HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS (1988)
HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS poster artwork
DONALD PLEASENCE.....Dr. Sam Loomis
ELLIE CORNELL.....Rachel Carruthers
DANIELLE HARRIS.....Jamie Lloyd
GEORGE P. WILBUR.....The Shape/Michael Myers
MICHAEL PATAKI.....Dr. Hoffman
Directed by DWIGHT H. LITTLE
Written by ALAN B. McELROY
Produced by PAUL FREEMAN
REVIEW BY CARYN JAMES
It seems too strange to be true, but Halloween and Friday the 13th and prom nights were not always celebrated with slasher films; those quaint seasonal customs began a mere 10 years ago. Before Jason put on his hockey mask and began strewing bodies around, before Freddy started haunting the dreams of teenagers on Elm Street, in 1978 there was Michael Myers, the killer in John Carpenter's stylish and still scary Halloween.
Like the bones of some animal captured in a fossil, the pattern is all there. Little Michael, a 6-year-old in a Halloween clown costume, kills his sister for having sex. The story picks up years later, with the adult Michael wearing a stark white mask and stalking a goody-goody teen-age baby sitter played by Jamie Lee Curtis. Now and then he diverts himself by stabbing and impaling her sexually active friends. Donald Pleasence, as the doctor who likes to call Michael "evil incarnate," shoots the villain at the end, and they all live to make Halloween II.
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers opened yesterday on two screens at the Criterion Center and at seven other theaters in Manhattan. It seems the latest stage in some curious evolutionary pattern; the slaher species keeps proliferating and getting weaker at the same time.
These days, the murderer in the white mask is more reminiscent of Broadway's Phantom of the Opera than a serial movie killer. En route to a new mental hospital, Michael escapes and heads for his old hometown. He is after his little niece, Jamie, the daughter of the Jamie Lee Curtis character; this passes for an inside joke.
For a short time, his ghostlike ability to appear and disappear---now he's behind you, now he's under the bed, now he's in the closet--promises to keep you off-guard. But before long, Halloween 4 turns into a series of special effects, including an exploding gas station and an electrocution. Does Michael Myers need all this high-tech help? Isn't it enough just to be a homicidal maniac?
In this film, suspense and psychological terror have given way to superhuman strength and resilience. Michael can now push his thumb through a man's forehead. Jamie falls down a flight of stairs and gets up as if she stumbled in the playground. Her foster sister---the blonde, sexless baby sitter---falls off a roof and takes a little longer to get up and pursue Michael again. Mr. Pleasence, as the doctor, has a limp that slows him down, but he still likes to call Michael "evil." (Ms. Curtis and Mr. Carpenter, lucky for them, had better things to do.)
The one effectively handled scene is the last, which promises a sequel with a feminist twist. A feminist slasher is probably not what the pioneers of the women's movement had in mind. But at least she'll be different.
Review © 1988 THE NEW YORK TIMES. All Rights Reserved.
Poster artwork courtesy of www.halloweenmovies.com
Poster artwork © 1988 TRANCAS INTERNATIONAL FILMS. All Rights Reserved.
Title and logo designed by Karen Rappaport
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