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(VIDEO)The “Halloween 4” VHS Retailers Promo That Kicked Off The 1989 Summer Of Horror Rentals!

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I’m almost certain that I hold the record on the horror blog Internet for writing the most pieces about HALLOWEEN 4– Dwight Little actually agrees with me– and it’s a crown I wear with pride as the Queen of Vincent Drug. To my surprise, however, I’ve never thrown in this little doozy of a retailer promo, which is another kryptonite of mine featuring THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS in all its glory.

In case you’re unfamiliar, a retailer promo is an early release of a VHS tape sent to video store owners that will ultimately either sway them to stock the shelves with said movie or give it a hard pass. In addition, some of these screeners would be sent to the media for review. Hard to imagine a time when critics would have to actually wait on the postman to deliver physical media as opposed to a screener email that can be obtained in under 60 seconds, eh?

Can we also appreciate this standee that was seen in Mom and Pop video shops? I covet thee so hard.

That being said, I don’t think HALLOWEEN 4 was ever going to be a hard sell to horror movie fans, but that, of course, never stops the PR machine from pimping the sequel for home video release like it was one of its top hookers on Broadway St. Hell, they were so confident in their success on the video rental market, they couldn’t even bother to spell Freddy’s Nightmares right when talking about television promo partnerships.

That’s a big dick move there, Mikey.

The street date for HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS landed on May 18th, 1989, just a few weeks after THEY LIVE and CHILD’S PLAY hit the shelves and five days before PUMPKINHEAD was added to the VHS horror movie rentals of ’89. 1988 was a HUGE year for horror movies-you can check my top 15 here-so therefore the Summer months following were a banger for us at the video rental stores.

I mean, they never had to oversell me. I’m the proud mom of two copies, while three others over the past 30 years have been laid to rest from being played to death.

Anyway, enjoy something that brings me a lot of personal joy and fuzziness. Huge shout-out to Tripsy Trailers for uploading this treasure for the rest of us!

Horror Nostalgia

Celebrate the Season With These “Halloween 4” Ambiance Ghoul Log Videos!

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Celebrate the Season With This "Halloween 4" Neighborhood Ambience Ghoul Log Video!

Time to saturate my blog with yet another Halloween post, and no fucks are given at this point — especially when it comes to HALLOWEEN 4.

In the spirit of the spooky season, Halloween “ghoul logs” have become a popular ambiance effect added to our seasonal mood-enhancing routines, modeled after the infamous Yule Log. Horror’s favorite channel Shudder recognized this need with their new addition to the Ghoul Log to the site’s streaming service; adding several options with a typical scary Jack-O, and the Trick R Treat effect. However, YouTube offers other options for those who choose to go another direction, like Brandon Tobatto or Sinister, who has uploaded a couple of glorious pieces of ambiance you can stream directly to your computer or TV via the YouTube app. And yep, you guessed it- It’s all about HALLOWEEN 4.

I’ve gone off numerous times about how much I enjoy the sinister ambiance of The Return of Michael Myers, and I’m just glad someone who feels the same way I do, decided to put this beautiful hour-and-thirty-three-minute long neighborhood and opener mood setting from the film into a Ghoul Log of its own. The windy streets, subtle hues of black and blue, along with all the houses Rachel and Jamie encountered on their fateful night of trick or treating are all featured in a continuous slide show of peaceful yet sinister Halloween nostalgia in one. The other is that GORGEOUS Halloween opener that gives off that perfect feeling of an eerie countryside Halloween vibe that I, and many others, are completely obsessed with. Both are winners, here. And so are we for having them.

Enjoy, or I don’t want to know you!

Editorials

Here’s The Story Behind Those Opening Credits In “HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS”

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In case you’re new here, I hold HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS on a ridiculously high pedestal. It’s the ultimate 80s horror slasher sequel where a lot of nostalgia resides. It brings back characters from a horror franchise in the CORRECT way while giving us new characters to the plot who are actually likable. And it’s the only entry in the series where we get a glimpse as Michael Myers in a very KEN form.

Fun in the Sun Myers is not to be trifled with.

Ok so maybe those are just my biased opinions, but there’s one thing that we can all collectively agree on making it a fact: the opening to RETURN is regarded as one of the greatest things about the movie, and stands as possibly, one of the most atmospheric intros for the Halloween holiday of all damn time. Something so simple as a few eerie scenes of a basic farm shot on the dusk of Halloween Eve in the middle of fuckwhere America, with no context, set the tone and the mood for the whole film. As light slowly fades into dusk throughout the secular shots of the farm in Autumn along with a sinister soundtrack that crescendos into your very spine, the message to the audience is clear: Evil is coming, and it is angry.

Back in October, celebrating HALLOWEEN 4‘ 35th anniversary, I spoke with director Dwight Little about his experiences and memories of the film. Of course, one of the questions I asked was about that marvelous intro and how the inspiration for such a departure from the previous two Myers films’ i.e. pumpkin credit intros, came to be. My instincts on the answer to this being something much deeper than just a few shots on a farm that were taken for budgetary reasons that just happened to strike gold, turned out to be correct.

You know, we put a LOT of energy into that, and I had asked the writer on set, ya know, how much do we actually KNOW about the origins of Halloween? I looked up some references on it and found out there’s some old Scottish agricultural tradition where the fields have gone bare and everyone has to do their last harvest to get ready for the Winter. And so there’s all this iconic imagery of scarecrows and pumpkin men, and looking back into the roots of it all is how we came up with that title sequence that seems so beloved. I just didn’t want to do the pumpkin [intro sequence again] and wanted to try something else.

So when people say, “It ain’t that deep.” Yeah. Yeah, it is. The fact that the opening sequence provides hidden context into old harvest culture and using imagery that we all associate with the Fall and Halloween seasons in a much deeper way was a clever move. To a superstitious agrarian society, not only would scarecrows keep birds away from crops, but they could also scare children away from the fields where there might be strange things hiding. The hanging ghost on the farm, representing Myers returning from the dead, is another, with Danielle Harris’ name (who plays Jamie Lloyd-Myers’ niece) splashed on the screen next to it as if to say he’s coming back just for you, babydoll. Although that in itself is MY OWN speculation, let me just have that theory, fellas.

You can read the entire interview with Dwight Little here.

It’s just a beautiful new way to look at those banger opening credits. Don’t you think? So with that in mind, let’s just bask in all its malevolent glory, eh?