HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS has been and always will be one of my favorite movies of all time. I can’t say with a straight face that I prefer the 1978 classic over Michael’s triumphant return to Haddonfield, because that would just be lying to myself, and you and I have goddamn integrity. While I don’t believe in my dark Halloween heart RETURN to be the best overall in the franchise, it’s the one that, I personally, have the most fun watching and is the most nostalgic for me as an 80s kid. I also believe that this massively magnificent movie got insanely fucked with its follow-up sequel REVENGE OF MICHAEL MYERS, as RETURN laid out the perfect continence of the Lloyd and Myers legacy, just to throw it all away for some shadow-man douchebag and the beginning of the THORN story.
This was a mistake that I can never get past and on the year of HALLOWEEN 4‘s 35th Anniversary, I’m screaming into the void that we don’t want, but NEED that story to continue as originally panned out IF there were ever another Halloween sequel/reboot/remake… whatever.
Because you know, as well as I do, that is eventually going to happen whether you like it or not.
The cat and mouse game between Loomis, Myers, Jamie and the greatest final girl of the franchise, Rachel, is tension-driven throughout the whole film without it ever becoming cheesy or even cliché for a slasher flick. The nighttime aesthetic is gorgeous as hell, with those ominous blues and blacks washing over the screen, falling over a silent street where death awaits. Not to mention during the day when October 31st can practically be smelled through the screen. The opening credits alone set the tone for the entire film, and it never faltered beyond that.
HALLOWEEN 4 provided the fans what they wanted after the box-office bomb and, at the time, mostly universally hated continuance of the HALLOWEEN franchise with SEASON OF THE WITCH. Michael was back from the dead, and so was a now more than ever obsessed Loomis hot on Myers’ track after his escape and brutal murder of some EMTs from a hospital transfer; who is now after Jamie Lloyd, the daughter of the recently Laurie Strode and one and only living relative of Michael. Of course, in pure tradition, Myers has to off every member of his family to appease his homicidal Samhain compulsion, so the eight-year-old is on his most wanted list.
Jamie (Danielle Harris), now in the sole care of the Carruthers’ family after the untimely death of her mother only eleven months prior, is mercilessly bullied at school, feels like an outcast and a burden to her foster family, while seeming to not have many friends. The perfect makings of a serial killer, eh? Despite our sympathy for the child, these subtle hints come full-circle in the finale of the movie after Myers is shot down in a cemetery by what’s left of Haddonfield’s finest after Michael done near killed half the town already. In the film, Jamie is sort of pulled towards a laid-out Myers and grabs his hand in a sort of sweet, yet weird way, (like, this guy was trying to kill you sweetie, WHAT THE FUCK are you doing). She’s almost in a trance-like state until the sheriff and Rachel scream at her to get out of the way before unloading 10,000 bullets into Michael, putting him out of the business of Halloween murdering for good. Or, well, at least this year anyway.
Back at the Carruthers’ residence in the aftermath, Jamie’s foster mother is drawing a bath for the child when her screams are heard downstairs among the survivors of the night. Loomis, running halfway up the stairs looks in horror as Jamie is seen in her costume, mask donned with sporting a pair of bloody scissors implying she killed her foster mom, giving new life to the Myers legacy as his spirit lives on inside her.
NOW THAT WAS A PERFECT ENDING.
Some theories would argue that Myers “spirit” leaped into Jamie when she touched his hand in the cemetery. However, I’m inclined to believe Jamie was fighting these demons throughout the entire movie. With the biggest evidence being the scene inside Vincent Drug where she pulls the same costume as her uncle once wore when he was a child. Almost as if it were fate that this was the perfect costume. Is the costume evil itself?! That’s a personal theory that I would love to expand on, or hell even see some sort of sister made from, but nah. I think Jamie just has it in her blood. No matter how hard she tries to fight it, the subconscious compulsion that was buried deep inside her, finally takes over, and it was in Myers death that it was allowed to fully reveal itself.
In the novelization by Nicholas Grabowsky, this theory is actually given some credence as it’s written when Jamie is in the school hiding from Michael, she sees a vision of her dead mother in a nightgown, begging Jamie to “not give in and allow Myers to take her” and to “snap out of it”. This, along with other expanded scenes, was released in the updated version of the book back in 2003- and I HIGHLY recommend any HALLOWEEN fan picking it up.
Also, worth noting in the book, the good Reverend Jack Sawyer has a prominent role being stinkin’ drunk off corn whiskey all through the way and at one point, actually comes face to face with Michael Myers, So if you’re a fan of damnation mister, you’ll definitely want to read on his expanded adventures.
All that being said, IF there were to be a continuance of the Halloween films in any sort of way whatsoever, I think a direct continuation from HALLOWEEN 4 would be the best bet and actually make up for the bullshit storyline that did my girl Rachel real dirty in HALLOWEEN 5. Don’t get me wrong, I have soft nostalgic spots for REVENGE; but it’s not what it should have been.
Seeing as how HALLOWEEN 4 was made 35 years ago, the obvious way to make this story work in continuing form would be an adult Jamie (Danielle Harris of course) rotting away in a mental asylum just like her uncle before her and in traditional fashion, have her escape and go after her foster sister Rachel, WHO IS STILL ALIVE BECAUSE FUCK HALLOWEEN 5, and we have a goddamn movie. Of course, the clown mask would have to come into play as Jamie’s murder shrouds to legitimize it because her picking up her uncle’s mask might just be too cliché and predictable. Jamie would need to have her own persona for it to work, and Harris has the chops to do it.
If Universal is actually listening, far-fetched I know, throw this idea on the writer’s table because we all damn well know you all are thinking about it already!
What are your thoughts? Should we let sleeping boogymen lie, or should the HALLOWEEN franchise take this direction in the future?
