Michael Myers shows his human side in Halloween 5 on October 13, 1989


Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, they called it. A title that rolled off the tongue like a curse whispered in the confessional, promising not just revenge, but the primal, inexorable pull of blood calling to blood under the harvest moon. Directed by the Swiss-born visionary Dominique Othenin-Girard—yes, a man from the land of cuckoo clocks and alpine precision, tasked with herding the chaos of a slasher franchise through its twilight years—this film arrived like a jagged line on the EKG of '80s horror, beeping insistently that the Boogeyman was not done with us yet.

Picture the scene, if you will, in the heartland of Haddonfield, Illinois—that mythic Everytown, U.S.A., where the picket fences gleam whiter than a televangelist's smile and the maple leaves skitter across lawns like fleeing sinners. It's been a full year since the events of Halloween 4, that fever-dream resurrection where Michael Myers, the Shape himself, clawed his way back from the abyss to claim his niece, young Jamie Lloyd, in a tableau of familial carnage that left the critics scratching their heads and the box office clerks counting fat stacks of fives and tens. 

Jamie (the wide-eyed Danielle Harris, all of twelve years old and carrying the weight of a thousand therapy sessions in her gaze) now resides in the cold embrace of Haddonfield Children's Clinic, her voice stolen by the trauma, reduced to a mute oracle who dreams in the guttural whispers of her uncle's approach. This will - not surprisingly - be utilized to the full by the screenwriters.

And what of the distinguished Dr. Sam Loomis? Ah, Donald Pleasence, that craggy-faced prophet of doom, returns once more as the haunted shrink, his Scottish brogue cracking like dry lightning as he mutters incantations against the evil he helped unleash. "I prayed that he would burn in hell," Loomis rasps in one of those lines that lingers like cigarette smoke in a no-smoking ward, "but in my heart, I knew that hell would not have him." It's positively Shakespearean in Pleasence's delivery. His increasingly-belligerent berations of a traumatized and mute child has viewers wondering if he's well on his way to becoming a psycho himself, even as they effectively reflect the anvil-weighted toll of the years, the wounds, and the pursuit of Michael have taken on the man.

Michael Myers himself solidifies his place in the pantheon of legendary horror icons as this vastly-underappreciated installment of the Halloween series commences. After having transferred something of his essence to his niece before plunging down a mineshaft in the previous film, Myers once again cheats death via some convenient topography. Taking a human log ride down a raging river, he winds up in a brief and touching tableau clearly inspired by The Bride of Frankenstein. The hermit who nurses the monster back to health in this version fares much worse at the hands of his patient, however. This is just one of several times where Michael reveals there is some humanity within him, only to abruptly relapse into his savage ways - and not even for the last time in this particular sequel.

A telepathic bond between uncle and niece means Michael hears the psychic siren call of Jamie's nightmares, and that she, in turn, can remotely see what he is up to at the moment. He lumbers back to Haddonfield, boiler-room breath fogging the autumn chill, knife in hand like Excalibur drawn from the stone of senseless violence. There's Ellie Cornell as the returning Rachel, Jamie's babysitter-turned-foster sister, dolled up in final girl chic, but - spoiler alert - she won't be the final girl this time around.

Revenge serves up some of the greatest Michael Myers moments in the franchise. Michael driving a '67 Camaro. Michael going on a very brief "date" with Tina in the Camaro, and getting his first kiss. And the touching and controversial scene in which Jamie addresses him as "Uncle," and he removes his mask to reveal a tear rolling down his cheek. Of course, he reverts to a relentless killing machine seconds later, but for those fascinated by the lore behind these movies, these are the cinematic moments that keep one pondering the true nature of Michael Myers. Is the real Michael still in there, somewhere, and could he ever be recovered amid the pyschosis, curse, possession, or whatever the unseen force that drives him is?

Where did this movie go wrong? Its many critics and the John Carpenter purists would say begone with the entire thing. But in my view, there really aren't any bad Halloween movies until H2O. The only legitimate criticisms of this film to my mind are the choice to (for a second straight sequel) film in Salt Lake City and reinvent the appearance of iconic Myers house (how dumb did they think fans were?), and the way this movie and the next one squander what could have been a powerful plotline to sustain the franchise into the 2000s: further development of Jamie's "dark side" as a blood relative of Michael, which was teased so effectively at the conclusion of Halloween 4.

Of course, this wasn't the last time the Halloween franchise would introduce a promising twist, only to punt it away at the conclusion or in the next chapter. Even Halloween Ends did that to us! 

So we have to simply appreciate Halloween 5 for what it is: a tight, taut thriller with some truly inventive ideas and scenes that gave Michael Myers fans just enough character development and intrigue to stay hooked for Halloween 6. Some inspired cinematography by Rob Draper, even if - grumble, grumble - the town he had to work with doesn't look a damn thing like the American Midwest (or even its previous stand-in of Southern California). And Draper's feat of using light and shadow to make the oddest-looking of the many Michael Myers masks into one of the most objectively-haunting visages in horror history.

It's absurd, it's exhilarating, it's the sound of a franchise leveling up, gasping for one last breath and inhaling pure oxygen deep, before the 90s ushered in irony and Scream self-awareness. A bloody, ghoulish punctuation mark on the decade. And a testament to the enduring, terrifying power and enigma of Michael Myers.

Location: Salt Lake City, UT, USA

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