Halloween 4: The Return Of Michael Myers (1988)
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The legend of that creepy masked-man, Michael Myers, comes to life once again in this fourth installment of the successful horror franchise. This time, it's Michael's niece, Jamie, who can't seem to escape her crazy uncle. With Michael on the loose, Jamie enlists the help of good old Dr. Loomis to stop the murderer. This time, though, there seems to be no end to Michael's madness.
--TMDb
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So, what has happened since "Halloween II"?
1 - Michael Myers has a new target.
2 - all of the set pieces look like "Golden Girls" throwaways.
3 - they have dropped the roman numerals in the title.
From the same visionary director who would go on to bring us "Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home" and "Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid" comes the fourth installment in the franchise, and the third to deal with everyone's favorite psychopath, Michael Myers. The one good thing I can say about the franchise, as it drifts further and further into the bottom half of the top ten, is that they never made Michael Myers comical. Unlike Freddy Krueger, who became Don Rickles in the later films -- Michael Myers stays quiet, slow and stoic. That is what makes him the most terrifying of them all -- his ability to think through a situation.
Ten years after the first two films, Michael Myers returns to Haddonfield to kill his seven-year-old niece Jamie (Danielle Harris). Why? Well, we get some half-assed reasons, but no one really knows. What we do know is that the 10,000 year old man, Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence), is hot on his trail again. The films follows Michael as he returns to his hometown and kills anyone and everyone who gets in his way and prevents him from killing whom he believes to be the last in his line of kin. That damned Michael Myers just won't take a break...for more than ten years...before rampaging again...and causing Donald Pleasence to oil up his prosthetic leg.
There are lots of people who think this film is the best film in the franchise, other than the original. Wow. I find this so hard to believe. "Halloween 4" had zero originality and loses all the mood and tone that made the original two work. Here, Michael Myers has turned into just another Jason Vorhees...just another Freddy Krueger. He has lost most of the originality that made him so frightening to begin with. And, now, we start seeing Michael Myers as something more than human. He cannot be killed. In the original, we saw him as a psychopath that was just very damned strong. Now, a cannonball to the face wouldn't kill him. This takes away a lot of the scare factor also because what made him work originally was the idea that something like "Halloween" could actually happen. Now, we see him as supernatural and we know nothing like that is ever going to happen.
When Michael Myers lost his vulnerability, he lost his power. When he lost his pacing, he lost his ability to scare affectively. When he lost Jamie Lee, he lost his reason for killing. Everything else is mute. 4/10.
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#1:
Edd
- added April 12, 2007 at 2:27pm
This was still a pretty solid horror flick i
think. The ending was, well, at least it ended is
all i'm saying. Everything else though was
spot-on. 8/10.
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#2:
Tristan
- added September 28, 2007 at 8:27pm
I wasn't terribly impressed with it, but it
was fun to see Michael back in action after the
abysmal Halloween III. And any movie where a girl
is impaled on a shotgun gets a thumbs up in my
book. 7/10
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#3:
Crispy
- added December 24, 2008 at 10:23pm
Echoing Tristan's sentiments exactly. I liked
it a lot more than I remember. Nowhere near the
same league as the first two, but an entertaining
slasher.
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#4:
Zombieboy
- added December 30, 2008 at 10:35am
This is the one where Mikey is the creepiest. The
director really uses that "nobody is there in
that creepy semi lit scene, but you never
know". The title sequence is one of the very
best EVER. Beautifully horrific in simplicity and
subtle music. Very ballsy not to use the wonderful
theme right off. When Mikeys face appears out of
those shadows as a tiny white dot...still gives me
the shivers.
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#5:
Chad
- added May 20, 2010 at 1:37pm
Badass movie. I'm working my way through the
series, and thus far, this is easily the best one.
Not quite as good as the original, of course, but
definitely better than the second and the third -
while a good movie - doesn't really count.
Kept me entertained from start to finish, some
great scenes, and opened the doors for numerous
ways to continue the story. Not much on the
negative side, so 9/10.
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#6:
BuryMeAlive
- added December 7, 2015 at 3:56pm
I love this movie. Besides the original, I think
it's the best in the series.
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60%
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