Guess who's back...back again...
In 1982, John Carpenter made "Halloween 3". (No, you're not tripping, I am writing a review for "Halloween 4", but I need to explain this first.) In "Halloween 3" the movie had nothing to do with Michael Meyers and there actually is a good reason for this. John Carpenter wanted to make Twilight Zone-like movies that take place on Halloween but doesn't have anything to do with Michael, which is why he bit the dust in "Halloween 2". But the response to "Halloween 3" wasn't what Johnny boy wanted and he heard the cries of "Bring Michael Back" and so he did. And thus we got "Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Meyers".
The movie starts on the day before Halloween, ten years after the first two movies (That makes it 1988 in case you didn't know) and two doctors are arriving at a sanitarium (I had the Metallica song running through my head during this scene. I apologize if I put it in your head as well.) to transfer Michael to some prison. Apparently, he and Dr. Loomis survived the big ol' blast at the hospital, leaving them both scarred. But you can't keep a good psychopathic boogeyman down, he awakes in the ambulance tranfering him and kills everyone.
Dr. Loomis hears about this and immediately runs to Haddenfield, where Michael is from and occasionally terroizes, where he tells the sheriff that their progidal son has returned. But on the way there, he and Michael make a stop (seperately) to a auto garage. There Michael dresses up in a blue mechanic's jumper and kills everyone. He nearly got Dr. Loomis in another egnormous fireball, but the good doctor, bad leg and all, jumped out of danger.
Why is Michael returning to Haddenfield after ten years? Well Jamie Lee Curtis' character Laurie apparently got busy in that time and had a daughter, named Jamie (Get it? Ha-ha-ha...) which would make her a blood relative of Michael. And since Michael has some dysfunctional problems with his family members...you get the idea.
Dr. Loomis figures all of this out and tells the sheriff, and they have a big ol' curfew in the town. Just like old times, ahhh! Jamie lives with a foster family after her mom and dad died. They don't say who the father is and they don't say how they died, but if you seen "Halloween: H20" you kind of know better. Anyway, Jamie has a foster sister named Rachael, who is involved kinda sorta with some dude named Brady. Rachael was suppose to go out with Brady on Halloween night, but can't because she has to watch Jamie while the parents go to some meeting or something. Brady gets all in a tizzy about this and goes off and sleeps with the sheriff's daughter, who's name escaped me at some point in the movie cause they don't call her by name the rest of the movie.
Jamie has a hard time at school when the kids pick on her cause her uncle is rather imfamous in the town and so she fits in she decided to dress up for Halloween. And she chose the almost exact same outfit Michael wore when he was a kid in the first movie. Uh-huh.
So Rachael and Jamie go trick or treating and Michael is after them, but not before killing the family dog (NO!! SUNDAY!!! Or was it Sundae?) and probably pawing through Rachael's undies. Rachael discovers that Brady is boffing the sheriff's daughter and is SOO upset with this that she loses Jamie. Jamie, who was with a group of kids, for some reason decided to leave the group and is by herself. Thankfully before Michael can attack, the sheriff and Dr. Loomis appears.
They all go to the sheriff's house and decide to lock themselves in, but it does no good. Michael hitched a ride with the deputy and, as always, finds a way in before locking themselves in. While they are doing that, a bartender forms a posse of drunk hillbillies to go after Michael them DAMN selves.
The sheriff radios for help and the state police claim they'll be there in five minutes, which actually turns out to be about an hour. In that time, the sheriff decides to leave the house, as does Dr. Loomis. Michael kills the deputy, then the sheriff's daughter, and then finally Brady. Rachael and Jamie run up to the roof to try to escape, but Rachael, not the best foster sister to have, ends up falling off the damn roof, leaving little Jamie to fend for herself. Luckily she does alright and runs into Dr. Loomis and he gets the bright idea of going to the school. Apparently, Michael Meyers can fly cause he gets there before them and he tosses the poor old guy through a window. Thinks look pretty bad for Jamie when, what's this? Rachael didn't die!! YAY! She comes to the rescue, along with the drunk hillbilly posse and they mosey out of town.
The end? Nope. Michael hitches a ride again on the back of the bartenders truck and kills the posse. Rachael, who knows how to drive a stick, causes Michael to fall off the truck, then she rams into him. Just to make sure he's dead, the sheriff and the state police pump 9 million rounds of bullets into him, which causes him to fall into a pit and causing big ass statues to fall on top of him. There. That should do it.
But then, how to end this? Apparently, John Carpenter knew what kind of money machine this Meyers guy was and told the people who made this movie (He had absolutely nothing to do with it, which seems odd) to end the movie in an odd cliffhanger so they can make a 5th movie. I'm trying to decide if I should say what happens...oh fine.
Jamie and Rachael returns home and Mom decides to take a nice bath (Why does she need a bath? It was her daughters who did the running around?) but a masked figure kills her. Dr. Loomis runs up the stars and finds Jamie, wearing the clown mask, holding a pair of sisscors with blood on him. His response to this? Scream "NAAL!! NAAL!!" In case you're wondering, that's suppose to be "NO" but Donald Plesance has a funny way of saying things when he's excited.
Despite the fact that both John Carpenter and Jamie Lee Curtis was absent in this movie, it wasn't really that bad. Yeah, there were some very odd moments, some very confusing moments, and just moments that made you say "What the hell?" Plus the ending just makes you throw your hands up in the air and say "Um..ok?" (If you thought I was gonna say "and wave them like you just don't care" you need to get out of the projects.) It kind of sucks that I have wait a whole year before I can see "Halloween 5" to see what the hell is up with this ending.
I feel there are a few things to point out here. There is a scene where Dr. Loomis gets a ride from a slightly crazed priest. The priest is played by the old dude who was in "The Wedding Singer" in the bar scene. In that movie, he plays a slightly crazed drunk guy who moon walks. I think this poor guy is being type casted. And besides the ending scene with Dr. Loomis screaming "NAAL!!", a memorable moment in this movie is when Michael is at a power station and there's a guy there who spots him. Why is this memorable? Because the power plant guy looks at him and says, "I'm going to call the police. Don't go nowhere." Thankfully, Michael picked up this guy and threw him into the power grid, which causes a blackout. I'm not totally sure why Michael wanted a blackout, or what made him think to do one this time around, but it is a good idea really. And why "It isn't a man...it's pure evil" didn't become a national catch phrase is beyond me. Dr. Loomis says this line almost throughout this movie, along with the first and second one. At this point if I were to appear on a game show and they said "Name the movie from this phrase: 'It isn't a man-'" I'd be able to buzz in before it was finished and go home with a million dollars.
Oh, and the lack of nudity in this movie upset me. We got a tad taste of it when Brady was trying to get it on with the sheriff's daughter. I'm not sure why they had to be all anti-nudity in this movie. Maybe because John Carpenter wasn't involved and he's just a big pervert. Hm, maybe.
But because of those two moments in the movie, it made me like this movie a lot more then the second one and defintely more then the third one, and it is about the same as the first one. But, dammit! I gotta wait until next year to see why the kid went crazy.
3 stars.
See what IMDb.com had to say about this movie:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095271/