Welcome back to 31 Days of Halloween Vol. II, where today I write about Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1998). But I realize now that yesterday’s essay should have been titled “The Shape of Things to Come.”
Damn it. Really Loomis’d that one.
Speaking of our buddy Loomis, his best scene in the franchise happens in this movie. Let me write about that!
I miss the Roman numerals. Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988) should have been Halloween IV. I think the act of ditching the Roman numerals is one of the signs that the ambitions of the Halloween franchise faltered. Halloween 4 becomes an even more generic slasher entry. Haddonfield goes bananas at Michael’s return, and more relatives are revealed as the film replaces Laurie Strode with her daughter, raised by a completely separate family. Even though I am down on all sequels to Halloween (1978) on principle, I cannot say there aren’t elements of the films I like.
For example, this may be one of my favorite character trajectories for Loomis in the franchise following his original appearance. Donald Pleasence is such a fun, recurring force in the Halloween movies that he’s provided me with a wonderful time as a viewer. He’s also haunted each timeline, as Halloween is a multiverse now, obviously. Jamie Lee Curtis deserves incredible praise and attention for how indelibly Laurie Strode informs the best of the films, but the loss of Donald Pleasence did irreparable harm to the strength of the concept as a whole. He’s Michael’s foil, every bit as obsessive and crazy.
Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers does well by Loomis. His obsession and insanity are still there, but tempered, perhaps by humility and a mirror held up to him in a particular scene, maybe my favorite scene in the film. Loomis makes a friend in the battle against evil, and it is a sobering reflection on what he has become.
Loomis, at this point in the film, has had it rough, not just in the runtime so far, but in the ten years since the events of Halloween II (1981). How he managed to survive the explosion he caused is beyond me. With Michael, we’ve come to expect it, but much like the evil he hunts, Loomis’ tenacity is something to consider. A decade later, nobody respects him; his colleague hates him outright and says Loomis is kept on in a ceremonial role, likely by the sheer existence of Michael Myers, who nobody (naturally) would want to deal with. Loomis is not kept in the loop about a Federal transfer of a comatose Michael, and his frustration and warnings fall on deaf ears, and inevitably Michael has escaped and is after another relative. Nobody listens to him. It’s frustrating. The events of the series must be a bureaucratic nightmare from his point of view.
Loomis has a face-to-face encounter with Michael at a gas station, seemingly aided by some demonic force in sheer chaotic luck. Michael speeds out of a garage in a tow truck, lights the gas pumps on fire, destroys Loomis’ car in a subsequent explosion, and then causes the power lines to burn down. No phone call for Loomis, who is well over 100 miles from Haddonfield.
And this is after Loomis offers his own life to Michael, to provide some small satisfaction to the evil figure to spare others. Michael doesn’t want that, though, does he?
The scene that I love follows all this as Loomis is hitchhiking along the highway, no longer propped up on his cane, limping pathetically along. Some teens pull over and beckon him, but speed off as he approaches and leave him in the dust. It’s Loomis at rock bottom; his obsessive quest, despite the nobility of the goal, has only punished him.
Enter Reverend Jackson P. Sayer (Carmen Argenziano), who picks up the dust-caked Loomis in his truck. The man is drunk, religious stickers decorate the truck cabin, and he recognizes Loomis as a fellow pilgrim. This assessment is astute; both men are on a similar mission – to seek out the apocalypse. What else is Michael Myers at this point but the apocalypse, a plague-level threat on civilization that rears its head on Halloween nights to commit evil and end the worlds of many.
Loomis’ mission in many ways is a holy one couched in the guise of psychology, but it is biblical in scope and wrath. Loomis’ desire to purge the evil that is Michael is finally recognized in an itinerant priest who sees something beyond the surface in his own way. Loomis hears the truth from the Reverend, asking the man what he hunts. Sayer tells him: “Apocalypse. End of the world. Armageddon. It’s always got a face and a name. I’ve been hunting the bastard for thirty years, give or take.” Loomis has met someone who understands his charge, at that moment. Fighting the same battle. They are on different terms and from different perspectives, but it is the recognition that the tortured doctor has needed.
Sayer continues, “You can’t kill damnation, mister. It don’t die like a man dies.” Loomis only responds with “I know that, Mr. Sayer.” Loomis knows this intimately. He’s known it since before the events of Halloween (1978). He looked the devil in the eyes, even if those eyes were those of a child who had murdered his sister.
Sayer hands Loomis a bottle of whatever swill the man was drinking, and Loomis accepts it with a smile. He’s finally met someone who understands evil and the strength it takes to fight it. There’s no chance of winning, not really, but he has been recognized by someone fighting that same battle in their own form. Loomis rides for battle, but the film’s resolution again results in his failure. Evil is not entirely contained to Michael; it never was. Evil is evil, and it wears many masks.
But for one brief scene, we have that sweet respite for the weariest man in Illinois.
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[…] I just don’t want to write about Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989). It makes Halloween 4 look like Halloween II in […]