REVIEW: Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

Following the disastrous release of Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Trancas and Universal’s two picture deal was up, and the former had to figure out where to take the franchise next. It took them 6 years, and several different story treatments before they settled on how to bring The Shape roaring back to life. What we got for our patience is probably the strongest sequel in the franchise: Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. Picking up a decade after the events of Halloween II, the streets of Haddonfield have mostly moved on from that fateful night in 1978, kids are still trick or treating, teenage shenanigans continue unabated, and nothing seems out of the ordinary…until Michael Myers breaks out during a patient transfer and returns to the town to stalk his six year old niece Jamie.

One of the (many) reasons I love Halloween 4 is the cast of characters. Jamie Lee Curtis does not return in this one, but in her absence we’re given two of my favorite Slasher leads ever: Jamie Lloyd and Rachel Caruthers, played wonderfully by Danielle Harris and Ellie Cornell respectively. They really are the backbone of why this sequel works as well as it does. Jamie is taken in following the death of her mother, Laurie Strode (gasp!), and she becomes a foster sister to teenage Rachel. Their sibling dynamic and chemistry add so much fun, drama and above all TENSION to the proceedings. You instantly like them and care about them to the point that you don't want anything to happen to either one. Rachel is actually in my top 5 favorite final girls of all time, and the way she ferociously lays down her life to protect Jamie is a big reason why. She’s also extremely relatable. She doesn't want to stay home with Jamie because she has a date, and her explanation for why perfectly exemplifies in a sentence how teens view their hormonal desires. You really get the sense that she’s someone you might have passed in the hall at school, no matter the decade. Harris’ performance as Jamie is also really strong, especially for her age. She really sells the abject terror of being chased by The Shape, and even more impressive, the pain it must feel to not only lose your parent at such a young age, but also to be known as the niece of the town mass murderer. A lot was placed on Harris to lead this film with Cornell and she knocked it out of the park. It’s easy to see why she became one of the fan favorite characters of the franchise.

Donald Pleasance makes his glorious return as Dr. Loomis here and this might be his best performance in the role. He has become even more of a doomsayer, even more obsessed with making sure Michael cannot see the light of day ever again. He wears the scars of the past as a warning to all those who disregard his cautionary tales, and when he’s proven right, he’s even more driven to stop his former patient. There are several standout moments in this film where Pleasance really gets to go for it, like his first encounter with Michael after his escape, or his big outburst at the police station, to the closing moments of the film where Loomis has an absolute mental and emotional breakdown. The pain on his face is so believable and horrifying. He gets to have his awesome monologues of course, and they’re brilliant as always. But it really is the level of emotion on display that really grabs your attention. Another performance I’ve always liked in Halloween 4 is Beau Starr as Sheriff Meeker. He’s imposing, he has a truly commanding presence, and for the most part he’s way more proactive than previous law enforcement. It takes Loomis moments to convince Meeker to spring into action. I particularly love him in the third act, holed up in his house with everyone, toting a big ass shotgun ready to blow Myers away. He’s very take-charge, telling people what to do, threatening a hormonal boy to shoot him if he touches his daughter, you know…dad stuff. It’s all really convincing and Starr’s got a bit of small town east coast energy to him. Maybe he and Bud from Halloween II were transplants together.

Finally, our Shape this time around is portrayed by George P. Wilbur, who will go on to play The Shape once again in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. Here, I think he does a really great job. He’s saddled with one of the lesser Myers masks, but he portrays a physicality and strength that is really intimidating and in the kill sequences he’s ferocious. Particularly in the first kill and in the truck towards the end. I think he’s better in Curse, but he really shows his potential here, and he’s certainly one of the best Shapes following Castle.

Halloween 4 utilizes familiar elements from the first two Halloween films in its storytelling. The film starts with Myers breaking out of custody, he returns to Haddonfield with Loomis in tow to stalk Jamie, like Laurie before her. Loomis teams up with the Sheriff’s Department to find The Shape and the final girl must fight for her life before the night is over. The key differences come down to the dual protagonists of Jamie and Rachel, Meeker being proactive, Michael systematically isolating the town, and the shock ending. We’ve been over how endearing Rachel and Jamie are. They’re relationship is key to how fun and tense the proceedings are. From the get go, we’re introduced to Jamie in a really complicated place in her life, with her mother having died 11 months prior. She’s having nightmares and questioning whether or not she’s loved by her new foster sister. It’s really sad and I think it really rings true in Harris’ performance. Rachel, to her credit, is up with her in the middle of the night consoling her. It’s a great way to introduce their dynamic, and instantly invests you in their bond. They have their ups and downs through the story, with Rachel mistakenly complaining about having to miss a date and babysit Jamie in front of her, or Rachel losing track of her when having a spat with her prospective boyfriend, but in the end Rachel stops at nothing to protect her throughout the story all the way to the end.

Something I really thought about this time around was the way Michael takes the town apart piece by piece. First, he takes out the phone lines in a fiery explosion, then he takes out the power by taking out the station by throwing a human body onto a transformer at the station, followed by heading to the police station to murder every single cop inside. This tactic not only isolates the town from the outside world, but also forces Loomis and Meeker too raise a lynch mob to hunt for him, thus exerting his power over the town and bringing the fear back to the streets of Haddonfield. This is an idea that will be revisited in 2021’s Halloween Kills, but we’ll get to that at a later time. I find the calculating nature of this Shape really terrifying, and the fact that he walked into a police station and absolutely massacred the joint is great for conveying the threat of The Shape. Side bar: I really wish we could have seen a sequence of him taking the station out, but the shock reveal of Loomis and Meeker finding the place in such a state of disarray is a really strong twist.

Spoilers Ahead!

The final moments of this film are some of the more genuinely shocking in the subgenre. I cannot imagine being in the theater in 1988 and witnessing the final shots. The entire film we’re following this sweet, six year old child who just wants to be loved and be a kid, and in the closing moments we learn that the evil that powered her Boogeyman uncle has been passed to her…or has it? Seeing Danielle Harris at the top of the stairs, covered in blood and holding a bloody pair of scissors in her clown suit evokes the final shot of the opening of Halloween. It’s chill inducing, and Dr. Loomis’ screams, the horrified faces of Rachel, her father, and Meeker make it all the more powerful. You can’t kill The Boogeyman…ever.

Halloween 4 is so well directed by Dwight H. Little. He very much adopts a style similar to Carpenter’s own. The violence isn't as graphic as other slashers of the era, going for more of the minimalist and implied killings of the original film than its initial sequel. Little doesn’t just copy Carpenter though. Little constructs some truly stellar suspense sequences, be it the first dream sequence, the gas station killing, or the stellar final chases. The action scene atop Meeker’s house is probably my favorite, especially with the new 4K release where you can REALLY see the frost on those thick slate shingles. It adds a further layer of danger to an already well shot, edited and score sequence. The stunts are also fantastic, with Rachel and Jamie sliding down the roof as Michael is slashing at them, as well as Rachel and Jamie’s descent from the roof to the ground. Little and Co. edited the hell out of this movie too. There isn't a single wasted moment and from frame one to the final moments, Halloween 4 is relentlessly paced. I always laugh when I pause the movie because it feels like I’m only 20 mins in but I'm almost to the end! It doesn’t feel too short though, this feels exactly right for the story they told. Halloween 4 also looks fantastic, still utilizing those stunning blue hues that really add a layer of freezing cold to the whole affair. It helps that it was shot in Salt Lake City, Utah, in the cold too. It adds a whole new level of autumnal feel to the movie and grounds you in the season immediately in the opening titles. The shots of the farms, pumpkins, falling leaves. It honestly doesn’t make me miss the now standard pumpkin opening credits because no matter what time of year I throw this on, I instantly want to throw on a flannel and wrap myself up in a blanket. It’s a perfect season mood-setter, I’d play those on loop as an ambience if I could.

The kills are really strong in Halloween 4, despite how tame they are in comparison to its slasher contemporaries. In particular I really love the very first kill, with Michael digging his thumb into the man's forehead and slamming his head repeatedly into a cabinet. It’s really shocking, and a great showcase of Michael’s strength. The makeup effect for it is also quite good. Another I really liked was the death by impalement…with a shotgun. Yes, you read that right. Why shoot someone with a shotgun when you can bury it in their torso? It’s an insane death that I’ve always thought was a gonzo inclusion. Finally the last two I want to talk about are a head crushing and throat tear. The former is done so well and marries the visual and auditory aspects of film perfectly. They don't use any elaborate effects for it, no lifecast of the actors head or heaps of blood or gore. It’s mostly some lighting, hand placement, and the sounds of bones crushing and popping. It sounds so incredibly painful and never fails to make me wince. The throat tear is probably the most graphic death in the film, with a really effective gore effect with Michael ripping the skin from his throat and blood absolutely POURING from the wound. Even watching it today, despite all the times I have watched this movie, I still gasped a little at it.

Alan Howarth returns to score Halloween 4, but this time he’s working solo. His work here is outstanding, reinterpreting classic Carpenter motifs and making them his own, as well as adding his own tracks that really give him more authorship over the score. In particular the score he wrote for those amazing autumnal shots for the opening credits sucks you in instantly, conveying an ominous mood to the beautifully shot landscapes. The addition of this really quiet jack-in-a-box laugh adds a great sinister edge to it as well. It manages to bring and maintain the omnipresence of The Shape to every sequence, continues to build a propulsive sense of suspense and pay off, and adds a layer of dread to every shadow you can’t quite make out the content of. Funnily enough, Halloween 4 is the only soundtrack in the franchise I own on vinyl. I definitely drop a needle on it at least once during halloween season.

My complaints with Halloween 4 are pretty minor in the grand scheme of things. They’re mostly moments where Michael just appears with an impossible speed. Like when Rachen and Jamie fall from the roof, almost instantly Michael is off the roof and out of the house. Unless he fell too, which is not depicted, they fudged it and teleported him down through the magic of editing. Although I do find the image of Michael sprinting as fast as he can through that big ass house just to appear in time to scare the hell out of Jamie. The other teleporting scene is way more egregious. Following the elementary school sequence after Meeker’s house, Jamie and Rachel hop in a truck with the beerbellied lynch mob and speed out of city limits. Thinking Myers is long behind them, they speed along past the State Police motorcade, but unbeknownst to them, Michael is much closer than they thought. HE CLIMBS OUT FROM UNDER THE TRUCK AS IT IS MOVING. Was he just hanging underneath the car the whole time? How’d he get under the car? How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop? The answer to all these questions? The world will never know. It’s really funny, but I found that the “What the fuck?” factor disappears once he starts laying out everyone in the truck like a badass. In addition, there is some ADR that is very unconvincing, especially as they load Michael into the ambulance in the opening. These are definite issues anyone could raise, but they don’t bother me much, but I didn’t want to neglect to mention them.

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers has shifted back and forth for me over the years. I’ve always really enjoyed it, with it placing around 3-4 in my ranking, but after the last few rewatches it has taken the #2 spot from another sequel we’ll get to. I love the characters, the spooky autumnal atmosphere is almost unparalleled, the score is a banger, and it maintains pretty much everything I love from a Halloween film. My biggest issues are all nitpicks in my eyes, so I’m not gonna ding it very much at all. A worthy follow up to the original two in every way.

What did you think of Halloween 4? Do you love it as much as me? Did you loath it? Is teleporting Myers executing hillbillies NOT a positive for you? Let me know! Join me next time when we tackle the continuation of The Thorn Trilogy with Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers. He’s back, and they DON’T have a finished script.