Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers: Magnum Entertainment
Rating: USA: R

I wanted to send him to Hell, but I knew in my heart that Hell would not have him.--Dr. Sam Loomis aka Donald Pleasance

Ah, good old Donald Pleasance…of all the dead famous film people in the world, I think I miss Pleasance most of all (he’s right up there with Lucio Fulci for me). Pleasance was never a ‘star’, but he was one of those really gifted character actors who you could always depend on to liven up a schlocky film production with his mere presence.

It’s been reported that director John Carpenter initially wanted Christopher Lee to play the Loomis role in the original Halloween, but Lee had to decline because of scheduling conflicts. No offense to Lee, but I think things worked out for the best. It’s hard to imagine the gracious and dignified Lee parading around like a madman as these films progressed, but Pleasance (who was no stranger to over-the-top theatrics—see his portrayal of Blofeld in You Only Live Twice for more proof of that) was more than capable of filling the role—and he’s the sole reason that any of the films in this series after the first one are even remotely watchable.

Yet, the presence of Pleasance isn’t even enough to save Halloween 5, a film that’s dreadful in just about every way possible.

Getting up to speed…

When director John Carpenter’s original Halloween took America by storm in the late 1970s, it opened the floodgates for the American slasher film—a form that would come to dominate the domestic horror scene for roughly a decade. Producer Moustapha Akkad, sensing he could make more money off this idea, quickly commissioned a sequel.

Halloween 2 did decent business, primarily because Carpenter and partner Debra Hill stayed involved with the production (Rick Rosenthal handled the directorial duties, however). The sequel also saw the return of Jamie Lee Curtis, who had become one of Hollywood’s leading ‘scream queens’ thanks to her work in the first film.

The second film did solid business, but also (apparently) wrapped up the Myers storyline. The new plan was to release an unrelated horror film each year with the Halloween moniker as part of the title. The first of these projects would be Halloween 3: Season of the Witch. Halloween 3 was a quirky (yet oddly likeable) film that never clicked with theatergoers. A poor return on investment saw the entire series idea shelved.

Meanwhile, slasher cinema had been taken over by Sean Cunningham’s hockey-masked madman Jason Voorhees, and Wes Craven’s disfigured kid killer Freddy Krueger. Each series churned out one sequel after another, each one profitable primarily because they cost so little to make.

In 1988, Akkad decided that he too should be making money off the slasher craze, and he resurrected Michael Myers in Halloween 4. This time out, Myers is after his niece, the daughter of the Jamie Lee Curtis character. Part 4 did solid business, which necessitated a ‘cash-in quick’ sequel which came roughly a year later--Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers.

We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Plot!

If you’ve seen one Halloween film, you’ve pretty much seen them all. Part 5 is no exception, offering up the traditional stalk and slash formula that so many young horror film fans seem to love no matter how many times they see it.

Halloween 5 opens with a fairly nifty credit sequence where a large knife slashes repeatedly at a pumpkin. This is then followed up with a 10-minute sequence rehashing the events at the end of part 4.

We see Michael take some serious lead, fall down a well shaft, and escape into a river. He encounters some weird man (who looks sort of like a gone to seed Bing Crosby) who lives on the river’s edge. Michael, of course, tries to kill him—but he’s too weak.

Jump ahead a year and we find that little Jamie Lloyd is now in a special hospital for children after dealing with the traumatic events of the last film. She can’t talk, and even worse, she’s now psychically linked with her murderous uncle! We watch as she sort of pantomimes Michael’s resurrection (he’s been sleeping at the guy on the river’s place for a year, apparently—and to show his gratitude, he kills his host as soon as he wakes up) and know that she’s next on his hit list.

Dr. Loomis is still around, too. Our venerable Captain Ahab is still chasing the great white Shape, and he’s got even more battle scars from his previous encounters. One gets the impression that perhaps Loomis has been looking into the abyss for a bit too long, as he seems even more obsessed and extreme this time out. If they’d focused on Loomis a bit more, they could have retitled this film Halloween 5: This Time it’s Personal.

Go Home, Michael!

The plot plays out in standard fashion—teens (including Elly Cornell’s Rachel, who was one of the more interesting characters in the previous film) get slaughtered, Michael chases after Jamie, and Loomis chases after Michael. Throw in two bumbling keystone cops for comic relief and you’ve got yourself another lame slasher film.

However, things take a turn in a new direction near the middle of the second act, when some strange man in black (Johnny Cash?) shows up in Haddonfield sporting a weird rune tattoo similar to the one we’ve seen on Michael. We know this new dude is bad because he kicks a poor defenseless dog with his silver-tipped cowboy boot. That’s bad.

This new character skulks around on the periphery of the film until the climax, and director Dominique Othenin-Girard has stated that he wasn’t part of the script—he was simply an idea that Moustapha Akkad came up with on the set one day, and demanded that they shoot scenes of this guy walking around. No one, outside of Akkad, had any idea who this guy was. Akkad told everyone that they’d find out who this guy was in the next film—and apparently it stumped even him, because Halloween 6 took years to come out because they had to figure out how this guy fit into the series (and boy, is it a hoot…)

Anyway, back in the main plot…Loomis eventually encounters Michael himself and tells him if he wants Jamie to meet him at the old Myers house (which looks distinctly different from the original Myers house yet again—nice attention to series continuity there, guys). Michael, of course, smells a trap and outsmarts the cops who are waiting for him…but the wily old Loomis doesn’t want the cops there anyway—he wants to go mano y mano with Michael yet again. This throws the third act into motion, and it’s just as predictable as you’d expect…at least until the last two or three minutes, which come out of left field (oh yeah, notice that while Myers is in the jail cell, they leave his mask on. I’m sure real cops do stuff like that all of the time).

Die! Die! Michael, Die!

After viewing this mess, I did indeed find myself echoing Loomis’ sentiments. I’ve always had a special place in my heart for the Halloween series because the original was such a damn good film. Carpenter’s original vision of absolute evil personified stalking middle America still holds up to this day. The ending is one of the great horror film endings, and had they left it there, Halloween would probably be even more revered than it is today.

Instead, they had to add on to the story through countless sequels—all of which have tarnished the image of the original if for no other reason than through association.

The only thing Halloween 5 has going for it is some decent direction from Othenin-Girard. The filmmaker manages to work in some nice shots here and there, and occasionally makes you forget that you’re watching a really bad slasher film. Of course, this seems to be the one hallmarks of all of the sequels—Rosenthal’s film had a few nice shots, as did Dwight Little’s Halloween 4 (notably the opening montage of the abandoned farm and field).

Still, all the nifty camera work in the universe can’t save a film with a bad script—and this film has a really bad script. For horror cinema to be truly effective, one has to care about the characters that are in danger. If everyone’s a lout, then who cares if they die? Unfortunately, everyone in this film is a lout—with the possible exception of Danielle Harris. I haven’t seen many films with more characters that I disliked (the original Night of the Demons being one of the few exceptions). Whether it’s the buffoonish cops, the uber-annoying Tina (Wendy Kaplan), or the goofy kid with a crush on Jamie, I couldn’t help but hope they all died—painful and slow deaths, preferably.

Of course, unlikable characters aren’t the only problem here—there are also the plot holes you could drive a truck through, too. Let’s not even talk about the mysterious stranger in black (because the less said about him, the better). How about the fact that Rachel goes missing and no one cares? How about the weird guy on the river who conveniently keeps Michael’s corpse for a year—who is that guy? Why don’t we know more about the details concerning Jamie’s attack on her stepmother? I could go on and on…

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the famous ‘unmasking’ scene that was such a big part of the promotion of this film. Yes, Michael does take the mask off for a few seconds—but you won’t be able to see anything. In fact, you’ll see more when he takes it off at the climax of the original Halloween than you will here. This is just one more example of Moustapha Akkad using false advertising to lure fans into the theater.

As you can probably guess, the majority of the performances are awful. Harris is decent, particularly for a child actor. She’s not your typical child actor—she’s not all blonde and blue-eyed with a saccharine-sweet disposition. This kid’s been through a lot, and she does an adequate job of conveying it with her dark and haunted features.

The only other performance worth mentioning is Donald Pleasance’s. Pleasance once again brings Loomis to life. He gets to do a bit more than usual here, trying to talk Michael down in one scene, and beating the holy hell out of him with a two-by-four (wll while screaming ‘die!’ with each blow) in another. Pleasance clearly understands that he’s not making high art here, and that a campy performance will be just as good as a restrained one, so he goes all out. Pleasance liked living the good life (he was living in Europe at the time of his death), so he kept taking these and other exploitation film roles in order to make money. He was often better than the material, but he gave it his all anyway.

Finally, let’s talk about the gore—or better yet lack of gore—in this film. For a slasher film from the 1980s, Halloween 5 is pretty tame. The MPAA cracked down on slasher film violence in the mid-80s, and as such, films got a lot tamer. This one is so tame that I have a hard time figuring out how it didn’t get a PG-13.

The kills are all pretty run of the mill—we’ve got a hanging, some stabbings, a guy impaled on a pitchfork, a girl cut by a scythe, and so on. None of the murders are overly graphic (in fact, all of the violence is obscured by cuts or happens primarily off-screen) or bloody. Splatterheads are sure to be displeased by both this and the complete lack of nudity. In a lot of ways, Halloween 5 is an exploitation film minus the exploitation—and that’s not a good thing.

In the end, even the decent performances of Danielle Harris and Donald Pleasance, coupled with the solid direction of Dominique Othenin-Girard can’t save this film from a one-star rating. Halloween 5 is a bad film, even by slasher film standards. It brings nothing new to the table (aside from a goofy guy in black boots and a duster—and you’ll have no clue who he is until the next film, anyway), simply content to feed the masses the same old slasher film sludge. Avoid this one unless you’re a Halloween completist or a masochist looking to suffer.


Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Special Effects: Well at least you can't see the strings