Halloween 4 - The Return Of Michael Myers (DVD)

...nearly being burnt alive in Halloween II. While he has been lying there a few things have happened in the world. His sister, Laurie, is now dead after being killed in a car crash. However before she died she gave birth her daughter Jamie (Danielle Harris) who now has nightmares about her not-so nice Uncle coming after her. A family fostered her and her foster sister Rachel (Ellie Cornell) does her best to take care of her. However, on Halloween, ...
.../> At first glance, then, Halloween 4 appears to have little to warrant it being classed as special or even close to being so. The motive behind this film was purely money, promptly shown when Akkad (the executive producer of all the Halloween films) decided to carry on with a sequel despite the creators Carpenter and Hill not being involved. If a film is driven with the focus of money it can lose the focus of making a good film. However, that said, ... more

After the Myer-less sequel that was Season of the Witch the fourth part of the series returned with what everyone wanted, Michael Myers. However it would be missing three people that people were accustomed to seeing with Halloween. Jamie Lee Curtis who played Laurie Strode, the heroin of the first two films, would not be returning. Also John Carpenter the director of the first and producer of parts II and III, along with Debra Hill, would also not be involved in this part of the franchise.

For a decade Michael Myers has been lying dormant in a coma in a high security hospital after nearly being burnt alive in Halloween II. While he has been lying there a few things have happened in the world. His sister, Laurie, is now dead after being killed in a car crash. However before she died she gave birth her daughter Jamie (Danielle Harris) who now has nightmares about her not-so nice Uncle coming after her. A family fostered her and her foster sister Rachel (Ellie Cornell) does her best to take care of her. However, on Halloween, she must do a lot more caring after Michael wakes up from his coma as he was being transferred to another hospital and he now he is out to kill his niece and anybody who gets in his way. Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance) also survived the fire and he once again tries to track down his nemesis before he does too much damage.

At first glance, then, Halloween 4 appears to have little to warrant it being classed as special or even close to being so. The motive behind this film was purely money, promptly shown when Akkad (the executive producer of all the Halloween films) decided to carry on with a sequel despite the creators Carpenter and Hill not being involved. If a film is driven with the focus of money it can lose the focus of making a good film. However, that said, Halloween 4 remains one of the most solid sequels to come out of the Halloween franchise. It certainly isn’t extraordinary and it does replicate what people at that time came to expect from horror movies, a high body count, blood and teen sex. Indeed it is not until the final frame of the film that allows Halloween 4 to stand out from its other counterparts.

If you thought that Halloween II lacked the subtlety of the original then Halloween 4 drives straight past anything of the sort. There are kills and a lot of them (19) and Michael, as in Halloween II, doesn’t rely on the knife all the time with electrocution and impaling on poles being a few methods. Yet it also seems that the kills are more raw and Michael has received super-human strength since he has been in the coma, as now he can rip of someone’s face with his bare hands and drive his thumb through a skull. Not pleasant at all and nothing of the sort of kills you would associate with Halloween I yet because of their goriness they lack the campness of some of the kills in Halloween II.

Halloween 4 still has the atmosphere of the previous Halloweens (bar Season of the Witch). An advantage of this film over Halloween II is the fact that Michael and the action happening around him is not just confined to a hospital but around the main town. This gives Myers a more menacing presence given the more open field that he is allowed to wonder in. However this is not used to full effect. Michael could, as in the first, be confined to the shadows, his mask the only thing illuminating his presence but, as in Halloween II, and in keeping with the film his movements are not as subtle. He can still be clearly seen a lot of the time and the dark shadows are not used to full effect. Pleasingly although it doesn’t have the creepiness of Halloween I it doesn’t go overboard with the Michael shots as Halloween II tended to do and, while not confined to the shadows, Myers is used effectively. The dream sequence at the beginning with Jamie is suitably scary as are a few other ‘glimpses’ of him throughout the film. As with the other films Myers walks to his victims and his calmness in doing so is always enough to send a slight chill up your spine even if he wasn’t quite as scary as the first time you saw him.

The newcomers to the series, Harris and Cornell, provide enough talent to get them through the roles. Despite being young Harris’ performance is commendable even if her lines do consist mainly of screaming. Having children play lead roles in adult films can ruin the experience and they can come across as more annoying (like the child in Halloween III) than anything else. Luckily Harris doesn’t get on the wrong side of you and, while this probably isn’t the most demanding role she may have had to face, she does play it with a true sense of scope and feeling. Cornell doesn’t really get the chance to engage in the viewers mind or hearts. Her character cannot be described as the female protagonist as that remains Harris, therefore you never really think her life is in danger from Myers and if she does get killed then it would just be another body to add to the count. However the relationship she has with Harris is believable and luckily she isn’t the extreme doting or spiteful foster sister but a one that tries to juggle her life with her younger sisters. As ever Pleasance is the main draw of talent in the film. By this instalment he is just as important as Myers. Whether he reprised his role because of interest or a safe wage remains unimportant as, once again, he puts in an excellent performance.

As mentioned before the ending is what makes this film a stand out. It was effectively chilling then and remains just that to this day. Until then the film had the predictable build up on tension, the hunt for Myers, the battle with Myers and Myers then getting ‘killed’ for another year or so. This ending adds a satisfying twist to the tale and it is given more power thanks to the superb Donald Pleasance, it is doubtful any other person would be able to convey such fear towards it without the ties Pleasance had to the films. The ending also paved a new way that the Halloween franchise could go however this was ignored when Halloween 5 came along a year later and the same formula was used but the ending of Halloween 4 remains as effective as ever.

The directing from Dwight. H. Little is pretty effective. The opening shots of the town bathed in the orange glow of a Halloween sky and leaves falling to the ground and the area vast and desolate sets up the atmosphere well. As said, unlike Rosenthal in Halloween II, he doesn’t overuse Myers too much and the general camera work does at least evoke some tension to come from the scenes. Without Carpenter the music was handed over to Alan Howarth. His adaptation of the main theme is quite effective, especially in the opening shots, and relies on a much longer build up. It is also used throughout the film a few times but not too much to make it sound redundant.

Halloween 4 is by no means perfect and does fail to impress at a number of times throughout the film. Probably the most notable grievance people had towards the film was the inclusion of the redneck vigilantes who go after Myers themselves when the police force (who by that time were mostly dead) failed to capture Myers. Their inclusion in the film just seems to add some camp humour into it, unintentionally that is, and really doesn’t add significantly to the whole process though it does mean that we get to see a public reaction to Myers on the loose, something missing from other Halloween films, its just a shame it couldn’t have been done using more dimensional characters. Luckily their screentime doesn’t amount to much. The technique the film uses of the main characters being locked in the house also doesn’t work. Surely if they would want to keep Jamie and Rachel safe they would whisk them away from town and not keep them in the house until backup arrives. This method is just used to confine the terror to the house and, thanks to a power cut due to a sparky Myers kill, the lack of electricity means that it’ll be nice and dark for Myers to invoke a little terror. It does work slightly well but could have been handled better.

Despite its shortcomings and fairly unoriginal premise, Halloween 4 is a surprisingly good sequel and horror film as a whole. It knows what it needs to do and it does it well but also adds its own mark to the film by adding the superbly twisted ending. For none horror fans the film may not convert you into thinking that the genre is worthy to be regarded as ‘serious’ (see the original for that) but for fans of the series and fans of horror films in general this does more than enough to please. It’s not revolutionary by any sense of the word but the staple horror fodder is there, blood, death and horny teenagers. It provides a good 90 minutes worth of entertainment and that’s all you want out of a film really.

HALLOWEEN 4 IS

A surprisingly good sequel
Scary enough to work as a horror
A thoroughly entertaining horror film

HALLOWEEN 4 IS NOT

An excellent sequel
Famous for subtle killings
As bad as Season of the Witch

Written for the HALLOWEEN SEASON 2002.
 

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