'' is the
1989 sequel to the popular
Horror Film , ''
Halloween ''. It was directed by
Dominique Othenin-Girard and starred
Donald Pleasence , who again portrayed Dr. Sam Loomis. The original music score was composed by
Alan Howarth . The film was marketed with the tagline "Michael lives. And this time they're ready!"
The film begins with a recap of '', but Michael finds a way out and stumbles into a nearby river. He stumbles into a small shack by the river owned by a local hermit. Once there Michael collapses and remains in a comatose state for a full year. On October 31st 1989, Michael reawakens, kills the
Hermit and returns to terrorize Haddonfield, where his young niece,
Jamie Lloyd (played by
Danielle Harris ) continues to live after nearly being killed by Michael the year before.
Jamie has been unable to speak since attacking her foster mother in a state of shock at the end of part four, but exhibits signs of a telepathic link with her evil uncle. Dr. Sam Loomis realizes that this link exists, and plans to use it to put an end to Michael. Michael begins stalking Rachel (Jamie's foster sister) and her friend Tina (played by
Wendy Kaplan ). After both are killed Jamie agrees to put herself in danger to help Loomis stop Michael for good. With Jamie's help, Loomis lures Michael back to the old Myers House.
Michael makes many attempts to kill Jamie, finally getting the chance to kill her in the attic. Jamie in a desperate move, tries appealing to Michael's humanity by saying "Uncle." This causes Myers to pause. When Jamie asks to see his face, he takes off his mask. A lone tear runs down his face. Jamie reaches up to wipe it away, and Michael is thrown into a rage. Loomis comes to the rescue and attacks Michael, beating him repeatedly with a 2 x 4. They take Michael to the local sheriff's station. However, a mysterious stranger, dressed in all black, has come to Haddonfield. Jamie, sitting in a patrol car outside, hears an explosion. Jamie walks through the station finding the bodies of the dead officers. She goes over to Michael's jail cell to discover that it's empty. Jamie discovers that Michael has disappeared. As Jamie sobs realizing Myers is once again able to get to her, she says ''No...NO!''. The scene then goes black.
After the immediate success of ''Halloween 4'', the producers felt that a fifth instalment was inevitable. The 80's slasher craze had largely subsided by this time and this was most likely the contributing factor to why ''Halloween 5'' was rushed into production before the script had been perfected. The producers wanted to hit an October 1989 release for the film most likely to make one last chip-in on the almost dead slasher movie fad. However, ''Halloween 5'' went into production in May of 1989 and was completed on time.
Similar to ''Halloween 2'', there was a lot of tension on the set of this particular entry. The director wanted more gore, which was opposed by executive producer Moustapha Akkad.''Halloween: 25 Years of Terror'' DVD documentary Also, veteran actor Donald Pleasance cited differences in the plot with the director, as did Akkad. They felt that Jamie should have killed her stepmother and should have been completely evil, but the director's vision is the one we see in the final cut of the film.
''Halloween 5'' is one of the least successful films in the franchise. The film received mostly negative reviews and took in almost $12,000,000 on a budget of around $5,000,000. Due to the film's negative reviews and low ticket sales the film was released straight to video outside of North America. Many believe this is due to the film being rushed into production. Others believe it is because ''Halloween 5'' was competing with ''Halloween 4'', which was being released on video and TV.
- KNB Effects had designed grotesque facial makeup for Michael Myers' unmasking towards the end of the film. The producers told them to do so as an option, either showing Michael's badly scarred face or keep it in the dark. They went for the latter.
- Although the film is titled ''Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers'', during the opening credits the title is just ''Halloween 5''.
- The bus that the Man in Black gets off of stops outside the exact same store where Jamie and Rachel went to get a Halloween costume in ''''.
- Rachel was originally supposed to be stabbed in the throat with scissors but the actress, Ellie Cornell, felt it was too gruesome for an end for her character, so it was changed.
- Don Shanks revealed in an interview that many of the scenes involving the Man In Black had him playing the character, because of speculation that he was a blood relative of Michael Myers. He also admitted that even the writers were uncertain about the Man In Black's identity.
- The scene where Michael Myers drives a car while wearing a different kind of mask was initially scripted to have him wear a Ronald Reagan mask. However, the idea of a Reagan mask was soon rejected in order to keep the film devoid of any political subtexts.
- On the audio commentary for the DVD, it's stated that Gregory Nicotero and Wendy Kaplan were seeing each other during filming.
- Due to the success of ''Halloween 4'', ''Halloween 5'' was rushed into production before the script had been finished.
- Originally it was planned to have Jamie turn evil after murdering her step mother, but after conflicting with director Dominique Othenin-Girard, the script was changed.
- Actress Ellie Cornell almost refused to return as she disliked the way in which her character was killed, so the scene was slightly changed.
- Michael Myers' house is completely different than the other films.
- ''Halloween 5'' is one of the least successful films in the series.
- It is reported that there was a lot of tension on-set between the cast & crew and director Dominique Othenin-Girard.
- Actress Danielle Harris was stalked after the releases of ''Halloween 4'' & ''Halloween 5''.
- At one point Dominique Othenin-Girard was in talks to return for ''Halloween 6''.
- The picture of Jamie that was broken before Rachel got killed can also be seen in the movie, '' Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead ''.
- Horror author Dennis Etchison makes a reference to there being a ''Halloween 5'', a couple of years before the actual movie is conceived, in his 1986 novel ''Darkside''. The lead character in the book composes film scores, seemingly for mostly cheap horror flicks, and ''Halloween 5'' is a project in his near future. This was before Michael Myers was confirmed to return to the series. Etchison also wrote the tie-in novels for '' Halloween 2 '' and '' 3 ''.
- The official website for the franchise, www.halloweenmovies.com, features a map of Haddonfield which indicates that the hermit seen in the prologue may be another living relative of Michael Myers. His home was located on the outskirts of town along the Lost River.
halloweenmovies.com
