.jpg)
Director: Dwight H. Little
Writers: Alan B. McElroy, Dhani Lipsius, Larry Rattner, Benjamin Ruffner
Cast: Donald Pleasence, Ellie Cornell, Danielle Harris, George P. Wilbur
Runtime: 88 mins.
1988
Halloween, misshapen and immediately iconic, births the slasher subgenre. Halloween 2 attempts to provide more of the same, with limited success now that Carpenter has vacated the director's chair and indulged in some less disciplined screenwriting. Halloween 3 boldly compensates for Carpenter's total departure by striking off into the direction of anthology; the result is bizarre, and not popular enough to justify the follow-through of that vision.
Thus Halloween 4 emerges bereft of innovation. The top and only priority is a return to the watering hole. The subtitle "The Return of Michael Myers" oozes desperation, as if begging for grace from a jilted lover. Back to formula! Unfortunately, while Halloween 3 was dithering about with originality and Halloween masks melting children's heads into bugs, the formula has grown entirely stale. In all its cowardice, Halloween 4 drinks it down nonetheless.
The film begins with-- surprise, surprise-- a prisoner transfer at the psych ward. Among the colorless cast of characters are the aide who catches up the newcomers with spooky exposition, the warden who is damned glad to get this patient out of his hair, and the anesthesiologist who simply does a very poor job. There are no twists or fake-outs in Michael's escape. His restraints are minimal, his patience thin. He simply wakes up and starts whooping ass as soon as the ambulance hits the road.
So begins the litany of all the lamest kills in the series thus far. Everything feels rushed. Director Dwight H. Little has no skill for tension. Michael just sort of walks up to people and throws them into an electrical array or something. The closest Little can muster for style is obscuring the frame with a bunch of junk in the foreground, like rusty hooks and nondescript machinery.
I was momentarily surprised when Sheriff Ben Meeker (Beau Starr) reacts sensibly to an urgent warning from Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence). Maybe this is actually going somewhere, I hope as Meeker orders a Halloween night lockdown. As it turns out, this hasty curfew functions as a paltry excuse to save money on extras, and limit the action to one or two sets. The entire purpose of "Halloween" as a franchise is to highlight the walkable community. Michael goes from house to house with sinister fluidity, providing 'trick' when 'treat' is expected. Not so in this barren version of Haddonfield, IL. The closest we get to an eye on the community is a gormless bunch of rednecks who go out Michael-hunting. In their banner sequence, they hear something in the bushes, unload about thirty shotgun blasts into the general vicinity, and then act surprised when they've actually killed a teenaged community member. We don't even see the corpse! They just gawk at the out-of-frame carnage and mutter the kid's name... Was it a character we had met before? Are we meant to care?
It's funny to reflect upon how much Pleasence's Dr. Loomis felt like an unwelcome hanger-on in Halloween 2, as he is the only element to add a speck of gravitas here. The solitary worthwhile scene is his encounter with Michael in a gas station. After finding the bodies of service workers that Michael has strewn about the building, Loomis catches sight of the Shape watching him from the next room. The worn down old man makes a plea to Michael for the violence to end, finally, after all these years. All the more pathetic because he knows how deaf are the ears to which he pleads. With desolation behind his eyes, he hefts a gun to fire pointlessly into the space where Michael was a moment ago.
No other character is worth mentioning, but we'll do our diligence. Franchise anchor Laurie Strode has been unceremoniously killed offscreen. We aren't even given the good grace of learning how. Her role is filled by Rachel Carruthers (Ellie Cornell), adoptive sister and frequent caretaker of Laurie's orphaned daughter Jamie (Danielle Harris). There's nothing wrong with swapping out the principal cast of a franchise. There's everything wrong with making us watch characters with 0.5 personality traits for an hour and a half. The only characteristic the writers can muster for the family unit is a seething undercurrent of domestic resentment.
As we arrive at the final twist of the film, centering little Jamie, I am left with a profound feeling of who cares. For such a twist to work we need to be invested in the well-being of the characters in some way, shape, or form. Instead, I am left baffled as to why Michael thought it so important to hunt down these particular crumbums in the first place.
0.5 / 5 BLOBS
No comments:
Post a Comment