Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers
HORROR-THON 2025 • BAD BLOOD
6/10
DIRECTOR: Dwight H. Little
STARRING: Donald Pleasence, Ellie Cornell, Danielle Harris
RELEASED: 1988
RUNTIME: 1 hr, 28 minutes
WATCH ON: Shudder, AMC+, Amazon, Apple TV, Fandango at Home
SCARE LEVEL: Medium
THE MASK: Needs a refund
After Halloween III tried to move the franchise on without him, the studio panicked and brought Michael back. The title isn’t subtle about it. He’s back, and the whole movie is very excited to tell you.
Ten years after the first Halloween night, Michael has been in a coma. During a transfer between hospitals, he overhears that he has a niece. Laurie Strode has died, and her young daughter, Jamie Lloyd, lives in Haddonfield with a foster family.
Michael wakes up and walks home. Dr. Loomis, scarred but still at it, chases him back to town. Jamie, her foster sister Rachel, and pretty much all of Haddonfield spend Halloween night trying to stay alive, while a truck full of local men with rifles decides to handle it themselves.
MY HUMBLE OPINION
Danielle Harris as Jamie carries the whole movie. Kid actors in horror are usually the weakest link, and she’s the best thing in it.
The clown costume is a smart callback. Jamie wears one trick-or-treating, just like little Michael in 1963, and the movie knows exactly what it’s doing with that.
Rachel deserves her own award for babysitting under pressure. She’s a teenager with a cheating boyfriend and a homicidal foster uncle, and she still shows up.
But the mask is off. It’s too white and too smooth. It doesn’t look like Michael. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. But it’s still terrifying to pop out next to a child’s bed.
This is also where the Jamie storyline starts, which eventually leads to the cult in The Curse of Michael Myers. I’m reviewing these out of order, similar to, you know, how AMC shows them all scrambled, but trust me, this revisit made me see quite a bit I didn’t notice before.
FUN FACT FOR YOUR NEXT DINNER PARTY
Lindsey, the random person who drives Rachel and Jamie to the discount mart, was going to be revealed to be Lindsey Wallace from the original Halloween. It was intended to be a larger part in the movie with her helping Rachel to babysit, but it was cut for budget reasons.