Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)
Directed by: Dominique Othenin-Girard
This is a movie that I have considered one of the poorer entries in the series. I mean it is hard to match the original, the second one and even the fourth one if we are talking Michael Myers related entries alone. Typically once a film hits the magic number of five, the quality diminishes greatly. Look at Nightmare On Elm Street 5: Dream Child, that was kind of a dull and corny entry. Same goes for Friday the 13th pt V: A New Beginning, Jason isn’t even in it! Spoilers, I know, but if you don’t know part 5 doesn’t have Jason, then are you a horror fan? Let’s take a look at Halloween 5 and see how it stacks against the other two mainstays of the slasher genre.
Halloween 5 is a direct sequel to the 4th one, following Jamie Lloyd again as she is in a medical facility due to the trauma she sustained in the previous film. Jamie now refuses to speak, much like her uncle Michael Myers after he snapped and murdered his sister. Jamie seems to have a telepathic link to Michael now, which is odd but at least they were trying something new. Michael was blown away by a band of cops and armed hillbillies at the end of the 4th movie. He falls down into a mine shaft and they show a cop throw a stick of dynamite down after him. The dynamite blows and Michael rolls out of the shaft and into a river. The river flows Michael with the current to a hermit’s shack where the hermit takes him in and bandages him up. A year goes by and Michael comes back, kills the hermit that helped him (dick move) and returns to Haddonfield for Jamie.
The acting is fairly decent again, that is one of the few things the Halloween sequels have going for them. Danielle Harris returns as Jamie and she’s great, probably one of the best jobs done by a child actor in a horror movie. Donald Pleasence returns as Dr. Loomis and he’s as Loomisy as ever! MICHAAEEEELLLL!!!!! NOOOOOOO!!!! Ok got that out of the way! We get one of the most hated characters in the series Tina, played by Wendy Kaplan. Not sure why she is so hated, yeah she’s annoying but most characters are in these movies. The rest of the characters are Tina’s friends, and they aren’t really important, they’re just there to make a body count haha.
The special effects are decent, we get a few good fun kills. Michael slashes someone with sickle with is cool. The camera work I suppose is alright, I don’t remember much about it so it must have been decent. The pacing of the movie is what gets me with this. It is so damn slow and nothing really happens. That is the main issue with this film, it is rather uneventful and doesn’t bring much to the franchise other than a continuation of the Jamie Lloyd saga. As good as it is to see Harris and Pleasence again, I really wish they would have played off from the ending of part 4 where Jamie kills her adopted mother. That whole scene is ignored in this. I guess what hurts this film the most is that it is really just pointless in hindsight. This movie brings nothing other than a few million dollars in the box office. It didn’t even do that well, just $11M off a $5M budget.
If I am comparing Nightmare 5, Friday the 13th 5 and Halloween 5, man that is a tough choice to be honest. While Nightmare 5 is basically a dark comedy by that point in the series it has some decent kills albeit corny, it isn’t a good movie, hell I fell asleep during it numerous times. Friday the 13th 5 is universally hated because of it’s lack of Jason, but all in all it isn’t trash. Yeah the story was a bit of a stretch and the acting is kind of crappy, the movie does catch you off guard at the end and has some decent kills. I would say Friday the 13th 5 is the best of the three, followed by Halloween 5, then Nightmare 5. Halloween 5 is far from a great movie, but it isn’t that bad, just kind of pointless like I stated earlier. The telepathic link of Jamie and Michael really never pays off and is just kind of confusing. Donald Pleasence was worn out and towards the end of his life by the time this came out, but it works well with the character of Dr. Loomis. The poor guy has spent 11 years at that point trying to hunt Michael down, I would be tired and ragged too! Probably the worst thing about this movie is that it started the whole Cult of Thorn storyline that would evolve in to the shit that part 6 was, ugh. This movie was rushed into production and came out less than a year after part 4. Maybe if they took some time to make this movie, it would have came out better and more organized. While it isn’t bad, it isn’t necessarily good. Part 6 is much worse and if you want to be a completist, check this out. I give Halloween 5 a C-.
31 Horror Movies 