I had heard about the Halloween movies but never really got into them until Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers came out. We watched it at my aunt and cousins house who themselves might have lived in a haunted house out in the country.
The end of a young Danielle Harris as Jamie Lloyd in a clown costume holding a bloody knife sent chills down my spine and gave me nightmares. I was hooked and when a fifth Halloween was advertised, I wanted to see it so bad. But my parents said no. Yet, they didn’t mind me renting the movie. And I was very disappointed to say the least. Sometimes parents do know best.
The fourth Halloween, which was independently produced and distributed, seemed like a return to form of the first movie. Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to his hometown of Haddonfield, Ill. Just like the 1978, it was shot quickly in the early spring time of 1988 in the Salt Lake City area. But there was no Jamie Lee Curtis. It’s revealed Jamie is the daughter of Curtis’ Laurie Strode. Her name is obviosly a homage.
Jamie has been adopted by the Carruthers who used to hire Laurie to babsit their daughter, Rachel (Ellie Cornell), when she was younger. Rachel is also friends with Lindsey Wallace (played here in one scene by Leslie H. Rohland replacing Kyle Richards.) What I like about this movie is that even if you haven’t seen the first two movies, you know enough to get into the movie. A few months after watching this on video, they aired the first three movies on a local channel.
Tommy Doyle (Danny Ray) now a teenager also appears during one scene with a supporting character, Brady (Sasha Jenson), who is the boyfriend of Rachel. There’s also a reference to one of the barflies who form a vigilante posse being the father of Bob Simms, was killed in the original. You can tell than Alan B. McElroy, who wrote the script, is a big fan of the John Carpenter/Debra Hill originals and wants to continue what they did.
Unfortunatley, neither McElroy nor director Dwight Little, wanted to return to do a direct sequel, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers according to Moustapha Akkad, which would lead to numerous rewrites and scripts. The whole thing with Jamie being evil was immediately dismissed by Akkad as he felt Michael should be the only one. But the movie would introduce the infamous “Man in Black.” Don Shanks would play both The Shape and The Man in Black as his face is never shown.
The movie begins with the fourth ended with Sheriff Ben Meeker (Beau Starr), the Illinois State Police and extras in flannel shirts with shotguns pulling a Sonny Corleone on The Shape as he falls into an abandoned mine shaft. Then, they throw some dynamite explosives down it. Yet, they forget to send someone to pick up the body parts.
The Shape escapes through a tunnel and injured goes down river where he meets a hermit who keeps him for a year as he goes into a coma. The advertisement made a big deal about showing Michael’s face, but this was already done in the first movie. It also only happens in the background.
So, a year has passed, Jamie has been committed to a children’s psychiatrict hospital, also in Haddonfield, as she’s lost the ability to speak. Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence) turns the character into more of a crotchety old fart, but since he’s gone through twice already you can’t blame him.
The movie attempts to offer a mental connection between Jamie and The Shape as she can see his thoughts. This leads to a nice thrilling scene where she sees The Shape terrorizing Rachel. Cops come and everything is fine. Later, Rachel is killed for real. It’s a sloppy move since we’ve followed Rachel in the previous movie and now she’s gone within the first third.
But it’s typical of these horror movies to have a character who survived the previous one to die in the sequel. It also works on the classic bait and switch as we think a character is threatened but nothing happens. I give Dominique Othenin-Girard some credit for adding some tension like the original and not just focusing on jump scares and violence. It’s reported Akkad wanted the fourth movie to be more gory which both Little and McElroy were opposed to, but additional footage was added.
Since Othenin-Girard is one of many writers who had a hand in the script, it’s hard to really care as we’re introduced to a new crop of teens who are quickly killed off. I will give them credit for the casting of Jonathan Chapin who basically plays the same character he did in Sixteen Candles even though his name is different. Since both movies are set in fictional Illinois towns, I’d think it’s cool Haddonfield and Shermer are less than an hour drive from each other. It’s also cool that Anthony Michael Hall, who shared the scene with Chapin in Sixteen Candles, played Tommy Doyle in Halloween Kills.
The movie ends on a cliffhanger with Michael being arrested after Loomis subdues him and The Man in Black pulling a Terminator and killing the police leaving Jamie to go in after all the carnage and see the jail cell is empty.
Unfortunately, Halloween fans would have to wait six years to see what happens next and it was that good at all. Akkad reportedly wanted Shanks and Harris to return but he decided to emply Daniel Farrands, a long-time devoted fan and aspiring filmmaker to write the script. Yet, as it seems to always happen, the rights to the property go through a legal battle as everyone’s most hated producer Harvey Weinstein and his underling brother, Bob, wanted to acquire the rights for Miramax’s Dimension division.
At the same time, John Carpenter was working with New Line Cinema to acquire the rights. As the studip had also acquired the rights to Jason Vorhees for the invevitable Freddy vs. Jason. But we almost had a Battle Royale with Jason, Freddy, Michael and maybe even Pinhead from Hellraiser. Well, Carpenter’s idea was a lot worse. He felt Michael should be terrorizing a space station. This might be one of the few times that the Weinsteins were the good guys. Well, a broken clock is correct twice a day.
It was almost in the cards this movie was doomed from the start as slashers had fallen out of popular by 1994 when production finally began on the sixth Halloween movie with Paul Rudd in his first role appearing here as Tommy Doyle. He’s now grown but living an introverted life renting a room in a boarding house directly across from the house where Michael Myers lived.
Now, it’s where relatives of Laurie Strode live, mostly because no one will buy the house. John Strode (Bradford English) is a loudmouth angry abusive man whose daughter, Kara (Marianne Hagan) has returned with her 6-year-old son, Danny (Devid Gardner). Kara and John are constantly arguing. Her mother, Debra (Kim Darby), is supportive but other brother, Tim (Keith Bogart), is too meek to stand up to John.
The events of the past have led to the Haddonfield community not celebrating Halloween as much. The movie begins with Tommy listening to a radio show where he believes he hears Jamie Lloyd (now played by J.C. Brandy) calling in as she says The Shape is following. Apparenly, Jamie has been held in an undisclosed location close to Haddonfield where it’s implied she was impregnated by Michael to bear his child. Harris was approached by the producers didn’t want to pay her salary. Also, she was only 17 at the time of filming and it’s ick enough that Michael would have sex with his niece.
But we soon learn that Michael is being controlled by a cult that is based on Drudism. And Tommy tells Kara there is a constellation that resembles the Thorn and there’s something about the birth of a child. I don’t know it makes so sense. This whole movie presents a lot of great ideas but it’s needed for a totally different movie. I don’t like that Michael’s evil was explained by a cult.
I will say the inclusion of Dr. Wynn, an ancillary character played in the first movie in one scene, as the Man in Black and thus the ringleader of the cult is a nice move. And Wynn is played by the wonderful Mitchell Ryan, whose stone cold menacing face made him a great bad guy in movies and on TV. But tragically, Pleasence would also pass away on Feb. 2, 1995 but had completed all his scenes during principal photography.
However, Pleasence wasn’t available during the reshoots which took place during the summer of 1995. It was almost a doomed production from the start as a winter storm in the SLC area caused planned exterior scenes to be delayed or rewritten for interior shots. It’s reported director Joe Chappelle and a producer Paul Freeman rewrote some of Farrands’ script during production. Akkad said this was at the behest of the Weinsteins.
The movie is so bad that it makes the theatrical 1984 release of Once Upon a Time in America look like The Godfather. (The production company recut that movie in a linear narrative, cut crucial scenes and redid the ending that Sergio Leone had intended.) Supposedly there was a Producer’s Cut of this Halloween movie that is really just a workprint. I’ve never seen it but I’ve heard the details and it’s not any better if you ask me as Michael ends up becoming The Man in Black.
Sometimes, it’s best to leave well enough alone and stick to a formula people like. I understand there was supposed to be a scene in Halloween H20, where Laurie, learns about Jamie’s death. However, I don’t think Laurie would be the type of parent who would abandon her child. So the Thorn Trilogy exist in a different timeline. Well, at least Laurie doesn’t have a tramp stamp like in Rob Zombie’s Halloween II.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 