Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers

Director: Dwight H. Little (1988)

Starring: Donald Pleasance, Danielle Harris, Rachel Carruthers

Find it online: IMDB, Amazon UK, Amazon US

After an unsuccessful (but not uninteresting) attempt to pull the series in a different direction with Season of the Witch, this third sequel gets things back on track by bringing back the Shape. And, just to let you know they were done with all that originality stuff, the makers advertised it in the title.

Doc Loomis is back too, but not unfortunately not Laurie. Because star Jamie Lee Curtis wanted none of this nonsense (too busy hanging around with Pythons and Fishes Called Wanda), she’s written out as having died in a car accident (on a personal note, I truly hate it when a series kills off a non-returning character in such an ignominious way. I was glad to see Curtis’ death retconned in H20). So in Laurie’s absence, Michael has a niece to hunt down instead.

Yes, trivia fans will be interested to see a young Danielle Harris (that’s right, Annie Brackett of the Rob Zombie remakes fame) starring as Jamie, Laurie’s seven-year-old daughter. Kinda makes you feel iffy about ogling those titties in Halloween ’07, eh? To her credit, she’s less annoying than your average child actor and was one of the few good things about Zombieween. Poor little bugger is bullied relentless at school as a gang of kids follow her down corridors chanting “Jamie’s an orphan” and teasing her about her psychopathic uncle. Harsh.

Obligatory Mike Myers joke

Talking of whom, Michael is catatonic in hospital at the start of his Return. But, after a doctor lets it slip that he has a niece, he immediately breaks free and sets out hunting her down. And you thought your relatives were bad. Before finding Jamie, he confronts Loomis in a roadside cafe. As bad a shot as ever, Loomis fails to kill Michael and instead blows up a small gas station. Being a creature of stubborn habit, Michael heads off back to Haddonfield and finds himself a freshly dirty pair of overalls and a new Shatner mask.

A very good little sequel that doesn’t besmirch the original’s name. The spared use of Michael and the building of tension throughout is excellently managed, whilst I thought Jamie’s hallucinatory dream scenes were well done (actually one of the things I liked in Zombie’s H2). The kills, whilst not overtly gory, are memorable and cool (one character is impaled on a shotgun. Nice). It’s let down somewhat by a slow, kinda predictable second half, but redeemed again by the time Michael takes on one of the teens in a fistfight. If you’re paying attention, you’ll probably see the ‘twist’ coming. I won’t spoil it, but it represents the start of the series’ greater stupidity that bloomed in episodes 5 &6.

H20 gets a lot of recognition for being not-shit, but Halloween 4 is actually a strong, above average entry to the series. A welcome return from a true horror icon.

3/5 screaming Scream Queens!!!

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers

Director: Dominique Othenin-Girard (1989)

Starring: Donald Pleasence, Ellie Cornell, Danielle Harris

Find it online: IMDB, Amazon UK, Amazon US

Well, so soon after his Return, Michael Myers comes home – again – this time with Revenge on his mind. And it’s little wonder. The movie kicks off with Michael being run over, splattered across a graveyard with an enormous shotgun and then chucked down a collapsing mineshaft. He’s washed down a hidden river and finds himself rescued by a hermit and his parrot. He then goes and has himself a coma for the next 12 months. This being one generous hermit, the fella cares for Michael for all that time. Maybe he hoped Michael would show him some gratitude and buy a copy of The Big Issue or something. But Michael did always have problems with his manners, and murderises the poor schlub. He then heads back off to Haddonfield in search of his family.

As you’d expect from a Halloween sequel, the production values are high and the action rarely dull (not particularly incrdible, but not dull either). Loomis is back, as is Michael’s niece, Jamie. This time she’s incarcerated in a Loony Bin for Juniors, unable to speak and seemingly tied with a tight mental connection to Uncle Mike.

Gory highlights include a dude getting a facial with a rake and much of the usual stabby business. There’s a pretty naff scene in which he tries to run his quarry down with a car, but fails miserably. The Shape’s mask looks terrible in this movie. Definitely one of the more boring Halloween sequels, it’s really not worth seeking out unless you’re desperate or a completist.

Obviously, the closing moments leave things open for yet another sequel. Worry not, one wasn’t far behind. And it was more batshit insane than anything we’d seen before…

2/5 screaming Scream Queens!!!

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers

Director: Joe Chappelle (1995)

Starring: Donald Pleasence, Paul Rudd

Find it online: IMDB, Amazon UK, Amazon US

The one with Paul Rudd vs Michael

Hurms, maybe watching the series backwards wasn’t such a good idea. Whereas the Friday and Nightmare sequels were largely stand-alone, the Halloween mythology at this point is strikingly dense. The latter episodes get a lot of stick, but at least they were trying something vaguely new. Watching the series back-to-back, you’ll realise that there are less legitimately bad sequels in the franchise than many of its ilk managed (there’s a Friday the thirteenth next month, by the by, so expect each and every Jason flick reviewed soon).

Jamie Lee gets a lot of credit as the star of the Halloween series, but many seem to forget that Donald Pleasence’s Doc Loomis was in more movies than Laurie. He’s sporting an awesome beard here, and is as a hoot to watch as ever, lending the flagging series a bit of much-needed gravitas. Pleasance’s performance here makes you realise just how much Malcolm McDowell has been phoning it in as of late.

Anyway, it’s been six years since Michael Myers’ Revenge, and most of the main players have been in hiding for this period of time. It’s revealed that Jamie – that’s Michael’s niece – was kidnapped by Halloween 5’s mysterious Man in Black (not Will Smith) who had her impregnated (a producers' cut later revealed that it was Michael who raped her - bugh). With incredible timing, she gives birth on Halloween Eve, under the watchful eye of the Man in Black (not Tommy Lee Jones either) and a cult or something. Later that night, a nurse helps Jamie and baby escape. Whilst poor Jamie ends up on the wrong end of Michael’s knife, baby finds his way into the protective hands of Tommy Doyle – played by ex-Friend Paul Rudd.

All the stupidity built up over the past few movies pays off here in what is arguably the most ambitious of the series. It may not work entirely – or at all – but it’s certainly interesting stuff, and one can see how they tried to tie it all into the original movie. In brief, screenwriter Daniel Farrands posited that the Myers family was under an ancient Celtic curse; one which drove the family’s young to kill all members of their bloodline. Uh-huh. Further proof of this sequel’s lunacy is evident in that it was originally to be called Halloween 666. It’s interesting how fans can turn on a franchise when it gets too ambitious. The results here are miles away from Carpenter’s Hitchcockian masterpiece, but it’s still no Jason X or Leprechaun in Space, that’s for sure.

The kills are decent enough, and Myers looks more menacing than ever before. Paul Rudd shows promise, playing tortured Tommy. The story, whilst daft, is intriguing enough to hold the viewers’ interest. Halloween purists might balk at the demystifying of Myers’ origins, but it sure beats Rob Zombie’s trailer-trash hickery any day.

3/5 screaming Scream Queens!!!

Halloween: H20

Director: Steve Miner (1998)

Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Josh Hartnett

Find it online: IMDB, Amazon UK, Amazon US

No, not Halloween Underwater, although that would be pretty cool. H20 ignores all of the suckier sequels, and is considered a direct sequel to Halloween 2. Everyone’s favourite hermaphrodite is back. Jamie Lee Curtis stars as Laurie Strode, and this time she’s got a son, played by Josh Hartnett. But it’s okay, because he’s not annoying in this movie.

We find Laurie working as a headmistress at an exclusive boarding school in Northern California. She’s faked her own death, is living under an assumed name and has her son and a boyfriend. It’s been twenty years since that fateful Halloween, but still she’s traumatised, a sweary alcoholic and living in fear. So much so that her son thinks of her as a nag, and is determined to sneak out after hours for a cheeky little Halloween party of his own…

But Laurie was right to be a nag. Michael decides to mark their anniversary by turning up at the college and murdering people; top of the list, his sister and his nephew. How cute.

One of the better the sequels, H20 wisely ignores all of the stupid continuity issues that gathered up over the course of Halloween 4-6 and gets on with telling a good old-fashioned slasher story, largely inspired in tone and look by the Scream movies (with Kevin Williamson working on the script too). It’s fun and respectful and pretty faithful to John Carpenter’s original vision. In stark contrast to some of the worse episodes, the violence is more slight, the gore less prominent. Bringing back Jamie Lee Curtis also adds a bit of authenticity and is a nice touch, making it feel a more legitimate sequel than most.

It’s not a perfect movie by any means. Due to years of overexposure, Michael’s no longer the imposing figure he once was. There’s no point hiding him in shadows anymore, since we all know what he looks like. And longtime horror fans might be a bit bored by the slight plot and run-of-the-mill slasher stereotypes.

So if you ignore the lesser sequels, Resurrection and Rob Zombie’s remakes, H20 stands as a nice little bookend to Halloween 1-2. The final showdown between brother and sister is certainly the most memorable, and the most definitively final of them all.

But of course, they had to go and fuck up all that goodwill with Halloween: Resurrection, didn’t they? Who would have thunk that following this, the franchise’s darkest days were harkening…

3/5 screaming Scream Queens!!!

Halloween Resurrection

Director: Rick Rosenthal (2002)

Starring: Kung fu Busta Rhymes, Jamie Lee Curtis

Find it online: IMDB, Amazon UK, Amazon US

Halloween: Resurrection AKA The one with Busta Rhymes starts, for some reason, with the death of the best thing (Myers aside) in it. Yep, Michael finally gets around to killing sister Laurie. Fella took his sweet time. There’s no mention of whether he managed to kill nephew Josh Hartnett. One would hope so.

Whereas H20 managed to revitalise the flagging series, Resurrection makes you wish they hadn’t started with this whole sorry sequel business at all. It also pretty much killed off the franchise for a good five years, leaving an opening for Rob Zombie to refuck it again in 2007. Resurrection is the Batman & Robin of slasher movies, but without any Nolans ro repair it afterwards. The movie opens with Laurie Strode incarcerated in a mental home, hiding there from Michael and growing her hair to unflattering lengths. With a terrible bit of retcon, it’s revealed that Michael managed to survive the events of H20. The unfolding of events in the hospital aren’t too bad, but everything else is.

When Resurrection came out, it was a time when the reality TV thing was just starting to kick off, with movies such as this and My Little Eye. Sadly, due to a general lack of quality, it didn’t really catch on. Resurrection is set in the Myers household, where an Internet reality TV show is filming there. It’s not an inherently bad idea, but the execution therein truly is. The action is boring and predictable, the tension lacklustre and the acting is awful. Busta Rhymes essentially plays himself, whilst everyone else is flat and unmemorable. Leading lady Bianca Kajlich doesn’t even have a profile picture on IMDB, and has done largely nothing before or since Resurrection. An ironic title, since it pretty much killed everyone’s careers (and the franchise) dead.

As you don’t need me to tell you, Michael turns up and kills everyone. He lops off some poor woman’s head, cuts a few throats and stabs one or two people, but it all feels pointless without Dr. Loomis or Laurie to root it down in Halloween history. But at least Busta Rhymes turns up and performs the now infamous kung-fu bit. Who needs good actors and likeable characters when you got kung-fu Busta fucking Rhymes?

By far the worst-received of the Halloween movies (at least until Rob Zombie turned up), Resurrection is a terrible way for the icon to bow out.

1/5 screaming Scream Queens!!!