Tuesday Cap - Vol. 5

Title: Halloween 4 - The Return of Michael Myers

Notes: With horror franchises, especially ones with quite the longevity, it's difficult to make a good sequel, no? A second one is often bad, but there are times where it's just as good. HALLOWEEN II was pretty damn awesome, and one of my favorite. The third installment, an attempt to branch out the brand name in different directions, to take a anthology approach to the holiday, failed miserably. Critically, financially, it's just rubbish. So what's a company to do? Well, years later, bring back Michael Myers and continue the Strode storyline, 'course! Except Jamie Lee Curtis didn't want to do it again (although she would come back for the seventh and eighth), so the writers went with Laurie Strode's daughter, Jamie Lloyd, and have her haunted by visions of Michael who wants her deado. Why? Well, those reasons are sussed out in a odd manner in THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS, but let's not diddy-daddy with that just not. HALLOWEEN 4 is phenomenal, a true sequel to the original two, and maintain the same atmosphere of spookiness and freakiness, not just with Michael Myers, but also the whole movie. Y'know, how John Carpenter's film had a sense of tension with every shot, like things were escalating even though it was slow moving, in a way; RETURN is something similar. And when the movie is heading towards its climax, it's one hell of a exhilarating ride. RETURN is also noteworthy for being the last film of the franchise to have remotely likable characters, as the following film REVENGE OF MICHAEL MYERS boasts the unanimously hated in all of fandom "Tina", and the characters don't get any better from then on out.

Tonight, AMC will be airing HALLOWEEN III - SEASON OF THE WITCH and HALLOWEEN 4 - THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS. With no reservation, I'd recommend giving HALLOWEEN 4 a shot. It's not Halloween without...y'know, HALLOWEEN.

Discuss: Did HALLOWEEN 4 ruin the franchise, or save it? Was Donald Pleasence awesome or was he awesome? What did you think of the Jamie Lloyd character and how they wrote Laurie out? Did you like the score? Opinions? Share!