After the exciting and unexpected ending of Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, we come to Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers. Instead of leading on from H4’s ending, they decided to do the same ol’ same and have Michael rest in a coma for a year, while being cared for by a hermit, before continuing his rampage of terror. Oh Halloween 5, what happened to you? You had such potential…
Short nitty-gritty plot description from IMDb is as follows: It’s one year later after the events of Halloween 4. Michael survives the shootings and on October 31st he returns with a vengeance. Lurking and stalking, Jamie, Rachel, and Rachel’s friends, Michael forms a plan to lure Jamie out of the children’s hospital where events lead up to the confrontation at the Myers house. Halloween 5 is a dark, thrill ride that will scare the heck out of you!
Halloween 5 is not a good movie, that’s the nicest way to put it. They managed to kill off important characters, squander epic endings and create the most awful Michael Myers mask possible. How was this possible to do, when just the year before, you had a great Halloween movie?
As you may already know, I like movies that continue on from the last and Halloween 5 does continue directly from the end of Halloween 4. However, the idea to ignore that awesome and chilling ending from Halloween 4 and instead show that Myers escaped the explosion, only to once again go into a coma and be taken care of by a hermit for a year, was beyond stupid. How did this hermit not know about Michael Myers? You would think he would tell the police, instead he cares for him and eventually meets Myers on the bad end of a knife. That’s not the only problem with the movie however, the Myers house has now been turned into a giant mansion, for some odd reason and Danielle Harris (Jamie Llyod) has been reduced to a mute role, where she has psychic visions of Myers killing people. Yes, ladies and gents, she now has a physic link with Michael, due to the touching moment she had with Myers, at the end of the previous film. As for the much advertised (on my vhs copy that is) “unmasking” scene; during a moment of brief calmness, Jamie asks Michael to see his face. He removes his mask and you see a quick flash of his eye, with a single tear rolling down his cheek. That’s all you get. I kid you not people, I kid you not!
There is also no explanation given for the sudden change in Michael Myers appearance. His mask is completely different and awful looking, with a serious case of receding hairline. Thankfully, the man behind that mask isn’t as bad. Donald Shanks does an admirable job taking over. I liked the one scene where he dons a different mask to pretend he is the boyfriend to one of the teenagers, which can only be seen as a homage to the ghost sheet disguise from the first movie.
Several people from the fourth movie return. Donald Pleasence is back once again as Dr. Loomis and my god has he gone insane. Screaming and constantly putting Jamie in harms way, he certainly has tipped the scales of sanity. Beau Starr (Sheriff Meeker) and Elie Cornell (Rachael) are also among the others to return. By the way, if you thought you would get through the Halloween series without some awful acting, you were wrong, dead wrong! I give you Wendy Foxworth as Tina Williams, a symbol of the 80s gone bad. Annoying and dumb is still not enough to describe her character. You know what, just watch (spoilers). Tina isn’t the only bad one though, she shares that honor with two bumbling cops. Comedy relief misplaced is the only way to describe them. The director even has the audacity to add clownish music to play along with their buffoonish antics. Awful, just awful.
Even though this film may suck on so many levels, there is a least one or two suspenseful scenes and an intriguing mystery involving a mysterious man in black. My favorite pulse racing scene would be where Jamie is trapped in the laundry shoot and Michael is furiously stabbing into the chute and trying to grab Jamie. It’s a pretty tense scene in a movie full of tension-less scenes. As for the man in black, there is no explanation given for him and it does seem rather odd they added him in the film, but you do know he is bad cause he kicks a puppy. Halloween 5 also has another cliffhanger conclusion and while it may not be as epic as the 4th movie, it does make for a fun ending, which left you guessing for the next six years, as to what the hell just happened.
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers is an awful sequel, made even worse when coming down from the high of Halloween 4. I can only recommend giving it a watch to see where they decided to go with the series and for a few interesting ideas. Besides that, it’s a dull cheesy film and one who’s budget looks to be shoestring.
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