Saturday, October 17, 2015

Movie Review: "Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers" (1989)

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Movie"Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers"
Director: Dominique Othenin-Girard
Year: 1989
Rating: X
Running Time: 1 hour, 36 minutes

Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris) has been hospitalized in a psychiatric ward since she murdered her foster mother the year prior. She has nightmares since she has a type of psychic connection to her murderous uncle Michael Myers (Don Shanks). Now, as Halloween closes, Michael is returning to Haddonfield in search of his niece to finish the job he failed to complete the year before and he'll kill anyone who gets in his way to do it.

As per usual, Michael Myers returns to Haddonfield to go on yet another killing spree in an effort to get to his last living relative, Jamie Lloyd, played again by Danielle Harris, in order to finish what he started. As audience members, by this point, we've gotten pretty tired of seeing the same old, rehashed killing spree thing when it comes to Michael Myers, and yet once again, we get a lot of the same in this, the fifth installment of the "Halloween" series. Michael Myers comes into town and starts killing those people closest to Jamie, and really, he'll kill anyone who is simply in his path to his ultimate goal. Of course, Myers finds somewhat new ways to do so, often in very graphic manners with a variety of weapons usually of the stabbing and poking variety. After sitting through the fourth and fifth installments of this franchise, we wish the filmmakers would have stuck with the idea of the very underrated "Halloween 3" idea and just had a new Halloween-themed horror story each year instead of regurgitating Michael Myers over and over. We get it, he's a cool, superbeing of a bad guy, but if only Myers fans wouldn't have cried so much when he wasn't in the 3rd film, we could have actually had some original stories, some fresh outlooks, and Myers could have even made appearances in the films, just not be the main baddie. Now, in the spirit of Hollywood mediocrity, all we get is a slasher flick every time one of these movies gets released. They did try to add another mysterious antagonist known as the Man in Black in this installment, though we preferred to call him jingle boots while we watched, you know, because he's got them spurs that jingle jangle jingle. This character basically just walks around eventually reveals his contrived purpose after the climax of the film. It would appear as if it was intended for his character to be a setup for use in a sequel that wouldn't come until many, many years later, probably because of the lack of interest as this is the lowest grossing "Halloween" film in the history of the franchise. In the end, though there are still some good, bloody death scenes and a little bit of tension built throughout its run time with its continued use of Michael Myers as the villain, "Halloween 5" offers nothing new, nothing terribly exciting, and nothing we haven't already seen before. Unless you're a die hard fan of the franchise and want to watch every movie in it, skip this one.

My Rating: 5/10
BigJ's Rating: 5/10
IMDB's Rating: 5.2/10
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 14%
Do we recommend this movie: Meh.
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Two years ago, we were watching: "Burnt Offerings"

One year ago, we were watching: "Chillerama"

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