Halloween 4-The Return of Michael Myers
You can't kill damnation, mister. It don't die like a man dies.
Halloween 4 is one of those movies I have a love it/hate it feelings for. There are certain parts of the movie I totally dig, while specific scenes/scenarios just drive me nuts. Every horror fan has certain memories regarding the origin of their love for horror. I was afraid of horror movies, even Poltergeist, when I was a kid, and it was stuff like Halloween 4 and Friday the 13th: Jason Lives, The Gate, that opened the door to the fan I am today. That said, Halloween 4 has not aged well with me. I still find bits and pieces that totally work, and I will gladly share those here.
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I fucking love those opening credits where director Dwight H Little (Phantom of the Opera with Robert Englund) pays homage to the "end of harvest, onset of winter", showing what looks like abandoned farm land, Halloween decorated property without a soul in sight, a sort of eerie still, Alan Howarth's score absent the recognizable Carpenter influence adding a very subtle chill, the mailbox with a kid-made picture taped to it, a slapped-together "pumpkin man" on a tractor, a paper skeleton stuck to a shack, a hanging ghost puppet dangling from a dead tree, fog and wind, all of these elements are not at all associated with Haddonfield or Michael Myers: funny, my favorite sequence of the film has nothing to do with the plot.
At least I'm not alone.-Loomis
After watching Halloween 4, it just makes me appreciate the original more. There's a scene where Michael is walking upright on a tiled roof while the girls he's chasing after can barely hold on while on their stomachs pulling towards a hopeful escape. He seems to successfully evade State Troopers and fool a truck full of dumb barflies (carrying shotguns, not a good combination) by hiding somewhere never explained (I mean, how could a whole man hang on the tail door of a truck and not get noticed by anyone?). A two story house drop for one of the heroines, another having to climb down, and there is Michael on his feet seconds later as if he just time jumped from one location to the next. The comparisons to Jason Voorhies by many I agree are hard to argue. He seems to be just this stuntman who overpowers everyone, can take a shot gun to the face, lift a grown man off his feet with ease and toss him into a power generator, mash his thumbs into the faces of victims, lift a young woman off her feet with a shotgun and through a door impaling her, and take a litany of bullets/gunfire by a mass of policemen.
They didn't know what they were fighting.-Loomis
The scene where Sheriff Ben Meeker and Loomis return to the police station, I always laughed to myself how it looks like The Terminator or Rutger Hauer stopped by...it's like a monsoon passed through leaving blood, wreckage, and bodies.
Like The Shape in Carpenter's film, Michael Myers in Halloween 4 seems to be everywhere, around every corner, behind bushes, lurking around neighborhood chain-link fences, in the back seat of a cop car, even mimicking a cop supposed to be guarding the front door of Sheriff Meeker's home by rocking in a chair with shotgun in hand. I have to say that I absolutely hate that mask. It is such a boring mask. That was probably the point, but don't feature on your movie poster for Halloween 4 the Shatner mask if it isn't worn at any point. This may not be important to you at all, but it is to me. I identify the Shatner mask with The Shape, but I guess maybe that is for the best--this poor mask keeps Halloween 4 separate from Carpenter's masterpiece. 
I think what worked for me, quite honestly, is the pursuit of the little niece. Because Danielle Harris is so able to turn on the tears and terror, her face wearing a deep despair and aching longing for her mom (the film plays up Laurie Strode as her mother, killed...), the chase is more intense; I find this really a positive aspect for the film. If Myers is so willing to hunt down and destroy a little girl openly weeping and begging for her life , still coming after her with no sympathy or hesitation whatsoever, it truthfully sells the "soulless embodiment of evil" tag for the maniac. The schoolhouse scene especially provokes a response because it seems Michael is purposely teasing the girl by not immediately killing her. Like, he is allowing her to look for an exit, then awaiting at the top of the stairs to say, "Peekaboo." That works to me because we need to know that this Myers is just evil personified. Donald Pleasance's character, the way he talks about Myers, also establishes that this psycho isn't human, but an *it* that may not can be destroyed. The writer of the script even says that he looked at Myers as not a human being as much as the very symbol of Death itself.
I guess out of all that occurs in the movie, the most debated part would have to be the ending where Little and company "replace" (maybe substitute is better) Michael with Harris' Jamie Lloyd. Wearing the practically (if not) identical clown costume and face mask as Myers as a child, Little homages the original film by having her sliding into his spot, a brand new executioner with eyes containing no conscience or humanity. I didn't think it worked, but I imagine this certainly left quite a few speechless or talking about it as the end credits started. It reminded me of Tommy Jarvis in Friday the 13th: The New Beginning, taking the mantle of Jason, in essence, becoming the killer he once sent to a supposed eternal slumber. It may have seemed like a rather ingenious idea at the time, but watching that scene play out tonight, it left me rolling my eyes. It was worth a shot, I guess. I'm sure, however, some might have wished for the franchise to go that direction. Instead, the filmmakers decided to use this as a means to tell a supernatural story in the next film.
That last scene left me rolling my eyes back when I originally saw it. But by that point, I'd already figured I' be needing to see an optometrist about screwing them back in my head after all the rolling they'd done during the course of this turkey.
ReplyDeleteThis is a Myers--and a movie--with no connection to the original at all, a Dwight Little schlockfest, with no redeeming merits. With the exception of the 5th film (where I tihnk there was a much more thoughtful creation process), the makers of the HALLOWEEN sequels never understood what made the 1st film work. Carpenter created Dr. Loomis to offer a lot of exaggerated talk about Myers--"evil incarnate," and so on--and threw in all the boogeyman references, but, at the same time, the universe of the film is a mirror of the real world, and the viewer knows Myers is just a man. A very dangerous one, perhaps, but a human being. As you note, he seemed to be everywhere, always watching, waiting, but at no point did he teleport from place to place (as he does here). The entire film was a play on building tension by juxtaposing these elements. When Myers is shot to pieces and still manages to get away, it's so shocking a moment that the movie ends on it. If Myers is the Terminator--or, as you more accurately put it, Jason Vorhees--we're not really watching a HALLOWEEN movie anymore. We're watching another of the infinity of FRIDAY THE 13th clones. And that's all H4 is.