THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
Like it or not, horror always finds its way back.
PLOT
Halloween: The Return of Michael Myers abandons the original anthology and resumes the slasher narrative, picking up 10 years after the events of the first two films. The Shape had been in comatose at Smith’s Grove since his former psychiatrist Sam Loomis caused an explosion at Haddonfield Memorial hoping to defeat him. Overhearing that his sister Laurie Strode has a daughter in the middle of being transferred, he breaks free and kills the ambulance personnel in his new quest of a murder spree. With Loomis having also survived the explosion, he finds out what happened and gives chase once again. When stopping at a gas station/diner, he finds Michael but the boogeyman gets ahead by igniting gas pumps to destroy his car, while he uses a tow truck to further escape. In Haddonfield, Laurie has died of a car accident and her daughter Jamie Lloyd has been living with her adopted family, the Carruthers, for some time. Her new parents Richard & Darlene (Jeff Olson & Karen Alston) plan to go to a party for the holiday occasion, leaving the eldest daughter Rachel to babysit. This openly upsets her since she planned to go on a date with her boyfriend Brady (Sasha Jenson). Knowing that the child has been having nightmares of her uncle, she plans to make the best of it by helping her pick out a last minute costume. When they go to a store to get one, Rachel tells Brady who works there that she has to call off their date which disappoints him as well. Just when Jamie picks out a clown costume, Michael appears with a new white mask and almost captures her until she screams in panic. Once Loomis reaches Haddonfield, he quickly warns Sheriff Ben Meeker (Beau Starr) what Michael plans to do. When the girls go trick or treating at night, the sheriff and psychiatrist go to the Carruthers’ home in hoping to catch him, only to discover he already left after killing the family dog Sunday. The boogeyman continues his killing spree when throwing an electric worker into a transformer which knocks down the town’s power. This incident sets up the police department to put the town on curfew as kids would quickly return to their homes. With word going out that Myers is back, a few people at a bar assemble a lynch mob to commit vigilante justice. Jamie & Rachel briefly get separated and when they reunite, Loomis & Meeker pick them up for their protection. With the station demolished, they go to the sheriff’s house. This does bother Rachel because while trick or treating, she caught Brady cheating on her with Ben’s daughter Kelly (Kathleen Kinmont). The lynch mob hope to find Myers when seeing at a park, only to discover they shot down a teenager unrelated to him named Ted Hollister. The boogeyman sneaks into the sheriff’s home and is able to kill a deputy, as well as Brady & Kelly to get to his niece. Jamie & Rachel head to the rooftop to avoid him and the latter is able to lower her down with a rope whereas she gets knocked off to the ground by Myers. With her sister unconscious, Loomis tries to protect her by hiding in a school. That backfires because Michael catches up and throws him into a glass door. He almost kills his niece until Rachel recovers & intervenes by knocking him down with a fire extinguisher. The same lynch mob help the girls take a ride out of Haddonfield, but Michael again catches up as he hid underneath the truck and kills some of the men trying to protect them. Once the girls pull over, Meeker arrives with reinforcements to shoot Michael down into a mine shaft. Once returning home however, the film ends in a cliffhanger as Jamie attacks Darlene with a knife, shocking Loomis and company as the boogeyman’s evil spirit has affected her.
THOUGHTS
Since nobody appreciated Season of the Witch at the time, it made a whole lot of sense to return to the roots that made the franchise a success in the first place. Director Dwight H Little and writer Alan B McElroy fill in the shoes left behind by John Carpenter & Debra Hill, yet it’s entertaining enough to see from start to finish. Since this is a slasher flick, you know the villainous lead is gonna make an impact with all the shock value violence you’d expect in the 80s thanks to the formula Jason Voorhees got us used to. I’m not impressed with the redesigned masks that were used here, but actors Tom Morga & George P Wilbur still nailed it in making Myers as imposing as he was before. I don’t know how you would not be scared of a man that survived an explosion and still has the strength to throw someone into a transformer or crush a face. Considering this villain proves to be relentless with his goal of committing evil, you kind of wonder what’s the point of facing it if it keeps coming back time after time and sequel after sequel. That’s where we get the pleasure of Donald Pleasance returning as Loomis to remind us the pure will in yourself is enough to do the absolute to keep evil at bay. The guy has been paranoid from the moment we met him, which is validated since he’s afraid of what Michael is capable of. In my experience, some would mistake paranoia to be deranged but this ain’t the case here because he doesn’t forget why he’s doing what he does. He has to be on top of Michael and stop him at every given chance because he can’t bare any more casualties to happen. Even though Myers still wasn’t done for after this, his efforts do make a big difference. Besides Loomis, the one protagonist we care for the most was Jamie. The young Danielle Harris is her own scene stealer because she portrays the character to be so shy and lost within due to losing so much in a short span of her life already, making it feel impossible to adjust. She’s so haunted of her uncle that she worries she’ll be just like him. Due to the pity she had over his defeat, that was enough for her to seduced by his spirit to do what was thought to be unthinkable, seeing another child harm their family. Ellie Cornell definitely sold me in making Rachel a victim of circumstance because even though she had moments of impatience, she never hated Jamie and did her best in making her feel comfortable in her new family before going into protective mode. The attack on Darlene at the end was a big shocker because it implied how evil will still make other shapes and forms when the preceding source can’t go any more. Although her death would be retconned in The Revenge of Michael Myers, it spoke volumes on how sudden things can happen in life as we know it. There are things about his movie that work, but then there are way too many things that prevent it from being closer to being as good as the original film. For starters, why wasn’t Michael severely tied down? Just because he’s sedated doesn’t excuse him of past behavior. He should’ve been restrained like Hannibal Lecter. There’s also no reason for Michael to be transferred when that is what allowed him to escape the first time around. And because of Michael breaking out before, that should give enough reason to move Jamie out of Haddonfield with the Carruthers. That family should’ve known what they in for. I don’t even see the point of Michael staring down Loomis to let him know he’s around, when he could’ve just went along with destroying the car without acknowledging him because he was like asking for Loomis to shoot him that time. And how do the kids know about Jamie’s backstory? It don’t seem like the parents would ever dare to explain Laurie’s death to them. Also, why would anyone still sell the same mask Michael wore? There’s no way a town would keep that up because that’s like condoning murder and everyone that wore the costume should be ashamed. I then gotta ask if Michael was in the store, how come noticed him from the burns once he walked in or when he rushed out once Jamie saw him? I mean it’s crazy to see him be so fast for plot convenience. Brady felt doomed from the start the second he got caught cheating, but why would he look from the front door instead of the bedroom window? He was asking for it at that point. Having said that, even with Michael bound to stack up the body count before he can get to Jamie, it was so out of pocket for Ben to threaten him of sleeping with his daughter. That is just dumber than Brady not knowing who Michael is when all the kids know. It was the place but not the time to do so. Lastly, what threw me off more than Michael getting off the roof just when Jamie does is the fact the latter she overcame coming down after Rachel let go of the rope. It looked like she threw her back out when that happened. Other than that, it’s as entertaining as you’d expect. In short, Halloween: The Return of Michael Myers holds up in finding its way to be the edge on your seat kind of movie. If the previous Halloween films are something you enjoyed, I don’t imagine you not liking this either.
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