Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers

So, it transpires that Michael Myers survived being blown up on Halloween night 1978, and ten years later HE wakes from a decade of comatose to kill again.

OK, the premise is laughable but the decision to resurrect deranged serial killer Michael Myers is vindicated through a fine movie with several memorable moments and a shocking finale.

Donald Pleasence is on fine form as Myer's increasingly crazed doctor, Sam Loomis, who also survived being blown up in Halloween II. Loomis now walks with the aid of a stick and has burns to his face and hands but is otherwise fine. Blimey! He's almost as indestructible as Myers himself!

Halloween 4 racks up the jumps and gore but loses none of the thrills and excitement form the original movies. Ellie Cornell and Danielle Harris are excellent support for Pleasence in one of the best in the Halloween franchise.

Its not the terrible movie I was expecting. Scareless but still an ok watch. If you like the first two then watch, following 10 years after the end halloween 2. Id say its perfect runtime though as I feel it would of started to get a little boring if it was any longer.

Lets cut to the chase here. If you watch a film with the title Halloween 4, you know its not going to be Citizen Kane and as the critics have remarked how the sequel was responsible for the decline of the horror/slasher movies in the mid eighties then H4 is surely guilty as charged. However H4 is not the worst film in the series.The acting is mediocre and the script is littered with some horrendous dialogue(Check out Dr Loomis`s description of Michael Myers as "Evil on two legs") but hey, lighten up, this isn`t Shakespeare. H4 to an extent delivers the goods. Its short for starters, were not waiting an hour for the action to begin, its straight into it after a classy opening credits sequence. The characters are stock horror movie characters and thus we can relate to them. The gore is kept to a minimum (is that a good thing?) and there are a few minor shocks and twists along the way. The late great Donald Pleasance is at his eye bulging best and the film treats us to some dark humour involving some vigilante Rednecks out to nail Michael Myers but for me the major plus of this film is the John Carpenter penned music that was so well used in the first film. Surely this is one of the great movie theme tunes in history. In a nutshell H4 offers us nothing new but you pay your money and you get what you expect, a standard run of the mill low budget horror flick. hey I quite enjoyed it but don`t you think that Myers bloke is putting a bit of weight on.

The Good: Maybe it's having just watched H20 and Resurrection, but H4 is a masterpiece in comparison. I almost forgot how scary Michael Myers could be until I re-watched this movie. He truly seems like a force of nature; a spookier Terminator who will kill anyone who gets in his way and you can only temporarily stop him. I think seeing him from the perspective of a little girl really helps; he's the boogeyman and you feel it. This movie expertly generates tension from a creepy atmosphere, in a return to form that must have been SO SATISFYING to audiences starved for Michael Myers back in 1988.

Danielle Harris' performance is truly amazing. She really captures the trauma and terror that her character is put through and is the emotional core of this movie. Honestly, without her powerhouse performance, this movie would not work as well as it does.

Even without her though, this movie is a lot of fun: Loomis is back and crazier than ever, you have the classic horror tropes and a final set piece that makes sense and is super effective. Instead of feeling dated, it almost feels...comforting.

The Bad: Unfortunately, this movie is pretty weak when it comes to kills, an important metric for any slasher. A lot of them are bloodless and generic, save for the opening kill and...well, the final one. It's also more than a little annoying as to how Michael can just teleport wherever he needs to be and becomes outright hilarious by the end.

The Ugly: Not gonna lie, I absolutely lost it at the sight of dozens of schoolchildren running after a little girl chanting: "Jaimie's an orphan!" The 1980s were not a subtle decade, that's for sure.

It is ten years after Michael Myers escaped from the psychiatric clinic and went on the rampage and he has been in a coma ever since being burnt at the end of Halloween 2. But one of the ambulance drivers transporting him somewhere lets slip that he has a niece in Haddonfield and before you know it he's making his way back there.

Myers has become seemingly indestructable by now. He was seen emerging from a hospital as a human fireball at the end of art 2 and yet he seems to have escaped more or less unscathed. And howcome he can see anything when he was blinded in Part 2 just before being roasted alive?

However, if you overlook these points you'll find this is an entertaining and well-made film. Dr Loomis returns to Haddonfield after his ex-patient, played by Donald Pleasance at his best, and there are plenty of interesting characters and situations.

One of the better of the Halloween series, certainly much more worthwhile than the dismal Halloween 5 or most of the repetative Friday the 13th films.