Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (dir. Dominique Othenin-Girard, 1989)
When Halloween 5 was released in 1989, it was rated X. Dominique Othenin-Girard also did the pretty awful Omen IV: The Awakening.
So even though Halloween 5 introduces some dumb new conceits into the Halloween universe, and it’s pretty chaotically slapped together, I think I like it a lot better than Halloween 4. There is a better sense of tone and pacing, and it was actually a little bit scary. At the very least, we’re given something more than just a rote slasher. And just who was the mysterious cowboy guy? I guess we won’t learn about him until Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. And that won’t be until next week’s installment of The Series Project.
Made and released almost exactly one year after the previous installment, Halloween 5 displays some awesome continuity; it actually feels like it follows the fourth, rather than trying to reinvent the the series yet again, as so many sequels do. Jamie (still Danielle Harris) has been traumatized by the events of the previous film, and by her sudden outburst of mad violence. She is now mute, and is just beginning to come out to the world again. She still lives with Rachel (still Ellie Cornell), and Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance) is still safeguarding her from the encroaching Michael Myers whom he feels will eventually return. Loomis is now pretty much a madman himself at this point, screaming and thrashing about with a madcap energy.
Michael is not dead, natch. Halloween 5 opens with a repurposing of the finale of Halloween 4, showing that Michael was indeed shot, but found his way into a tunnel, and eventually crawled his way to a local hobo’s shack, where he was nursed back to health. It takes exactly one year. On Halloween night, Michael kills his hobo caretaker, puts the mask back on, and goes out to kill Jamie once again. I would love to see the movie about the hobo who nurses Michael back to health. Did they play chess? Did they eat together? Did they share the chores? What is Michael’s favorite hobo food? Did his eyeballs grow back yet? David Gordon Green can direct.
Halloween 5 introduces us to future corpses with names like Tina and Billy and Samantha, who spend entirely too much of the film conspiring to buy beers and take them to a party. Teenagers in slasher movies, in addition to loving pizza, are also obsessed with beers. And panties. And their cars. They’re not terribly sophisticated people, teenagers in slashers. I suppose that’s why we don’t care when Michael shows up in a barn to murder them. The teenage characters are lured into a barn by a bunch of kittens they hear mewling. I like to think that Michael had put the kittens there deliberately. I picture scenes of Michael stroking their soft fur and nuzzling their cute little kitten faces, cooing softy. Sorry. Am I getting distracted?
Jamie eventually learns to speak again, and reveals that she can see where Michael is. Yes, we’ve stooped to the psychic link conceit, a plot point that all long-running horror series eventually resort to. Jamie and Michael are psychically linked, and have a regard for one another. There is a scene late in the film wherein Jamie addresses Michael as “uncle” which distracts Michael long enough to remove his mask. We don’t get a good look at his face, though. I’m guessing he’s not a rotten zombie like Jason.
Dr. Loomis has several lines in this film about Michael’s rage, and how his rage is kind of a disease. We also learn that Michael’s rage might have something to do with the tattoo on his wrist that we had previously not seen. Loomis claims to be able to cure Michael’s rage, but eventually just traps him under a net made of chains, and shooting him a lot. Rather than just assuming Michael is dead, the local Haddonfield cops actually bother to lock him in a cell.
Halloween 5 ends on a cliffhanger, though. A mysterious faceless cowboy has been stalking around the movie, aiding Michael in his quest. We don’t learn who this is, or who plays him. We do know that he sets the prison on fire and sets Michael free. We’ll have to wait six more years to see how that finishes up, as the sixth Halloween didn’t hit theaters until 1995.
What will happen to Jamie? Who is the cowboy? Is Michael way, way less interesting when we learn about his supernatural curse? The answers to these questions and more in next week’s installment of The Series Project: Halloween. Be sure to come back to see my coverage of both versions of Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (I will be talking about the notorious bootlegged Producer’s Cut), the dumbly-titled Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, and the whimpering, limp Halloween: Resurrection.
Stay scared, friends.
Witney Seibold is a featured contributor on the CraveOnline Film Channel, co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can read his weekly articles Trolling, Free Film School and The Series Project, and follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
