Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers

. . . considering Halloween 4 came some eight years after the previous Myers-inclusive Halloween, considering Carpenter had even less influence, considering the plot took a slightly different direction, considering most other franchises really suck before they even get to 3 sequels.

The problem I have with most horror sequels is the fact it switches over to new characters every film, and none of the characters really get much sympathy. I dunno if I ever cared about anyone in Friday the 13th. But in the Halloweens (1,2,4,and 5), they've always taken the time to get to know the main characters first and stick with them for at least one sequel. Also in Halloween, we had a staple character besides Myers - Donald Pleasence - who returned to battle Myers every time until his untimely death.

I really liked the Jamie Lloyd character (I mean, getting decent actors in horror is difficult enough, but getting a good child actor in horror? Look at Child's Play! We struck gold with Danielle), her storyline, and the rest of the new characters for Michael to stalk. Oh yes, and of course, Donald Pleasence.

Alan Howarth parts with Carpenter, and takes the score solo, playing some fun twists to the main Halloween and the stalking theme, giving Jamie a theme appropriately derivative of Laurie's theme and intermingling all the themes in various places for an original sound with music that's been with us for 2 movies now.

Hopefully the viewer won't remember the end of Halloween 2 well enough to recall Laurie shooting Michael's eyes out, and him stumbling around slicing blindly as blood ran down his mask--wait, this is horror, everyone's accustomed to inconsistency with horror. Nevermind. Besides, compared to the plot holes of Curse of Michael Myers and then H20 neglecting Halloween 4 & 5, who cares about that minor detail.

Despite the new look, new characters, new tweaks, Halloween 4 can't escape the fact that it is a sequel slasher and so despite everything that's new (that works) . . . it's all the same. That's where my problem with the film lay, and that's why I can't rank this up there with some of my favorite horror films of all time. It's a good Halloween sequel, but there are better, more original films, within this series and especially in other series. Oh well.

It is ten years after Michael Myers escaped from the psychiatric clinic and went on the rampage and he has been in a coma ever since being burnt at the end of Halloween 2. But one of the ambulance drivers transporting him somewhere lets slip that he has a niece in Haddonfield and before you know it he's making his way back there.

Myers has become seemingly indestructable by now. He was seen emerging from a hospital as a human fireball at the end of art 2 and yet he seems to have escaped more or less unscathed. And howcome he can see anything when he was blinded in Part 2 just before being roasted alive?

However, if you overlook these points you'll find this is an entertaining and well-made film. Dr Loomis returns to Haddonfield after his ex-patient, played by Donald Pleasance at his best, and there are plenty of interesting characters and situations.

One of the better of the Halloween series, certainly much more worthwhile than the dismal Halloween 5 or most of the repetative Friday the 13th films.

The Good: Maybe it's having just watched H20 and Resurrection, but H4 is a masterpiece in comparison. I almost forgot how scary Michael Myers could be until I re-watched this movie. He truly seems like a force of nature; a spookier Terminator who will kill anyone who gets in his way and you can only temporarily stop him. I think seeing him from the perspective of a little girl really helps; he's the boogeyman and you feel it. This movie expertly generates tension from a creepy atmosphere, in a return to form that must have been SO SATISFYING to audiences starved for Michael Myers back in 1988.

Danielle Harris' performance is truly amazing. She really captures the trauma and terror that her character is put through and is the emotional core of this movie. Honestly, without her powerhouse performance, this movie would not work as well as it does.

Even without her though, this movie is a lot of fun: Loomis is back and crazier than ever, you have the classic horror tropes and a final set piece that makes sense and is super effective. Instead of feeling dated, it almost feels...comforting.

The Bad: Unfortunately, this movie is pretty weak when it comes to kills, an important metric for any slasher. A lot of them are bloodless and generic, save for the opening kill and...well, the final one. It's also more than a little annoying as to how Michael can just teleport wherever he needs to be and becomes outright hilarious by the end.

The Ugly: Not gonna lie, I absolutely lost it at the sight of dozens of schoolchildren running after a little girl chanting: "Jaimie's an orphan!" The 1980s were not a subtle decade, that's for sure.

After a seven year absence from the screen, Michael Myers returns. Set ten years after the first two films (#2 was filmed in 1981, but set immediately after #1 in 1978), THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS opens with the infamous killer being transfered between psyhiciatric hospitals. Naturally, he escapes, and, tipped off that he has a niece (daugther of the now-deceased Jamie Lee Curtis character) living in Haddonfield, sets out to find her. Hot on his trail, as always, is Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence). After some were turned off by the more-gruesome deaths in HALLOWEEN 2, this film is more in-line with the original, relying more heavily on suspense and honest scares than blood and gore. For a nine-year-old, Harris delivers a good performance, and Donald Pleasence (as usual) is also good, with a performance that lets you know this is a been-there-don't-want-to-go-through-that-again character. Director Dwight H. Little brings a sense of atmosphere to the film and creates a number of suspenseful scenes. Thankfully, the make-shirt mob of gun-toting beer-guzzlers isn't as bad as it could have been. HALLOWEEN 4 is one of the best of the series.

Lets cut to the chase here. If you watch a film with the title Halloween 4, you know its not going to be Citizen Kane and as the critics have remarked how the sequel was responsible for the decline of the horror/slasher movies in the mid eighties then H4 is surely guilty as charged. However H4 is not the worst film in the series.The acting is mediocre and the script is littered with some horrendous dialogue(Check out Dr Loomis`s description of Michael Myers as "Evil on two legs") but hey, lighten up, this isn`t Shakespeare. H4 to an extent delivers the goods. Its short for starters, were not waiting an hour for the action to begin, its straight into it after a classy opening credits sequence. The characters are stock horror movie characters and thus we can relate to them. The gore is kept to a minimum (is that a good thing?) and there are a few minor shocks and twists along the way. The late great Donald Pleasance is at his eye bulging best and the film treats us to some dark humour involving some vigilante Rednecks out to nail Michael Myers but for me the major plus of this film is the John Carpenter penned music that was so well used in the first film. Surely this is one of the great movie theme tunes in history. In a nutshell H4 offers us nothing new but you pay your money and you get what you expect, a standard run of the mill low budget horror flick. hey I quite enjoyed it but don`t you think that Myers bloke is putting a bit of weight on.