Review #87: Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

This review was originally written in October 2020.

October Movie Review #4: Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers

Oh no.

Well, we can see right from the title what they were trying to do- get the series back on track with what they thought people wanted. Were they successful? I don't know, but considering how there's still like six more entries (not including the two that are currently being made) I'd say so.

First things first: This movie was bad. It wasn't boring (the cardinal sin of movies), but hoo boy it was bad. It looked nice and it had lots of late-80s polish and the actors did a good job but at its core this movie is a real stinker.

I started off the movie more confused than anything else- I was under the impression Laurie Strode was the protagonist for at least the majority of these films, yet this one starts off with her having died several years previous? WTF happened, both with this movie and with the following ones? At what point does she come back, and when she does, how exactly does this series reconcile that? I guess I'll find out in the coming days, but it was VERY jarring when this movie began and not only is Laurie dead, but Michael Myers is still alive (after being shot a dozen times in the chest, plus at least twice in the head, and then burned in a room-filling blaze). Unless I missed something, no explanation was given for his survival- he's just automatically alive, and in custody. Okay, whatever.

Before I get into what I think will be the meat of this review, I want to say that it is very disappointing to me that so much of the conflict in this film comes purely from the fact that EVERYONE is utterly incompetent. This serial killer who has broken free from an asylum in the past is being transported to another facility, and nobody- not a single person- decided it was worthwhile to restrain him in any way, shape, or form? And the only people in charge of transporting him are two hapless paramedics? That's really how you're going to start off your movie- by having the villain basically handed freedom on a silver platter? Another instance of incompetence comes later, when Myers somehow kills the entire staff of a police station, AFTER they've been alerted to his presence, so easily and efficiently that it happens off-screen. How, exactly, did this happen? If he is able to waltz into a police station (you know, the place where lots of people with guns are) and take out each and every person inside, then how is it at all credible that he hasn't been able to kill an unarmed teenager or a little girl? That plot twist made ZERO sense and frankly made me angry. Then the protagonists all barricade themselves inside a house with guns at every door, and Myers not only gets into the house, he manages to kill the sheriff who was waiting with a shotgun, without making a sound. And then another person is face-to-face with Myers while holding a shotgun and oops, they just can't get a shot off so he kills them.

Myers' scariness comes from his stealth and the fact that nobody is ready for him so he catches them unprepared, not the fact that he can just do anything he wants. The Myers of this film is not the Myers who lost several face-to-face confrontations with Laurie in the first film. He just isn't. The laziness in his writing here is staggering.

But that's not the biggest problem I had. In Halloween II, it's established (and nonchalantly continued here as if it's nothing to even bat an eye at) that Laurie is Michael Myers' sister, who was apparently put up for adoption... AFTER he killed Judith but BEFORE his parents died of unrelated causes, I think? I was a bit confused by the timeline. Anyway, Laurie Strode is Michael Myers' sister- this is a big part of the canon, apparently (it's continued in the remake and its sequel) and it was purposely omitted in the 2018 sequel (but more on that when I get to it next week). In this film it's the reason Myers breaks free and goes back to Haddonfield- because he overhears some (utterly incompetent) paramedics mention that Myers' only remaining relative is a child niece living there.

My problem is that the whole idea of Laurie being Myers' sister is stupid and it serves no purpose except to dumb down the story. It's a crutch for the writers to say "Oh, that's why Myers keeps coming back for the next movie" except THERE DOESN'T NEED TO BE A REASON. In the first Halloween, Myers literally only goes after Laurie because she happened to be outside his childhood home while he was there. Laurie wasn't even his target in the first film- his target was one of Laurie's friends (the name escapes me) that presumably looked a lot like his sister Judith, and his plan wasn't to kill all remaining family members, it was to (I guess) recreate his dead sister's burial by placing this look-a-like's body in front of Judith Myers' headstone. The whole movie's climax came after Laurie discovered this bizarre ritualistic murder scene, and so Myers (as he'd been doing the entire film) went after her because she discovered his work.

The first film had NOTHING TO DO WITH LAURIE. It had more to do with Loomis than with Laurie (and I've already said that Loomis could have been taken out of the movie entirely and nothing would have changed, which shows how little it had to do with Laurie). So the following film shoehorning in a familial relationship is completely unnecessary, and frankly, it makes the entire premise of the series way more stupid, because Laurie could just move out of Haddonfield (or, heck, just go on vacation for the last few days of October) and then the entire plot would be avoided. It's such a dumb development and I hate it. It's especially stupid now that this film already killed off Laurie Strode, so why would Myers care about tracking down his niece and killing her? It's no more a given that his obsession would extend to her than it's a given that it wouldn't, so why even come up with that in the first place?

Why not just, I dunno, have a movie where Myers breaks free and tries to recreate the ritual from the first movie? There's no reason why that would be any less exciting a second time (at least not any less exciting than yet another trek to go kill Laurie/Laurie's child again). I guarantee people would enjoy a movie where he just goes on a rampage, and I imagine it would be a heck of a lot easier to write too!

Rounding out the utter incompetence in this film, I cannot get over the fact that it was LOOMIS who, after seeing Myers get shot a hundred times and then fall into a pit, just shrugged and said, "Well, Michael is dead now, it looks like we can all rest because the terror is officially over." Like, WTF movie do they think I'm watching? Did the writers give those lines to the wrong character or something? Loomis, Mr. "Michael Myers is pure evil, I'm going to pull my gun on a random teen on the street because it might be him" would never watch Michael fall into a hole and then walk away whistling. He would have grabbed a shovel and started digging, he wouldn't have rested until Michael's head was separated from his body, and until his body was transported by a team of armed guards to be buried six feet below the ground. Loomis should be the one foaming at the mouth trying to make sure Myers is dead while everyone else restrains him, insisting that it's all over while he screams in protest. Watching Myers (bloodlessly, of course) fall into a pit is in no way a satisfying or conclusive end, even only taking this series into account. (He survived getting shot dozens of times, getting shot in the head, even being burned to the ground. Why oh why would Loomis accept him being dead now?)

I like the concept of the ending (I'm much happier with an ending where the victim goes crazy and becomes the killer) but it just doesn't work when the new killer is a child. I'm sorry, but a child holding a pair of scissors isn't scary- not when we've already been fighting off a fully-grown madman who was Pure Evil(TM)- and it doesn't feel earned. I'll be honest, I would be on board if they followed through and Jamie was the killer in the next film- but I 100% guarantee that entire scene is going to turn out to be a dream sequence or something (if they acknowledge it at all).

There were a few fun moments in this movie but overall it was bad, bad, bad.

Overall Rating: 3/10 Idiots with Guns

Most Impressive Kill: When Myers stabbed a girl with a shotgun. I've never seen THAT before!