Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988) Directed by Dwight H. Little
Halloween is still to this day one of the most profitable independent movies ever regardless of genre. Of course with the overwhelming success, there had to be sequels. Halloween II is, in my opinion one of the best horror sequels ever, it picks up right after the original and it packs a far amount of suspense and added brutality. Halloween II: Season of the Witch came out after and had nothing to do with the original two movies, this made people angry. They decided to make the Halloween series a collection of different stories following part 2, but the overwhelming hatred for part 3 made them bring Michael back to the series. It wasn’t until years later that Halloween III found a cult following and is a fun movie in it’s own right. Halloween 4 continued the saga of Michael Myers and formed the way the rest of the franchise would continue.
Spoiler alert! At the end of Halloween II Michael and Dr. Loomis are blown up and burnt to death, deader than Michael has ever been in the series. When making part 4 they could have had an over explanation of why Michael and Loomis survived, but it side steps that and the two return with small scars on their bodies. It is kind of hilarious how minor their injuries are, but with movies like these you really can’t take things too seriously. Michael comes back to Haddonfield to hunt down his long lost niece, Jamie Lloyd. Jamie is a young girl around the age of 10ish, I would guess that is living with an adopted family. Dr. Loomis realizes Michael is alive and returns to hunt him down once again. There is not much else to the story really, just Michael trying to kill Jamie and Loomis trying to stop them. We also get a group of hicks with guns trying to hunt down Michael and kill him themselves. Its rather funny because the guys are morons, they open fire on a moving bush because one claims they saw Michael. It ends up being one of the townspeople, so they basically committed murder.
The brutality is pretty good in the movie, Michael slowly becomes an inhuman killing machine as the movies go on. The kills aren’t anything too incredible but they are effective. One that stands out to me is when Michael rips open a guy’s neck causing him to bleed to death. Michael’s mask is just beyond horrible, and probably the only real downfall to this otherwise respectable sequel. The hair for some reason is combed back and poofy, the face is kind of chubby and the mask just doesn’t fit quite right. I would say it’s the second worst mask in the series, second to the cgi mask in H20. While the suspense and atmosphere is lacking from the first two movies, part 4 is more for fun, but not in your face comedy. I wouldn’t even necessarily say it’s a funny movie, but more of the kind of movie you can sit down and watch and not have to put too much thought or attention into.
The ending of the film is a crazy right turn from the rest of the film and is kind of unexpected. I wont give it away but I love the scene of Dr. Loomis screaming “NOOOO!” over and over, because Donald Pleasance is so hammy in these movies that it is hilarious. Also I have to mention how part 5 just shit the bed. The end of this movie really leaves the series open to an interesting angle that part 5 blatantly ignores. Part 5 might be the most boring of the series, yeah Part 6 gets a lot of hate but comparing the two I’d rather watch Paul Rudd fight Michael than the snooze fest 5 was. The original is one of my all time favorites, part 2 is a worthy sequel, part 3 is just off the wall and entertaining and part 4 is a solid popcorn movie. If you’re watching these movies just stick with 1-4 and maybe H20 because that one is good to bring the series full circle.
While there are many fun things in the movie, its not perfect. There are a lot of bizarre lines of dialogue and the fact that Michael and Loomis only have a couple scars form their blazing inferno of death in part 2 is laughable. Halloween 4 was the second of the series that I saw and the second of them that I owned. I actually owned this on VHS, that I bought in Canada, what does that mean to the story? Nothing its just funny. I would give Halloween 4 a B. It has a fair amount of rewatchability but isn’t a movie I feel the need to watch often.
