With HALLOWEEN, John Carpenter gave the titular holiday its most iconic motion picture and the horror genre one of its greatest achievements, seamlessly marrying Carpenter's own wonderfully effective musical score with a relatively simple stalk-and-slash narrative that followed in the footsteps of 1960's Alfred Hitchcock-directed PSYCHO and Bob Clark's 1974 film BLACK CHRISTMAS, the latter largely considered to be the first slasher movie. Naturally for a movie so creative and yet so modest, Halloween inspired an infamous wave of similarly-toned horror movies that nonetheless paled in comparison to what Carpenter was able to cook up at frequent points during his independently-produced film. Films like FRIDAY THE 13TH, MY BLOODY VALENTINE and SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT replaced the subtlety that made Carpenter's film so approachable on an artistic level, further cheapening the concept by glamorizing their grim kill sequences and dispensing of the character development that furthermore made HALLOWEEN such a masterpiece.

Of course, with audiences eating up any slasher film produced during the decade, a sequel followed -- two, in fact. Carpenter wasn't totally approving but HALLOWEEN II, returning Jamie Lee Curtis to the role that made her recognizable, was given the go-ahead and made a decent go of following up its predecessor while not dropping to the low-rent levels of the derivative, formulaic films that HALLOWEEN had also inspired. Like HALLOWEEN, it encouraged viewers to care about the protagonists, much unlike the misogynistic rip-offs of the era, and was all the better for it, compensating for some of its inherent nihilism by having something approaching a beating heart. It was a much lesser, more gore-heavy follow-up, but an alright, watchable one nonetheless.

After that, the novel concept that Carpenter had to turn the series into an annual exercise in horror diversity backfired, Halloween III's ditching of the Michael Myers story as its central focus -- and, indeed, reducing the original to fiction in its own world -- backfired badly, the non-sequel detached from the initial twosome belly-flopping and being roundly dismissed. For a return to the series, only one thing would do: Michael Myers. As a beleaguering number of FRIDAY THE 13TH and NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET films were carted out by their studios, the Halloween series lay dormant until 1988, when Moustapha Akkad produced Dwight H. Little's sequel -- HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS.

Though it marks the first major steps taken towards turning Halloween into a FRIDAY THE 13TH-style franchise -- albeit one destined to have a more respectable lineage -- Little's film succeeds where most of the sequels have failed. Retaining and touching up the original score that Carpenter concocted for the '78 film while upping the ante with regards to the deaths of the characters Michael Myers (now played by George P. Wilbur) readily dispatches, HALLOWEEN 4 manages to retain some of the original's suspense even while it betrays the elegant simplicity that made the first movie such a diamond in the rough of a subgenre it birthed. This third go-round for Myers is louder and less artistically crafted, but it’s also quite effective, evoking the foreboding look and feel of its titular holiday while offering up a protagonist, and supporting characters, worth giving a damn about. Unlike its lesser brethren during the 1980s, HALLOWEEN 4 isn't completely hollowed out, is possessive of an atmospheric punch, and boasts an ending which puts all that preceded it into a different context and is, yes, great.

Beginning with the notion that the fiery explosion at the end of HALLOWEEN II took neither the life of Myers or his former psychiatrist Samuel Loomis (Donald Pleasence), HALLOWEEN 4 picks up almost ten years following the events of the first two movies. Myers remains in comatose incarceration while the superficially impaired Loomis contemplates retirement. Foolishly, slasher aficionados would say, the powers-that-be decide that Myers must be transferred from the sanitarium in which he exists to Smith's Grove, necessitating an ambulance drive between the places, on the night before Halloween no less. It's not exactly an ingenious setup when one looks at it that way, but considering the way Little has the film shot, you could argue HALLOWEEN 4 is a masterpiece of bookends. Great in a way only matched (and indeed surpassed) by the film's climax, this opening sequence is wonderfully atmospheric and excellently crafted. The shot of the ambulance departing into the ongoing rainstorm as a doctor looks on with equal relief and dread plastered across his face is a sight to behold.

Naturally, all does not go as planned and Michael revives to the misfortune of the paramedics transferring him. Still, one of them did live long enough for Michael to learn of the existence of his niece, now living with a foster family back in Michael's hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois. With Dr. Loomis alerted to the possibility that the mass killer might be on the loose again (he flatly denies suggestions Myers is mangled in the river somewhere), a chase of sorts ensues involving something of a Western-lite standoff in a gas station/diner. Loomis confronts Myers, who looms with bandages wrapped around his entire face covering his supposedly horrific burns, and points a gun at him. We see Loomis shoot, but the next shot confirms Myers dodged and made off. The iconic key strokes kick in and Loomis rushes out fast enough to narrowly avoid death and see Myers drive away towards Haddonfield, another fiery explosion harkening back to Loomis' and Myers' last face-off with each other in HALLOWEEN II.

These impressive sequences behind us, attention shifts to Michael's only surviving relative, nine-year-old Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris), a young girl still broken up over the death of mother Laurie in a car accident and unsure of her place within her current foster family dynamic. Painfully aware of her family history -- she is, after all, reminded of it by schoolyard bullies -- Jamie isn't exactly ready for her uncle's incoming appearance. He's plagued her nightmares for weeks on end, it seems, a somewhat contrived encounter between the two in the Halloween costume section of a store building further upon her dread. On top of everything, Jamie's riddled with guilt over her indirect responsibility (in her eyes, anyway) for the breaking up of stepsister Rachel's (Ellie Cornell) planned date with boyfriend Brady (Sasha Jenson), necessitated by Rachel having to babysit -- and take out trick or treating -- Jamie while her parents go out. Feeling like a burden, the last thing Jamie needs is a knife-toting murderer to show up on the scene with eyes firmly set on her.

Probably the best movie that the Halloween series has to offer aside from the classic original, HALLOWEEN 4 exhibits a greater gift for suspense than HALLOWEEN II, and additional gifts for character and story development over any of its subsequent installments (the only possible rival being Rob Zombie's underrated 2007 reboot). Aside from the looming presence of a masked serial killer, the characters at the forefront of Little's film find themselves grappling with real-life issues (familial dysfunction, immense grief and farcical love affairs) that threaten to remain unresolved by the point Michael comes back into proceedings and dispatches another unfortunate soul. In lieu of doling out the cookie-cutter characterizations that define the protags of the lesser FRIDAY THE 13TH movies, director Little and screenwriter Alan B. McElroy have crafted a slasher experience of a little more depth. Don't mistake HALLOWEEN 4 for something profound -- it isn't, to be blunt -- but appreciate how it asks more from the viewer than to lay our sympathy on the ruthless serial killer subject like so many of its brethren. Rather than turning a masked psychopath into something of an anti-hero, Little and McElroy have Mikey existent, quite rightly, as the villain of the piece, several times having Myers off threadbare characters but mostly convincing us to long for the protags' survival.

Between the fascinating opening and ingenious ending that he brings to the table, Dwight H. Little mounts scenes of frequently conflicting effectiveness that nonetheless manage to form a likable, spookily effective whole. The arguable standout of the middle section, wherein Dr. Loomis has arrived in Haddonfield and attracted (through suggestions bordering on raves and rants) the attention and assistance of current town sheriff Ben Meeker (Beau Starr), places between multiple Myers figures. Initially chilling to Loomis and Meeker, the set-piece unravels as only it can, but is temporarily effective in spite of being a little instance of farce. As the story winds down and Jamie and co are forced to increasingly desperate measures to avoid Myers' blade, Little builds tension and visceral excitement from the scenarios he creates. A perilous scene tracing the path from a house roof to the lawn below leads to a wonderfully photographed run into the misty Halloween night for Jamie, and onwards to further examples of suspenseful titillation at a school house and moving truck, respectively. Continuity errors abound, but there's enough filmmaking prowess here to significantly make up for the script's leaps in logic.

In her first major role, Danielle Harris is a revelation as Jamie Lloyd, wonderfully holding her own amongst the older members of the cast and, indeed, turning in one of the great acting performances of the Halloween series. That might seem no small feat, but once you consider she's up there with the likes of Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasence in their portrayals of the franchise's other two notable protagonists, her success is put into context. On his part, Pleasence shows up here and delivers a characteristically competent performance, even if the screenplay somewhat reduces him to a psychiatrist himself slowly being driven mad by the actions of his definitive patient. Loomis here is a far cry from the more considerate and regretful version of HALLOWEEN, but Pleasence still makes the part work. Otherwise notable is Ellie Cornell, sympathetic and assured as Jamie's stepsister Rachel.

Which brings us to the ending of HALLOWEEN 4. Spiritually revisiting the opening sequence of HALLOWEEN -- in which a young Michael performed his first murder -- without feeling any less inspired, the climactic set-piece forces Dr. Loomis to look square into the eyes of the same evil existent under a different guise -- but familiar costume. A blood-soaked figure stands at the top of the stairs kitted out in a clown costume looking immaculately sinister while a dumbstruck Loomis, perhaps now totally broken by the film's series of events, raises a gun, his screams in unison with the familiar music playing over the soundtrack. It's the most masterful moment of the film -- and also easily one of the franchise's greatest moments -- and ranks comfortably with anything seen in Carpenter's original Halloween, to boot. These are lofty claims, no doubt, but this ending, twisting all that has come before it into something entirely more tragic and grim, works so well that it makes the film something more than a technically proficient trek through the same old territory. It is, of course, cheapened by the cowardly sequel, a film -- HALLOWEEN 5: THE (groan) REVENGE OF MICHAEL MYERS -- that, terrified of any new ideas of its own, reverts to the same old formula and is all the worse for it, not even coming up with any credible conclusion of its own.