Halloween 5: The Halloween Retrospective.

Hello again.  Last time we got Michael Myers offing quite a large number of people, yet somehow was unable to kill a ten-year old kid.  Since Halloween 4  did make a profit, logically another one had to be made.  With the number of flaws Part 4 had, and director Dominique Othenin-Girard running things, the series can only go up from here, can't it?  Well let's get right into Halloween 5, and see what direction it did take.

Halloween 5 picks up right where 4 left off.  We see that Michael finds a way out of the hole he fell in, and in good time too, as some dynamite is tossed in after him.  he ends up floating down a stream, where he eventually manages to get out of right where a homeless man's shack is.  Michael gets his hands around the homeless man, but the damage he took earlier takes its toll and he collapses.

Fast forward a year later, and we find that absolutely nothing interesting has been done with the surprise ending from Halloween 4.  Jamie has been in a children's clinic for the last year, unable to speak.  She awakens from a nightmare while Michael wakes up from his comatose state.  That's right, the homeless guy has had an unconscious Michael Myers in his shack for the past year.  Upon awakening Michael immediately puts his mask back on and kills his roommate.

Much like the last Halloween, Jamie and Michael share some sort of psychic connection.  Not sure why he didn't have one with his sister Laurie, but whatever.  So Michael pretty much repeats the same formula as last time; kill those around him with ease EXCEPT an 11-year old girl.  Dr. Loomis is of course there to help out as best he can, and gets the idea that Jamie may be the key to help Michael release the rage inside him, possibly curing him.  interesting, as I was under the impression that Michael was an emotionless, soulless killing machine.  But hey, what do I know?

Here's Tamara Glynn, holding one of the better performers in the movie.

One thing I remember about this movie when I saw it for the first time so many years ago was that they made a big deal of how you will see Michael's face.  Even back then I didn't really get why that was such a big deal.  Not only do you see his face plainly in the first Halloween, when you see his face in Part 5 you can't really help but notice that he has no burns on his face whatsoever from the fire in Part 2.  That's not something you should be pointing out in my opinion.  In fact, why even bother to have burns on his hand if you aren't gonna pay attention to such details.  Sigh.  Moving on...

Halloween 5 is without question the worst in the series.  I'm not really sure where to begin.  Well, let's just continue with Michael shall we?  First, where in Halloween 4 they bulked up a smaller guy top make him seem bigger, this time they just went ahead and got a bigger stuntman for the role.  Again, there is no need for a bigger guy to play Myers.  It's the same thing with Jason Voorhees.  One thing that always bugged the shit out of me is how Jason was almost always a different height throughout the series.  Is it really so hard to find a guy who is the same height as the actor/stuntman who played him first?

"Hold on Michael, let me get that eyelash for you. Now make a wish!"

And then there's the mask.  While I think it looks slightly creepier than the last mask worn, it still looks stupid.  And I'm sorry, this may seem like nitpicking, but dammit was it too hard to tuck the mask in?  It bugged the hell out of me to see it hanging out like it did.

Ok, breaking away from The Shape for now.  Let's talk about the acting.  The returning cast was for the most part as good as last time.  Danielle Harris performance improved slightly this time around, although I found her not talking to be slightly irritating given that she could have warned people about Michael with her words.  And what was worse is that the reason she started talking again was to tell her very annoying friend Tina not to go to a party.

Which brings me to the supporting cast.  To put it plainly, they were terrible.  Wendy Foxworth (Wendy Kaplan at the time) as Tina was almost a constant pain to watch, and I wanted her character to die every step of the way.  I don't completely blame Wendy though; the material she had to use with was plainly difficult to work with.  Her cannon fodder friends were very forgettable, and the bumbling police officers were possibly the biggest insult of the movie.  Whoever had the idea of using dumb sound effects to accompany them  has a special place in hell I'm sure.  Even Donald Pleasence wasn't 100% into it.  He seemed tired of the whole thing, and understandably so.

If you look closely you'll see that Michael was clearly pulled out by a fisherman who happened to snag him on his hook.

On top of all of that, there are a huge number of continuity and visual errors, a pretty low death count, and drawn out scenes that I was mentally begging to end.  There are just too many goofs to mention here, and this review is going a little long as it is.  A list of the goofs can be found on IMDB here.  Later in the movie there is a scene in a barn that seemed to go on forever.  Not long after that Myers chases Jamie and her child friend Billy.  Not only did he have Jamie dead to rights at this point, he actually veers off and chases Billy instead for a bit.  I get that they were trying to pad the movie as much as possible, but they really should have found better excuses for Michael to not kill Jamie.

Is there anything good about Halloween 5 besides it eventually ending?  If there is I can't think of it right now.  Go watch it for yourself if you want to find something, I just want to forget it exists for the time being.  Rest in peace.

Macabre Rating: 1.5 out of 5 tombstones.