It was around this time, relatively early into the site's life and as it started to attract a following, that webmaster Steven Michaels was contacted by Daniel Farrands, the writer of the botched sequel Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers. Farrands complimented Michaels on the quality and originality behind his website, and the two began email correspondence. Shortly thereafter, Michaels conducted an interview with Farrands via email. Farrands detailed the writing process for Halloween 6 and the harrowing making of the film, which was almost completely changed from his vision. Alas, the exclusive interview with Daniel Farrands gave the website even more credibility.
Around May of 1997, Steven was contacted by website visitor Scott Tedrick, who expressed interest in authoring a monthly opinionative column on the Halloween series for presentation on 73 Miles. Tedrick also explained his connection to veteran stuntman Dick Warlock, who portrayed the Shape in Halloween 2 and also acted as a stunt double in countless major films. Eventually Tedrick was able to conduct an e-mail interview with Warlock, and it was eventually edited and posted on 73 Miles to Haddonfield, making it the second high-profile interview to appear on the young site within a period of months.
Throughout 1997, Steven continued posting progressive updates on the site, relaying the latest news on video and television presentations of the films as well as the progress of the next Halloween sequel. He also continued adding to the site, which went under an extensive redesign in mid-1997 with the introduction of the image map/frames interface. He was also able to post numerous image captures from the films, including the TV version of the first installment as well as the Producer's Cut of Halloween 6. As 1997 drew to a close, however, Steven was growing weary. Brian Martin's Halloween Homepage, one of the original Halloween sites on the internet, had established contact with Moustapha Akkad and Trancas International Films, the owners of the Halloween franchise, and his website was about to become officially authorized. Michaels saw that this and other websites had closer ties to the Halloween series and could bring the public more authentic and exclusive information. Michaels contemplated shutting the site down after Halloween of 1997, but received numerous emails pleading with him to continue maintaining it. He then said he had changed his mind and that 73 Miles would continue to be open. His January 1, 1998 update, however, would be his last for nearly two years.
As 1998 went on it became apparent that the next Halloween sequel was to ignore the last four entries in the series and turn the franchise into a more commercial teenage scare flick, in the vein of the recently successful Scream. Steven did not agree with this change of direction, and although he had posted Kevin Williamson's original seven-page Halloween 7 treatment, he didn't approve of it. He became disappointed with the Halloween series and put the website out of his mind.
Around
this time Steven decided to move the site to the XOOM.com hosting service, which originally offered unlimited web space. A redesign followed, though the acquisition of XOOM by the internet arm of NBC, then known as NBCi, led the way for the dissolution of the service and deletion of all hosted files.
So Steven had to start from scratch, intent on making the site available again, if only as an informational archive on the Halloween films. Coinciding with the release of the eighth Halloween film in 2002, the site was re-established on the Tripod service and a new updated re-design was posted.
In January of 2004 Steven decided that Tripod was no longer a suitable home for the site and moved it back to GeoCities after a four-plus-year absence from that service. This made the original 1996 address (Hollywood/Hills/2260) functional once again. However, another 21 months of no updates followed, and around Halloween of 2005 another update was posted, this time including a link to "Classic View" so that visitors could experience the site as it had existed during its 1997 heyday.
As always, modernized updates are planned, but in recent years the site seems to have lost its appeal. Nevertheless, its information resources will remain on the Internet as long as said Internet exists.
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