Halloween 5: new Scream Factory release contains the Dr. Death opening

Nearly two and a half years have gone by since the folks at Halloween Movies appeared to have unearthed the footage of the long lost “Dr. Death” deleted scenes from 1989’s Halloween 5 (watch it HERE). Now Scream Factory has confirmed that the Dr. Death footage will be included on their upcoming two-disc 4K UHD and Blu-ray release of the film! The release date is October 5th and Scream Factory is accepting pre-orders at THIS LINK.

If you’re not aware what the Dr. Death scenes were: Halloween 5 was originally supposed to begin with a wounded Michael Myers (Don Shanks) being taken in by a 20-something occultist (Theron Read as Dr. Death) rather than an old hermit with a parrot. It was Dr. Death who put the Thorn symbol on Myers’ wrist, which appeared without explanation in the finished film – in which Dr. Death’s scenes had been replaced by reshoots with the old hermit.

Here are the details on the new Scream Factory release:

HALLOWEEN 5: THE REVENGE OF MICHAEL MYERS (1989) DISC ONE (4K UHD):

NEW 2021 4K Scan Of The Original Camera Negative

NEW 2021 Dolby Atmos Track

Audio Commentary With Actor Don Shanks And Author Justin Beahm

Audio Commentary With Director Dominique Othenin-Girard And Actors Danielle Harris And Jeffrey Landman

HALLOWEEN 5: THE REVENGE OF MICHAEL MYERS (1989) DISC TWO (BLU-RAY):

NEW 2021 4K Scan Of The Original Camera Negative

NEW 2021 Dolby Atmos Track

Audio Commentary With Don Shanks And Justin Beahm

Audio Commentary With Dominique Othenin-Girard, Danielle Harris, And Jeffrey Landman

NEW Long-Lost Alternate Opening Sequence Featuring The Appearance Of Dr. Death

NEW Extra Snippets Of Gore Cut To Obtain An R-Rating

NEW “Of Darkness And Shadows – The Cinematography of Halloween 5” – An Interview With Cinematographer Robert Draper

“Inside Halloween 5”

“Dead Man’s Party – The Making Of Halloween 5” – A Two-part Featurette

“On The Set: Behind-The-Scenes Footage”

Horror’s Hallowed Grounds – A Look At The Original Filming Locations

Halloween 5 Original Promo

Theatrical Trailer

TV Spots

NEW Newspaper Ad Still Gallery By Drive-In Asylum

Still Gallery

Here’s how Shanks described the Dr. Death scenes in an interview with Halloween Movies:

(I was) placed on this stone altar, and all around (the set) were things that the production had gotten from witches, and people that sell you the occult. And there were scrolls and different chants and this and that. And (suspended from) the altar, right above me, was this rock that looked like a stalactite – it was on a string and it would circle. And Dr. Death was doing an incantation on me, and then he tattoos on me the Thorn rune, which is the sign of eternal life. And so he does all these incantations, and on Halloween Eve (one year later) I come back to life. So I put the mask on, and I grab Dr. Death by the throat and pick him up over my head and break his back, and then put him on the altar, and take the stalactite and I go through his chest with it. I thought it was one of my better kills. But (later) (producer Moustapha Akkad) thought it was too much of the occult type thing. So they decided to shoot it differently.”

Shanks added that Read’s performance as Dr. Death was

eccentric, and if you saw it you would just go, ‘Wow, that guy looks really weird.’ But it kind of gave the film a little more of an artistic and avant-garde (touch). I mean, it worked perfectly. For what we were doing and the way the (occult) set looked, you want something that isn’t the norm.”

Michael Felsher of Red Shirt Pictures revealed on Facebook that he was the one who got Dr. Death ready for his Blu-ray debut:

Since it was formally announced today, I can mention that I was given the very enjoyable challenge of editing together the lost “Dr. Death” sequence from HALLOWEEN 5 that will be featured on the new Ultra HD package coming soon from Scream Factory. Basically I was delivered a series of raw takes scanned direct from the negative trims and using a shooting script, as well as some existing footage from the theatrical cut, I was able to put together what amounts to a new opening sequence for the film. Most H5 fans know that the existing Mountain Man character was a re-shoot added in to replace Dr. Death, and it was interesting to discover that a lot of shots used in the theatrical cut for his “lair” were just shots taken from the original Dr. Death shoot which I was able to repurpose for the restored scene. Another big challenge was that there was no audio for any of this. The production sound was either MIA or perhaps this scene was shot MOS at the time, I don’t know. So a big part of my job was to create an audio mix for this scene, so when you watch it, every sound you hear with Dr. Death on-screen was created here at my desk. We also found a workaround for the few lines of dialogue that the character had, but I’ll leave the answer to that for you to discover when the disc comes out. All in all it was a real treat to put this scene together, especially after hearing about it for so many years.

While I’m bummed that I’m going to have to buy another copy of Halloween 5 on Blu-ray, since I already have the franchise box set Scream Factory released several years ago, I’m glad some of the film’s lost footage has been recovered.