I was always much less familiar with the Halloween sequels growing up probably for a combination of two reasons: they weren't as popular and so didn't play on TV as often and they scared me a lot more so I avoided them.
Click here for a list of all other films reviewed and considered for this October 2012 series of horror reviews.
A writer’s strike was responsible for the production of
the horror movie spoof Student Bodies
in 1981 as well as Halloween 4: The
Return of Michael Myers in 1988. The differences are astounding. Whereas
the earlier film was already written and given production backing by a major
studio looking for non-union projects, the latter was written slapdash by Alan
B. McElroy and a team of story writers in a matter of days to get it finished
before the impending strike was to begin. Believe me, it feels rushed.
The story follows ten years after Halloween II (part 3 is not related to the story as the idea was to
start a compendium of Halloween-centered stories, but Michael Myers had to be
brought back by popular demand). Jamie Lee Curtis’s character Laurie Strode has
been killed in a car accident, leaving her 8-year old daughter Jamie (Danielle
Harris) in the care of a foster family. She has nightmarish visions of her
uncle Michael, not knowing who he is. And she has a big sister now, Rachel
(Ellie Cornell) whom she looks up to.
McElroy doesn’t bother to provide any explanation for how
Michael or Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance) survived the explosion at the end of Halloween II even though we saw Michael
burning on the hospital floor. Nevertheless, there’s Michael in an institution
about to be transferred. Ten years has not been enough time to quench his
thirst for blood and he takes the opportunity (just like the transfer he
exploited in the beginning of the original) to escape to Haddonfield once
again. Michael, otherwise referred to as “It” or “The Evil” by Loomis, has a
single-minded determination to eliminate his family members and he’s after
young Jamie now.
By 1988, Friday the13th cornered the market, along with A Nightmare on Elm Street, for slasher films. Those series came to
be partially defined by the inventive use of found objects and weapons to kill
victims in new ways. Director Dwight H. Little eschews the defining traits of
the first two Halloween films
(atmosphere and terror created by excellent use of the camera) in favor of
bloodier deaths brought about by different tools. He essentially cheapened the
series and watered down Michael Myers, who was previously one of the most
terrifying villains in movie history, to a cartoonish cult hero. Granted, there
is some aspect of inevitability in a killer’s loss of reputation that is the
result of too much exposure in film after film.
If it has anything going strongly in its favor, it’s that
it doesn’t resort to the cliché of the police department that refuses to believe
the seemingly manic character issuing warnings. Loomis meets some initial
resistance, but Sheriff Meeker (Beau Starr) is a pragmatist and doesn’t want a
repeat of what occurred ten years earlier. Halloween
4 also ends with a twist that is well above and beyond the final scare conjured
up by Brian De Palma at the end of Carrie.
It’s an ending that suggests interesting possibilities for the next installment
and also speaks to the futility of trying to stop pure evil from wreaking havoc
on the world.
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