Halloween 4 — a stale rehash of first two films

In the year 1978, a little-known film director named John Carpenter created a small horror film called Halloween with a low budget of $320,000 that was soon destined to be a classic. I recall seeing the film as a kid; this was truly one of the most frightening movies I had seen at that time that left me with plenty of sleepless nights.

A few years later someone had the “bright” idea of making a sequel. So then came Halloween 2 which was not even close to being as good as  its predecessor. The producers were still hungry for box office receipts so then came Halloween 3, which dealt with an entirely different plot and had no link the previous two films.

Well the filmmakers did not give up and decided to give it another try by recycling characters from the original two in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Meyers. This one has a badly bumed Michael Meyers, who supposedly survived the hospital fire in the second film, again escaping from a sanitarium, and terrorizing the same sleepy liltle town with its stereotypical teenagers, incapable sheriff, and dumb townsfolk.

Also back is Donald Pleasance reprising his role of the doctor still determined to keep Myers shut away from the rest of the world. As Pleasance describes him in one scene or should I say from the first two films,
“He’s not a human being. He’s purely evil.” Really all this film is is a rehash of the original gone haywire. One of the many flaws in this film is the unnecessary gore and the camera’s tight close ups of those scenes. For instance one scene has Myers sticking his finger into some poor guy’s forehead. Now come on there
was no need to keep the camera rolling on that sequence.

Ofcourse, the body count in these films are always numerous. There’s always the poor unsuspecting girl in
distress or the foolish hero types. The film does deliver some suspenseful moments. There is an edge of the seat roof top scene where the killer is pursuing two of his helpless victims.

This movie sans Carpenter’s directorial skills, which is quite clear since he’s graduated on to better
things. Gone also is Jamie Lee Curtis, who played the killer’s obsession in the first two. She too went on to far more better things than to waste her time in this low grade film.

The haunting music score which was originally conceived by Carpenter, but now under the reigns of his
colleague Alan Howarth, is probably the only thing keeping this movie going. If you want to save yourself a
couple of bucks, your best bet would be to head down to your local video store and rent the original Halloween!