Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988) | 31 Days of Horror: Oct 31

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What would Halloween night be without watching a Halloween film?

Halloween 4 delivers what it promises with The Return of Michael Myers. It provides a course-correction from the previous entry in the series, and brings back the lumbering killer along with a new direction for the franchise.

Before Viewing

This trailer starts, abnormally, with a crawl of text. It reminds viewers that ten years ago a mass murderer escaped killing 16 people, and Halloween was never the same. A POV shot from the killer’s perspective sets the tone as people scream, run, and die with Michale Myers chasing them. There’s a mother with a young daughter, and the doctor from the original film, all trying avoid The Return of Michael Myers.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

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After Viewing

Ten years after the events of the original two films, an ambulance transfers Michael Myers (George P. Wilbur) from the Ridgemont Federal Facility to Smith Grove. When he overhears the EMTs mention his niece, he breaks free, killing all four paramedics. Seven-year-old Jamie (Danielle Harris) can’t sleep after having a dream that Michael has come to kill her and is comforted by her foster sister Rachel (Ellie Cornell). Doctor Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence) is upset with Dr. Hoffman (Michael Pataki) for releasing Michael to another authority, when they get word that the wrecked ambulance has been found outside Haddonfield. Investigating, Loomis knows immediately where Michael is headed.

Loomis follows the road to a nearby rest stop where he finds Michael having killed a service station attendant and a waitress. Michael departs wrecking the fuel pump and destroying Loomis’ car. Loomis hitchhikes to Haddonfield with the drunk, and possibly mentally imbalanced, Reverend Sayer (Carmen Filpi). In town, Rachel takes Jamie shopping for a halloween costume at the local general store. Jamie picks a harlequin clown costume, similar to the one young Michael wore 24 years ago when he killed his sister. She is startled by seeing an image of adult Michael in the mirror.

Rachel agrees to babysit Jamie that night while her parents go out to dinner. They head out trick or treating as Michael enters the house, killing the dog and looking through Jamie’s belongings. During the candy-gathering, Rachel sees her boyfriend Brady (Sasha Jenson) in Kelly’s (Kathleen Kinmont) house, which upsets her. Meanwhile, Loomis warns Sheriff Meeker (Beau Starr), Kelly’s father, of the escaped lunatic. He issues a curfew warning for the town which upsets Earl (Gene Ross) and several other good ole boys drinking at a local bar, so they head out with shotguns. Michael tosses a technician into an electrical substation, knocking out the power in town. Rachel and Jamie are picked up by Loomis and Meeker and taken back to the Sheriff’s house.

Earl and his make-shift posse discover dead bodies at the police station and decide to take matters into their own hands. They open fire on what they believe to be Michael hiding in a bush, but accidentally kill someone else. Kelly and Brady are about to have sex when her father pulls up with everyone. He directs Brady to help secure the windows as he calls for backup with the state police. Unfortunately, Michael was hiding in the back of the Deputy’s car and sneaks into the house before it can be fully secured. Loomis, concerned for the Carruthers’ safety (Jamie’s foster parents), heads for their house, while Meeker leaves to stop the drunk men with shotguns from harming anyone else.

Kelly discovers Deputy Logan (George Sullivan) dead, and is soon killed by Michael, herself. Brady discovers they’re all locked in the house as Rachel and Jamie run upstairs to avoid the killer. Brady tries to shoot Michael, but is overpowered and has his head crushed by the escaped psychopath. Rachel lowers Jamie off the roof before being attacked and falling to the ground. Jamie is grabbed by Loomis who takes her to the local elementary school. Michael follows them and attacks Loomis, tossing him through a glass door. Michael grabs Jamie’s leg as she crawls away, but is stopped when Rachel arrives and blasts Michael with a fire extinguisher.

Earl and his three friends arrive in a pickup and escort Jamie and Rachel away. However, Michael has grabbed onto the bumper and kills the three rednecks in the back of the truck before reaching into the window and ripping Earl’s face off. Rachel controls the truck and launches Michael off the vehicle before running into him at full force. Jamie approaches the downed killer and softly holds his hand until he awakens and swipes at her. The Sheriff and State Police arrive, blasting Michael with all their firepower. He falls into an abandoned well, presumably dead. At home, Darlene Carruthers (Karen Alston) draws a bath for Jamie. A scream is heard and Loomis finds Jamie with a bloody pair of scissors standing at the top of the stairs.

“You’re talking about him as if he were a human being.” – Loomis

Does Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers make good on what it promises? It does, though some may say that the story is derivative of what has come before. That may be true, but Halloween 4 wasn’t trying to cut new ground. Its purpose was to create a film about the return of an iconic cinema-killer. To that end, it needs to work within the existing framework, begun in Halloween and Halloween II, and give the audience what they expect with a few other surprises thrown in for good measure. Given those criteria, this film is surprisingly good. The original 1978, by John Carpenter, is considered to be the film that sparked the exponential growth in horror films, specifically slasher films, in the late 70s and early 80s. From its slow buildup, its intense protagonist, and iconic music, Halloween created the template from which everything else at the time grew from. Halloween II continued the story, immediately after the events of the first. It was following the template, but created weaker characters that did dumb things because they needed to, a trap that many franchises have fallen into. With part two appearing to have completed the storyline of Laurie Strode, Halloween III: Season of the Witch turned in an entirely other direction. Fans looking for Michael Myers were extremely disappointed, even though the third film had some interesting things going for it. The producers learned their lesson and decide to give the homicidal maniac at least one more go.

Halloween 4 jumps to the present time, ten years since the events of Halloween in both real time and in the film. It creates a reason for Michael to return to Haddonfield, as he overhears that he has a niece that he didn’t know about. Why does he need to go back? Certainly it’s just to reconnect with his dead sisters kid, right? The film also removes Laurie as a protagonist, having killed her off-screen in an auto accident. Instead, the role of protagonist is split between Jamie, a 7-year old (played by a ten year old), and her foster sister Rachel, a teen in the mold of Laurie ten years ago. Also returning is Doctor Loomis, who somehow survived being killed as a hospital exploded around him in Halloween II. He has a few scars to show for it, and continues being the one adult that knows what Michael is capable of, even though he comes off sounding as crazy as Reverend Sayer in some scenes. Michael works his way back to town, leaving a large wake of dead bodies. In all, he kills as many people in this film as he did in the first two films combined. The filmmakers create moments that audiences expect, with Michael towering in silhouette in the background or lumbering menacingly towards the characters. Many of the people he ends up killing are not shown on screen, including the remainder of the paramedics, or the waitress at the diner. It’s just the aftermath of the killings that audiences see, as Loomis follows the bloody trail back to Haddonfield. For all of these expected frights and killings, the filmmakers still manage to pull off a few surprises, such as Michael following Rachel through the neighborhood. It appears as if the killer is coming for her, but luckily she makes it to the police car. Crisis averted. Suddenly, Michael appears in the background, and then by the house, and also there’s a third. What’s going on? Fortunately, Loomis isn’t as quick on the trigger as he has been, saving him from killing one of three teenagers who are goofing around. Not a smart thing to do, especially during an active horror movie.

The other surprise incorporated in Halloween 4 is the inclusion of a young girl being stalked. There was a trend in horror films during this era to use young kids, not to entice a younger audience, but to up the stakes for the audience. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, aka Part 4, did this first in 1984, but Halloween 4 did it better. There are several similarities between the kids in both films. First, they are caught up in the events of the film with the killer stalking them. Tommy, from Friday the 13th, has his family targeted by Jason due to the fact that they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Jamie is target by Michael due to a familial bond. Perhaps he’s trying to erase his family tree. Or maybe he’s drawn to some latent psychic connection between them. Halloween 4 does show Jamie having dreams and visions about Michael before he arrives. She stares out the window, seeing an ambulance parked across the street from her house, where one doesn’t exist. She also has nightmares of Michael attacking her in her room, behind any door she opens. At the end of the film, she appears to be overtaken by the spirit of Michael, killing her foster mother in a manner that young Michael killed his elder sister. Friday the 13th doesn’t setup Tommy with any psychic ability. He’s only a young boy interested in monsters and special effects makeup. But by the end of that film, and his hamfisted transformation into a younger Jason (to distract the maniac from killing his sister), Tommy apparently becomes traumatized by his killing of Jason getting a thousand-yard stare. Both kids are foreshadowed as being the newest versions of the killers for their specific franchise, but only Jamie’s transformation make sense. At the time it was a crapshoot what would happen to these characters in future installments.

Halloween 4 started a new direction for the franchise which would continue through Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989) and Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995). All of these films were then eventually ignored with the release of Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998), which was a direct sequel to the original film, returning to the events surrounding Laurie and Michael. After two disappointing sequels in the franchise, this film elevates the series, once again, proving that you can’t keep an iconic killer down. And why would you? He’s continued to go strong for over 45 years! Thanks for reading this series of articles again this year! If you missed any of these reviews you can always find them using the tag 31 Days of Horror. You can also stay abreast of Sci-Fi Saturdays every week (returning tomorrow) with iconic, fun, and genre-defining science-fiction films from 1950 to the present. So, until next October, pleasant…screams!

Assorted Musings

• This was the only Halloween film to date that didn’t begin with the iconic John Carpenter Halloween theme.
• Besides Halloween 4, the other two major horror franchises of the day also released sequels in 1988: Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood and A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master. The first Child’s Play was also released in 1988, as was Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 and Phantasm II.
• Bobby Brady actor, Mike Lookinland, worked as a Production Assistant on this film, along with his wife Kelly, who was a Production Secretary and also played the dead waitress.