HALLOWEEN 5: THE REVENGE OF MICHAEL MYERS (1989)

Studio:       Anchor Bay Entertainment
Director:    Dominique Othenin-Girard
Writer:       Michael Jacobs, Dominique Othenin-Girard, Shem Bitterman
Producer:  Ramsey Thomas
Stars:     Donald Pleasence, Danielle Harris, Ellie Cornell, Beau Starr, Jeffrey Landman, Tamara Glynn, Jonathan Chapin, Wendy Kaplan, Betty Carvalho, Troy Evans, Don Shanks

Review Score:

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Summary:

Still hunted by Dr. Loomis, Michael Myers resurfaces one year after his last killing spree to pursue his young niece Jamie.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

After falling into an old well in a hail of gunfire, Michael Myers crawls through an underground passageway and escapes to a nearby river. An old mountain man finds Michael and nurses him back to health in his waterside fishing shack.

Halloween Eve – One Year Later – At the Haddonfield Children’s Clinic in Illinois, Jamie Lloyd wakes from a recurring nightmare in which she stabs her foster mother Darlene. In reality, Darlene recovered and Jamie has been mute since the incident. Jamie’s connection to her uncle allows Jamie to remotely sense Michael’s actions as he is suddenly inspired to don his mask and strangle the hermit.

Foster sister Rachel Carruthers comes to comfort Jamie at the clinic. Dr. Loomis interrupts when Rachel’s friend Tina Williams sneaks in to visit Jamie with the Carruthers’ dog Max.

When Rachel is home alone later, Jamie’s psychic intuition tells her something is wrong with Max. Fearing Michael has returned, Loomis calls Rachel with a frantic warning. Deputies Nick and Tom briefly investigate, but find Max safe and nothing amiss. Afterward, Michael sneaks into the house and kills Rachel.

Loomis warns Sheriff Ben Meeker that Michael Myers has returned to Haddonfield. Loomis and Meeker are called to the cemetery when a coffin for a nine-year-old girl is found stolen.

When Tina is unable to find Rachel at her home, she assumes Rachel left on a trip with her parents. Tina meets up with her friend Samantha and boyfriend Mikey as they prepare for a Halloween party later that night at Tower Farm.

Michael starts stalking Jamie as the young girl experiences more frightening visions. Loomis implores Jamie to help him find Michael, but she remains paralyzed by her anxiety.

A mysterious Man in Black with a wrist tattoo that matches Michael’s arrives in Haddonfield by bus. He and Loomis separately explore the abandoned Myers house.

Tina, Samantha, and Mikey meet up with Sam’s boyfriend Spitz to get beer for the party. After his car is loaded up and he is alone, Mikey is murdered by Michael.

Wearing a different Halloween mask, Michael uses Mikey’s car to pick up Tina, who thinks her boyfriend is playing a prank on their way to the party. Jamie has another anxiety attack at the same time. With the help of Jamie’s young friend Billy Hill, Loomis interprets Jamie’s hand motions to deduce that Tina is in trouble. After learning Tina’s location, deputies pick up Tina at a gas station while Michael drives away unnoticed.

Tina comes to the clinic and her reunion with Jamie prompts Jamie to start speaking again. Over Loomis and Jamie’s objections, Tina leaves to go to the party, but deputies Nick and Tom are assigned to escort her.

Jamie sneaks out of the clinic to go after Tina. Billy accompanies Jamie.

At the farm party, Tina, Sam, and Spitz prank the deputies by staging a fake Michael Myers attack. Afterward, Tina leaves Sam and Spitz alone in the nearby barn. While Spitz and Samantha have sex, Michael impales Spitz with a pitchfork. Michael then decapitates Sam with a scythe.

The deputies spot Michael leaving the barn, but initially presume they are being pranked again. Michael kills them both.

After everyone else leaves the party, Tina looks for her friends and discovers the four bodies. Jamie and Billy arrive at the farm as Michael chases Tina in Mikey’s car. Michael starts chasing the kids until the car crashes into a tree and explodes.

Michael exits the wreck and stalks toward Jamie. Tina allows herself to be stabbed to death so that Jamie and Billy can escape. Loomis and Sheriff Meeker rescue the children. Loomis appeals to Jamie once more to use her bond to help him capture Michael and she agrees. Loomis shouts through the trees that Michael should go to his house if he wishes to be rid of his rage. Loomis promises to be waiting there with Jamie.

The police stage a heavily-armed sting at the Myers house. Knowing that Michael will not show up with so many men present, Loomis concocts a plan to get Michael alone with he and Jamie. Jamie senses Billy is in danger. Sheriff Meeker orders everyone back to the clinic, where Dr. Hart is later found dead, and assigns Deputy Charlie to escort Jamie to the station for safety. Everyone else leaves, but Loomis stops Charlie at gunpoint to make sure Jamie stays behind.

Michael murders Eddy outside in his patrol car before entering the house. Loomis tries making an appeal to Michael, but Michael slashes at the doctor and throws him through a railing.

Michael goes upstairs and strangles Charlie with a rope ladder while Jamie hides in a laundry chute. Jamie falls, but manages to climb out while Michael stabs at her through the metal.

Finding the front door locked, Jamie flees to the attic. There, she finds the bodies of Michael’s other victims assembled by candlelight around the child’s coffin. Jamie climbs into the casket when Michael comes upstairs. Michael prepares to stab Jamie, but stops when she calls him “uncle.” Jamie gets Michael to calmly remove his mask, but he goes into a rage when Jamie attempts to wipe away a tear on his cheek.

Jamie flees into Loomis’ arms. Loomis uses Jamie as bait to capture Michael with a weighted chain net. Loomis shoots Michael with multiple tranquilizer darts as Michael flails at him. Loomis then pulls a plank from a window and repeatedly beats Michael until both men collapse on the floor.

Michael is taken to jail. The Man in Black blows a hole in the sheriff’s station wall and guns down all of the officers with an assault rifle. Hearing the commotion from a squad car outside, Jamie goes into the station. Jamie discovers that everyone is dead and Michael Myers escaped with the Man in Black.

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Review:

What’s the more ridiculous premise kicking off “Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers?”  That the filmmakers wrote themselves out of the “Halloween 4” (review here) ending jam with the old “it was (mostly) just a dream” copout, or the idea that masked serial killer Michael Myers spent a full year playing Oscar and Felix as an old hermit’s unassuming roommate?

In an opening that could madden Annie Wilkes enough to break James Caan’s legs, “Halloween 5” says “nah” to the notion of little Jamie Lloyd picking up her uncle’s knife to become the family psychopath.  Foster mom Darlene recovered from that formerly fatal stabbing and Jamie has spent the time since as a sympathetic mute in the local children’s clinic.  Meanwhile, Michael crawls through a convenient cavern after his bullet-riddled tumble underground, river rafts without a tube, and finds a reclusive mountain man willing to nurse a silent murderer back to health for the next 364 days.

It’s now Halloween again in Haddonfield.  Dr. Loomis fears Michael is due to return for his annual spree of holiday homicide, and Jamie’s psychic intuition confirms the suspicion in a series of mental breakdowns that have the girl telepathically mimicking her uncle’s current actions.

Everyone else has moved on since last year’s slaughter, despite knowing that Michael is still out there with his bad penny habit of popping up on October 31st.  This includes Sheriff Meeker, initially dismissive of Loomis’ renewed ranting, as well as Jamie’s foster sister Rachel, who chooses to go away for a few days during the exact time when Jamie needs her sisterly comfort the most.

Rachel doesn’t make it far, however.  Possibly aiming for a “Psycho”-styled bait and switch, Michael offs Rachel early.  This move is but one of many scriptwriting missteps burying “Halloween 5” under an avalanche of poor characterizations and miscalculated relationship dynamics.

With Rachel out of the picture, Tina steps in as Jamie’s surrogate sister of sorts.  Who is Tina?  Rachel’s never-seen-before best friend with an ultra-affectionate attachment to Jamie that Rachel should have instead.

Out of nowhere, “Halloween 5” forces a family-like link between Jamie and a brand new, unrelated person when it already had that existing bond between Jamie and Rachel.  To pay for a first act “surprise” kill, “Halloween 5” removes any emotional impact the adult/child connection could have by inserting one more person who would actually rather booze it up with her oversexed buddies than console a traumatized tike.

Not that either Rachel or Tina invest much care in Jamie’s ongoing ordeal in the first place.  Rachel confusedly refers to herself as Jamie’s stepsister even though they are related through adoption, not remarriage.  And Tina doesn’t find it at all in poor taste to prank a pair of dimwitted deputies by pretending to be a Michael Myers victim later in the movie.

“The Revenge of Michael Myers” also provides an almost entirely humorless portrayal of Dr. Loomis.  Gone is the nervously laughing man feeling embarrassed by a quick trigger in front of Sheriff Brackett.  Or the booze-swigging hitchhiker smirking at an alcoholic priest’s car karaoke hymns.  Two smiles briefly crack on the grizzled doctor’s face here, with one expended on a dead animal jump scare.  Loomis is otherwise grim, even violent, about his ongoing obsession to capture Michael at any expense.  It’s uncomfortable watching him forcibly grab children willy-nilly, at one point putting his hands on Jamie in frustration to the point where it seems he might shake her to death.

The plotting of the climax is laughable.  A heavily-manned, heavily-armed sting is staged to capture Michael with Jamie acting as bait.  Putting a nine-year-old girl in harm’s way is already a stretch for law enforcement personnel who would like to keep their jobs.  Then when trouble elsewhere demands immediate attention, the sheriff orders everyone to the other location stat.  I counted no less than five squad cars with sirens and a fully-staffed SWAT van pulling away, yet the sheriff leaves behind only one, count ‘em, one deputy to escort Jamie back to the station.  What could go wrong?

“Halloween 5” visually mimics many of the memorable setups from John Carpenter’s original (e.g. Michael’s staircase silhouette, behind-the-body stalking outside of school, etc.), but it is missing the same soul of stylistic suspense.  Popular opinion favors “Halloween 4” as one of the more appreciated sequels, though I find “Halloween 5” neither appreciably worse nor better.  “The Revenge of Michael Myers” is probably a few hairs dumber than “The Return of Michael Myers,” but that movie had its share of pretty ridiculous moments and plot devices, too.

Standing out as a letdown in the overall series, “Halloween 5” still pairs well on a double bill with its immediate predecessor in the same way that “Halloween” and “Halloween II” are good for back-to-back viewing.  A big part of that is related to the aesthetics of both being filmed in Utah only one year apart.  Another part has to do with both being mediocre movies that could have done with one more pass on the shooting script, or in this case, a different screenplay entirely.

For fun, because “Halloween 5” is in dire need of it, spot a mustache-less Max Robinson as Jamie’s doctor.  “Silent Night, Deadly Night” fans will recognize him as the deputy who shoots the deaf priest dressed as Santa in that far superior holiday horror movie.

Review Score:  60

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