Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989) - The Shape's Not Done Yet!

I was actually really looking forward to watching “Halloween V: The Revenge of Michael Myers” (1989) as I was approaching a time to review it one last time for the blog this year as part of my “It’s October All Year 2020” series which runs the gamut across all genres. I have never officially owned this film but rented it a bunch of times and watched it several more when AMC shows it every October. And I have dutifully covered it on the blog in many years past. But tonight I was actually in the right frame of mind with no Halloween or October slog fatigue. The one thing I wanted to do this year was just not load up October and wear myself out. Instead for 2020 only, I would treat myself to the way I used to do it pre-Internet, and watch all my favorites and franchises throughout the year. It is October essentially all year in 2020. So with “Halloween V” I thought about how difficult it must have been for the team assembled to help the director, Dominique Othenin-Girard, somehow make sense of why Michael could take that round of ammunition from Sheriff Meeker (Beau Starr) and the out-of-town police force and survive. It was a tall task, too, to try and come up with an escape clause for the previous film’s conclusion involving Jamie nearly killing her adoptive mother and the means for which Dr. Loomis could remain in Haddonfield. I want to give a separate post to Loomis because I have some thoughts about him so I will save that for later. But the film decided to have Michael fall down a well, spilling into a river where he is discovered nearly fatally wounded by a hermit (with a parrot) at his piecemeal shed who nurses him back to health until a year later! The script process of creating this unique little old hermit and the parrot must have been amusing. He’s only in the film briefly and despite his humane gesture of kindness or all that patient attention to his damaged guest how is the hermit rewarded? Michael kills him after recovery!

I want to mention that I think the opening work by Othenin-Girard and cinematographer, Robert Draper (who recently shot as photographer for the Shudder series version of “Creepshow”), first featuring Myers escape, his “reawakening” and how Jamie can sense/feel/see her uncle kill the hermit, the stormy night at the clinic where a mute and traumatized Jamie (who still sees her stabbing of her adoptive mother from the fourth film) goes into a cataleptic shock, and how she is moved down the narrow hall stairs in a room for a near-tracheotomy halted by Loomis who tells them that she has something to tell them all. That bit where the camera is right in the face of Jamie and her terror, with the chalk and board foretelling of “He is Coming”, as the lightning strikes and rain dumps on the clinic is quite atmospheric. It is a good tone to open the film. The Curse of Thorn/Druids tattoo on Michael’s hand opens the door for the convoluted trappings the series would later embrace in the next sequel. Jamie and Michael “linked” is played out with great emphasis. You can really see how this new idea was very important to those involved in the making of this fifth film.