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Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
1988 | Horror
7
6.7 (20 Ratings)
Movie Rating
A nice return for Michael.
Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris) is having nightmares of Michael Myers coming after her. When he returns to Haddonfield, Jamie and her sister Rachel (Ellie Cornell) must fight for survival. Luckily, Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence) also returns to stop Michael.

Halloween 4 is more of a blunt movie then its predecessors. It lacks the inventive camera work of Carpenter, and Michael comes across less sneaky, he's much more aggressive.
Loomis feels a bit unneeded, the mask is weird looking, the score isn't as good.

But there is still plenty of good. Harris's performance is pretty good, especially for child actor standards. Jamie's nightmares are surprisingly fairly creepy. The various death scenes are brutal and unsettling.

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers is a pretty simple slasher. But it put the franchise on a new steady path, and it gave us Danielle Harris which is a plus. It's definitely not a film you'll hate, and if you like the Halloween franchise it's a must watch!
  
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)
1989 | Horror
3
6.1 (10 Ratings)
Movie Rating
The fall of the franchise.
Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris) now has a psychic connection with Michael Myers, she has visions showing who and where he is going to kill next.

If that sounds dumb to you, then trust me, the movie will feel dumb too.
Halloween 5 feels more like a Friday the 13th movie, filled with dumb teens getting picked off one by one, featuring some unrealistic subplot to distinguish it from other entries.
Gone is the eerie suspense, the music is a shadow of the original's score. Gone too is the tension of asking "where is Michael?" As Jamie's visions literally show us where he is.

 There is also a weird change, in Halloween 4 Leslie L. Rohland played the part of Lindsey Wallace, shown as a friend to both Jamie and Rachel (Ellie Cornell), Leslie did not return for H5. In Halloween 5, they cast Wendy Foxworth as Tina Williams. What's confusing is Leslie and Tina are very similar to one another, they look alike and their characters were similar. In H5 they played off like Tina had known Jamie from before. So it begs the question, if you had to recast why not keep the same character? And if you had to change character, why not cast someone unlike Leslie? I don't know but it's always bugged me.

There are a couple of good things to say about it. Some death scenes are intense and brutal, the ending is good, intense with a decent twist.

Overall though, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers is the first entry in the series that really truly disappointed me, mostly due to its dumb story.