Review of Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988) by Luciusmcgibbon — 08 Dec 2012
Is it as good as the first one? No. Is that a fair statement? No. Halloween II did its fair share to distance the franchise from its brilliant roots, and with no Carpenter on board, H4 didn't stand a chance to fully right the ship.
That said, it got plenty of things right; this is probably the best of the many, many sequels in the series. Can't say I was crazy about Michael's mask in this one, and the opening murder scene is too much of a stretch, even for this kind of movie.
On the plus side, the atmosphere and viewer psychology of the first movie are back; the traumatized town in a blackout makes an awesome setting, and there is a better balance of scare scenes versus down time, which tricks you into letting your guard down in time for big moments.
And even though I was never that crazy about the ending, it is undoubtedly a clever attempt at bringing the franchise full circle. Of all the different canons of Halloween out there, the I-II-4 trilogy is the best, as long as you pretend that 5 and 6 never happened.
This review of Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988) was written by Luciusmcgibbon on 08 Dec 2012.
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers has generally received mixed reviews.
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