Michael Myers and his sweet niece

HALLOWEEN 5: THE REVENGE OF MICHAEL MYERS 

(1989)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(originally viewed on Halloween, 1989)

"Halloween 4" ended with a nice twist that hardly salvaged the film overall. The sweet niece of Michael Myers seemed to embody his spirit, but this new sequel does not follow up on such a cool idea. Michael Myers is simply resurrected a year later, precisely on October 31st, where he seems to be strongest. And the niece, well, she is still scared of her uncle who wears the William Shatner mask.

"Halloween 5" begins effectively with an opening credit sequence that seems to slash across the screen, perfectly complementing John Carpenter's famous eerie piano score. Soon enough though, we are back to the usual shenanigans. Dr. Loony Loomis (Donald Pleasance) still has that nasty facial burn scar and is still on the hunt for Michael Myers, who still plans to kill his niece (Danielle Harris, reprising her role from the last sequel). What is so special about killing a perfectly nice schoolage girl? Is it because of her blood relation to Laurie Strode? And what does Loomis hope to accomplish by capturing Michael Myers? Killing him with bullets doesn't help, nor does burning him to a crisp. And who the heck is that Shadow-like character who walks around ominously with silver-tipped shoes?

The film does have some good scares courtesy of director Dominique Otherin-Girard, and some degree of sensitivity to its characters (I could have lived without the close-up shot of murderous Mikey shedding a tear though). Girard does handle individual sequences ably enough, particularly the chilling if improbable finale inside a prison where Michael Myers is held. Good old Mikey put in jail for what he did? Say it ain't so Myers.

So, "Revenge of Michael Myers" is truly superior to the third and fourth chapters in the series but it is not good enough to say, hey, the spirit of Michael Myers is back! A man who wears a Shatner mask and walks at a snail's pace is an idea that can't hold water after several movies. This is a competent enough shocker for Michael Myers completists - the rest of you beware.

Good evening, I am Michael Myers!

HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS (1988)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

 I remember anticipating with great delight the next Halloween sequel back in 1988. After all, it was seven years since the last Michael Myers film (not counting the turgid "Halloween III: Season of the Witch," which had nothing to do with Carpenter's original). It was time to return to the land of Haddonfield, Illinois where Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance) was still on the hunt for Michael Myers, the zombiefied killer who walked at a snail's pace and only on October 31st. Well, some things are better left alone. "Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers" is one of the worst sequels ever made, bereft of thrills or chills. Even the gore leaves much to desire (and I am no fan of gore).

We are back in Haddonfield where murderous Mikey is now after his niece (Danielle Harris). Why? I could not tell you. First, we discover Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) was Mike's sister in "Halloween II" and suddenly, any family relative of Mike's is in deep trouble. Returnee Dr. Loomis (with a slight burn scar on his face) is back chasing Mike, assuring all the king's men and all the king's horses of Haddonfield that the inhuman killer will strike again on Halloween night. Naturally, nobody listens to a man as insane as Michael Myers. And surely we cannot stop celebrating Halloween, a time of tricks and treats and plenty of sex between the mature teens, now can we? Of course not, which is why the teens get it in the end, and the niece, well, I guess you will have to watch it to see what happens.

"Halloween 4" is strictly by-the-numbers and shockingly boring as a result. The famously eerie piano score by John Carpenter is remixed here with barely much enthusiasm. The mask of the Shape aka Michael Myers looks like a clown's mask, and is hardly as frightening as the original. Nothing in the film feels thrilling or remotely scary, and plus there is no atmosphere or stylistic flourishes to keep one's interest. The impression I got from this movie was that a studio executive said, "Hey gang! It is time for a new Halloween movie since Freddy and Chucky are making horror fun again at the box office. Only we will make this movie lethargic and lifeless to sit through and throw in a twist ending to make people scared so they will be willing to sit through it again and see what they missed." This is not Halloween, this is Hollow-ween.

Trick or treat, sequel stinks of smelly feet

HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH (1982)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Now how is this for an original sequel idea? Make a second sequel to John Carpenter's "Halloween" that is in-name-only. In other words, 1982's "Halloween III: Season of the Witch" has absolutely nothing to do with the previous two films, though it credits Carpenter and Debra Hill as producers. They did envision a sort of anthology of different tales set on Halloween, but why title this film with a Roman numeral? Carpenter must have been smoking something more than just plain cigars.


"Halloween III" deals with modern-day Druids headed by Dan O'Herlihy of all people, who plan to kill 50 million children on Halloween night with Jack-O-Lantern masks that, when worn by a child, eats away at their heads until worms and bugs begin to ooze out of them. Oh, yes, and the kids do die after this horrific, cruel event takes place. Dan O'Herlihy must be smoking something too since he keeps a huge chunk of Stonehenge in his factory where these masks are made (how did he manage these historic, iconic slabs past customs?) It takes the heroes (the wholly miscast Tom Atkins and Stacey Nelkin) to thwart O'Herlihy's plan and save millions of kids who would otherwise worry about razor blades in their candy than wearing a Jack-O-Lantern mask. And if I understood correctly, this master plan of O'Herlihy's is called "The Halloween Three." Maybe I was smoking something. Ah, there are a few robots in town too but the less said about that, the better.

Sorry kids and horror fans but there is no Michael Myers this time. Except for a television ad for the original Carpenter classic (sacrilege!), there is nothing here to remind us of the atmosphere and sense of dread Carpenter brought to the original and the less-than-horrific sequel. We mostly get an update of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," but that in itself is a sacrilegious comparison to be making here. I did like the aspect of subliminal advertising through the use of the music and flashes of smiling pumpkins, but those are the only aspects that seems to work.

Director Tommy Lee Wallace merely lets the film skip by without a shred of suspense or peril at any given moment. Only Carpenter's musical score works in its favor. Whoever gave this project a green light must be a fan of torture.

Mr. Sandman, he's home again!

HALLOWEEN II (1981)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Halloween" has its firm place in the horror genre, a classic shocker that moved with the slow, creepy pace of menacing, inevitable evil. "Halloween II" is nowhere in the same league as the original, but it also has an unstoppable, menacing sense of movement - the killer moves slow and the victims are doubly scared by the menace.

"Halloween II" differs from most sequels in that it is a direct continuation of the original. The original "Halloween" ended on the night of October 31st and this sequel continues on that very same night. The wounded Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) is taken to a hospital while Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance) is obsessed with tracking down this inhuman killer, known in the credits as The Shape aka Michael Myers. "I shot him six times, and he got up and walked away," admits the good doctor.

The Halloween of this town has all the hallmarks of a bloody evening waiting to happen. There are kids dressing up in Michael Myers masks, lustful doctors, kids biting into razor-sharp apples, irate dogs, and a largely nonexistent hospital staff caring for the weak Laurie who mostly sleeps and has nightmares. Laurie is taunted by Michael Myers (who may be her brother!) and teased by a lovestruck ambulance driver (Lance Guest). During this very long night, each member of the short hospital staff is murdered by Michael Myers in particularly gruesome ways, while the nearly blind Laurie manages to escape from one room to the other with a limp. And where is Loomis in all this? He is facing a court-martial back at the institution. Towards the end of the film, he finally pulls a gun on a state trooper when he realizes Michael is related to Laurie.

Directed by Rick Rosenthal, "Halloween II" continues the same sense of dread and menace that the original had but the gore is accentuated making the goings-on less suspenseful than they should have been. I could have lived without seeing a syringe inserted in a woman's eyeball, or a half-naked woman scalded to death. There is also a character who slips on a puddle of blood! These are not necessities. These are merely distractions considering we don't learn much about said victims. Another problem is the screenplay, which gives motivation to the snail-paced killer Michael Myers by telling us that Laurie's sibling status is the sole reason why he came back to Haddonfield! Sometimes not knowing a murderer's motives is more frightening than knowing. On the other hand, future sequels tied his background to the Druids! John Carpenter has been on record saying he had no intention to write a sequel but he and producer Debra Hill did not receive much money from the first film's grosses, hence the sole reason for the sequel.

If nothing else, "Halloween II" is a guilty pleasure because the ending works so well, and Curtis is believably sympathetic as Laurie (despite an obvious wig). She continues to be endlessly pursued by Michael - she hides but he finds her. Eventually, Loomis and Laurie battle Michael to a fiery, suspenseful finale. I also liked Dr. Loomis's scenes of trying to explain the inhuman quality of his escaped mental patient. The music still works, this time re-recorded with synthesizer sounds. The film ends with an overcast morning day while "Mr. Sandman" plays on the soundtrack - a reminder that the nightmare is over. It is the opening scenes and the closing climax that come close to Carpenter's original (who reportedly tweaked scenes due to Rosenthal's inexperience in crafting menace), evoking a real sense of terror. "Halloween II" is worthwhile if you can live through the distractions.

John Carpenter's evil has escaped!

HALLOWEEN (1978)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Just as the original "Psycho" sired the slasher genre, John Carpenter's "Halloween" solidified the genre that became more shockly gore for your buck than genuine scares. Amazing that so few directors followed Carpenter's model - atmosphere to spare and a chilling sense of doom that none of the sequels or "Friday the 13th" films ever came close to capture. "Halloween" is a superb scare show - a triumphant exercise in style that dictates its substance.

"Halloween" begins with a young kid walking around the outside of his house, looking for his sister. He grabs a mask and a kitchen knife, approaches his sister's bedroom by walking up the stairs and finally stabs her. All this time, Carpenter shows us what this kid does from his point-of-view - a very subjective stance that comes from Hitchcock and, of course, the notorious "Peeping Tom," which showed the killer filming his subjects as he killed them. The kid is Michael Myers, who is admitted to a mental institution. Nearly a decade later, Michael is still in an institution, and his psychiatrist, Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance), is checking on him obsessively, aware that he is pure evil. During a rainy night, Michael escapes and drives away and now Loomis is in hot pursuit of someone he calls "inhumanly patient."

The story then shifts to October 31st, the celebrated day of Halloween, at the calm, homely town of Haddonfield, Illinois. We see a teenage woman named Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) walking to school with a young kid who believes in bogeymen. They make plans for the evening since Laurie will be babysitting him (the title of the film was originally "The Babysitter Murders."). Then we meet some of Laurie's friends, who are actively dating and dreaming of sexual escapades yet Laurie is the lonely, straight girl of the trio. There is the brunette-haired Annie (Nancy Kyes), whose father (Leigh Brackett) is a local cop, and Lynda (P.J. Soles), the ditzy blonde who ends every sentence with the word "totally." They all make plans for the evening since Annie and Laurie are babysitting, and Lynda wants to bring her boyfriend over at one house. And in this town, terror awaits - Michael Myers is paying a visit to wreak havoc.

"Halloween" is almost monochromatic in its look - the scenes during the day are overcast and the nights are truly dark where silhouettes and shadows exist - perfect time for Michael to attack (in one scene, Michael kills a dog and we hear it whimper offscreen). Carpenter uses the hand-held camera effectively to build the tension by choosing to follow the subjective nature of its characters. Examples of such moments are when Annie hears noises outside her house as she prepares to do laundry; the car that comes to a screeching halt when Annie shouts, "Speed kills"; the discovery of the dead bodies by Laurie, and so on. Subjectivity is especially well-handled when Laurie walks across the street to the house where Lynda and Annie are supposedly and this scene, accompanied by Carpenter's famously eerie electronic score, is a hark back to Vera Miles' similar walk to the Bates House in "Psycho."

What is particularly arresting about "Halloween" is that the characters are not killed immediately - Carpenter lets us observe these teenagers and who they are. The long takes of Laurie, Annie and Lynda walking home from school show us the daily activities and thoughts of teenage girls, oblivious to the unseen terror about to take place. Laurie is not as oblivious, and conveniently sees Michael Myers hiding in bushes, driving by, or standing by his car while she looks from behind windows. The suspense builds with a real pulse eschewing any of the gore or blood that would have diminished its overall power. Those tree-lined avenues of Middle America hide something inexplicable and without emotion, and all Laurie can do is run and cry when she finds that this killer is after her (in a way, Laurie's escape from an unstoppable killer led the way to Linda Hamilton's escape from the unstoppable Schwarzenegger in "The Terminator") There's a terrifying moment where Laurie begs for help from a neighbor, and the neighbor observes and closes her shades, thinking it is a Halloween prank. "Oh, my God! Help," shouts the helpless Laurie.

There is a strain of Catholicism in "Halloween" emanating from its semi-Production Code morals (though the Production Code was eliminated back in the late 50's). The idea is that any teenager girl or boy who has sex or lustful thoughts is killed by Michael Myers. Laurie is the only survivor because she is still a virgin, though she may have lustful thoughts about a guy in her class. "So. You do think about things like that, don't you Laurie," says Annie at one point. The only thing Laurie does that may make her a member of this triad is that she smokes marijuana, yet has more interest in chemistry and studying than any of her friends do. Since this premarital sex-is-a-sin complex began in "Halloween," it became a mode for all rip-offs to follow. You have sex, and you will die, as indicated in the post-modern "Scream." Carpenter has denied this, stating that Laurie is simply more aware of her surroundings than her friends are. I'll go with Carpenter's explanation.

Back in 1978, "Halloween" was made for a low-budget and went on to gross millions of dollars making it the biggest independent film ever (initial reviewers panned it until someone from the Village Voice spoke highly of it). It is a superb motion picture, reveling in its atmospheric, nocturnal pull guaranteed to give you some major shivers. Precisely, what makes this horror film so central to the genre is acknowledging that it is what you don't see that can kill you in the dark.

The real walking dead

DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

When I first saw "Dawn of the Dead," back in 1986, I found it to be a huge disappointment. I loved the original "Night of the Living Dead," and "Dawn" was like a gory second cousin in living color. Remember that I was a teenager at the time and was a big fan of Freddy Krueger (still am). But having watched "Dawn of the Dead" since, I was amazed at how much I missed. "Dawn of the Dead" is a comic horror film, full of satirical touches and director George Romero's own fiery theme of man's inhumanity to man and dead men.

The film does begin rather unevenly. The setting is a TV station (the only one presumably on the air) where the host is arguing back and forth with his guest over the zombies - they are everywhere and are turning the nation into zombies. How can we stop them? Can we study them, perhaps to find what drives the urge to eat humans? The scene is a study in chaos and paranoia, as we also hear the rumblings from the TV crew watching the host and the guest argue vehemently. To make matters worse, the military is in the building (or so I thought - the editing is haphazard but maybe that is the point), and they are busily wiping out every zombie by shooting them in the head. Eventually, after witnessing ten minutes of quick shootings and the rumblings of a priest with a wooden leg, four survivors take off in a helicopter and land on the roof of a shopping mall. All is fine and dandy until they realize that the entire mall is flooded with zombies! So how do you manage to take whatever you want from a mall while fending off zombies who are fascinated by elevators and do a lot of window shopping?

"Dawn of the Dead" has several moments of gore delicately crossed with brazen black humor. The film is a satire of consumerism, and what better place to consume and shop than a shopping mall? The zombies are drawn to this place because they feel they have been there before (and they like to consume as well), and I only wish that director George Romero pursued this idea further. If a zombie can recollect a specific memory by being in a familiar setting, can they think? If so, what channels it? And if they can think, can they see that maybe human flesh is not something to consume? Well, I just posed some existential questions here which Romero may not have thought of, but they went through my mind while watching this film. Most fans of the film will say that this a graphic geek show, designed to entertain and scare the bejesus out of you. It is that, and Romero has successfully managed to do so. But the setting of the film brings other questions to mind, considering this is not a nonstop avalanche of gore. The human survivors of the film stay at the mall for a long period of time, enough time to convert the dressing rooms into bedrooms. They even have a living room and a kitchen - it all looks like an advertisement for "Good Housekeeping." The dawn of America, Romero seems to say, is that the survivors of the Apocalypse will focus on living the good life of rich foods, TV, clothes, and all in great quantities, of course. Oh, and it helps to be armed and ready. The zombies are merely interested in consuming human flesh.

"Dawn of the Dead" is often brilliantly unnerving, fitfully gory and offhandedly scary, using a perfectly bland setting where you would never expect zombies to scour the regions of something so sacred to the American consumer. The ending goes on a bit too long (particularly after seeing Tom Savini, the king of gory makeup, as a motorcycle rebel), and the characters never truly come alive beyond being caricatures with glints of humanity. I must add that you still care enough about them to hope they make it out of the mall alive. "Dawn of the Dead" has a purpose and it fulfills it to a tee - to scare you and to gross you out. It does those things as well as any director could, but it is clear that George Romero has much more on his mind.

Baby Chucky, how cute

SEED OF CHUCKY (2004)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

  
Years ago I argued briefly with a friend of mine that the "Lethal Weapon" films got 
progressively worse after number 2 and became comedies. My friend felt that the 
third entry was the best because of the humor. So it goes with sequels. The 
original "Child's Play" was a first-rate thriller about a killer doll with the 
mind of a psychopath (though "Trilogy of Terror" has the scariest doll ever 
seen). Then came "Child's Play 2" and "3" and they were as bad as sequels get. 
Director Ronny Yu injected new life into the series with "Bride of Chucky," 
which came on the heels of the "Scream" postmodernist horror trend. "Bride of 
Chucky" was more funny than scary but it was at least entertaining. "Seed of 
Chucky" is an aberration and an abomination, a movie so awful that I was more 
sickened by it than anything else. I am no prude and I enjoy horror films. 
Horror movie parodies is another matter but "Seed of Chucky" is wildly uneven 
with its mix of blood splatter and bad Hollywood puns that went out of style 
shortly after Robert Altman's "The Player" in 1992.

Consider what I thought this movie was going to be. I thought Chucky (voiced by Brad Dourif) and his bride, Tiffany (voiced by Jennifer Tilly), were going to have a baby (ick!) and discover that the baby was far more murderous and psychotic than they were (at least the teaser trailer seemed to hint that). But the movie begins with a sexually ambiguous doll (voiced by Billy Boyd, yes, from "Lord of the Rings") that runs away in E.T. style from an abusive ventriloquist. The Doll With No Name is looking for his parents and discovers they are Chucky and Tiffany, who are being used as props for a movie called "Chucky Goes Psycho." So the doll brings Chucky and Tiffany back to life thanks to an amulet. Oh, and for students of postmodernist horror, Jennifer Tilly plays herself and Tiffany, and there are precious few digs at Hollywood and at Tilly herself. Then we have rapper Redman as a film director making a movie about the Virgin Mary (a rap song about the Virgin would've been funnier) yet he prefers to cast Julia Roberts over Tilly (once again, the Julia phenomenon was more effectively used in "The Player").

Yes, "Seed of Chucky" has the requisite blood and gore. There's also a Britney Spears look-alike and John Waters as a determined paparazzi. But the movie is not even gruesome fun and stalls at truly mocking Jennifer Tilly and the Hollywood game. What I found were homages to Ed Wood and Brian De Palma, glorified gore, truly lame jokes and in-jokes, and a sickening feeling that the Chucky franchise is far from over.