Halloween 4 : The Return Of Michael Myers (1988 ) sees the return of the character 10 years after the events of the first two movies. The explosion and fire at the end of the Halloween 2 doesn’t kill Myers or Dr. Loomis but puts the masked killer in a coma while Loomis has a permanent limp and has suffered burns to one side of his face. 10 years pass and Myers wakes escapes while being transferred via ambulance between sanitariums, killing the driver and paramedics, having overheard the fact that a deceased Laurie, had a young daughter who lives in Haddonfield with her foster family. Loomis follows Michael’s trails and at a gas station finds Michael in a mechanic’s clothes wearing another mask. Michael escapes in a tow truck, almost running down Loomis, who hikes his way back to Haddonfield. It’s Halloween again and 8 year old Jamie Loyd mourns the loss of her mother and is living with the Carruthers, close friends of Laurie. The parents are out for the evening, forcing a reluctant Rachel, an older teen and their daughter, to take care of Jamie. Jamie meanwhile has visions of her uncle Michael which frighten her. Rachel & her friend Lindsey take Jamie  to buy ice cream and a Halloween costume after school and Michael almost attacks Jamie at the store.

That night, Rachel and Jamie go trick-or-treating and Michael goes to the electrical substation and murders a worker by throwing him into live high voltage parts, plunging the town into darkness. Dr. Loomis has now arrived in Haddonfield and joins forces with the town’s sheriff Meeker and they go looking for Jamie. Michael single-handedly takes out the rest of the police station, while a bunch of men form a lynch mob to get him. Rachel discovers her boyfriend Brady cheating on her with the Sheriff’s daughter, Kelly, and loses Jamie. After being chased by Myers, Rachel meets up with Jamie and both are found by the Sheriff and Dr. Loomis who warns them about Michael. The 4 of them lock themselves in Sheriff Meeker’s house along with Kelly, Brady and a deputy. Meeker leaves to the station for an emergency while Loomis leaves to find his former patient. Michael arrives and systematically takes out the deputy before killing Kelly by impaling her on a shotgun. He chases the other 3 and kills Brady while Jamie & Rachel escape via the roof; but Rachel is knocked unconscious as she falls. Jamie hides in the local school and is almost caught & killed by Michael when Rachel arrives and sprays Michael in the face with a fire extinguisher. The two girls are given a ride by some of the lynch mob but Michael jumps them and kills the men, as Rachel struggles to control the jeep. finally rams him with the truck, sending him flying into a ditch near an abandoned mine. The police arrive and as Jamie approaches Michael and touches his hand, he rises. The police shoot Michael until he falls down the abandoned mine and is presumed dead. However at the end of the movie as the Carruthers are reunited with Rachel & Jamie; however as the movie ends Jamie dons a clown mask and stabs her foster mother with a pair of scissors (much like young Michael Myers). The film ends with Jamie standing at the top of the stairs with the scissors in her hand, covered in blood, with Dr. Loomis screaming as Richard, Rachel and Sheriff Meeker stare in horror.

Halloween 5 : The Revenge Of Michael Myers (1989) begins right at the end of the events of the previous film. Michael escapes the mine shaft and makes his way to a nearby river and is found by a hermit. he collapses into a coma while in the hermit’s care and remains in a comatose state for a full year. On October 30, 1989, Michael awakens, kills the hermit, and returns to terrorize Haddonfield, where his young niece, Jamie, who was rendered mute due to trauma suffered during the events and committed to a children’s psychiatric ward. She also seems to have developed a telepathic link to her uncle which only Dr. Loomis suspects and he tries to convince Sheriff Meeker that Michael is still alive. Michael then kills Rachel at her house and then stalks her friend Tina (who is the most annoying character I have seen in a movie recently). Michael kills Tina’s boyfriend Mike and steals his car & using a different mask gives Tina a ride to a store. He almost kills her but the police arrive and Michael makes off. Tina and her friends Samantha, and Spitz go to a Halloween party in a barn. Michael kills both Samantha and Spitz, who are having sex, then kills two scab deputies that Loomis has asked to keep an eye on Tina for her own protection. Jamie, having recovered her speech, goes to find Tina along with her friend Billy and is chased by Michael in a car until he crashes it. Tina sacrifices herself to give the kids time to escape. Afterwards, Jamie agrees to put herself in danger to help Loomis stop Michael for good. With Jamie’s help, Loomis lures Michael back to the abandoned Myers house where Michael once lived.

A mysterious figure in black who arrives in the town, causes a death in the hospital causing some of the cops to head there. Michael attacks and kill the remaining cop and then attacks Loomis, who tries to reason with him. A cop who is sitting with Jamie helps her down before being killed by Michael while Jamie makes her way to the attic where finds her and Rachel’s dog Max hung from a noose, and also finds the bodies of Mike and Rachel.Michael finds her, and Jamie tries appealing to her uncle’s humanity but ultimately fails after touching Michael’s face, sending him into a fit of rage. An injured Loomis attacks Michael with tranquilizers to weaken him and then proceeds to violently beat him unconscious with a wooden plank. Michael is taken to the jail by the cops and put in a cell but the stranger in black arrives and attacks the police station, shooting the officer and causing an explosion, thus killing Sheriff Meeker and six others. At the end of the movie, Jamie walks through the station finding the bodies of gunned officers, and goes over to Michael’s holding cell to discover that it is empty.

Halloween : The Curse Of Michael Myers which came out in 1995 also takes place 6 years later. The man in black who took Michael away from the jail and killed the cops has also kidnapped 16 year old Jamie who has been impregnated and her baby is born on October 30, 1995. The baby is carried away by the man in black who seems to be the leader of a Druid cult. At night a nurse helps Jamie escape with the baby but Michael is in pursuit and kills the nurse. Jamie hides in a bus station and tries to call the radio station that is doing a Halloween special on Myers and asks for help but is ignored by DJ Simms. She hides the baby in a cupboard of the station’s bathroom and leads Michael away. He kills her at an old barn but finds the baby missing. Meanwhile Dr. Loomis, now retired, is visited by Dr. Terence Wynn (Mitch Ryan), the chief administrator of Smith’s Grove Sanitarium, who wants him to return. They hear Jamie’s plea on the radio and head to the town. Tommy, (Paul Rudd in his debut movie role) the boy who Laurie babysat in the first film, also hears the plea and goes to the station, finding the baby there. Tommy lives in a lodging house opposite the Myers house, which is now occupied by relatives of Laurie Strode, which include her foster cousin Kara and her 6 year old son Danny. Tommy runs into Dr. Loomis at the Haddonfield Memorial Hospital and tells him of the Strodes living in the Myers house. The two are convinced Michael has indeed come back to Haddonfield.

Dr. Loomis warns Tara’s mother about Michael Myers and she calls her husband to convince him that they should leave. He doesn’t listen to her and soon the two fall victim  to Michael. Later, Kara returns home to find Danny in his room with Tommy, whom he had met while on his way home. The three of them go to Tommy’s house across the street, where Tommy reveals to Kara that he believes Michael is under the curse of Thorn by the Druid cult. Thorn is an ancient Druid symbol that represented a demon that spread sickness and caused destruction. To prevent this, a child from each tribe was chosen to inherit the curse of Thorn to offer a blood sacrifice of its next of kin on the night of Samhain (Halloween). When the corresponding Thorn constellation appears, Michael appears. The curse explains why Michael is out to kill his family and also accounts for his superhuman abilities. Tommy believes that baby Steven will be Michael’s final sacrifice. The old lady who runs the lodge tells Kara that she babysat Michael when he was a boy and that Danny hears the “voice” (from the “Man in Black”) telling him to kill just like Michael Myers heard when she was babysitting him the night he killed Judith and that Danny will be next cursed after Steven is killed. Michael then kills Tara’s brother & his girlfriend and heads to the lodging house. Dr. Wynn reveals himself to be the man in black and his cult members drug Loomis & Tommy and take Tara, Danny & Steven to Smith’s Grove Sanitarium.

When they awaken Tommy & Dr. Loomis make their way to the sanitarium where the latter has a brief confrontration with Wynn before being knocked out. Tommy rescues Tara and then find Danny in a surgery room with Steven about to be part of a ritual. Michael, angered at being a pawn, kills all the cult members (not sure about the status of Wynn) while Tara & Danny escape with the kids. Michael breaks into the room where Tommy injects him with tranquilizers of a corrosive and beats him into unconsciousness with a lead pipe. As Dr. Loomis, Tommy, Kara, Danny, and Steven are about to escape, Loomis tells them to go on without him because he has “a little business” to attend to. Back inside the building, Michael’s mask is found lying on the floor of the lab room as the screams of Dr. Loomis can be heard in the background.

After the debacle of III, the Halloween 4 & 5 two are welcome returns to form. However with Curse, I feel that they took a ste backwards; while giving a sort of explanation for the immortality & powers of Michael, the plotline has a lot of holes. There’s so many twists for the sake of twists that don’t make much sense. I’d give Halloween 4 & 5 a 7 outta 10 each while Curse only gets a 6!