IHdb

ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - October 21st

"HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS" released in 1988

Don't miss out on future blogs, trailers, and clips IHdb has coming up
by Following IHdb's Facebook page above!

On October 31, 1988, Michael Myers (George P. Wilbur) is being transferred to Smith's Grove Sanitarium by ambulance. As paramedics talk about Michael having a niece, he awakens, kills them, and makes his way to Haddonfield to look for her. Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence) learns of Michael's escape and gives chase, tracking him down  to a gas station where Michael has aalready killed a mechanic for his clothes, along with a clerk. Michael then escapes in a tow truck and causes an explosion, destroying Loomis's car in the process.

Meanwhile, Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris), the daughter of Laurie Strode and Michael's niece, is living in Haddonfield with her foster family, Richard and Darlene Carruthers (Jeff Olson and Karen Alston), and their teenage daughter, Rachel (Ellie Cornell). With Richard and Darlene palnning to head out for the night, they make Rachel babysit Jamie, which causes her to break her date with her boyfriend, Brady (Sasha Jenson). That night, as Rachel takes Jamie trick-or-treating, Michael goes to the electrical substation and disables it by killing a worker, plunging the town into darkness, just as Loomis arrives in Haddonfield to warn Sheriff Ben Meeker (Beau Starr) that Michael has returned. During the blackout, Rachel discovers Brady cheating on her with Meeker's daughter, Kelly (Kathleen Kinmont), and loses track of Jamie. While wondering alone, Jamie is attacked by Michael and barely escapes when she is reunited with Rachel.

When Michael attacks a police station and kills all of the officers, a lynch mob is formed by the town's men, including a local bar owner, Earl Ford (Gene Ross), to take down Michael, while Loomis and Meeker find Jamie and Rachel and take them back to the Sheriff's home to wait for backup from the state police. Also at Meeker's house is Brady and Kelly, and the they quickly barricade the doors and windows, as Loomis leaves to look for Michael alone. They are all however unaware that Michael has already slipped into the house undetected and quickly kills Kelly and Brady, and chases Jamie and Rachel onto the roof. While Jamie is lowered to safety, Rachel is attacked by Michael and thrown off the roof. Pursued by Michael, Jamie runs down the street and finds Loomis, and the pair hide inside Jamie's school. Again, Michael tracks them down, setting the scene for a terrifying finale where Jamie faces the same monster that almost killed her mother on that first bloody Halloween night!

[Security Guard escorts the Paramedics down in the elevator]
Security Guard: Yeah, the one you're picking up, just thinkin' about him gives me the 'willies.' A decade ago-Halloween night-he murdered sixteen people, maybe more, trying to get to his sister. Nearly got her, too. But his doctor, of all people, shot him six times, then he set him on fire. Both of them nearly burned to death. Yeah, I'll be glad to see this one gone. Oh yes, indeed-dee!

Top:   Dr Samuel Loomis (Donald Pleasence) once again must face Michael Myers;

Above:   Michael's new target is his recently discovered niece, jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris)

After Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Moustapha Akkad wanted to move further with the series, including bringing series villain Michael Myers back to screens. Around this time, original Halloween director John Carpenter was approached by Cannon Films, who had just finished 1986's release of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, to write and direct Halloween 4. Debra Hill planned to produce the film, while Carpenter teamed up with Dennis Etchison who, under the pseudonym Jack Martin, had written novelizations of both Halloween II (1981) and Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) to write a script to Halloween 4. Carpenter wrote a first treatment for the sequel that had a more ghostly psychological approach to the Michael Myers mythos - It concerned the town of Haddonfield and what effect the events of the first two films had on its citizens. This concept was later rejected by the producers Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan, who were in favor of a more typical slasher fare. With the script rejected, Carpenter and Hill sold all their remaining interest in the Halloween series to producer Moustapha Akkad, who promptly developed the film with a completely new script, also to be fashioned around the slasher film boom of the 1980s. Halloween 4 would be first time in the series not to have the participation of Carpenter or Hill.

Screenwriter Alan B. McElroy was then brought on to rework the script. But with a looming Writers Guild strike set to begin on March 7, 1988, McElroy had just 11-days to develop a concept, pitch the story, and send in the final draft.  McElroy came up with the idea of Brittany "Britti" Lloyd, Laurie Strode's orphaned daughter (the Laurie character having been killed in a car accident sometime before), to be chased by her uncle, who has escaped from Ridgemont after being in a coma for ten years. Dr. Samuel Loomis, who has also survived the fiery explosion at the end of Halloween II, goes looking for Michael with Sheriff Meeker.

Early drafts of the screenplay for Halloween 4 included many subplots that were omitted from the film, including the return of the Lindsey Wallace character - the little girl Laurie babysat with Tommy Doyle in the first movie - now as a teenager and friends with Jamie's stepsister Rachel, and helps her babysit Jamie, before encountering Michael Myers yet again! McElroy's screenplay also featured an opening sequence that showed how Loomis survived the explosion in the hospital at the end of Halloween II (this scene was cut from the final draft as the producers decided the film should not have any connections to its predecessors). McElroy delivered the final screenplay on March 6, just hours before the Writers Guild strike began.

 Above:   Michael Myers (George P. Wilbur) is back!

Before McElroy's script was chosen, the producers asked Jamie Lee Curtis to reprise her role as Laurie Strode, the original's heroine. But by then, Curtis had become a success in the film industry and had established a career with her roles in films like Trading Places (1983) and A Fish Called Wanda (1988), and did not want to continue her participation in the series (although Curtis would in fact return as Laurie Strode in Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later and Halloween: Resurrection). This meant that only Donald Pleasence, returning as Michael's former psychiatrist and arch nemesis Dr Samuel Loomis, to be the only actor from the last two films to reappear in the sequel.

By now having changed the characters name to Jamie Lloyd (in a homage to Curtis), director Dwight H. Little auditioned numerous young actresses for the role, including Melissa Joan Hart, finally casting Danielle Harris in the role of Michael Myers niece. Twenty-three-year-old Ellie Cornell was soon cast as Jamie's stepsister Rachel, who ironically had auditioned for both Halloween 4 and A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (for the part of Kristen Parker after Patricia Arquette decided not to reprise the role). Kathleen Kinmont, Sasha Jenson, and Beau Starr also joined the cast, with George P. Wilbur playing the part of Michael Myers.

Instead of filming in Pasadena, California (the original filming location and stand in for Haddonfield) due to high-rising costs, filming took place in Salt Lake City, Utah, beginning on April 11, 1988. As filming was taking place during springtime, the producers were forced to import leaves and big squash, which they would use to create pumpkins by painting them orange (which was also done during the filming of the original Halloween). With production scheduled to last about 41 days, stars Cornell and Harris would be required to be on set for 36 of those days. It was while filming the intense chase sequences, Wilbur would occasionally take off his mask so Harris wouldn't be scared and to remind her it was all pretend. To bulk up for the character, Wilbur also wore thick hockey pads under his costume to make his Myers' character a more imposing figure.

Dr. Samuel Loomis: We'll hear some sirens soon.
Jamie Lloyd: Then we'll be safe?
Dr. Samuel Loomis: Yeah.
Jamie Lloyd: You don't believe that, do you?
[checks door, then pauses]
Dr. Samuel Loomis: No...

Top:   Jamie's stepsister Rachel (Ellie Cornell) struggles to protect Jamie from Michael;

Above:   However, nothing can prepare them for the brutal ending still to come!

When shooting the rooftop chase scene, Cornell was injured by a protruding nail as she slid down the roof. After a quick trip to the local hospital she finished the scene with her bandages in place, which according to Harris, "It didn't even faze her." Gaffer Garlan Wilde was also seriously injured during the filming of the Michael and Brady confrontation, when while setting a light, it fell and cut his wrists. Originally, when Jamie and Loomis were trapped in the school, Jamie hid in a classroom under a desk, and when Michael entered searching for her, he starts throwing the desks over. Although due to time constraints this sequence was not shot for this film, it was remembered by producer Akkad and later re-used in Halloween H20.

It was briefly considered that the customized 1975 Captain Kirk mask be reused for this film. However, the mask was long gone and a new one was purchased from a local costume shop. The producers wanted to test and see what it would look like without the edits, but when later reviewing the school scenes the producers did not like how the mask turned out. It was allegedly customized again but did not live up to the original, and the producers felt it was too old and went for a new mask. Some scenes had to be re-shot with the new mask, leaving the only scene where this mask is seen is when Loomis is thrown through a glass door; as Michael comes up behind him, the unaltered face and blonde hair is visible.

After viewing the film's rough cut, Little and Akkad decided that the film's violence was too soft, and so an extra day of "blood filming" commenced with Special effects make-up artist John Carl Buechler (director of Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood) being brought in to create the thumb in the forehead kill and neck-twisting of the redneck seen in the film's final cut. Also changed was the original ending, which was to have Rachel go upstairs to take a shower and replace the dirty, blood-stained clothes she was wearing only to have Jamie sneak up behind her and stab her to death. This scene was later changed to Darlene Caruthers but this scene was remembered for Halloween 5 (1989) and was used for Rachel's death scene.

TRIVIA:   Danielle Harris sold the clown costume to a fan.

Top:   Director Dwight H. Little on set;

Above:   Little with star Donald Pleasence

Halloween 4 opened in 1,679 theaters on October 21, 1988 and grossed $6,831,250 in its opening weekend, achieving a total domestic gross of $17,768,757 in the United States, becoming the fifth best performing film in the Halloween series. Although, despite the box office success, The Return of Michael Myers received mostly negative reviews; Richard Harrington of the Washington Post writing, "H4 is very much the cheap knockoff of its prototype, but not half as visceral." Variety reviewed Halloween 4 as, "a no-frills, workmanlike picture.", with critic Chick O'Leary adding, "Although this is just more of the same old same, Halloween 4 is directed with some skill by B-movie specialist Dwight H. Little." Despite a negative reaction, then newcomer Danielle Harris received much praise from fans and critics, as did veteran actor Donald Pleasence, who was also praised. 

Harris and Pleasence would return for Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, with production on the new film beginning a mere 7-months after the release of Halloween 4. With a rushed production, Halloween 5 was released less than year after Halloween 4, and was meet with mostly negative reviews and a lukewarm performance at the box office.

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   29%

___________________________________