(1989) ***
Although this one had its fair share of stupid, I'm giving a higher rating than #4. That's mainly because I didn't hate every second the little girl was on the screen. Turns out she can actually act decently, and the ongoing horror reflected in her face made the movie much more worthwhile.
We open with a recap of Mr. Myers' last known whereabouts, at the bottom of a mine shaft about to be dynamited. He reaches an old man's hovel and promptly konks out. One year later he's still in the old guy's house, laid out on a table, mask on a nearby hook. Bye bye old guy.
After the movie asks us to swallow that, the rest is just the basic stuff it always asks of us, like: wouldn't they ban Halloween in Haddonfield, or at least the sale of Michael Myers masks? Shouldn't they make it a crime to imitate Michael Myers in Haddonfield? Why do they make the poor little girl stay there? Why does anyone else stay? And most importantly: how have they had Loomis around for a whole year and not beat the crap out of him?
Jamie's been rendered mute from last year's events (a nice touch), but starts having Laura Mars style visions after Michael wakes up from his nap. Loomis is there, yelling at her and everybody else. Although her initial visions fail to turn up Michael, nobody notices that she's accurately clairvoyant in picking out the location of her friend Tina. Michael nabs a muscle car with a trunk full of beer -- I thought this time maybe he'd get laid and chill out, but he starts with the pitchforking. Later he uses the muscle car to try to run Jamie down (Bad slasher! Lazy!).
Loomis employs some touchy-feely stuff like his counterpart in Alone in the Dark, but it's really a trap to catch Michael. It actually works, and Loomis gets to ptonk Michael's head a bunch of times. They capture him alive. Then, after lurking around for the whole movie, some dude with metal-tipped boots that has the same tattoo as Michael (wha?) goes Terminator on the jail and busts him out. Who the heck has it in for Haddonfield so bad?
7 comments:
I liked part 4 better. Part 5 begins the process of changing Haddenfield from a typical middle-class burb to a town of hillbillies. The other weird thing that starts to happen in the franchise is that the Myer house begins to take on different physical dimensions. In the original Halloween, Michael's house was just a regular-sized suburban dwelling. By time we get to the last installment, it's huge.
I agree with your observations. Of course they would ban Halloween and white masks if this ever really happened. In fact, I can't imagine any parent would ever let their kid out of sight if they actually even opted to have kids and live in Haddenfield!
I haven't seen this one in a while but I do remember Loomis really began to piss me off with his unhealthy, scratchy voice and complete obsession with Michael Myers.
Off subject - but I'm really going to miss this come the end of October. It's one of the highlights of my day! ...hmmm, what does that say about me?
D.
It says that you're cool, baby! don't worry, we have plans to keep the blog going on a daily basis. Stay tuned. . .
Re: JPX's comment on the hillbillies: It's in Halloween 4 that Loomis incites a bunch of beer-bellied gun-toters to go roam around town as a posse.
Apropos of nothing, the little girl playing Jamie is a babe now.
It's true about keeping the blog going. We're having too much fun. I don't know about "daily" though, jeez.
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