Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers - Film Review
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers is directed by Dwight H. Little and stars Donald Pleasence, Danielle Harris, Ellie Cornell, Michael Pataki, and George P. Wilbur.
Plot
Ten years after his original massacre, the invalid Michael Myers (George P. Wilbur) awakens on Halloween Eve and returns to Haddonfield to kill his seven-year-old niece (Danielle Harris).
Review
A little history about this movie...
After the disappointment of the fans after Halloween III, they brought Michael back for this one. So what if we saw him burn to death? Money has magical healing powers. This goes for Loomis too.
And this is the last good Halloween movie until ten years later with H20, but we'll talk about that later.
This is a really good Halloween sequel in my opinion, it's not my favorite sequel, but it's really good.
So the reason Michael is after Jamie is because she is the daughter of Laurie, we learned in Halloween II is Michael's sister. But Laurie died, leaving Jamie as Michael's last living relative, and he has to kill everyone related to him.
This is also a good return to form for the franchise, as it does feel like a part of the series. Halloween III didn't, but it wasn't meant to be part of the Myers story.
The story does feel kinda the same as the first one. After years in captivity, Michael escapes the hospital to go back to his hometown to kill a family member of his, but with enough new stuff for it to be a good entry.
This film has one of the best endings in the series, where Micheal is gunned down by police and a group of drunk rednecks, and at Jamie's house we cut to a first person view of Jamie's adoptive mother being killed, and the killer is revealed to be Jamie herself, revealing whatever caused Michael to kill had passed on to his niece, which was foreshadowed earlier in the movie when Loomis gets a ride from a reverend who tells him that evil can never really be killed. This would've been a good ending to the series, ending the way it started, but they wanted dat green and made a fifth one.
This film actually has quite a bit of action for a slasher film in the 80's, as a gas station blows up, and Michael kills rednecks on a moving pickup truck.
This is also the first film in the series not to open with a jack-o-lantern, but instead we get shots of a barn while the credits appear over it. It's nice to see something different and it fits the fall them quite well.
Let's talk about the characters. Donald Pleasence is once again great as Dr. Loomis, who somehow survived the ending of Halloween II, but at least they put a scar on him to acknowledge Halloween II, but it is nice to see him back. And it's nice to see him actually talk to Michael before shooting him, but yeah, he's great as always.
I really like how they handle violence in this movie, as they show gore, but it isn't excessive or gratuitous, and when Michael kills someone it shows his superhuman strength or just the aftermath, like a bloody ambulance and the ruined police station and the remains of a dog there. It shows that less is more. He even throws a guy into electrical wires, removing power from Haddonfield.
Danielle Harris is great as Jamie Lloyd and is great for a child actor. She was adopted by this family after Laurie and Jamie's father died but she doesn't feel like she belongs. She's harassed by other kids for her family's history, and she herself is haunted by it, as she sees visions of her uncle in her bedroom, and at the store where he appears as a child in a clown costume, which she then becomes herself at the end when she kills her foster mother. Loomis also considers killing her, but it wouldn't really do anything, as she would come back and do this again. Danielle Harris is also in the Rob Zombie films but we'll talk about those later.
The other cast is good in here too.
Overall, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers is a really good entry in this series but not as good as the first two.
I'm going to give Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers a 9/10.
Tomorrow we'll be getting into the bad ones with Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers.
Previous review - Halloween III: Season of the Witch
Next review - Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers
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