Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers review.
A then series low point, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers has done nothing to improve its reputation.
Classic movie reviews will contain spoilers.
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers
Directed by Dominique Othenin-Girard
Written by Michael Jacobs, Dominique Othenin-Girard and Shem Bitterman
Starring Donald Pleasance, Danielle Harris, Ellie Cornell, Beau Starr, Wendy Kaplan, Tamara Glynn and Jeffrey Landman
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers Review
Ten years after John Carpenter’s genre defining Halloween hit theaters (and seven years after his last appearance) …Halloween 4 brought Michael Myers back with a strong franchise sequel. One year after that, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers arrived. For every good choice Halloween 4 made, Halloween 5 seemed intent on destroying it. That shocking ending that opened the door to Danielle Harris’s Jamie Lloyd as a new series antagonist? Drop that. The likable lead final girl? Kill her off halfway through. Doctor Sam Loomis being at all tethered to reality? We’re done with that. The Myers House is almost as unrecognizable as Michael’s signature mask. The best that can be said about Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers is that it’s almost so bad it’s good. But not quite.
What keeps it from that faint praise is how many times the movie seems intent on kicking you in the face for being a fan of the series. Donald Pleasance’s performance is certainly in the “so bad it’s good” category. His unhinged Dr. Loomis is dialed up to eleven here. The truth is that it doesn’t feel like a betrayal of the character because Loomis has always been more than a little off. This is just Loomis gone full bananas.
Danielle Harris is unable to speak for half of the film. Exactly what people wanted following up her incredible performance in Halloween 4. The perfect way to follow up on that story’s stunning ending. How could anyone who went to theaters to see the direct follow up to that movie not have been thrilled by this turn of events. Fans of the series must have been overjoyed to watch Dr. Loomis psychologically abuse the young girl he failed to kill the year before. Running around a house that couldn’t look less like the iconic Myers House if it was a mini mall…being chased by the worst mask in the series. Halloween 5 had everything. That no one asked for.
Okay…that’s an incredibly harsh way of discussing what, in 1989, was a clear series low point. There is, however, a reason that Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers has never seen the reappraisal that Halloween III has. Even 1995’s follow-up Curse of Michael Myers, another movie that goes in the completely wrong narrative direction, holds up better than this movie. The difference? A basic understanding of what a Halloween movie feels like.
The biggest trouble the series gets itself into isn’t what you’d expect it to be. You’d think that the series’ attempts to explain Michael Myers would be its downfall. Look, when they do it…it isn’t great. Curse goes more off the wall on this than any other entry. It’s why it has a poor reputation. All the way back to Halloween II…the choice to make Michael and Laurie siblings set the franchise off its axis. But those movies both hold up better than this one. Because the biggest problem in the Halloween franchise is when movies forget what a Halloween movie feels like.
Compare it to the Friday the 13th series. The original 8 are certainly not all quality pictures. They all, however, benefit from the classic Friday feel. Put Jason in Manhattan or make the killer a paramedic with a grudge…those movies still feel right. Halloween 4 feels like a ten-year sequel to Halloween should. Halloween 5 does not. It’s why III and Curse age better. It’s why the Rob Zombie movies, Resurrection and 5 do not. Even Halloween Kills ends up on the wrong side of the ledger. The more disliked Halloween Ends feels more like classic Halloween…it will be interesting to see how the future compares the two. I know which horse I’m backing.
The problems for Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers begin immediately. We are used to Myers surviving impossible scenarios (and this is before his ridiculous mistaken identity beheading). Halloween 4 explained away Loomis and Myers fiery death in Halloween II with a coma (and some light scarring on Loomis). Halloween 5 tells us he just slept on a slab for a year, I guess. Not a lot of thought went into it.
Then we find Jamie Lloyd in a psychiatric hospital. She’s mute now. Instead of following the dark path suggested at the end of 4, it decides to spend this entire movie torturing the poor girl. Her sister Rachel (Ellie Cornell) returns…for a while. She’s dispatched early in the movie so the reigns can be handed over to Tina (Wendy Kaplan) for no discernable reason other than to cause Jamie more pain. Tina doesn’t last long as her new protector either. When you can double down, you simply must do it. When Loomis isn’t screaming at or threatening the petrified child, she is suffering from a psychic link with her uncle Michael. This is all before Loomis uses her as bait in the climax of the movie. No final girl in the series has had it as rough as Jamie Lloyd.
Even the iconography of the franchise, the easiest wins handed down to each sequel, are fumbled away. Michael’s mask is a disaster. You can buy a better knock-off mask at Spirit Halloween with a label like “Autumnal Killer” or something like that. The only thing the mask fits is how ridiculous the Myers House looks. Suddenly, the classic two-story home is a giant mansion. The simple house of horrors turned into a theme park ride so the third act can utilize a laundry chute. If we accept that someone purchased this house to remodel it…why is it in decades of decay after a recent uplift? More importantly, why throw away the value of utilizing what people already know and love?
There are a few positives. Enough to keep it from retaining its position at the bottom of the Halloween movie heap where it debuted in 1989. Danielle Harris can make anything work. She’s great without speech. Loomis is utterly insane here, but Pleasance is perversely entertaining to watch in the role. Finally, for as much as Rachel’s death is a slap in the face to the character and the superior movie that precedes it…it is completely unexpected and takes the movie in a fresh direction. That direction isn’t “good” …but it is different. Tina dying as well allows for a second surprising kill. Subverting expectations in a 1989 slasher is worth something. Even if it doesn’t add up to much.
This is also the movie where Michael throws on a different mask to conceal his identity. It’s an inspired choice in a movie without any. The only somewhat unsettling moment comes from the old man masked Michael sitting next to an unaware Tina for an unreasonable amount of time. Michael forgets that he’s supposed to be a singularly focused killer repeatedly in a movie called The Revenge of Michael Myers. The movie does deliver one stand out sequence. The aforementioned laundry chute is used to great effect. There’s even a fun moment where Jamie finds Rachel’s body before the script turns to full stupidity in the climax. It’s all enough to give the movie something worth watching.
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers ends with its own surprise. This is the movie that introduces The Man in Black…and kicks off the Thorn storyline. Parts 4-6 are often referred to as the Thorn Trilogy. This does an incredible disservice to Halloween 4 that didn’t bring up any of this nonsense. If anything, it should be called the Jamie Lloyd trilogy…but the series is incapable of giving the character any justice whatsoever. The Thorn story would sink any chance that Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers had of being anything more than a true “so bad it’s good” candidate.
Anyway, The Man in Black walks around to the sound of spurs jangling. A strange choice given we always look at his feet and see that his boots have no spurs on them. That’s Halloween 5 for you. The movie ends with The Man in Black (whose identity is not revealed until six years later) shoots up a building to break Michael Myers out of jail. Unlike the previous movie, Halloween 5’s ending teases a much worse upcoming story. Little did they know…the ball dropping done by this movie made that nearly impossible.
Scare Value
Halloween 5 follows up a sterling franchise sequel with a near DUD. Odd choices save it from sitting in the absolute dregs of the series…but missed opportunities keep it from any chance at better than “meh”. Even another strong Danielle Harris performance can’t carry this nonsense. Donald Pleasance has abandoned all subtlety by this point. The mask and the Myers house feel like a targeted assault on fans of the series. It’s not as boring and bothersome as Halloween: Resurrection…or as lost as Rob Zombie’s Halloween II. That’s about as much praise as you can keep on it, however.
2/5
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers Links
Streaming on Shudder
Rent/Buy on VOD from Fandango at Home and Amazon
