Happy Halloween guys. I hope you had a really good October hope you had a fun Halloween. If you did parties or if you went trick or treating or did anything like that it was a blast.
I had a great time talking about tons of movies but as I have done for the past now 40 years in a row. I reviewed one of the Halloween films on October 31 and this year we’re talking about Halloween 4 the return of Michael Myers.
The last film ditch the Michael Mayer storyline they actually had the guts to say we’re done with that. I did love that movie but I always respected that they tried to do their own thing. But the public didn’t really like that. They viewed Halloween as synonymous with Michael Myers and let’s be honest I think all of us kind of do.
So they decided to bring him back for a fourth film that came out in 1988. It was directed by 2 white little. At the time his previous credits included those movies. But besides Michael Myers coming back, another big draw for fans was the return of Donald Pleasance as Dr. Loomis having survived the fire of Halloween too but not without some scarring.
He has burn marks on his face supposedly from the fire at the hospital at the end of Halloween too. And those burn marks have some if he continuity issues. Early in the film has faced looks kind of melted and bumpy but later on it’s a lot smoother. This could be because the film did undergo some reshoots which will talk about later.
At first the plot of Halloween 4. Ten years after the original Halloween massacre, Michael Myers is now invalid. He’s wrapped in bandages. He doesn’t move. The assumption is that he survived this Halloween fire somehow.
And of course, Michael Myers wakes up and kills some people. And Loomis is convinced that Myers is on his way to Hatfield once more, this time to kill his 7-year-old niece. For fans of the franchise Halloween 4 is definitely one of the more like sequels, it’s certainly better than some of the ones that followed it.
And I can understand how the film has developed a cult following over the years similar to how the season of the witch hats. Dwight little didn’t try to recreate the carpenter’s direction. He attempted to make his own film.
And the risk of having so much of your run time be dedicated to a young girl paid off fairly well. Danielle Harris is not bad the movie at all. Especially for a young child performance. And it seems like they couldn’t really figure out what else to do with Loomis as a character but try to convince people that Michael Myers is coming in is going to kill everybody. Even though he’s already tried to do that a lot. It seems like he still having a hard time getting people to believe him.
But this does lead to what’s probably my favorite scene in the movie. This really creepy interchange between him and Myers at this gas station diner. The camera work in that scene is really great.
This some change a few things in the formula. For one it has an opening credits sequence that doesn’t involve a pumpkin slowly revealing itself. And this is also one of the first times they take the Michael Myers character and do some fantastical stuff with him.
Early on the film young Jamie is having visions of him in her nightmares and gets back. I’m not sure why it’s so hard for the makers of the Halloween sequels after 2 to figure out how to make Michael Myers mask look good. It’s got to be the cheapest movie prop of all time. It is just a William Shatner masks spray painted white. From what I understand the second film reviews the one from the first.
But then it was later lost and so they had to replace it. I also understand that one of the defenses for why the mask looks so different is that he just steals it from Halloween store. And so it’s supposed to be like a kids prop. But that’s what he does in the first film. That was the same thing, so there’s no reason that they could have at least made it look the same.
Because it doesn’t look scary. It looks so clean the film’s cinematography also takes a noticeable dip in quality this time around. It’s no longer shot in 235. it’s no longer shot by the great dean Condi. It shot 185 and it just doesn’t feel like a Halloween movie.
The director seemed adverse to wide shots for some reason. So much this movie ” Halloween 4 ” feels very tight. Whereas the previous Halloween films even the third 1 had a beautiful wide look to them that just felt all-encompassing. It made the movies feel more expensive and bigger than they really work.
All that fanboy griping aside. If this movie is certainly watchable and it is one of the better Halloween sequels. Although the movie gets a lot of I think I’m undo credit for that. When you look at the series in retrospect and think of Halloween’s resurrection or 5 and 6 this movie stands out from the pack noticeably. But I don’t really consider that a defense of some of the movie’s flaws.
And what’s unfortunate about the racial character in this film, is that she’s not really a character. She’s just kind of jealous and she’s trying to maybe get with this guy and then it doesn’t really work out. And she argues with him a little bit sand. She doesn’t really want to babysit but fine I will babies. That the argument could definitely be made that there’s really not that much to the characters in the original Halloween either.
Which I’m not denying but if your characters are going to be weak and your story is very simple. Then the helping of it has to be above average. You want your big three to be strong writing directing and acting. And if one of them is weaker, you usually try to make the other better to compensate.
The direction of this movie is fine. It looks okay. The scare scenes are handled in a competent way. Although it continues the trend of the previous and making the kills more gory. In fact, there were reshoots to make the kills more gory.
Speaking of those reshoots, there’s a scene where Michael Myers has blond hair. I don’t know why but I’m able to sit back and enjoy watching this movie from time to time for one specific reason. And that’s because this is the first Halloween movie that seems to hint that it could be a little self-aware. And that there’s a town militia pants together to just kill Michael Myers. That’s really hilarious.
That’s in this movie and there’s like an explosion scene where Loomis gets thrown through this garbage. Myers shop is a girl through a shot gun barrel and just the whole notion that the little girl is having nightmare visions about Myers is silly. And the movie seems to at times embrace that.
Because the movie does show signs that it is self-aware that it’s getting a bit silly at this point. I’m able to enjoy this movie “Halloween4” overall. Although, there are aspects of it that I love to NIT pick. The ending of the movie can be a little polarizing for some. Because they seem to suggest that Myers has transferred himself to this little girl or she’s become possessed by him.
And she goes up and tries to kill somebody and it’s this really shocking ending and Donald Pleasance has this great scenery just loses mind me thinks is looking at the devil right in front of him. And it’s a bit disturbing and it’s definitely unexpected. I just don’t really know if it feels earned. Because she has these visions into seems concerned that Myers is coming for her.
But she constantly put yourself in harm’s way throughout the movie. She wanders off in the middle of trick or treating. So it almost seems like it was preordained to happen and she just sort of gave herself over to this fate, which I don’t really feel like the quality of the movie and especially the script earns that.
Speaking of that script. It was written in like 11 days because there was a writer’s strike coming up. Now that’s not to say that that means it’s automatically bad. You can write a good movie in that period of time. Supposedly the original Halloween was written about that period of time too.
It’s just that you can tell that it felt very rushed. And things were kind of clobbered together to make this movie at the last second. But even though I said this is our primary defense and I don’t really buy into that. This is one of the better Halloween sequels.
I don’t really think that that means this movie is automatically better. but if you’re going to watch it in The Holloween sequel and you’ve already seen Halloween 2 or 3. I say you could probably watch this one around Halloween enjoy yourself. And a lot of people do like this movie “Halloween 4″and I think it’s fine. I think it’s watchable. It’s certainly not as bad as the rest.
I’m going to give Halloween 4 a C-Plus.
Guys thank you so much for reading this year’s Halloween special. It really was actually a lot of fun this year and I had a good time doing it. Wait for more Movie reviews. See you next time.
