Halloween III: Season of the Witch underperformed at the box office. While the film made more than 5 times its budget, it didn't make as much as its two predecessors. Mostly because it was missing something very important to the Halloween mythos. Michael Myers! So, the studio brought him back.
Ok...let's face it. These films aren't great. While there are plenty of Halloween 4 and 5 apologists out there that will actually believe it to be a better film than the first two installments (I know, right??!! What a bunch of weirdos!!), we're not gonna do that here. Instead, we're gonna talk about what's good in both films. This won't take too long.
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers exists merely because of demand. After Halloween III, audiences were disappointed that Myers wasn't around. So, Moustapha Akkad (producer of the previous installments) brought on some new writers and filmmakers to resurrect The Shape...quality be damned. Unfortunately, the writer's strike happened in the same year...so the script was cranked out in 11 days.
Kind of an interesting side note. Apparently, the original concept for Halloween 4 was to have it set in a Haddonfield that banned Halloween because of the events that took place in the first two films. And because of doing so, Myers was to come back and bring Halloween with him. Unfortunately, Akkad rejected the idea because it was way too "cerebral" for his taste...so, we'll never know what that could've been like. And since Carpenter and Hill signed away all their rights for the Halloween series, Akkad was left as sole decision maker for the impending sequels. So, Halloween 4 happened.
Apparently, Michael Myers and Dr. Samuel Loomis survive the explosion of the second film and Myers has been in a coma for 10 years. One fateful day, while being transported from one sanitarium to another...Michael escapes and learns that his sister Laurie Strode died in a car crash. However, he also learns that she has a daughter named Jamie. Enter 11 year-old Danielle Harris.
Harris is pretty much the best thing in both films. I mean, Michael Myers is back and all. But, he isn't wearing his original mask. Evidently, the original Shatner mask was long gone and they scrambled to get a new one. From a fucking costume shop. So, they sort of altered it during the filming to make it look more authentic. However, the original costume shop one (with the blond hair) can still be seen in the film.
Halloween 4 stands as a film that resurrects its main antagonist for, perhaps, the most shallow of reasons. To make money for the film studio. And the film suffers from that. Still, it's not a bad film. It's just not as good as it could've been. The same can be said for its sequel...Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers.
Danielle Harris reprised her role of Jamie and this time around she had a psychic connection with The Shape. Also new for this installment was the amount of gore and violence. It is reported that the studio had to fight an X rating in order to get a hard R. Quite a far cry from the subtleties that Carpenter took in the first film.
Also back for this installment was Donald Pleasence as the awesome Dr. Loomis. Being the kind gentleman that he was, he gave his trailer to the young Harris while filming took place because she had a tiny one and Pleasence was a fucking awesome human being.
This time around, Michael comes back to exact revenge on the little girl that threw him down a goddamn mine shaft. Only, he isn't altogether successful. And so, he does a bunch of stalking and killing. Akkad rushed into production on this film despite not having a finished script. Again...it shows. While the film has its charms and little moments within, it is probably the weakest of the good sequels that involves Myers.
Halloween 5 enjoyed a decent opening weekend and then dropped significantly, earning a modest final take at the box office. Still, it should be noted that the fifth installment was the last slasher films of the 80's. A decade which was influenced by the original Halloween now closed with the slasher who pretty much birthed a decade drenched in teenager blood. Stupid-looking mask notwithstanding.
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| LOOK...EVEN DONALD THINKS HIS MASK LOOKS RIDICULOUS LOLz |
SEE YOU TOMORROW!
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