by Andrew Crotts

Created on: May 04, 2008

Halloween is one of the longest running and most successful of the horror franchises to date and this fourth installment is definitely a demonstration why. In the wake of the unsuccessful and unrelated plot of Halloween III, the lesson was learned that Michael Myers was the embodiment of Halloween and this was his triumphant return to the series. This movie was done extremely well, as it's making is roughly as simplistic as the original movie. The actors were believable and seemed more real than what you see in most movies. They didn't look like models that only inhabit the television, they looked like real people. I particularly thought that young Danielle Harris played the character of Jamie Lloyd superbly. She was the one for whom we had the most sympathy for her situation as a little girl stuck with the stigma of being the niece of a serial killer only to have him then pursue her throughout Halloween night. The performance of Donald Pleasance as the knowledgeable and pessimistic psychiatrist Sam Loomis was brilliant. We can see both the physical and the mental scars left on to him as he has taken this burden of being the one to be on guard and run to the rescue of Haddonfield to warn its citizens. I was also impressed with Beau Starr's portrayal of sheriff Ben Meeker. He seemed to be a wise, cautious character as opposed to the more mentally lacking examples of policeman typical of horror films. He didn't wait for a body pile-up before taking action.

The story was well written, taking the franchise back to its heart. I was impressed with the level of realism that went into this story. The characters actually take appropriate action against Michael Myers by trying to barricade themselves against him, but as Myers has shown many times, no one is safe from his rage and the ill-fated characters are forced to struggle for their lives. Also, the movie seems to expand from its predecessors as that now, the events don't involve just a handful of people, but now the whole town is in some way involved in the story. Haddonfield's ordinary denizens are seen taking arms to deal with the threat of Michael Myers rather than just a few police searches like in the past. Probably the best element of the plot was the terrifying final sequence of the film which, not giving away any secrets, fully reminded people of the message that the original film's director John Carpenter presented to us by starting this wonderful franchise: "Evil Never Dies."

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