The best of the original timeline sequels, "Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers" sees Michael Myers (George P. Wilbur) awake from a ten-year coma and set his sights on his niece Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris), a mission that leads to some of the most memorable scenes of the series and, for my money, the franchise's greatest concluding shot.
The cast and characters are great. Donald Pleasence truly comes into his own as Dr. Loomis during this movie, madly pursuing his murderous patient to Haddonfield and getting some of his own character's best scenes in the franchise along the way. Meanwhile, Danielle Harris is a revelation as Jamie Lloyd, daughter of the now-deceased Laurie Strode, who finds herself pursued in real-life by the same masked monster who has haunted her dreams. Then there's Ellie Cornell as Rachel Carruthers, one of the unsung leads of the "Halloween" series, who gets her own iconic rooftop chase scene with a blade-wielding Myers and deserved much better than what "Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers" had in store for her and her character. As for Michael himself: he may have been saddled with a pretty cheap looking mask, but otherwise this is one of his best incarnations, being a blend of the menacing stalker-type killer he was in John Carpenter's 1978 original and the more brutish slasher of the latter sequels.
Directed by Dwight H. Little with an eye for autumnal details and a keen awareness of what a slasher movie audience wants, "Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers" is a return to form for the series, setting a standard that other "Halloween" movies would struggle to match and concluding on a dark note -- suggesting a transference of evil between Myers and his latest quarry -- that still hits hard after multiple rewatches. This is a great slasher movie; one of the best of its decade.
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