From one to five

In the past few days I have now reviewed and watched HALLOWEEN 1 through 5, thanks to AMC's Monsterfest. And what an uneven batch of films. I've never seen any of these films in a theater. I did rent the VHS tapes way back when I worked at the video store in my teens. I watched Halloween 1, 2 and 3 back then. And I believe I've only seen the first movie more then once since then.

Last night was the first time I ever saw Halloween 4 and 5. After watching the ending of Halloween 3:Season of the Witch a movie that's more along the lines of say, Invasion of the Body Snatchers then Halloween, I found Halloween 4 to be very interesting, especially the ending which suggested so much in possibilities. I was so sucked in by Halloween 4 that I watched Halloween 5, Micheal's Revenge thinking I'd get more of the same. I was completely disappointed. All the promise of number 4 is completely wasted. And yet I'm compelled to analyze the mess and the message for bits of gold. And I gotta say I liked the opening titles from Halloween 5, a kinetic bit of pumpkin carving with Micheal's favorite knife.

It was Chas who pointed out to me that Halloween was John Carpenter's take on John Ford's THE THING. Micheal Meyers is James Arnes' space carrot complete with coveralls and upstoppable attitude. It's unfortunate that the rest of the movies in the series abandon THE THING FROM ANOTHER PLANET for FRIDAY THE 13th, and other slasher flicks that came after HALLOWEEN. Ah well. Borrow from the best.

Comparisons have been made between HALLOWEEN and PSYCHO. And I'm not certain why. I often think about how monster movies went from metaphorical monsters like Dracula and Fankenstein's Monter to human monsters like Norman Bates and back. You can't really call Micheal Meyers a human monster. If there's a similarity between PSYCHO and HALLOWEEN it could be in the family dynamic. Norman and his Mother and Micheal and his Sister. But that's all I can really think of. In fact I'm not too certain why Micheal kills, and who. It's a bit of a muddle. But then Death isn't too picky about why and who dies, either.

Still it is annoying when for no apparent reason Micheal Meyers decides to start killing teens at a party when he should be across town trying to kill the daughter of Lori Strode. I guess it makes as much sense as the decission to kill the daughter of Lori Strode who turns out to be Lori Meyers the sister of Micheal Meyers in the second Halloween. What? Because Micheal killed his sister when he was 7 or so in the prelude of the first Halloween movie. Micheal MUST kill his sister. Or at least his sister's daughter? Wha?

At least Donald Pleasence is pretty much a constant in these movies. Dr. Loomis is the Ahab to Micheal's Moby and if anything gets madder and sadder as the series goes on. So why is it that Micheal never targets Loomis???