Jamie
Oooooooo, baby. Now we’re starting to cook with fire. Remember when Michael was shot with a machine gun, fell down a well, and was blown up by dynamite? Forget all that. Instead you’ll be treated to a real funny scene where they show him crawling away just before the dynamite goes off so that he can float down river and find his way to a homeless man who, no joke, takes care of him for an entire year! An entire year where Michael is apparently comatose! Who the hell is this dude who lives down by the Haddonfield River (I assume) taking care of random people in comas?! Give me his origin story. This is the level of film we are dealing with here. Not only do they feel the need to show and tell the audience exactly how Michael could have survived the end of the last movie, but they do it like they are aliens that have never encountered human beings and/or normal film narrative. Following Michael’s return for revenge we obviously also get the return (and revenge?) of Loomis and he’s actually disturbingly insane at this point. The rest of the film is psychic connections, The Cult of Thorn, and The Man in Black and at this point I’m sure you’re totally confused. Actually watching the film doesn’t help much. The film is just 90% teeny-boppers getting murdered while dressed up sexy for Halloween and 10% unexplained supernatural nonsense. We end with a cliffhanger where Michael and Jamie are captured from jail by The Man in Black and it really feels like the people making the film were just saying “We dare you. We dare you to try to explain away this shit.” And they were right. The next entry is forced to lean into the real dumb stuff done in this one.
Really the film is building an incredible amount of lore in the most confusing and vague way possible. I appreciate it in the sense that I love dumb lore. I love franchises where a random person can come in and be like “I’m putting my stamp on this,” and no matter how stupid everything is, fans of the franchise have to try to explain all of it. And to think, for six years fans had to try to explain this movie with only the vague hints from this one as guidance. Would love to see what kind of theories came about in that time. The funniest part of all this is that I legit think this might be the second scariest of the films in the first six entries. There are a lot of creepy scenes with Michael skulking about a house without people knowing. He’ll creep silently out of a closet and disappear only to jump out for the kill later. Then they totally submarine it all with the lore. They can’t help it. Gotta make your mark on the series. Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers? More like Even More Contrived: The Film’s Plot is Still Dire … yeah turns out there isn’t much to rhyme with these titles. Loomis is back, jack! And he’s ready to disappear for 30-40 minutes until he saves the day juuuuuuuuust at the end of the film. Let’s go!
- Yeah, well this one is totally better than the other ones because in those Loomis disappeared for about 30 minutes showing up moments before Michael kills the hero. In this one he does that twice! Take that, all the other Halloween films!
- Man a mysterious Man in Black? A mysterious Thorn symbol on Michael’s wrist? Can’t wait to learn what that is all about … Oh wait, you never do. Just whole elements left for a sequel which didn’t ultimately happen for six years. Imagine if they never made Halloween 6? Oh to live in such a beautiful world.
- Full blown mystical psychic connections? Ahhhhh, finally, Halloween is catching up with what Friday the 13th was putting down for years in that bonkers series.
- All that being said: the film at times is a decent cheesy slasher. I’m thinking of the barn scene. Which incidentally is also the scene which seemed most similar to Friday the 13th.
- These two Halloween films are so weird. If the notes are to be believed there were half-decent scripts being developed, but then the directors just threw them in the trash in favor of gore and franchise horror tropes. And then all of the stuff from the other scripts ended up being peppered into the next five films.
- Once again a solid Setting as a Character (Where?) for Haddonfield, IL. And an A+ Holiday Film (When?) for Halloween. This might actually be the Worst Twist (Why?) ever for the inexplicable non-twist of actually telling us anything about Thorn and the Man in Black!
- This is a BMT film through and through, or at least required viewing for Halloween 6.
Once again, it feels like there isn’t a whole lot to say about Halloween 4 and 5. They are an odd turn in the franchise where Carpenter was half-pushed out of the production and people who seemingly didn’t care much for the established lore (or even really the fundamental idea of the franchise) took over. And it is why against all odds, it is the worst franchise of the big three … although I haven’t seen Resurrection. There is an outside shot that saves it to some degree since it looks truly b-b-b-b-b-b-bonkers.
Cheerios,
The Sklogs
Bad Movie Twins 