Title: Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
Tagline: “Ten years ago he changed the face of Halloween. Now he’s back.”
Duration: 88 minutes
Film Quality: 3/5
Entertainment Value: 3/5
Gore Content: 2/5
Originality: 2/5
Introduction
With audiences disappointed that everyone’s favourite serial killer was replaced with a mad Irish megalomaniac who put ground up pieces of Stonehenge in Halloween masks to satisfy his genocidal tendencies, it was time to give those fans the blood they’d been baying for. John Carpenter’s idea for the franchise to become a series of, ultimately unconnected standalone films was abandoned and the decision was taken to pretend that the Season of the Witch never happened and to bring Myers back from the dead.
In a Nutshell
With Myers in a comatose state for the past ten years and still under the unsympathetic treatment plan of Dr Loomis, the decision is made to transfer him. Of course it presents him with the perfect opportunity to abscond and plough a path of destruction towards Haddonfield where the seven year old daughter of the now deceased Laurie Strode still lives. He hasn’t gone there to make up for seven missed birthdays either, it’s time for another night of terror as Haddonfield relives its worst nightmare.
So, what’s good about it?
Considering that this is the third sequel to a fading horror franchise at a time when the slasher movie was so far past its prime it needed a stair lift to get onto the cinema screen, this is a pretty good effort all round. Perhaps it’s because it was the first Halloween film I had the pleasure of viewing and was already a little freaked out by the appearance of Myers’ mask but I found this to be a hugely enjoyable experience. Not realising on first viewing how close it sails to the waters of Carpenter’s original, it does enough to stand up well on its own and I’d perhaps go so far as to say that it comes, albeit a distant, second to the original in terms of those early franchise efforts.
The film takes a leaf out of the ‘Jaws’ playbook by wisely keeping Myers in the shadows for the most part, although this could have been due to the well-documented problems of recreating the infamous mask! After his escape we don’t see much of him and it’s really only during the last third when he comes into his own. It’s stylistically similar to Carpenter’s original in the sense that we get a few point of view shots before Myers moves into the frame, there’s an omnipresence about Myers that becomes literal at one point when Loomis and Sherriff Meeker are confronted by what ppears to be three of him. An initial, and very interesting premise looked at the effect the events of the original had on Haddonfield where the spirit and memory of Myers took on a life of its own, with the teenagers almost literally bringing Myers back to life in a spiritual sense. That scene appears to be all that remained of that interesting idea that was maybe inspired by Wes Craven’s Elm Street series.
There are a few sly winks to the original in terms of characters. No mention is made of Jamie’s Dad but her second name is Lloyd, the same surname as Jimmy in ‘Halloween 2’, whilst minor characters Tommy and Lindsay could well be the two child survivors of the original. It’s little knowing touches like that, as well as the autumnal feel from the golden leaves falling from the trees and overall feel of the movie that ensure that it fits in remarkably well as a ‘Halloween’ sequel.
And of course there’s Donald Pleasance. I always found him to be a little overbearing in the first two films. Of course Myers is a child killer but as he says himself “In many ways he was the perfect patient” which kind of makes his complete lack of compassion all the more strange. It makes more sense in this film. His rambling about pure evil and the devil’s eyes have a basis in the reality of the film so his character seems more rounded and the scars of his experience, both physical and mental are there for all to see.
And what about the bad?
It’s not that it’s a bad film, far from it. In terms of the ‘Halloween’ franchise it may well be the best of the Myers sequels, it’s just that it tries so hard to follow in the footsteps of the original that it’s in danger of bumping into it. Due to the nature of the date-themed title it will inevitably utilise similar themes and tropes of the season but come on. He escapes again, he leaves a trail of destruction again, he’s after a young family member again, his own doctor is after him again whilst rambling like a madman again. It’s a reasonably good carbon copy that is saved somewhat by the surprise ending and the fact that it’s a very accomplished film.
It also chooses to both acknowledge and ignore ‘Halloween 2’. Both Myers and Loomis have burns, despite Myers literally melting into a pile of goo in the hospital-set second instalment, yet the security guard at the start says he was shot six times, ignoring the ‘bullet wounds’ from ‘Halloween 2’. Is this a way of pretending that Laurie shot him in both eyes so would be, at best, blind never happened? Nit-picking maybe but make your mind up.
Still, if a few glaring continuity errors and not being as good as one of the greatest horror films of all time are the worst you can say about a film then they’re also doing a lot right!
Any themes?
There could have been! Carpenter’s original script suggested that the myth of Myers would somehow become real by repressing the Halloween holiday. That tremendously eerie opening scene kind of doffs its cap to that idea, suggesting that Halloween has long since been abandoned and been replaced by the frightening remnants of what it represents. As mentioned before and as referenced by Loomis himself “They’ll see his face on every corner” and that fear is made real as the ‘Simpsons’ style baying mob kill an innocent teenager believing him to be Myers. That would have been a genuinely interesting concept and it’s a shame it wasn’t properly pursued in favour of remaking the original.
Release history…
No issue over censorship at all, in fact quite the opposite. Concerned that the film wasn’t violent enough they shot some additional gory scenes during post production which is when we get the thumb through the head, the throat ripping and the crowbar murder.
Cultural impact?
It’d become something of a cult favourite and many regard the film as one of, if not THE best Halloween sequel. In truth it’s an above average and fairly straight down the middle slasher film at a time when they were seriously out of fashion. What it did do was bring back the horror icon and we’ve not looked back with further, pretty dire sequels churned out, two Rob Zombie ‘reboots’ that divide opinion, further Jamie Leigh-Curtis starred efforts and a brand new one that ignores all of the above, including part 4! You can’t keep a good bogey man down so for that, Part 4, we thank you!
Final thoughts?
You can watch this film with a gentle nod of approval because it does most of what you expect it to do and it doe it with quiet efficiency. Other than the opening and closing two minutes it doesn’t really do anything progressive but it does deliver the goods and reintroduced a salivating public to the Michael Myers we know and love.
Memorable Quotes
Loomis: “Six bodies, Sheriff! That's what I've seen between here and Ridgemont! A filling station in flames! I'm telling you Michael Myers is here, in this town! He's here to kill that little girl and anybody who gets in his way!”
Loomis: “You're talking about him as if he were a human being. That part of him died years ago.”
Security Guard: “Jesus ain’t got nothing to do with this place.”
You’ll like this if you enjoyed…
‘Halloween’, ‘Halloween 2’, ‘Black Christmas’
Related Reviews…
Halloween – Click here for full review
Halloween 3: Season of the Witch – Click here for full review
Black Christmas – Click here for full review
The Burning– Click here for article
Friday 13th – Click here for full review
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