Friday, October 31, 2014

Halloween 5 (1989)


Every long-running horror series has a quintessential installment, the one where all the cliches and tropes are firmly in place, but they haven't yet descended into baldfaced gimmickry, like making the episode "funny" or setting it in outer space. I hereby submit that Halloween 5 is the quintessential Halloween sequel, even though, no, in fact because it isn't very good. It starts with a recap of the previous movie, showing how Michael Myers survived certain death yet again, after which he stumbles into some old dude's hovel and... well, he just up and crashes there until Halloween rolls around again! That's right, Michael Myers, mad slasher, just kinda chills at this cat's pad for an entire year, and unless the guy is a fucking saint or something we have to assume that, at the very least, Michael Myers paid for his own groceries and chipped in a little bit for the utilities. Seriously, think about that for a minute. Imagine all the day-to-day shit that two roommates splitting a really small place would have to hash out, and then imagine that one of those roommates is Michael fucking Myers. Did Michael Myers put little sticky labels on his food so the old guy wouldn't eat it? Did they argue over whose turn it was to feed the parrot? (Yes, they have a parrot. A parrot!) Did one of them ever walk in on the other one jerking off? When you start thinking about the practicalities of the situation, the sheer absurdity of it completely overshadows everything else that happens in this movie, which is too bad because otherwise it hits all the Halloween notes we've come to expect. Michael Myers dons his William Shatner mask. Michael Myers lurks in the bushes and the background. Michael Myers chases one of his female relatives around with a knife. Michael Myers kills several luckless bystanders. Michael Myers' doctor rants and raves and overacts, ultimately achieving nothing. It's like a ballet, if ballet featured more brutal murders, which I think we can all agree it should. Oh, and as a bonus, this chapter also features the incomparably fine "Tina", the acme of Halloween victim-babe hotness, trumping even Nancy Loomis in her underwear, which is no mean feat:


Of all the classic slashers, only Friday the 13th Part 5 trotted out more concentrated wet dream fodder, with its double dose of "Robin" and "Violet":

Both cut down in the prime of their horny lives.
This, THIS is why serial killings should be illegal.
So while Halloween 5 won't be winning any awards (except maybe one of those stupid ones, like the Saturn Award or something), consider checking it out. Tina's legs are not to be missed, and, if nothing else, you'll never have to watch another Halloween sequel again. And won't it be nice to have that checked off your list?
----------
Happy Hallowe'en.

No comments:

Post a Comment