Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

 

Director: Dwight H. Little

Screenplay: Alan B. McElroy

Cast: Donald Pleasence (as Dr. Sam Loomis); Danielle Harris (as Jamie Lloyd); Ellie Cornell (as Rachel Carruthers); George P. Wilbur (as Michael Myers); Beau Starr (as Sheriff Ben Meeker)

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

After Part III Season of the Witch (1982), it took six years before Halloween returned to the silver screen, Michael Myers firmly back in its centre having been in a coma since the second film. At least, and with spoilers difficult to hide with sequels from previous entries, this addressed the issue that the creators were attempting to kill him off with a giant explosion, so this continuation makes sure that, even if rewriting a dramatic ending, it had an effect. Here the results least lead to him in a coma, badly burnt up, for all the years that past within this world, awoke from his slumber in a mental institute when word of him having a niece is uttered in ear shot. Honestly, the biggest issue with The Return of Michael Myers is entirely that it feels contractual to exist when, for the start of the divisive Thorn Cult trilogy, this could have been more playful.

The decision to write Laurie Strode off screen, as Jamie Lee Curtis was long past slasher films in her mainstream career, and switching to an adopted girl played by a young Danielle Harris is actually a smart move to have gone with. I may find the decision to make Strode related to Myers annoying, but if one is forced to continue the series, having the bogeyman plague other members of the family is far more practical, and meaningful, in mind that for the Friday the 13th movies, they got around issues like this by setting up new random groups of teens and young adults. In the casting of Jamie Lloyd, you have a sympathetic figure if anything. Eleven months off from the death of her parents and adopted, the idea of a figure still reeling from this trauma, and having nightmares connected to Myers, an uncle she has never seen, is an interesting premise for any production to run with. Particularly when you get to Part 5 as well, Harris as a child actor in the film is incredibly charismatic and likable, making the fact her two films in the franchise are about Myers threatening and trying to kill a young girl more disturbing.

If we need to have a sequel, the shame of this film petering out is that this just starts with promise as a quietly set up but engaging follow up, only to start becoming more sluggish as it goes along. It is still a basic premise, with the worst step sister in Rachel, played by Ellie Cornell, even having her own subplot about the romantic triangle between her and the daughter of the new sheriff of Haddonfield. Even with the return of Donald Pleasure, turning his Dr. Loomis into an Ahab character slowly losing his mind, there is a build up from the literal scars from the last film, to an amusing tangent with a drunk mad preacher talking about chasing damnation in his beat up car, and the end naturally driving anyone in his position to start howling like a mad man. With Harris an anchor for viewer sympathy greatly needed, we had nothing amiss with this story. Despite losing Dean Cundey as cinematographer, this does also manage to have its own autumn aesthetic which works in its favour. The Blu-Ray era has been an incredible godsend for cinema like this; once a luddite who had no interest in the technology, my sudden change to the medium over DVD has nothing to do with picture resolution but because it has lead to films being restored or at least, with this one getting better visual quality for them. The orange hued yet cold autumn colours of Haddonfield adds to the creepiness of the premise, of scarecrows in the fields, Jack O' Lanterns everywhere and a small local town plague by memories of the bogeyman before he even returns. The slow, glacial nature of the film, even next to the first two in the series, adds an atmosphere that can stand up to the prequels in having its own personality.

The problems are entirely because, after Season of the Witch bombed, The Return of Michael Myers is a very safe direction to have gone with the franchise. Beyond its supernatural twist ending, which leads to the precipice of the franchise's obsession with adding occult details, it is a generic slasher by its ending at a time when the genre, with so many existing, started getting into far more idiosyncratic ones, for good and for the absurd, whilst this is insanely dry. It is strange, once ago I would have lionised this when I really was not as found of slashers, happy when this was drawing things out and not falling into terrible late eighties perms or z-list glam metal songs. I love those glam metal songs now, regardless of what tier of quality they are in, like the eighties perms, still find slashers can get generic but appreciating their goofiness as much as one succeeds in one or more areas, and find this one eventually starts with a personality, being a solid and mood drenched horror film, only to get insanely perfunctory by the time Michael Myers is terrorising people. Considering he begins just being a force off-screen that can decimate an entire building of a few bystanders, as this starts with, less human and a literal force, we could have gone with more of the sense of dread even if we played out the slasher clichés. By the time he is out in the open, the more lurid slashers can gloat that they at least have more personality.  

Aspects are up to question in logic - the most egregious at one time being the subplot of the locals becoming an armed mob, with an unresolved event when they shot an innocent bystander by mistake - have now actually gained personality. It just goes to show that, lavishing praise on this film once ago, things change as you get older and appreciate the horror sub-genre you once had an ambivalent view of, affecting the films you were more positive on. You could blame this entirely on the screenwriter of Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002), and the future director of Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home (1996), but honestly the issue feels more like no one wanted to make a radical turn in the series, merely replicate what came before despite the fact, with hindsight, the original Halloween is really unconventional in how precise and moody it was. Being beholden to how this starts the controversial Thorn trilogy, there is also the issue even with its virtues that, at least alongside Part 5, you have to wait to see if these films work together as one piece or expose even more problems. It is the obvious thing as well that will factor in for The Return of Michael Myers, and honestly, in the strange world of the horror franchise sequels, it feels less a concern wanting to rank them from best to worst, but more riding this peculiar rollercoaster and see what stood out, this one unfortunately now feel like the straight line in this trajectory.