Summary:
Ten years after Michael Meyers stalked Laurie Strode, he wakes from a coma and returns home to Haddonfield to kill his niece.
My Thoughts:
After audiences were displeased with the Mike-less “Halloween III: Season of the Witch”, Mikey makes his return in the aptly named “Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Meyers”. This film starts ten years after the original rampage. Now, if you, the viewer, remember correctly, Michael and Loomis (Donald Pleaseance, “The Great Escape”) both died in a fiery oxygen-tank-fueled explosion at the end of “Halloween II”; that was after Loomis had shot Michael probably a half dozen times, and Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis, “A Fish Called Wanda”) had blinded him by shooting out his eyes, of course… Anyways, so “Halloween II” ends with both Loomis and Michael quite dead. Very dead. Deader than Jacob Marley.
This film starts, and instead of them being dead, Loomis only has a small scar on his face and Michael has just been in a coma for the past decade. You could say there are some minor continuity errors between this entry and “Halloween II”, but I’ll let those slide. Anyways, for some reason, Michael is being transported again (hasn’t anyone learned anything from the first two films? Didn’t like sixteen people die?) and he conveniently wakes up from his coma, perhaps by the supernatural (don’t quote me on that) influence of his seven-year-old niece Jamie (Danielle Harris, “Halloween 2 (2009)” ), who has been having nightmares about Michael for some time. Michael breaks out of his transport and makes his way towards Jamie, slaughtering anyone who just so happens to get in the way.
Michael Meyers can’t exactly be considered human anymore after everything that he’s gone through, so you kind of just accept that he’ll keep coming regardless of what it is you throw at him. That’s the fun of these kinds of slasher films- they aren’t great cinema, by any means. But, if you want something that just has a few creative horror kills, then these film are fine. I don’t think modern audiences will find this entry particularly scary (maybe I’m wrong), but they might still be able to glean a bit of entertainment out of it. I certainly enjoyed the third act of this film, but I will say that the first two acts took a bit to get through.
The biggest problem this movie has is that it’s just kind of boring throughout the middle bits. The opening scenes are fine, although they feel incredibly reminiscent of the first two “Halloween” films. The second act is just a slog to get through- Michael only makes sporadic appearances and we spend a fair amount of the film with his niece (more on her in a minute), Loomis (whom runs around being angry with people for letting out Michael throughout the whole of this film, just like he did in the first two), and a few rednecks whose names I can’t remember.
The third act is absolutely hilarious and over the top, and actually bumped my rating of this film from a 1/5 to 2/5 (hooray?). Watching Michael’s ridiculous kills and the way people react to them are the only reason to watch these later entries of the “Halloween” franchise, because they certainly don’t have a lick of the cinematic prowess of anything John Carpenter helped to produce. This film does have a few fun moments towards the end, but none of them feel remotely grounded or in line with how Michael’s character was in the original “Halloween”. I think if you’ve come this far in the series you just accept Michael is a supernatural being that can’t be defeated or you give up and move on to a different horror franchise.
SOME SPOILERS FOLLOW
There is a small twist at the end of this film that I kind of liked, but if you’d been paying attention, then it shouldn’t have been that hard to spot coming. After the traumatic experiences that Jamie goes through, she dons a mask and stabs her guardian. The final shot is of Jamie standing in the hall like Michael after that Halloween night when he first murdered his sister. I thought the twist was incredibly obvious, especially because they chose to dress Jamie in clown clothes for the last act, just like the costume Michael wore when he killed his sister. Though the twist was obvious, I also thought it was kind of neat, and I’m interested (might be too strong of a word) to see where the series goes from here.
Verdict:
If someone tries to tell you this is a good movie, they are lying or delusional. This is not a good movie. But did you really expect to read a review for “Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Meyers” that said this was the best thing since “Rosemary’s Baby” or “The Shining”? Probably not. If you’re just looking for some stupid horror movie to throw on and chuckle at, then this film is a fine way to kill an hour-and-a-half. There is no other acceptable reason to watch this film.
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