Review of Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989) by Kevin D — 29 Oct 2012

Michael Myers has one thing in mind throughout the whole movie: REVENGE! I love subtitles and this one has one of my favorites. I'm supposed to believe that Michael Myers wants revenge on a city of people that he routinely kills on Halloween? Sure, they ended up stopping him in the last sequel, but we know he never dies. He started shit with Haddonfield first. They had nothing against him. If anything this should be called the revenge of Haddonfield. Oh well.

This 1989 crime drama follows Dr. Sam Loomis as he once again wants to stop Michael Myers before he goes on his seemingly annual Halloween killing spree. Sam Loomis is probably one of the smartest doctors in the history of cinema. This time around he feels like a cartoon image of himself. He's like a combination of R. Kelly and tv's Dr. Steve Brule. I swear, I haven't seen Loomis pull his gun out more times than he did here.

When I watch these movies I wonder what the characters do when it's not Halloween. Does Dr. Loomis work with any other patients or does he just wander around Haddonfield looking for Michael? Also I wonder why people stick around Haddonfield on Halloween when they know very well that Michael is bound to show up.

Something else I like about this series is the relationship between Myers and Loomis. They had a one way relationship for 15 years when Loomis looked after Mike in the mental hospital. Ever since Michael became a killer, Loomis has almost always been directly responsible for Michael's "deaths". That's why the Loomis-Myers scenes in this movie are so great. With all of the history between the two, it's great seeing them interact with one another. You'd think that they'd want to slit each other's throats, but that's not the case this time around.

Loomis tries to be conversational with Michael and seems intent on helping him at times. On the other hand Michael seems disinterested in killing Loomis. Despite the fact that Loomis has shot and "killed" Michael numerous times before, Michael essentially disregards him here. You better believe that Michael puts a ton of effort in killing random side characters he's never met before. He makes sure they're dead. He'll slit their throats, stab them into walls, hang them, etc. But when he goes man to man with a defenseless senior citizen, Loomis, the best Michael can do is braze the doctor's arm with his knife and knock him over a staircase, making sure there's an object to break Loomis' fall. I mean why would he want to kill Loomis? Then they wouldn't be able to make a sequel.

In this movie we're always aware of Michael's location. That's no longer a mystery. The music always gets louder when he's near in order to alert us, just in case we can't seem him. It's as if the filmmakers don't want us to feel scared or tense. All of the effort in this movie is put into cheap jump scenes. You know, the ones where a cat jumps at the camera, or where two friends unexpectedly run into each other. If the effort put into the cheap jump scenes was put into scenes where Michael surprised the audience/characters my rating for this film would be much different.

One of the worst things about this movie is how safe and politically correct it is. There's even a wink at the audience promoting safe sex! If that's not good enough for you, the opening of this movie kills any hopes viewers had after Halloween 4. The ending twist to that movie is revealed to be an exaggeration. It turns out that Jamie did stab her mom at the end of Halloween 4, but the mom didn't die and Jamie is under medical supervision. What could've been a promising new direction in a dying horror series, a young disturbed girl slowly becoming evil, goes to waste. The filmmakers chose to play things safely and make Jamie innocent.

This decision wasted the talents of Danielle Harris, who once again plays Jamie. All of the acting potential she showed in the last film was diminished here. The script is really at fault there. Jamie doesn't have much to do here. It's revealed that she's mute and unstable, so we're treated with scenes of her mumbling and when she does talk, she has a limited vocabulary.

The movie does have a few things going for it. The death scenes are okay and the stakes definitely get raised in the last half. The movie is supremely watchable and it makes for a fun entry in the series.

The twist ending is a downer and is just straight up laughable. I would call the twist a shameful plug in for a sequel, but by sequel number 5 this series was beyond shame.