Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers


From my experience of watching movies, I can categorize slasher horror movies into two distinct categories.  The first is the set of films that have characters.  These are where there is some sort of backstory to more than just the main character or two.  Then there are the caricature slasher films where only the main character or two are fleshed out, and usually only minimally.  The movie I am going to discuss right now is Halloween 4, a movie that I surprisingly think fits into the character slasher category.

Yes, I have continued onward into the neverending Halloween franchise.  This is what I call the beginning of the trilogy.  Trilogy of what, I don’t know.  All I know is that 4, 5, and 6 seem to be their own little thing.  I’m going to call it the Jamie Lloyd trilogy since it heavily revolves around her and Michael Myers’ association with her.  Yeah, Mike is back on the attack.  The subtitle is The Return of Michael Myers, making his return kind of obvious.  Loomis is back as well.  He’s still trying to get Michael.  It’s no different than his role in the previous two films he was in.

Now onto the part about characters.  There is actually a little bit of fleshing out of characters in this film.  It’s nice to see a series continue that when other series would just be creating fodder for killings.  There is new protagonist Jamie Lloyd and her sister Rachel.  They would be your main two characters, the most fully realized of all of the characters.  Next is Loomis.  If you’ve seen Halloween and Halloween 2 you already know him.  Next is Brady, the potential boyfriend of Rachel who may or may not be “cheating” on her with the sheriff’s daughter.  There is the new sheriff who doesn’t believe Loomis until his entire police force, minus one other officer, have been killed by Michael.  He threatens Brady in case Brady does anything to his daughter.  This is already more semi-fleshed out characters than any Friday the 13th or Sleepaway Camp movie.  And they aren’t all solely there to be the archetypes such as dumb jock, outcast, cheerleader, and my favourite, the token black guy.  These characters have some sort of substance and I appreciate that.

However, there is one problem that is beginning to rise in this, the fourth Halloween film.  Michael Myers is becoming much more than a normal human being.  Yes, he’s supposed to be a personification of evil.  I still find it unbelievable that he can push his thumb all the way through some poor man’s head to kill him.  Not the part where that could kill him.  I believe that.  I don’t believe that his thumb could push through the skull.

Maybe you want the plot to this one, really quickly.  Here goes.  Michael and Loomis escaped the end of the second movie, after both almost dying.  Michael finds out he has a niece.  He wants to kill her so he goes back to Haddonfield to find her.  Chaos.

Out of the first four Halloween films, this might be my least favourite.  I think it has to do with the increasing superhuman powers of Michael Myers, or the fact that the movie primarily focused on an eight year old girl.  Maybe younger than eight.  I don’t know her exact age.  Now that I’m thinking about it, it might be how unattached I am from the situation now that Michael is focusing entirely on killing his family and anyone helping his family.  I can no longer place myself in their shoes and it takes away from the emotional investment I could have.  That could easily be it.

This was a first time watch.  I’m not sure I want to rewatch it at any point.  I’d say it’s only a necessary watch if you want the full Halloween franchise experience.  Otherwise, you can skip it.  You won’t be missing much at all.

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