Ranking the "Halloween" Movies: #2 - "Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers" (1988)

Only three days from Halloween. Hopefully you're too scared by this point to even go to the bathroom on your own.

#2 - Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

I think the subtitle should've been "Here You Go, You Bunch'a Whiners."

After people were confused by the third installment in the franchise, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, producers decided that doing the creative thing would only confuse the already confused, so in an effort to make the Halloween franchise viable again, they went back to basics. In a production sense? No. In an ideological sense? Not even close. No, in a storytelling sense. They decided to shamelessly have Halloween 4 resurrect the character of Michael Myers, along with his psychiatrist Dr. Samuel Loomis, recycle the plot from the first film with minor changes, and shove it up the ass of American cinema in 1988. You know what though? It worked. My God, did it work. I make it sound like Halloween 4 was going to shit a chicken upon release, but instead, it was just what the producer's ordered.

Michael could double as a door-to-door pie cutter

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers was released in 1988, ten years after the original film. The story keeps up with that time frame. Set ten years after Michael's original masscare in Halloween and Halloween II, we come to find out that Michael has been in a coma since the explosion at the end of Halloween II, and now he's being transferred from one mental ward back to Smith's Grove under the care of Dr. Loomis. During the transfer, one of the EMTs mentions Michael's living niece, Jamie Lloyd. Michael immediately wakes up after a ten year rest, kills all those in the ambulance, and escapes into the night. Dr. Loomis is alerted by Michael's escape and learns that his old nemesis from ten years ago is back. He springs his chubby, disfigured ass into action and heads for Haddonfield to stop Michael before he can kill again. In Haddonfield, we find out Jamie Lloyd is the daughter of Laurie Strode (and presumably Jimmie Lloyd, the EMT from Halloween II) and has been adopted by the Carruthers family. Their daughter Rachel is Jamie's foster sister, and looks after her begrudgingly on Halloween night after babysitting plans for the Carruthers family fall through. Throughout Halloween during the day, Jamie begins seeing visions of her uncle coming to get her in various places, including her dreams and in the costume store. She must shrug it off real well, because that night she goes trick-or-treating with Rachel. Meanwhile, Loomis shows up in Haddonfield and commands new sheriff Ben Meeker to join him in hunting down Michael Myers. They scoff at first but soon learn of a break-in at Jamie's residence. Word begins to spread that Michael Myers has come back to town, leading a group of drunken hillbillies to saddle up, lock n' load, and go on a hunt for him. Loomis and Meeker eventually find Rachel and Jamie and take them into their custody. They hold up in Meeker's house, but Michael finds his way there. He kills Brady (Rachel's boyfriend), Kelly Meeker (Ben's daughter), and Deputy Logan (Ben's only living deputy after a police department massacre). He gives chase to Rachel and Jamie, who are eventually found by the drunken gun posse and are taken out of town. Surprise! Michael hitches a ride on the truck, kills a few of the hillbillies, but in the end is run over by Rachel in the truck. Later, the Haddonfield police department shows up and eradicates Michael in a hail of gunfire. Michael falls into a mine shaft that collapses inward, presumably crushing his bullet-riddled body. The sisters return home and Mrs. Carruthers runs a bath for Jamie, only to be murdered by an unseen assailant. Loomis, to his own horror, looks up the stairs and sees that Jamie, the little girl, is covered in blood and holding a bloody pair of scissors...

"Stop, in the name of Love--I mean, Loomis!"

The film's prevailing aspect is its tone and its cinematography. Every shot looks and feels beautiful. It's a very seasonal-appropriate movie for Halloween. There's scarecrows, pumpkins, trick-or-treating, costumes and everything in between. It's all represented in full force here. I'm not saying any of the previous films we've talked about so far failed to do so, but of all the times I've mentioned that a Halloween film feels like a Halloween movie, this film is the leading example. It's very tone appropriate and many of its exterior shots are beautiful.

The next thing that I love is the sense of post-apocalyptic living in Haddonfield. The film portrays Haddonfield as a town that has suffered and is doing its best to cope with the events of Halloween night ten years prior. This movie did a phenomenal job with incorporating almost an entirely new cast of characters, minus Loomis of course, to face Michael as he returns for a night of some senseless slaughtering of stupid kids having sex. Bringing back Laurie Strode and Sheriff Brackett would've robbed from the new characters. Loomis, thought, is one you can't omit. Of all of the Halloween/Halloween II night alumni to elect to bring back for another night of psychotic craziness, I'm glad they chose Donald Pleasence for another go as Samuel Loomis. I also love the feel of all of the discussions that relate to Michael Myers, Meeker's especially. Right off the bat, he knows who Loomis is and knows why he's back, but doesn't want to believe it. It isn't until the night starts unfolding that he realizes what he's up against and he comes to respect Loomis for coming back to the town to warn him.

Piling onto the awesome story sense and tone is the setting. Haddonfield suffers not only a power outage but a communications blackout. Haddonfield becomes totally isolated from civilization around it, leaving only those to inhabit the town left as the ones who can fight or possibly even kill Michael. It gives the sense that Jamie needs help to fend of Michael but she can't get any. Rachel's incapacitated by the roof, Loomis is thrown out of a window, Meeker get sidetracked going God-knows-where. Hell, it isn't until near the end of the movie where the highway patrol is brought into the picture. Michael Myers is so unkillable that you even need the state troopers. That is a badass motif for the movie.

Rachel, Jamie and the Badass Haddonfield Posse from Hell

While being a well-told piece of horror cinema, I do have a some continuity gripes, and they all have to do with Michael and Loomis. The first is Michael's mask. As I stated in the previous post regarding Halloween II, they didn't have access to the original mask so the art department had to make a new one. The one that they came up with looks pretty bad. It's entirely featureless and looks too neat. The hair's combed nicely, it lacks any facial structure and it looks too clean. Its a ridiculous thing to look at. Secondly, for being in a coma for ten goddamn years (that's a decade to you and me), Michael sure has beefed up quite a bit. Look at him when you watch the movie! He's built like a hockey player. In fact, according to IMDb, George Wilbur (who plays Michael in 4) wore hockey pads under the coveralls to make Michael look more menacing. Michael was in a coma for ten years! He should be a shriveled up prune of a man, not a fucking body-builder. Now thirdly...and, this is the big one...how in the name of fuck do Loomis and Michael survive the explosion at the end of Halloween II? This is why I blame people who hated Halloween III: Season of the Witch for this catastrophe of continuity. No matter what plot device you use, what explanation you give, or how much burn makeup you cake onto Loomis's face or Michael's arms and hands, there is NO WAY...NO. WAY... that Michael and Loomis survive that explosion. That was originally meant to kill them both, after all. According to IMDb again, the original opening for the movie in the script had a shot of Loomis being thrown from the explosion, showing how he survived. Did you not watch the end of Halloween II? There was nowhere to be thrown. Everything within a thousand feet of that operating room got blown to bits! Michael should've even have any flesh left on him the way he burnt up.

Alright, rant over. Continuity is a bitch to follow I understand, but at least either try a little harder, or ignore the fans like WWE and just do whatever the hell you wanna do with your sequels.

This was the first film in the franchise to have zero involvement from series co-creator John Carpenter. Carpenter wrote, directed and scored the first film, wrote and scored the second one, and just scored the third one. This is the first film where he stopped coming into work. So here, the music is done entirely by Alan Howarth. His opening theme for Halloween 4 is masterful. The entirety of the opening shot is superb. It perfectly sets the tone with glowing orange text on static shots of farm equipment decorated with Halloween stuff. It's just a droning musical accompaniment that makes it all worthwhile. You've got to watch it. It's something about this collection of decorations hanging from a tree and blowing in the wind that sets the mood. "Something's not right" comes into your mind, and "something bad is coming" stems from that. It's to die for (pun intended).

SURPRISE! Jamie did it.

I'll end this review with two of my favorite scenes. The first is when Loomis stops at a gas station/mechanics shop for assistance and finds that Michael has killed the mechanic. What follows is a glorious exchange with Loomis and his former whacko student. Loomis actually pleads with Michael not to go back to Haddonfield, because he knows what's coming and knows that Michael probably can't be stopped. This is confirmed later on when Loomis is leaving Meeker's house and utters the line "...maybe nobody knows how to stop him." My other favorite scene is when Loomis gets picked up by the alcoholic reverend. Mostly because he's basically the same character in a way. Both Loomis and the reverend are hunting evil in a way. Plus, in every scene he's in Loomis is normally the one talking. In this scene, he's the audience. The reverend in the Loomis in this scene, and Loomis is the listener.

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, in my opinion, is a near-masterpiece. It's got some continuity flaws, sure, but nothing so big and drastic that they hold the movie back...okay, minus the Halloween II explosion survival shit. Still, the new cast of characters, especially Rachel, are all done really well, and hats off to Danielle Harris for handling all this when she was just eight or nine years old as Jamie. Loomis gives some of his most quotable lines in 4, and Meeker does really well as the new sheriff. So much so that you almost forget about Brackett. Since they chose to abandon the anthology idea and rehash the Michael Myer storyline, this was the best possible result. I love Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers a lot. It's a classic.

Spoiler Alert: Next one's Halloween.