to have a good report with her fans. She joins Jaime Lee Curtis and Paul Rudd in the small group of actors who got their start in the
Halloween franchise and went on to have successful careers.
Combs has been all over TV, in a variety of roles, including different characters on different incarnations of the Star Trek franchise, but horror fans know him more for his work in various genre films of the last thirty years. His best known role, Dr. Herbert West, has stayed with him for three Re-Animator films, the first coming out in 1985, from Charles Band's Empire Pictures, directed by Stuart Gordon.
t as gruesome as Gordon and Combs' last collaboration, though without nearly as much dark humor.
oined for Full Moon for a string of films, including The Pit and the Pendulum (1990), Trancers II (1991), Doctor Mordrid (1992), and the extremely dark (particularly for a Full Moon movie) Castle Freak (1995).
What You Did Last Summer (1998) , The Frighteners (1996), and House On Haunted Hill (1999), as well as a number of low budget features. Check out the complete list on wikipedia or imdb.com.
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