I watched Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers.
WAS I ENTERTAINED?
Hell, yes!
WHAT WORKED FOR ME?
I love the quiet opening sequence for its plain mid-west feeling.
When Carpenter’s theme kicks in it plays well with what is going on in the movie and I like that it wasn’t relied upon too early in the film.
Though I despise the “Michael Must Kill His Family” concept, when it is revealed that Michael has a niece it’s not a shoehorned bit of dialogue. It plays like a normal conversation, and, in this context, Michael’s reaction fits.
I like that Haddonfield looks like it could be Haddonfield.
Both Jamie and Rachel are great characters. They play like real people instead of the mere caricatures we get with most of the rest of this franchise.
Dr. Loomis plays like a logical escalation of his character. I wish movies still knew how to do this, especially without jumping the gun.
This movie knows how to be quiet without losing an audience. I’m going to chalk this up to the filmmakers not relying on Loud and Shouty as substitutes for genuine drama.
The shots of Bandage Michael at the gas station/garage/cafe are exquisite! The interaction between Michael and Dr. Loomis there is fantastic as well!
The kids in Haddonfield are still little jerks, but at least we get an explanation for why Jamie might be “haunted” by Michael since I complain about how that “haunting” plays out in the next section of this review.
I’m gonna say it again; This film knows how to be engaging without being loud!
I will say that as much as I’m not a fan of “haunting” Michael early in this film I do like how we are never really certain if he’s there or not for a while.
Dr. Loomis catching a ride with Reverend Sayer and the talk about “Hunting It” in Loomis’s reality and Sayer’s metaphors are awesome, especially in how it shows that Dr. Loomis hasn’t lost either his humor or his humanity.
Considering the performances, writing, etc., offered here, this outing really does emphasize that this franchise was not yet being treated as revenue generating trash like it eventually would be.
Michael stalking and learning while we get to know the other characters is great film-making.
In the face of what is obviously going on, the characters in this film don’t go from Zero to Hyper Drama or Stupid Panic or Idiotic Denial. This is good story telling.
The “Hicks With Rifles” trope is stupid. The fact is that such people are far more careful than what we usually see on film. Indeed, they’re almost always more knowledgeable and experienced than cops. Thankfully here they are not played as morons.
The roof escape from Michael is great tension!
The so-called Dumb Hicks making the logical decision to take Jamie and Rachel and get the Hell out of town and let the State Police handle it is genuinely good film-making. That plus the hicks in question are generally not proudly ignorant jerks.
The final scene in this movie is probably the second best behind the original.
WHAT DIDN’T WORK FOR ME?
Exposition Guard delivers exposition in case we couldn’t tell by the number 4 in the title that there were movies that preceded this one.
Michael kills a paramedic with a thumb through the forehead. Lame.
The way Michael “haunts” Jamie seems forced. A little backstory about Jamie learning all she could about her parents and discovering Michael as part of their past would have made more sense as to why she has these experiences far better than what we got. This is especially true since Michael being touched by the supernatural is to be hinted at rather than explicitly demonstrated by a psychic connection and baseless jump scares, for instance. Though this played out fairly well in the film overall, I’d have preferred that it had a foundation for the audience the first time it happened
Shoulder and Body Pad Michael is a weird choice.
Booby Girl has Boobies. This is fine, in general, but she started off as a more interesting character than that.
Impaling Booby Girl, and the wall behind her, with an over-and-under shotgun is lame. Other better options should have been employed.
Somehow in movies across all genres and budget levels anything that requires a wire automatically has 50-100 extra feet of wire for script convenience. In this case it’s a coaxial cable that leads to an antenna on the roof.
Oh, that suddenly freakishly blonde Michael Myers mask in the schoolhouse that lasts for a few seconds before returning to normal… “WTF” never had so much meaning.
WOULD I RECOMMEND?
Absolutely I would!
This is a horror film that, even though it has some flaws and strange choices, is taken seriously. I’m not saying that it’s “Elevated Horror,” as some like to say these days. I’m not really a fan of that description. I simply appreciate a film that is taken seriously in its production and knows how to be a solid film without relying on all the cheap tricks used to make films marketable instead of good.
Earlier this week I had mentioned on a livestream that humanity, across the full spectrum or our experience, has been locked into a seemingly inevitable intellectual migration toward superficiality.
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers is a fine example of what can happen when a piece of humanity decides to choose a destination beyond the corner of Marketability and Mediocrity.
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