Last night I resumed my Halloween-athon with Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers (1988).

I never watched most of these higher-numbered sequels when I was a kid, so this is uncharted territory for me. This film sought (as it says on the tin) to return Michael Myers to the franchise after fans were left confused and angry by his absence from the last installment. Apparently, John Carpenter and Debra Hill were originally attached to this and intended to produce 4 as a ghost story, but when Moustapha Akkad demanded that Michael return in the flesh, they left the project and sold their stake in the series. That's a real shame, because I would have loved to see more of Carpenter's vision for the series.

What this film ended up being is a soft-reboot of the series, following the plot of the first movie beat by beat, with a slight twist here and there to keep it from being a straight remake. Despite having been completely incinerated in a massive fireball, with visual confirmation of Michael's body being reduced to ashes, both he and Dr. Loomis reappear in this film with some minor cosmetic burns, and in Loomis' case, a limp. I guess a little of Michael's supernatural durability rubbed off on him. Not Laurie though. She's dead as a door-nail, off-screen (I think they said it was a car crash, but this movie cares so little about Laurie that they may not have even explained the cause), and the focus has shifted to her young daughter, Jamie (Danielle Harris).

Once again Michael is being transferred between facilities (instead of dumped into a pit filled with wet cement, for some reason), on the eve of the tenth anniversary of his worst crimes. The orderlies in the ambulance let slip that Michael has a niece, and he immediately awakens from his ten-year coma to go do something about that. Jamie is being raised by the Carruthers, and has a step-sister named Rachel (Ellie Cornell). Rachel will basically be this movie's Laurie, with the standout difference being that she can kind of talk to boys. Michael repeats his original routine pretty much exactly; killing a mechanic for his overalls and robbing the hardware store for his mask (which they are still selling, in the town where the murders occurred, ten years later. Yikes.)

Jamie mostly slots into the story where Tommy and Lindsey were in the original. She is relentlessly bullied by kids at school for her relationship to the 'Bogeyman', and is supposed to be watched by Rachel while their parents are off at a Halloween party. The one interesting thing about her character is that she seems equally drawn to and repulsed by Michael's story. She is too scared to go trick-or-treating, but changes her mind after being bullied, and asks to go buy a costume. The one she chooses is instantly recognizable as the clown costume that young Michael was wearing when he killed Judith back in 1963. As she tries on the mask she sees herself as Michael, and then sees Michael bearing down on her, ready to kill. It turns out to be a dream, or vision, but Michael really is either inside or just outside the store, at that moment, waiting to grab his Shatner mask. If you watch movies at all, or just have a basic understanding of foreshadowing, it's blindingly obvious at this point where the movie is going, even if I want it not to.

The plot unfolds just like it did the first time, more or less, with Michael bumping off a few more folks on-screen this time, and Loomis running around with a different Sheriff. There's also a mob of angry bar patrons who decide to go lynch Michael when they hear he's escaped, which is kind of fun. Overall though, it just feels far, far too similar to the original. They even recreate the original score almost exactly, rather than punch it up as in II, or create a new composition as in III.

The big 'twist' ending comes after Michael has been blown away by a redneck firing squad (which will surely keep him down this time...), and Jamie briefly touches his hand. Loomis is finally ready to breathe a sigh of relief when Jamie puts on her clown mask, proceeds up the stairs, and murders Rachel with a pair of scissors. We end on a close-in push on Loomis' face as he just howls "No! No! No!" over and over, as he realizes that whatever inhuman evil it was that animated Michael long beyond his limits, has passed into Jamie.

I'll be honest, I was bored most of the time I was watching this. Once I realized just how much it was going to retread the original, it was hard to stay focused. It's not badly made, and most of the elements that made the original great are here, intact, but there is nothing new or interesting about this installment. It really feels like Moustapha Akkad was trying to pull a fast one here, relaunching the franchise without its originators by just copying what they had made to the best of his ability. If Donald Pleasence hadn't returned for this, it would feel very much like a made-for-TV adaptation of the original movie, and his presence can only elevate the film so far.

I'll give this one 3/5 stars. I was tempted to go lower, but the film is not poorly made on a technical level. If the direct references to a prior film were removed, this would be an okay (but not great) remake of Halloween, and I do fundamentally like the Halloween formula. I am curious to see where it goes from here. If Jamie actually returns in full The Shape mode, I will be very pleased, but I'm not expecting it to happen. Speaking of The Shape, it is portrayed in this one by George P. Wilbur, and (no disrespect to him, he's had a long successful career in stunt work) it's just lacking something. At first I thought Michael was too visible most of the time, but in the original he stands in full sunlight, completely exposed a few times, and it's still scary. In this one he just lacks the presence necessary to be scary while completely silent, and it noticeably detracts from the experience. So yeah, I don't recommend this one unless you are a fellow completionist and your brain won't let you skip it. On to the next!