Mike_Bracken's Full Review: Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers: Trancas International Films/ Anchor Bay Entertainment Rating: USA: R/ UK: 18/ Australia: M
Last time we checked in on Michael Myers, Haddonfield, Illinois favorite masked murderer, he was being blown to bits along with his psychiatrist Dr. Sam Loomis in the basement of the Haddonfield Memorial Hospital. So, imagine my surprise back in 1988 when producer Moustapha Akkad released another installment in the Halloween series—one boasting not only a rejuvenated Myers, but an only somewhat scarred Loomis as well. What are these guys…some kind of Highlander-esque immortals or what?
Inspired by the mid 80’s success of the Friday the 13thand A Nightmare on Elm Street sequels, Moustapha Akkad (who’s clearly only had one money making idea in his life—the Halloween films) decided to hop on the slasher gravy train and resurrect the guy at least partially responsible for starting the entire slasher film craze. And while you’d be forgiven for assuming that any film with the number four in the title is bound to be a derivative mess, you’d also be wrong…well, sort of.
Halloween 4 takes place several years after the events in Halloween 1 & 2. Myers has been in a coma since the explosion, locked in the basement of an asylum for the criminally insane. The film opens on a dark and stormy night (gee, go figure) with two EMTs picking him up to transport him somewhere (I don’t recall where they were taking him, but really, this is a slasher film…does anyone actually think he’s ever gonna arrive at his destination?) Shortly after they leave, the one attendant makes the mistake of mentioning that Myers has a niece—alive and well, and living in Haddonfield. This rouses Michael from his coma, and needless to say, he kills everyone in the ambulance before escaping into the rainy night.
Meanwhile, we meet young Jamie Lloyd, the young daughter of Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis’ character in the first two films). Apparently, Laurie’s died in a car accident, and Jamie now lives with the Corruthers family. She’s got an older step sister, Rachel (Ellie Cornell: Halloween 5) and two decent parents, but she’s a bit of a lost soul—tormented by her peers for her murderous lineage, and saddened by her mother’s passing. I imagine you can pretty much figure out the rest from here—Myers stalks Jamie, Loomis stalks Myers, and countless teenagers die—all leading up to a shock resolution that sets up yet another sequel.
Yet, despite the familiarity of the plot and its over-reliance on slasher cliché, Halloween 4 has some inventive moments. Unfortunately, it never develops them into anything, choosing to instead play it safe and stick to the formula.
Director Dwight Little (Phantom of the Opera [1989} Murder at 1600) does a really nice job building atmosphere through his visuals. From the film’s opening montage (a series of shots showing a desolate field and barn decorated for Halloween) to the implied menace of Haddonfield’s empty streets, there’s a definite sense of menace present throughout much of the film (far more than in Rick Rosenthal’s Halloween 2). This is the closest anyone’s come to mimicking the visual style of Carpenter’s film.
Screenwriter Alan McElroy also does a nice job, introducing some new elements to what is a pretty threadbare storyline early on. The best piece is the alcoholic Reverend who picks up Loomis and takes him to Haddonfield. This character has a great scene—one where you want to think he’s crazy, but you know that he isn’t because he pegs Loomis for what he is—a hunter of evil…just like the Reverend himself professes to be. It’s an interesting scene, with an interesting character—a character who should have figured more prominently in the story. The one other interesting angle deals with the local cops. When a ranting and raving Loomis shows up, the cops actually believe what he has to say and spring into action—how many times have you seen that happen in a slasher flick? However, McElroy soon drops these intriguing angles and returns to working the cliches—anyone having sex inevitably winds up dead (Kathleen Kinmont’s character—the Sheriff’s promiscous daughter) and in the most ludicrous plot twist of all, the characters wind up locked inside a house.
The performances themselves are of varying quality. This, like the rest of the films in the series, benefits greatly from Donald Pleasance’s presence. Pleasance (Halloween 1, 2, 4, 5, 6) plays Loomis more over-the-top here than ever before. He’s an Ahab-like character, hunting his mortal enemy to the ends of the Earth with no intention of quitting until one of them is dead. Danielle Harris (Halloween 5, Urban Legend) is quite good for a child actor, managing to evoke sympathy without making the audience feel too manipulated. Ellie Cornell is decent as Rachel, your prototypical teenage girl, and it seems sort of odd that she never turned up in many other films. Everyone else is pretty forgettable—meaning that no one is out and out terrible (well, except for the buck-toothed electrician guy, named aptly enough, Bucky—but he dies right away) nor is anyone all that good.
The film’s music is ultimately forgettable, except for the re-using of Carpenter’s classic score. This is probably one of the main reason that most serious slasher aficionados like this series as much they do–Carpenter’s score is severely creepy and really builds the tension in any scene where it’s used.
Unlike Halloween 2, which had a fair amount of gore, Halloween 4 is a relatively bloodless affair. Yes, there are tons of murders, but most of them seem to happen offscreen, or they're fairly simple in their execution—leading one to believe that either the FX budget for the film was small, or that Akkad and Little were worried about the conservative political climate and decided to avoid potential problems with MPAA in advance.
Halloween 4 is ultimately a bit of an enigma. It’s a much better film than part 2 (at least in a technical sense), yet it’s still not a very good movie. While it’s much better than the fourth installment in either of its popular counterparts (Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street) it’s still little more than a routine, paint by the numbers exercise in slasher cinema—which is a shame, because for the first half hour, it’s pretty darn good. This one’s worth checking out if you’re a Halloween fan, or just a fan of American slasher films in general. It’s nothing more than a slick Hollywood movie that’s relatively harmless and never all that scary.
This fourth installment of the series takes place ten years after the original and finds the man in the William Shatner mask in a coma and being trans...More at Family Video
This fourth installment of the series takes place ten years after the original and finds the man in the William Shatner mask in a coma and being trans...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.