“Halloween” Series – That First Great Slice and The Best of the Rest

"Halloween"

Released:  1978

Director:  John Carpenter

Writer: John Carpenter & Debra Hill

Starring: Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, P.J. Soles, Nancy Loomis

"Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers"

Released:  1988

Director:  Dwight H. Little

Writer: Alan B. McElroy

Starring: Donald Pleasence, Ellie Cornell, Danielle Harris, Michael Pataki

"You can’t kill the Boogey Man!”

I first saw John Carpenter’s Halloween as a midnight show during the 1980 re-release.  I’d been too young to get in during the initial run, but I was 17 when it finally rolled back around.  No parent or guardian required now, baby.  Haddonfield, here we come!

I went with a friend who’d been lucky enough to see it in ‘78.  For two years, I listened to him go on and on about how scary it was.  Finally, I could see for myself.  So... Was it the Boogey Man? 

As a matter of fact, it was.

Every fan should see Halloween in a crowded theater, at least once.  Carpenter frames the film as a series of reveals, and leaves it up to each viewer to catch on.  As a result, you can literally feel waves of fear ripple through the crowd, as each new person spots Michael in the background of this shot or that.

In fact, I can thank Carpenter’s eye for framing as the reason why I never became a VHS collector.

Don’t get me wrong, I was a kid in a candy store when the first rental shops opened, just like every other film geek.  Then one night, I decided to introduce my roommate, Scott (he, who would have none of Pieces), to Halloween.

The VHS transfer was murky.  Bad news for the night scenes.  Worse, it was pan & scan.  Carpenter’s brilliant use of the rectangular Cinemascope frame had been chopped down to a center-cut square.  As they say in the disclaimers, “formatted to fit your television.”

Or as I like to say, formatted to cut-off half of the movie.

For much of the viewing, I couldn’t figure out why the film wasn’t as scary as I remembered.  Then, we hit the money shot.  The one that made me jump out of my seat in the theater.

Laurie Strode discovers her dead friends.  She collapses against a darkened doorway.  We hold on her terrified face.  Off to the side, a white mask ever so slowly becomes visible.  Michael is right beside her!

Be-De-Booo!

There’s even a musical sting on the soundtrack to goose you, in case you hadn’t yet noticed Michael for yourself.

Watching the film with Scott, I tensed up on instinct as Laurie collapsed against the door.  And, then… Nothing.  The sting came and went.  We both sat there, unmoved.  Michael was a no show.  He’d been cropped out of the frame! 

Scott shrugged his indifference as the end credits rolled.  I made a mental note about the drawbacks of VHS.

Calendar pages flew by.  I caught Halloween II on cable.  Meh…

I saw Halloween III: Season of the Witch opening weekend with Scott.  I loved it.  Scott, not so much.  For the rest of October, I tormented him with the Silver Shamrock jingle.  “Hurry up, it's Halloween, Halloween, Halloween…”

I was temporarily back in New Jersey when Halloween 4 opened.  By then, I’d seen one too many bad Slashers.  When it played our local twin, I laid down my money for U2’s Rattle & Hum, instead of The Return of Michael Myers.

The next Halloween film that I saw was H20.  Again, in a theater.  I liked that enough that I sought out the others on this fancy new format called DVD.

Eventually, I came to see all of the films in the series.  In the wrong order… some in theaters, some on home video… and many, years after their initial release.  A hodgepodge.  My thoughts on the series were just as disorganized.

“What’s your favorite sequel?”

“Um, I remember one of them was pretty good.  Was it 5?  No, maybe 4?” 

“How about 6?”

“Uh, which was that?”

Thoughtful analysis, this was not.  And that brings us full circle… To this Halloween.

It was a rough October.  My mother fell and fractured her wrist.  That set off a bunch of related, but unexpected, complications and left me spending a lot of time at her place, playing caregiver.

As a reward for being such a good son, I decided to do something completely selfish.  A huge storm was forecast to hit L.A. on the Friday before Halloween.  A perfect excuse not to leave the house!  I told my mom to call if she needed anything, made a big pot of coffee and then curled up in front of the TV.

For the next 16 hours, I binge-watched all eight of the original Halloween movies.  For those keeping score at home, that’s Michael Myers: 7, Conal Cochran: 1.

Ripping through much of Shout! Factory’s outstanding Halloween: The Complete Collection in a single sitting (the 15-disc Limited Deluxe Edition… Who wants to touch me?), I was able to gather my thoughts on the series as a whole.

The first thing I noticed is that the movies pair up nicely into double features, which is great for planning much needed breaks:

Halloween I and II make the complete "Night HE Came Home". 

Halloween 4 and 5 form “The Jamie Lloyd Saga".

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers and H20 mark “Two Ends for Two Arcs”.

Resurrection and Halloween III remain “Outliers”, the movies with the least connection to the others.

Next, I was able to gain some clarity on the usual fanboy disagreements:

Is Halloween II better than H20, just because Carpenter was involved in one but not the other?  Is Resurrection worse than The Curse of Michael Myers, just because one is gleefully stupid while the other is earnestly so?  Is Halloween III the worst, just because it doesn’t feature Michael Myers?

At last, I can say with confidence: no, no, and don’t even talk to me.

Last, but not least, I came to appreciate just how good Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers really is.

For the record, here's my final ranking:

Halloween

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers

Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later

Halloween II

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers

Halloween: Resurrection

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers

You can argue with my order for the lesser titles, but not the top two.  If Carpenter’s original is indisputably the gold standard, Halloween 4 is a lock for the silver. 

Halloween 4 pulls off an almost impossible feat.  It is both a respectful bookend to the original as well as something completely fresh.  It’s the movie you wish Halloween II could have been.

I’ll push even further.  In some ways, Halloween 4 surpasses the original. 

Say whaaaaaa?

That isn’t a knock on Halloween.  The original is the ultimate suspense machine.  By design, the first 70 minutes are all set-up.  Threads are opened and left to dangle as Carpenter tightens the noose.

Why did Michael steal Judith’s tombstone?  What is he doing over there at Annie’s?  Will Loomis ever catch on to what’s happening?  Is there a Boogey Man?  And if so, can you kill him?

Then, we hit the final act.  And 20 perfect minutes.

Laurie steps out on the porch.  She looks at the darkened house across the street. What is going on over there?  Tentatively, she starts to walk over…

From that moment on, Carpenter hits us with an avalanche of pay-offs, each more shocking than the last.  By the time he’s done, we’re left cowering on the floor, like Laurie herself.

Halloween 4 does not end with 20 perfect minutes, but it does build to one perfect moment.  The ending.

But let’s start at the beginning.  And the not so perfect.

The first half hour of Halloween 4 is a bumpy ride.  Right away we’re into a scene that reveals Michael and Dr. Loomis somehow survived the explosive finale from Halloween II.  Worse, some dumb administrator has once again decided to move Michael on the night before Halloween.

Personally, none of that bothers me.  It’s a sequel, folks!  They have to get the knife back into Michael’s hand somehow.  You buy the ticket, you take the ride.

What does bother me is the poor handling of the “Nightmare man” dreams.

Although director Dwight Little proves adept at generating suspense by the end of the film, he repeatedly blows a simple cinematic trick in the early going.  It’s the old Slasher trope of “now you see him, now you don’t.” 

Carpenter beats this horse to death in the original.  But it works in that film.  Every single time…  Here, something is off in the editing and, frankly, the results are confusing as fuck.

The hardware store scene, for example:  Little Jamie Lloyd shops for a costume.  Behind her, Michael’s scarred hand reaches down to steal a mask.  We see this, Jamie does not.  Since the shot is not from anyone’s POV, Michael must really be there. 

Moments later, Michael steps up behind Jamie.  She freaks out, crashes into a mirror, and he disappears.  That moment is played like another of Jamie’s bad dreams.

So, which is it?  If Michael is there, why didn’t he just kill Jamie?  If he’s not there, why did we see something no one else did?  For the sake of a quick scare, logic is shattered.

One mistake can be forgiven.  Little attempts this trick four times in the first 30 minutes and it never makes sense.  Not once.  That’s a huge red flag.

In his commentary on the Anchor Bay DiviMax DVD, writer Alan B. McElroy, points out these flaws and explains what he and Little were trying to accomplish.  Had they been able to nail the “Nightmare man” theme, as McElroy presents, the film would have been much stronger.  The fact that the ending still plays as well as it does, despite the botched set-up, is a testament to the strength of the idea.

Now for the good… And there’s a lot of it.

The main characters in Halloween 4 ­– Jamie, Rachel, Sheriff Meeker – draw upon counterparts in the original, yet each is unique and compelling.  Even Loomis is stronger in this sequel.

In the original, the relationship between Laurie and Tommy Doyle – babysitter and child – is central to the film.  Tommy is one of the first characters that Laurie runs into that Halloween morning and he is also the one who connects Michael to the Boogey Man legend.

McElroy retains that core sitter/child relationship for his story, but wisely flips the script.  Who could be more vulnerable than a virginal, teenage babysitter?  How about a seven-year-old orphan girl!

Halloween 4 is told through the eyes of Jamie.  This is a bold move.  One false step and the audience could turn on the filmmakers:  How DARE they torture a helpless child like that?!

Yet Jamie isn’t helpless, and the decision to focus on her makes the film deeper and darker.

Let’s face it, Laurie Strode doesn’t have much of a backstory.  She’s a smart girl who can’t get a date.  That makes for some fun banter, but great drama?  Nuh-uh.

Jamie Lloyd, on the other hand, has issues.  Her parents are dead, she’s struggling to find her place within a foster family, and she has recurring nightmares that someone is out to get her.  Now, that’s drama!

A special shout-out to Danielle Harris for her wonderful performance as Jamie in her debut film.  Danielle’s face reflects her emotions with such transparency that she both steals your heart (“Double scoops?”) and breaks it (“Whoever you are, I have a big dog and he bites!”).  Plus, her final scowl is positively chilling.

Ellie Cornell is appealing, as well, as Rachel Carruthers, Jamie’s foster sister.  McElroy pins the heart of the film on Rachel’s arc, which is summed up nicely in a line from her dad: “That little girl needs all the love we can give her and all you can do is think about yourself.”

From that moment on, Rachel does everything she can to show Jamie how much she cares, from taking her trick-or-treating to running over the Nightmare Man with a pick-up truck.

Even a supporting character like Sheriff Meeker is given a moment or two to shine.  In the original, Sheriff Brackett is relegated to the role of Loomis’s sidekick.  He never confronts Michael and never realizes that his own daughter is in danger.

In Halloween 4, Meeker is a man of action.  He scoops up the girls and brings them to his house, to protect them from Michael.  Then, he grabs his shotgun and hits the streets, to protect his town from the “beer bellies.”  When the shit hits the fan, Meeker is the man you want at your side.

Loomis has a better arc, as well.  The film both celebrates and openly questions his obsession with Michael.  This uneasy mix is nicely illustrated when Loomis almost shoots a trick-or-treater dressed as Michael, only to back off when two other kids appear with the same costume.

As with many moments throughout Halloween 4, the incident recalls an earlier one.  This time, from Halloween II: the scene where unlucky Ben Tramer is mistaken for Michael, chased at gunpoint into the street by Loomis, and hit by a car.

The scene plays better in Halloween 4.  Not only does it make more sense – Michael’s infamous mask could have become a meme by ‘88, whereas Tramer couldn’t possibly have been dressed as Michael on that night in ’78 – but we also get to witness Loomis’s confidence cracking over his near fatal mistake.  In Halloween II, he refuses to acknowledge that he might be wrong.

In another moment that builds upon ideas from the earlier films, Loomis declares that he has defeated the “E-ville” at the end, only to discover that it very much lives on.  In the original, Loomis processes this failure with unblinking disbelief.  In Halloween 4, he loses his mind!  His anguished cries of “No, NO!” cement the film’s powerful ending.

Finally, there are the “Beer Bellies.”  These all new, all drunk, all heavily armed buffoons start out as comic relief and end up as body count.  In between, they provide a tragic distraction for the Sheriff and even achieve a whiff of redemption by the end.  Their inclusion makes for the type of entertaining subplot that would have helped Halloween II immensely.

Of course the lifeblood of any Slasher is the set piece, and Halloween 4 delivers some classics:  The trick-or-treat separation, the Meeker house lockdown, the rooftop escape, and even the absurd pick-up truck massacre.

Each is completely original and the constant change in setting, as well as attack, keeps the story moving along nicely.

And then there’s that ending.

I won’t spoil the twist, but I will say it is heart-breaking and well earned.  It circles back to the original with a clever nod and makes you identify with the monster in a way that Rob Zombie’s remake can only dream of.  It is one of those endings that is so satisfying that it makes you want to re-watch the entire film again as soon as you see it.

Looking back on it now, I wish I’d bought a ticket for Halloween 4 on that long ago October night.   Seeing the film in a crowded theater, on opening weekend, might have been as much fun as seeing the original.

This time, along with waves of fear, there would have been waves of surprise.  A person here, a person there… Setting aside their doubts and getting caught up in the movie.  For each viewer, a different tipping point.

Perhaps it’s when Jamie makes a new friend while trick-or-treating, or when Rachel catches her date at the home of the Sheriff’s daughter.  And you realize that you actually like these characters.

Or maybe it’s when Sheriff Meeker accepts Loomis’s story, instead of denying the danger, or when Loomis encourages the beer bellies to patrol the streets, because they are all that stands between the town and Michael Myers.  And you think, Hey, wait a minute… These people are acting smart, instead of stupid…

And that’s when the anticipation sets in.  Could it be?  Could this sequel actually be good? 

As horror fans, we want to believe.  Please, let this group of untested filmmakers succeed where the others have failed.  Let this movie make us fear the Boogey Man, again.

A movie like Halloween 4 rewards the trip back to Haddonfield.

Footnotes:

1. The pictures on this page are screengrabs from the Anchor Bay DVDs, not the Shout! Factory Blu-rays because my computer set-up is that old.  Besides, the photos are heavily compressed and do not represent the actual PQ, anyway.

2. Yes, I’ve seen both cuts of The Curse of Michael Myers and, no, I don’t find the so-called Producer’s Cut to be any sort of revelation.  The entire "Curse of Thorn" detour is a mistake.  Plain & simple.

3. For reasons unknown, Anchor Bay dropped the writer’s commentary for the Blu-ray of Halloween 4.  Therefore, it did not make it into the Shout! Factory box set, either.  This is my only real gripe with the set, which can be bought here.  It’s not a deal-breaker, but McElroy’s commentary is fun and informative.  Seek it out, if you’re curious.