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Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
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Movie Review by Ben
November 5th, 2009
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Silver Shamrock Masks Not Included
Favorite Movie Quote: "You're talking about him as if he were a man. That part of him died years ago."
I hated this sequel when I first saw it. At the time, it felt nothing like the first two "Halloween" movies (the third is irrelevant), and there seemed to be nothing in it to make it stand out from all the other slasher movies of the 80's. To see Donald Pleasance return as Dr. Loomis seemed depressing because it felt like an insult to see this great actor slumming in a movie that seemed so by the numbers. I also thought that the movie reeked of cheapness because of its low budget. Then again, these movies never really had big budgets to begin with. Indeed, John Carpenter's original masterpiece is a hard one to top even by today's standards, so maybe I was expecting too much from it. My impulse to see it came about because I wanted to know how the writers would explain how Dr. Loomis survived "Halloween II."
What a difference a number of years and a whole bunch of embarrassingly awful sequels make. In retrospect, "Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers" is tone of the very best films in this long running franchise, and it did more than just drop a bunch of bloody good killings on us with little regard to everything else that makes a movie strong. There was actually some thoughtful work put into the screenplay, the performances are better than you would expect them to be for this genre, and it does have some very scary moments that the other "Halloween" sequels seriously lack.
I have really come to love how the "Halloween" movies have really come to defy the timeline of events it set up for itself from the get go. Despite the huge explosion that ended the first "Halloween II," Michael Myers and Dr. Loomis somehow managed to survive. It never seemed all the bloody likely that either would come out of that alive with out serious debilitating injuries that would have ended their respective careers for good. "Halloween IV" starts with a couple of doctors assigned to transfer the seemingly comatose Myers back to Smith's Grove where he should have stayed. But of course, Michael wakes up and thumbs his naïve caretakers who think this is just another prison transfer. These doctors also make the mistake of mentioning that Michael has one living relative left, his niece Jamie.
Going into a description of the plot is tiring for me, but you all know what happens from there on out. The one thing I should have admitted when I saw this for the first time is that it is genuinely scary at points. The first appearance of Michael Myers through the reflection of the mirror definitely had me standing up straight, and childhood terrors like the monster under the bed are exploited to strong effect. "Halloween 4" does play around with the clichéd moments of horror movies, but then manages to pull the rug out from under you. You think you have a good idea of what will happen, but the filmmakers smartly play on that to pull a fast one on you. The other sequels after this one didn't even try to be as clever as this one to their own detriment.
"Halloween 4" was directed by Dwight H. Little who later went on to direct one of Steven Seagal's best movies, "Marked For Death" ("hope they weren't triplets!"). Dwight deserves credit for not just doing everything according to formula. What he does can't be called new, but he pulls off something stronger than your average slasher flick. Instead of doing the usual opening with the pumpkin, he fills the screen with symbols of the October holiday that leads us into winter. With that, he perfectly sets the mood and atmosphere for this particular sequel. Dwight remains respectful of the original and does the right thing by keeping Michael hidden in the shadows like he was in the original. When that mask peeks out of the darkness, it becomes even more unnerving than his tilt of the head (that moment from Carpenter's original still gives me the creeps).
The screenwriter for this one, Alan B. McElroy, managed to finish the script just mere hours before the writer's strike of the 1980's began. Listening to his audio commentary from the Anchor Bay Divimax remastered DVD, Alan makes it clear that he came to this film as a fan of the original, and he was not just out to throw the usual crapfest at us. Alan also gives us characters who we actually come to care about, and who don't just do the usual stupid things we expect them to do while a serial killer is loose in the neighborhood. You even find yourself caring about that hunk of man named Brady (Sasha Jenson), and that's even after we find him cheating on his girlfriend with the movie's obligatory big breasted chick (and sheriff's daughter no less).
One of the most important things to note about "Halloween IV" is that it was one of the last slasher movies made that featured actors who looked down to earth. After that, this genre was invaded by beautiful models with bodies that were taken care of or surgically enhanced. Whether or not they could act is another story altogether. This is not to say the main female heroine isn't beautiful (she is), but she comes across the same way that Heather Legenkamp did in the original "Nightmare on Elm Street." That type of character plays best in these movies over and over again. Ellie Cornell, who plays Rachel Carruthers, does Jamie Lee Curtis proud. We're not talking Oscar winning performances here, but she gives us the kind of heroic female character we want to root for as she goes from being vulnerable to Sigourney ("Aliens") Weaver tough.
Watching Danielle Harris in this one is a little weird having recently seeb her as a completely different character in Parts I and II of Rob Zombie's "Halloween" reimagining. She plays Jamie, the daughter of Laurie Strode who was said to have been killed in a car accident along with her husband. Curtis would later return to the franchise by way of "H2O." I think you have to admire any young actor who does a horror movie at the age of 11 because it almost feels like you are asking this child to be emotionally scarred for life. On top of having a great set of lungs along with Ellie, she wins our sympathy even as the kids are incredibly mean to her at school.
And you of course have the only returning actor from the original "Halloween," the late Donald Pleasance. Having miraculously survived the fiery explosion that flat out should have killed (were a highly profitable box office possibility not taken into consideration), Dr. Loomis has become almost as single minded in his pursuit to end the evil as Michael is in perpetrating it all over the quiet town of Haddonfield. Even if Donald was really slumming by doing this movie, he still played the part to the hilt and gave this particular entry a legitimacy that eluded future installments. Heck, it probably would have been seen as criminal to do a Halloween movie without Dr. Loomis.
"Halloween 4" is in many ways the slasher movie you expect to see when you go to a movie theater, but when you look deeper into it, you will see that the filmmakers involved were not just doing this one simply for a paycheck. There was a strong effort made to be respectful of the original, and it shows. Not as gore obsessed or filled with characters doing the most idiotic of things (not all the time anyway), it does feel in retrospect like the last of its kind before the series truly did turn to mediocrity. It is actually very well done once you get past the fact that you can't recapture the power of the
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 | Bennie
Nov 5, 2009 10:11 PM
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| Hey, that's exactly the rating I would give this movie. And my name is Ben too. Small world lol. |
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Nov 5, 2009 11:58 PM