Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers
Directed by Dominique Othenin-Girard
- horror
- thriller
The story
After lying in a coma for a year, Michael Myers awakens and stalks his way back to his small hometown in Illinois, intent on killing his niece, Jamie, who has been confined to a mental institution since his last attempt to slay her.
What it’s like
Autumn-dark Illinois small-town nights, lit by porch bulbs, sodium streetlamps and the hard white beam of a sheriff's flashlight, with the orange-and-black Halloween palette bleeding through every frame. The camera stays fairly conventional for a slasher, with steady medium shots, hallway tracking moves and staged reveals in farmhouses and a dusty barn, and the sense of a lonely rural town where nothing much happens until something does. Gore is present and fairly sharp in places, with stabbings and a few bloody kills, but the violence arrives in short, abrupt bursts rather than long lingering setpieces, and the sexual content is minimal. The score is the franchise's signature pulsing synth figure, repeated until it becomes a heartbeat, with long stretches of quiet in between. Pacing is brisk and workmanlike, built around a traumatised young girl, her foster family and the institutional psychiatrist who understands the threat better than the adults around him, so the emotional register swings between dread, grief and cold procedural tension. The feel is bleak-leaning and nostalgic, suited to a late-October night with the lights off or a sequel marathon. It is for fans of 1980s slashers who enjoy a boogeyman-hunts-the-final-girl premise, and for viewers who can handle moderate, sudden violence and a persistent sense of dread.
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