Original Release: 1988

Ten years after the fiery destruction at Haddonfield Memorial Hospital ending HALLOWEEN II, medics arrive at a maximum security sanitarium to transfer a patient on a stormy night.  Michael Myers has lain in a coma for the last decade, charred by his explosive battle with Dr. Sam Loomis.  Now he's being remanded back to the custody of Smith's Grove Sanitarium — Michael is coming home again.

Shocking news awakens Michael from his catatonic state: though Laurie Strode and her husband died in a car crash, Laurie's daughter Jamie is alive and living in Haddonfield.  Michael's inhuman drive to kill his family is rekindled when he learns of his niece, and evil is reborn as Michael kills the ambulance attendants transporting him.

Jamie Lloyd, a troubled seven year-old girl, sits awake after another sleepless night, haunted by nightmarish fears of the Boogeyman.  Rachel Carruthers, teenage daughter of the foster family who have taken in Jamie, attempts to console the little girl. But Jamie remains grief-stricken over the loss of her parents eleven months ago.  Little does Jamie know that the Shape she sees at night is terribly real, and he's actually her uncle come back to hunt her down.

Halloween morning, Dr. Sam Loomis is furious to learn that his patient, Michael Myers, has been released from Ridgemont.  Loomis too bears the scars from his fiery confrontation with Michael ten years before, but his determination to keep "evil on two legs" from killing more people remains unshaken.

But new blood is already spilled, as Loomis and the state police sift through the carnage left behind at the ambulance accident scene.   Authorities assume Michael died in the crash, but Loomis knows his patient all too well, and leaves for Haddonfield.

On the road, Loomis actually catches up to Michael at a gas station, evidenced by the body count of the workers.  Loomis fires off wild shots with his pistol but Michael escapes in a tow truck, destroying the gas pumps in a massive explosion.  Loomis escapes the blast, but the fire has destroyed the telephone poles, cutting off communications to Haddonfield.  With no way to warn the town Michael is coming, Loomis pursues him home again.

Children at school mercilessly taunt Jamie for not wearing a Halloween costume, worsening the girl's feelings of unwanted isolation in Haddonfield. After school, Jamie tries to show a brave face by insisting Rachel take her shopping for a costume to go trick-or-treating.

Rachel breaks the news to her boyfriend Brady that she must babysit Jamie tonight, spoiling their date plans.  While the young couple bicker, Jamie picks out her Halloween costume: a clown outfit.  She models before a mirror, only to have a vision of herself as young Michael Myers in his same clown costume from the night he murdered his sister!  Her hallucination is broken by a real living nightmare: Michael standing behind her, having stolen a mask off the shelf to become The Shape again!

Halloween night arrives and Jamie eagerly goes trick-or-treating with Rachel.  While they're out, Michael breaks in and finds Jamie's photos of her mother Laurie.  Meanwhile Loomis, finding Sheriff Brackett has long since retired, attempts to warn Sheriff Meeker that Michael has returned to Haddonfield to kill Jamie.  Meeker vows to retrieve Jamie into safe custody then begin the manhunt for Michael.

While trick-or-treating with Jamie, Rachel finds Brady keeping company with Kelly Meeker.  In the distraction of their spat, Jamie wanders off into the night with other children — Rachel has lost Jamie!

The local bar owner and patrons see the special bulletin issuing a town curfew, but when they call the Sheriff's office to confirm, there's no answer at the station.  Michael executes the next deadly step in his plan by electrocuting a power station worker and disabling electricity throughout Haddonfield.

Rachel searches for Jamie through the dark streets but finds The Shape pursuing her instead.  Rachel unwittingly leads Michael to Jamie when they reunite, and are saved from Michael by Loomis and Sheriff Meeker.

Loomis and Meeker return to the police station to find the entire squad has been slaughtered by Michael.  Frightened locals form a shotgun posse to hunt down Michael Myers themselves, but end up killing one of their own friends by mistake.

Sheriff Meeker returns home to interrupt daughter Kelly's romantic liaison with Brady.  The Sheriff assembles his remaining deputies and barricades his home to keep Rachel and Jamie safe.  With no phones or power, Meeker issues a short wave distress call to neighboring towns for backup.  With Jamie in safe custody, Loomis leaves to stake out the old Myers home, the place where their fates are inevitably intertwined.

But first Michael must play his murderous game on Halloween night, breaking into Meeker's home to kill Rachel and Jamie's protectors one by one.  Brady makes a brave last stand but Michael crushes his neck barehanded.

Rachel and Jamie escape out onto the roof but Michael pursues, and a dangerous chase across the tiles ensues.   Rachel lowers Jamie to safety on a loose cable, but falls off the roof avoiding Michael's knife.

Patrolling citizens pick up Rachel and Jamie and drive them to safety as the state police arrive to pursue Michael in Haddonfield.   Again Michael gains the upper hand, having hitched a ride on the back of the truck.  He throws the locals off the truck, leaving Rachel at the wheel while Michael struggles from atop the cab to reach Jamie.

Eventually Rachel's maneuvers throw Michael off the truck, and she plows the vehicle straight at him.  Sheriff Meeker and the troopers arrive at the scene just as Jamie touches the hand of her uncle's lifeless body.   The Shape suddenly arises to make one last grab for Jamie.  Meeker and the troops open fire as a hailstorm of bullets blast Michael down into an abandoned mineshaft, apparently destroyed once and for all.

Loomis and Meeker escort Rachel and Jamie to the Carruthers home.   Mrs. Carruthers draws a bath for the little girl, but in a trance Jamie sneaks up on her foster mother and attacks her! Loomis responds to the scream upstairs, only to see clown-costumed Jamie at the top landing, holding bloody scissors.

Loomis screams in terrified denial and is about to shoot Jamie before Sheriff Meeker intervenes.  Loomis, Meeker and the Carruthers can't believe their eyes — has the evil which possessed Michael Myers been passed down to this innocent seven year-old girl, his own niece, Jamie Lloyd?

After HALLOWEEN III, John Carpenter and Debra Hill had sold their rights to the film franchise, leaving future sequels in the hands of executive producer Moustapha Akkad, who became and remained the fond caretaker of the HALLOWEEN series for the remainder of his life.

Given how audiences responded so negatively to the unrelated story of HALLOWEEN III, Akkad knew for certain that any new film must return to the Michael Myers storyline.  Fan expectations and hunger for The Shape demanded it.

Thus even the title HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS made the franchise objective unmistakably clear.  Reportedly John Carpenter wrote a treatment for this fourth installment which focuses more on the haunting legacy Michael held over Haddonfield, which had banned the holiday Halloween because of the bloodshed left in his wake.

Alas Carpenter's psychological approach proved too cerebral for Akkad's franchise vision, who preferred a return to its popular slasher origins.  Producer Paul Freeman and director Dwight Little were hired for the project, and Alan McElroy was chosen to script the new chapter.

Yet even at the start, HALLOWEEN 4 was under enormous pressure in production: McElroy had less than two weeks to write the entire script for the film to avoid shutdown in the upcoming Writers Guild strike.  A self-proclaimed fan of the first two HALLOWEEN films, McElroy worked feverishly to develop a new-yet-related storyline involving Michael Myers, and he completed the script in a mere 11 days.

Having beaten the strike deadline, production could proceed on HALLOWEEN 4, but unlike Michael, the film would not return home to Pasadena, California to begin filming where cinematic Haddonfield was born a decade before. 

To fit a tight five million dollar budget, the crew would film on location near Salt Lake City, Utah.  While gaining a somewhat authentic midwest look for this new Haddonfield, ultimately Utah failed to match Carpenter's version of the imaginary Illinois town which was, after all, filmed in Southern California first.  Ah, the ironies of movie making, where Hollywood makes illusion more realistic than reality can be.

Even the opening of the film would differ greatly from HALLOWEEN I and II, as director Dwight Little opted not to use the familiar pumpkin push-in shot for the opening credits, accompanied by John Carpenter's infamous score. 

Instead Little created a montage of hauntingly vacant landscape scenes, punctuated by a variety of Halloween-associated images and symbols.  While Michael Myers was returning in HALLOWEEN 4, it was clear the filmmakers also wanted to establish their own direction for the franchise, starting with the opening frames of the movie.

Such independence from Carpenter's storyline was underscored best by Little cutting out the opening McElroy had written into his script, which picked up at the climactic explosion ending HALLOWEEN II. McElroy's excised scene showed that Dr. Loomis was blown out of the hospital wing by the fiery detonation, thus explaining how he survived the presumably fatal finale penned by Carpenter in 1981.

It may have been just as well director Little cut such a direct tie to HALLOWEEN II, since both Loomis and Michael's destruction seemed certain at the end of that film, as intended by Carpenter.  Explaining how Loomis escaped with only burn scars on his face and hands is one leap of faith for an audience, but it shed no light how Michael Myers escaped being burned to a cinder as shown in the same scene.  Best just to fudge the story and move on quickly — besides, audiences already proved they wanted more of Michael Myers at any cost, including the sacrifice of story logic from the previous sequel.

Rule Number One of a successful film franchise: never let facts get in the way of profits.

A grueling and strenuous production schedule of 41 days ensued, with a majority of the film shot at night across several Utah locations.  With production scheduled for spring of 1988 to put the film into theaters by October, once again dead leaves and painted squash were shipped to Utah for that simulated autumn look in the otherwise lush, green locale. 

This time the characters of Rachel Carruthers and Jamie Lloyd carried the burden of the plot.  Actors Ellie Cornell and young Danielle Harris worked nearly every day of the long shoot, doing a great deal of their own action scenes and stunts.  In fact, Ellie sustained a nasty puncture wound by an exposed nail during the rooftop chase scene with The Shape.

Also doing yeoman's work was the new Michael Myers, played by stuntman George P. Wilbur who would later reprise his role in HALLOWEEN 6 — the only performer to play Michael twice in the series.   Wilbur's physique varied substantially from the previous two Shapes: he was stockier than Nick Castle (H1) and nearly three inches taller than Dick Warlock (H2). 

Wilbur's interpretation of The Shape was more physically menacing in size and strength, and lacked the somewhat robotic quality which Castle originated in 1978 and Warlock studied in the 1981 sequel.   As a result, there is less eerie mystery to Michael's presence in HALLOWEEN 4, whether by direction or acting interpretation.  Certainly the story de-emphasized Michael's overriding, nearly supernatural sense of pure evil, despite Loomis' renewed soliloquies on the subject of his patient-turned-prey.

Missing from HALLOWEEN 4 is the element of Michael's inhuman (not to mention insane) patience for exacting his evil deeds upon his victims.  As the story opens, Michael arises from his coma ten years after being nearly destroyed by Loomis.  The moment Michael hears he has a living relative, his young niece, he arises as if turned on by a switch to resume killing again.  And thus gone from the story is Michael's ability to plot and plan how he will unleash his evil on the world.

Loomis always maintained that Michael's true weapon was his corrupted mind, bent on killing but so deviously deceptive about his bloody intentions that no one sees he will strike until it's too late. 

By writing this defining trait out of Michael in HALLOWEEN 4, The Shape is reduced to little more than an insane man determined to kill his niece.  The story doesn't even establish why Michael feels compelled to kill Jamie, other than the fact she is Laurie's offspring — thus exposing another unsatisfying turn in the franchise and a reduction of Michael's established motivation. 

The absence of Laurie, presumably a story shift resulting from the fact that Jamie Lee Curtis was either uninterested or unaffordable to reprise her role, removes half of the story which makes Michael Myers become The Shape.  No doubt this is why Carpenter felt his own story ran out of steam even while writing HALLOWEEN II: keep Laurie and Michael alive in constant battle and the story merely repeats itself; kill off either character and the story ends.

In all fairness to the filmmakers, they solved this problem the best and perhaps most logical way they could: give Michael another blood relative to hunt down and kill. While being compelled to hunt his niece bears no relation to the kill sister motivation behind Michael's demented yearning, at least it kept the story all in the family. 

On the other hand, killing off Laurie Strode and her husband to leave Jamie an orphan proved a drastic plot device with far-reaching implications for subsequent sequels. 

Still, the creation of Jamie Lloyd renewed the HALLOWEEN franchise in a nice, neat package which explored new dramatic ground while not straying too far from the original films.  HALLOWEEN 4 let Michael become a little too Jason-like in the weapons and methods in which he killed his victims — impaling Kelly with a shotgun? — which diluted the character as a trademark knife slasher.  But the mandated return of Donald Pleasence as Loomis brought Michael and the film series back on course, delivering what fans had awaited seven years to enjoy again.

In October 1988, fans eager to see the return of Michael Myers embraced this fourth chapter with open arms and high box office grosses.  Ticket sales surpassed the film's production costs on the first weekend of release, and HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS went on to become one of the most successful films in the entire franchise. 

As promised in the title, HALLOWEEN 4 returned Michael Myers to theaters in October 1988.  Fans welcomed the franchise's resumption of a storyline centered on their favorite knife-wielding maniac, but the film came with its own controversial attitude and plot twists.

Like the results or not, at least one must credit Moustapha Akkad, director Dwight Little and screenwriter Alan McElroy for looking both backwards and forwards simultaneously while creating their new sequel — not an easy task while attempting to single handedly revive a stalled, once-successful horror franchise.

Had HALLOWEEN 4 failed to recapture fans and revitalize the film series after the critical and box office disaster of HALLOWEEN III, the franchise could easily have died then and there.  

Fortunately, executive producer Akkad held as much affection for the character of Michael Myers as moviegoers did, and thus boiled the concept of HALLOWEEN 4 down to the basics: bring back Michael (even at the cost of story logic) and give him a new victim to hunt down obsessively.

Thus Jamie Lloyd, the orphaned daughter of Laurie Strode, was born (at age seven) on the pages of a script.  With no sister to pursue, place his only living blood relative in his path and let Michael's mayhem begin.

It was a deceptively simple idea that also had long term implications which opened up a Pandora's Box of plot complications in the franchise.  But for the immediate purpose of discussing HALLOWEEN 4 on its own, inventing Jamie as Michael's niece worked well enough with the established storyline leftover at the end of HALLOWEEN II.

Fans already understood the backstory that Michael Myers had seriously psychopathic issues with his siblings, so keeping HALLOWEEN 4 all in the family made resuming the story easy for returning fans to digest and for the studio to promote.

Such an quick leap of faith for the audience also made it easy on the filmmakers to gloss over Michael's motivation for wanting to kill little Jamie Lloyd, which was a convenient cheat to exploit.   No lengthy exposition was required, just a couple of set-up scenes that inform the audience and Michael that Jamie exists, and the rampaging plot is rapidly in motion.  Back to the slicing and dicing Michael and audiences love best!

This lack of story-defined motivation for Michael to hunt Jamie did have one subtly damaging effect on both his character and the future of the franchise: without a solid dramatic spur for Michael to target Jamie, he became less defined as an individual horror icon and more like the faceless copycat slasher villains populating weaker HALLOWEEN-rip off films in the market. 

Michael's irrational desire to kill Laurie made him a compelling, standout psychopath in film history.  But to substitute any screaming victim in his path and have him react the same way risked turning Michael into a robotic butcher — the Energizer Bunny with a mask and knife... he just keeps on slashing and slashing and slashing.

Two key elements helped prevent the storyline from deteriorating into a mindless, terror-void bloodbath, at least for the sake of HALLOWEEN 4: the return of Donald Pleasence and the sympathetic performance of Danielle Harris.

Both Dr. Sam Loomis and Jamie Lloyd called back to John Carpenter's central theme explored in the 1978 original: fate as an inescapable part of life and death.  Michael Myers personifies the relentless march of fate as it inevitably catches up to and confronts its victims and foes: Laurie, Loomis, Rachel or Jamie, at some point their battle with fate scars or slays them. 

In a delightfully eerie way, Sam Loomis is the literary other half of Michael Myers, the psychiatric caretaker of all humanity and morality which Michael shed when he first put on a mask and killed.  Thus Loomis' return in HALLOWEEN 4 was crucial to both the film's and the franchise's success.  Just as Michael never stops killing, Loomis never stops hunting down the monster he failed to keep locked away safely from civilization.

Loomis exists to remind the hapless souls of Haddonfield that pure evil is forever lurking in the shadows — and solely in terms of narrative, Loomis exists to keep Michael alive as an individual character worth following from sequel to sequel.   As long as decent script material allowed, tremendous credit is due to Donald Pleasence for keeping the franchise alive and killing, especially in HALLOWEEN 4.

While the film may have been fuzzy on exactly why Michael wanted to kill little Jamie Lloyd, young Danielle Harris played the part so effectively that audiences couldn't help but buy into her terror.  At the tender age of ten, Harris created a sympathetic young heroine without the usual bad-acting trappings of a childhood starring role.

Danielle Harris tackled the task of acting out her inner demons, thankfully without overacting the part to distraction. Jamie shrieked in terror without straying into shrill annoyance, sobbed in despair without being a cry baby, and feared her uncle's wrath with maturity beyond her years.  The role was a tall order indeed for such a young actor, but Harris skillfully enacted the series' most involving victim-to-be since her namesake Jamie Lee Curtis did in the 1978 original.

This powerful one-two punch of character work from Pleasence and Harris restored a beating heart to HALLOWEEN, a virtue which was cynically carved out of the utterly empty exercise in blunted horror that was HALLOWEEN III.   Fans knew that the fourth film wouldn't be mistaken for the first classic by any stretch, but THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS was the fix they yearned for since 1981.

HALLOWEEN 4 sharpened the series' edge and restored its lethal relevance in the horror genre once again.  The film as an individual installment succeeded handily, but its legacy cast a long shadow over the remainder of the franchise, proving that any knife cuts both ways.

Such a backslash arose at the film's finale as Jamie, in a trance after touching her uncle's scarred hand, picks up a pair of scissors and stabs her foster mother. As Jamie stands at the top landing of the stairs, dressed in her blood-splattered clown costume just like Michael did 25 years before, Loomis howls in horrified denial — the evil of Michael Myers lives on!

The scene might be the most shocking twist in the entire HALLOWEEN saga since the opening minutes of Carpenter's original, revealing that six year-old Michael was the killer of his sister Judith.  Of course this callback was entirely deliberate on the part of Dwight Little and Alan McElroy, but the impact of this echoed revelation with Jamie was a bona fide shocker.

Jamie was written and played so sympathetically, the utterly innocent victim of fate and a family curse she knew nothing about, that her surprise turn into the darkness of Michael's insanity was a bold blitz against audience expectations.  This stunning gambit in the franchise narrative blasted the same unsettling shockwaves through the next two sequels, so far-reaching were its effects.

Unmistakably, the climax of HALLOWEEN 4 is where the film series diverts drastically, almost defiantly from Carpenter's original tale: evil is not only inescapable, its genetically contagious.  While this concept of inherited evil certainly drives home the theme of fate as an immovable force in the universe, Jamie's surprise attack finale also shot holes in Michael Myers' character almost as badly as the gunfire fusillade unleashed upon him, blasting him to Hell.

Would Akkad really proceed with the HALLOWEEN story centered on a seven year-old serial killer?  Could he possibly pursue that concept and leave Michael Myers to rot?  No doubt remained that HALLOWEEN 4 kickstarted a badly misguided horror franchise, but this shock ending also pointed the way to a new and dangerous future.  Not only did the young heroine survive Michael's murderous mission, she took over the family business!

Just as the film resurrected Michael Myers upon fan demand, it handed over the knife-wielding keys to a young child to carry on his masked tradition.  This twist presented huge challenges in following up HALLOWEEN 4's success, and also for Akkad, Michael Myers' champion who had just produced his apparent dethroning as the king of the slashers.  

The final two minutes proved that troubles in Haddonfield were only beginning, and HALLOWEEN 5 soon took events from bad to worse.