Dr. K's Waiting Room

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Starting life as the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts, Halloween is largely associated not just with ghosts, ghouls, and confectionery but also a long-running series of horror movies. Beginning with John Carpenter’s Halloween (Carpenter, 1978), the franchise is largely credited with birthing the “slasher” sub-genre of horror films and has endured numerous remakes and reboots and is one of the most influential films in all of horror.

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Released: 21 October 1988
Director: Dwight H. Little
Distributor: Galaxy International Releasing
Budget: $5 million
Stars: Donald Pleasence, Danielle Harris, Tom Morga and George P. Wilbur, Ellie Cornell, Beau Starr, and Karen Alston

The Plot:
Ten years after appearing to die in a fire, serial killer Michael Myers/The Shape (Morga/Wilbur) awakens from a coma and targets his young niece, Jamie Lloyd (Harris), who appears to have a psychic link with the killer, and only his mentally and physically scarred doctor, Sam Loomis (Pleasence), has a hope of putting an end to his rampage.

The Background:
Although critics mostly dismissed it upon release, John Carpenter’s Halloween’s box office gross of over $63 million made it one of the most successful independent films ever and it both popularised the clichés of the slasher genre and is now seen as one of the most influential horror movies. Thus, a sequel was inevitable, although writer/director John Carpenter wasn’t enthusiastic about this. Halloween II (Rosenthal, 1981) was a commercial success and the studio was eager for a third entry, which Carpenter only agreed to if it went in a different direction and became a horror anthology movie series. Unfortunately, Halloween III: Season of the Witch (Wallace, 1982) was a box office flop that was derided by critics, stars, and even the director so the decision was made to bring Michael back some six years later to reclaim his place as the star of the franchise. Initially, Carpenter and writer Dennis Etchison were attached to the project, but producer Moustapha Akkad decided a more back-to-basics approach was best and drafted writer Alan B. McElroy to craft a new script. Since her career had taken off since Halloween, star Jamie Lee Curtis refused to return to the film, which aimed to recreate much of the horror and suspense of the first. George Wilbur took over the Myers role, reportedly wearing hockey pads under his suit, and regularly put young co-star Danielle Harris at ease, though his mask appears inconsistent throughout due to the filmmakers altering the design mid-way through. With a $17.8million box office, Halloween 4 got the franchise back on track financially but was again slated by critics for abandoning the strengths of the original and being little more than a cheap knock-off of the first film, though some have defended it as one of the stronger Halloween sequels, though none of this stopped a fifth entry from being fast-tracked for release the following year.

The Review:
Halloween 4 takes place on October 30^th and 31^st, 1988, some ten years after the end of Halloween II. Michael’s been in a coma for ten years and his vegetative ass is being transferred back to Smith’s Grove Sanatorium, all of which we learn in the most ham-fisted way possibly from an overly chatty guard (Raymond O’Connor) and the callous Doctor E.W. Hoffman (Michael Pataki). Although he’s been content to lie dormant all this time, Michael bursts to life and starts killing his way back to Haddonfield when he happens to hear that he has a young niece living there. Since Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) died between movies in a car wreck (a plot point I’m glad to see reversed later as that’s the lamest way to kill off a legacy character), Michael’s target is his niece, Jamie, who lives with her foster family. Richard (Jeff Olson) and Darlene (Alston) are doting, hardworking, and caring parental figures who recognise that Jamie needs all the support and love they can offer and their teenage daughter, Rachel (Cornell), does her best to make Jamie feel accepted within the family. Jamie is still struggling with the loss of her parents, who died only eleven months previously, and is very insecure about her place with the family and whether they really love and accept her. Jamie has had trouble sleeping thanks to nightmares and visions of Michael, who she might not recognise but is aware of since the unnecessarily cruel schoolkids tease her for being an orphan and for being related to the “Bogeyman”.

Because of this, Jamie is determined not to hide away and show that she is just as good as the other kids by going trick-or-treating in her very own costume and, as luck (or fate) would have it, she’s enamoured by a clown costume that’s nearly identical to the one worn by young Michael Myers (Erik Preston). This triggers another hallucination in which she sees first herself as the young, bloodstained Michael and is then attacked by the Shape himself…or so it seems. Undeterred, Jamie heads out with Rachel and not only enjoys herself getting candy but is even accepted by the same kids who were previously mocking her with such venom because her crappy clown costume is apparently that “cool”. Halloween 4 positions Rachel as a stand-in for Laurie; the two even have a connection since Laurie used to babysit Rachel when she was younger. Although Rachel isn’t perfect, she’s generally as attentive to Jamie’s needs as Laurie was to Tommy Doyle (Brian Andrews) and makes the effort to apologise to Jamie after accidentally upsetting her. Unlike Laurie, Rachel would like to enjoy herself with her boyfriend, Brady (Sasha Jenson), though she sets this aside to take Jamie trick-or-treating and protects her in the final act. Unfortunately, Rachel’s blow off upsets Brady, who was clearly eager to seal the deal with her that night. This means he goes elsewhere for some action and Rachel is humiliated when the kids knock on Sheriff Ben Meeker’s (Starr) door and Kelly (Kathleen Kinmont), his promiscuous daughter, answers wearing next to nothing and with Brady right there with her. Although Brady makes a pathetic attempt to defend himself, Rachel angrily brushes him off (and rightfully so) and he begrudgingly settles for just having his cake rather than eating it, too. Interestingly, Halloween 4 doesn’t include a gaggle of disposable bodies for Michael to wade through despite establishing characters like Rachel’s outgoing best friend, Lindsey (Leslie L. Rohland). However, the town’s youths do deliver one of the best and creepiest scenes when Dr. Loomis and Sheriff Meeker are surrounded by an army of Michael Myers clones. While this turns out to be an elaborate prank, both are momentarily perturbed by the sight and even more so when they return to the police station to find Michael has slaughtered everyone there.

Thankfully, we have Donald Pleasance back as Dr. Loomis. Does it make sense that he survived the raging inferno that clearly immolated him and Michael in Halloween II? No. Do I appreciate that he has burn make-up, walks with a cane, and is clearly in physical discomfort from that incident? Yes. In the years since, Dr. Loomis’s reputation and authority have been largely stunted by his association with Michael. Unlike in the first film, he isn’t even present for Michael’s transfer since Michael was a federal prisoner and Dr. Hoffman regards Dr. Loomis very poorly, believing the tormented psychiatrist will struggle without Michael to obsess over. Dr. Loomis is incensed that Dr. Hoffman allowed “It” to leave the hospital and renews his crusade to hunt Michael down, once again spouting the same doomsaying speeches to anyone who’ll listen and again being seen as a madman until it’s too late. Dr. Loomis actually get s a rather tense confrontation with Michael early on. After stumbling upon Michael’s victims, Dr. Loomis pleads with him to stop and offers himself in place of further bloodshed but is enraged with Michael refuses to acknowledge him and simply continues on to Haddonfield in Dr. Loomis’ vehicle, forcing him to hitch a ride with God-fearing Reverend Jackson P. Sayer (Carmen Filpi). Upon reaching Haddonfield, Dr. Loomis immediately seeks out Sheriff Meeker to warn him of Michael’s presence. Although Meeker is sceptical of Dr. Loomis’ wild claims and chaotic reputation, he takes the threat as seriously (perhaps even more so, given what happened ten years previously) as his predecessor and mobilises his troops, though their efforts are hampered when Michael causes a town-wide blackout. Sheriff Meeker follows Dr. Loomis’ advice to enforce a lockdown, but this has the unintended side effect of inspiring a trigger-happy mob of angry townsfolk to take matters into their own hands once they learn that Michael is stalking the streets once more.

And, finally, there’s the equally scarred Michael. This is the film where Michael really transitioned from a silent psycho in a mask with a high pain threshold to a quasi-supernatural force of nature, but with about as much explanation as he was given in the previous films. Indeed, while Michael had near-superhuman strength and patience in the first two films, his abilities are now almost on par with masked rival Jason Voorhees (Various), who was an unstoppable zombie at this time, meaning he has full mobility despite his injuries, no sign of muscle atrophy, and manhandles victims with ease. Although he briefly sports a new bandaged look, it’s not long before Michael’s back in his familiar overalls and mask. Well, I say “familiar” but Michael’s mask looks absolutely awful here. While the film makes a point to show that it’s an entirely new mask, it just looks…wrong. It’s too squat and white and lacks the personality of the original William Shatner mask, making Michael look more goofy then terrifying. Michael’s supernatural abilities are also expanded somewhat as the film has Jamie and Michael be linked by blood, meaning she is haunted by terrifying nightmares of him. However, this mainly serves to pepper the film with jump scares and their psychic connection would become much more prominent in the next film. Still, it has a profound impact on Jamie even here; though she’s terrified of the imposing, masked figure that’s constantly leaving bodies in his wake and trying to kill her and her sister, Jamie shows sympathy towards Michael after he’s lying prone on the ground in the final act. Perhaps out of morbid curiosity, perhaps because he’s the only “real” family and connection to her beloved mother she has left, Jamie briefly takes Michael by the hand before he’s blasted by the state police and is apparently left “touched” by his influence and evil as a result.

The Nitty-Gritty:
Considering how much Halloween 4 borrows from the first film, it’s surprising that it opts for a more ominous title sequence, one that is more bleak than atmospheric and even omits the iconic John Carpenter score. The score does make an appearance throughout, thankfully, and is as hauntingly impactful as ever but boy, does this film take a lot from Halloween. We’ve got Michael escaping custody, murdering a mechanic for some clothes, stalking Haddonfield while Dr. Loomis runs around like a wild man trying to warn people, we have a Laurie proxy in Rachel, and the film explicitly and thematically recreates the start of the first film for its shocking twist ending. While many, even John Carpenter, decry the decision to make Michael and Laurie related and add a familial motivation to his killings, I actually never really minded this and would argue that it had potential, but one squandered by poor execution in these movies. Michael only resumes his killing spree when he learns of Jamie, indicating very explicitly that his whole reason for being is to murder his bloodline and he’s simply a void (or “Shape”, if you will) without that. Like in the first film, Dr. Loomis openly comments on Michael and the nature of his evil, referring to him as “It” and delivering many of the same speeches, but with slightly altered verbiage, as in Halloween. Thanks to Pleasence’s unparalleled delivery and screen presence, this has the intended effect of painting Michael as the embodiment of evil and works perfectly as sound bites for a film trailer, but again it’s just all a repeat of what we’ve already seen.

Although Halloween wasn’t really known for its nudity and debauchery, Halloween 4 sees Brady and Kelly’s sexy time in front of a roaring fireplace cut short when her dad arrives looking to protect Jamie and Rachel from Michael. Still, we don’t have to wait long for our first kill as Michael awkwardly crushes a male attendant’s (David Jansen) head with one hand and jams his thumb into his forehead within the first ten minutes. Michael leaves his ambulance a bloody wreck and impales an unassuming mechanic (Unknown) with a metal rod and leaves his corpse hanging from chains for Dr. Loomis to find and tosses a plant worker (Harlow Marks) into a transformer, frying him alive and causing a blackout. Initially, the kills are largely bloodless, or at least tame in their execution, just like in the first film, which used blood sparingly and to horrifying effect. I don’t necessarily mind this as I prefer Halloween as a more creepy and subdued horror franchise and find it a bit gratuitous when Michael starts hacking people up like Jason, but it’s again too derivative of the first film. Luckily, Michael is stronger than ever and more than capable of upping the ante from what came before it, as seen in the brief shot of various dismembered corpses at the police station and in Michael’s assault on the Meeker home. This moment is predicated by a relatively tense sequence as the film builds anticipation for Michael’s arrival and sees him recreate his famous pin-to-the-wall kill by ramming a shotgun into Kelly’s gut, leave Meeker’s last deputy (George Sullivan) a broken mess, crush (not snap, crush) Brady’s neck with ease, and leaves Rachel momentarily unconscious after she falls from the roof. In the finale, Michael viciously stabs a bunch of townsfolk who try to get Rachel and Jamie to safety and even partially tears through the skin and neck of poor Earl Ford (Gene Ross) in a precursor to his later, far gorier methods of killing.

Rather than stalking babysitters, Michael comes to Haddonfield specifically to track down and kill Jamie. Sure, he kills a handful of others but that’s mostly because they’re either in his way or the film needs to up the body count. Thanks to Jamie’s waking nightmares of the “Nightmare Man”, it’s often unclear whether Michael is actually there, and this paranoia is echoed by the lynch mob that roams the streets, armed to the teeth and blasting at anything that even resembles Michael Myers. Naturally, this results in them gunning down an innocent man but Sheriff Meeker is left relying on them to back him up after Michael butchers all his deputies. Initially, Meeker attempts to protect Jamie and Rachel but, when Michael ruins that plan, Dr. Loomis is forced to shelter Jamie in the school. Here, Dr. Loomis has a second, far more violent and physical confrontation with Michael (who’s inexplicably wearing a different mask in some shots) that sees Dr. Loomis tossed through a window. Luckily, Rachel arrives to rescue her; she also convinces the mob to get them to safety since the state police are en route. However, their saviours are summarily slaughtered when Michael attacks, having hitched a ride on the truck’s underside. Luckily, Sheriff Meeker and the state police arrive in time to pump Michael full of lead, causing him to disappear down an abandoned mine and Dr. Loomis to confidently declare him “dead…in Hell” despite the lack of a body. Dr. Loomis’s relief, and that of Jamie’s obviously traumatised family, is short-lived, however, when the film suddenly shifts to a first-person perspective, Halloween theme playing, to track an unseen killer through the Carruthers’ house. At the sound of Darlene’s scream, Dr. Loomis investigates and is horrified to the point of madness at the sight of Jamie, covered in blood, a pair of bloodstained scissors in her hands, an all-too-familiar blank stare in her eyes. Dr. Loomis even moves to shoot her, distraught to see Michael’s evil reborn in Jamie’s innocent form, but is stopped by Sheriff Meeker and the others, who can only look in horror as Jamie stands there, breathing heavily, apparently ready to continue her uncle’s work…

The Summary:
Although I’m not really a fan of Halloween III, I do enjoy anthology series and I think turning Halloween into an anthology series had some potential behind it, especially considering how dull and repetitive some of the sequels were. It’s possible that the idea would’ve had stronger legs if Halloween III hadn’t explicitly taken place in a separate universe; if it had been adjacent to and connected to the previous films, maybe it might’ve gone down better. Or, if they’d started the anthology idea with Halloween II instead of waiting for the third film…and if the third film had actually been good… In any case, I do understand the need to return to the tried and tested formula. Michael Myers is one of the most iconic horror villains and there was definitely some potential there, but the problem is that Halloween 4 really doesn’t try anything especially new with the character and basically acts as a remake of the first film, just with a few different characters. It’s a shame, too, as that final scene of Jamie standing there all ominous and Dr. Loomis shouting “No!” over and over is really chilling and I love the idea of Michael passing his evil on to a new host, but sadly this wasn’t meant to be as God forbid slashers try something new. Dr. Loomis was as great as ever here; the scars and injuries and increased madness add a desperate edge that made him almost as unhinged as Michael. Sadly, there’s just not much here that wasn’t in the first two films. Rachel’s personal drama isn’t as interesting or as well done as Laurie’s and it’s hard to care about most of Michael’s victims as they’re barely even side characters much less main ones. Ultimately, the film is simply a retread of the original. I get that this is probably to get the franchise back on track but I do think it might’ve been better if more emphasis had been placed on exploring Jamie’s link with Michael, the mob that hunts him, and Dr. Loomis’s increased desperation and obsession with putting him down (a better “death” for the Shape would’ve been appreciated, too, as this was ridiculously anti-climactic).

My Rating:

Could Be Better

Did you enjoy Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers? What did you think to Michael’s return and were you happy, sad, or indifferent to see him come back? Were you annoyed that Laurie was killed off so unceremoniously? Are you a fan of Jamie’s and would you have liked to see her takeover as the franchise’s killer? Were you disappointed by the film’s kills and it just being a retread of the first one? How are you celebrating Halloween this year? Whatever your thoughts on Halloween, and the Halloween franchise, drop a comment below, oand have a spook-tacular Halloween!