As I have said before, an astute critic once noted that the Friday The 13th series was the ultimate in recycling, so much so that one often had trouble telling which sequel they were watching after a while. The fact that Friday The 13th was basically plagiarized (and not very well at that) from Halloween didn't save the Halloween franchise from falling victim to the same repetition curse. It's somewhat ironic, and troubling, that the one Halloween sequel that dared to be different from episodes two, four, and the other four dozen, generally gets the harshest criticism.
Halloween 4 picks up years after the end of Halloween II, a film that decided to follow an atmospheric original with a clichéd gorefest that is so devoid of impact it is a wonder the franchise has lasted at all. In a regurgitation of the anonymous-relative cliché that proves Moustapha Akkad was watching The Empire Strikes Back just a little too closely, we are told that Laurie Strode was killed in a car accident, but not before she gave birth to Jamie, who is played in this and the next episode by Danielle "If I Only Had A Career" Harris. Doctor Loomis is there, naturally, to give us his usual melodramatic spiel.
According to something I just read, the makers of Halloween 4 felt that the finished film was too soft, and added some pickups to increase the gore factor. I must have blinked and missed these inserts, because in comparison to Halloween parts two and five, there is really very little to get carried away about here. Even the footage at the end of this episode is presented in a very tame fashion compared to when it appears in the next.
A popular defence of Halloween 4 is that it at least has the titular Shatner-masked character in it. This, however, is a poor defense for formulaic dribble that brings nothing new to the genre. We keep hearing about how Michael escapes from this or that unnamed facility, and how he drives the requisite overnight drive to Haddonfield, are left to our imaginations. As in they show us absolutely nothing that gives us a clear idea of how Michael achieved these small goals. We're simply told Michael does these things, and expected to take it as read. Still, the things that we are being told aren't completely ludicrous, as happens in later sequels.
I gave Halloween 4 a one out of ten. There are far better serial killer-based films out there. This one is only worth investigating if you're really bored.
Halloween 4 picks up years after the end of Halloween II, a film that decided to follow an atmospheric original with a clichéd gorefest that is so devoid of impact it is a wonder the franchise has lasted at all. In a regurgitation of the anonymous-relative cliché that proves Moustapha Akkad was watching The Empire Strikes Back just a little too closely, we are told that Laurie Strode was killed in a car accident, but not before she gave birth to Jamie, who is played in this and the next episode by Danielle "If I Only Had A Career" Harris. Doctor Loomis is there, naturally, to give us his usual melodramatic spiel.
According to something I just read, the makers of Halloween 4 felt that the finished film was too soft, and added some pickups to increase the gore factor. I must have blinked and missed these inserts, because in comparison to Halloween parts two and five, there is really very little to get carried away about here. Even the footage at the end of this episode is presented in a very tame fashion compared to when it appears in the next.
A popular defence of Halloween 4 is that it at least has the titular Shatner-masked character in it. This, however, is a poor defense for formulaic dribble that brings nothing new to the genre. We keep hearing about how Michael escapes from this or that unnamed facility, and how he drives the requisite overnight drive to Haddonfield, are left to our imaginations. As in they show us absolutely nothing that gives us a clear idea of how Michael achieved these small goals. We're simply told Michael does these things, and expected to take it as read. Still, the things that we are being told aren't completely ludicrous, as happens in later sequels.
I gave Halloween 4 a one out of ten. There are far better serial killer-based films out there. This one is only worth investigating if you're really bored.