Halloween 5

Ah, good old Revenge, with its need to be served less then lukewarm. It seems that even Revenge will have to have revenge by the end of this movie, because on all the boxes and posters and such, the movie is listed as “Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers,” but in the opening credits, the movie is just called “Halloween 5.”

When you can’t even get your marketing people and your moviemaking people on the same page, trouble is brewing.

And speaking of the credits, as the movie opens we’ve got orange text and a black background, intercut with quick little shots of light glinting off a kitchen knife. There seems to be a puddle of water involved too.

And a pumpkin.

As the credits close, we get a shot of a Jack O’Lantern, which I guess was carved using a knife. So there’s the knife connection, anyway.

The credits conclude, and we’re thrust back into the final minutes of “Halloween 4,” with Michael clinging to the top of the truck, getting flung off the top of the truck, then hit with the truck, then shot a bunch of times until he falls down a well, which then collapses on top of him.

We get a shot that was not in the last movie, with Loomis holding Jamie while they stare at the hole Michael just tumbled into.

And now: New material!

It turns out that it wasn’t a well at all, just an old mine shaft, and not a very deep one at that. Michael is at the bottom of the shaft, crawling down a tunnel into darkness. One of the cops runs over and throws a grenade down the shaft, but it’s too late… Michael has already crawled out a hole in the bottom of the mine, and slipped into the current of a nearby river.

He floats along for a minute, then pulls himself out using a dock.

In a nearby shack, an old fellow living in shack-like squalor near the river hears a noise, steps outside to investigate, then steps back in because he didn’t see anything outside. Michael is there, naturally, and he grabs the old dude by the throat… and collapses to the floor.

The old dude kneels down on the floor, notices the blood on Michael, and we faaade out.

We fade back up on a burn-in – “Halloween Eve: One Year Later.” Plus a bonus burn-in: “Children’s Clinic. Haddonfield, Illinois.”

I guess that would mean it’s time for Jamie to head out and find another relative to kill. Assuming that this movie remembered the big, fat twist at the end of the last movie.

Let’s find out!

Lil’ Jamie is lying on her bed in the Children’s Clinic, with a monitor wrapped around her head that’s reading her brainwaves. We get into dream sequence mode, and we get to see Jamie in her clown suit again. Then we get the clown mask point-of-view shot, with Jamie’s foster mom getting stabbed and falling into the tub.

Non-dream-sequence Jamie wakes up, screaming, only there’s no noise. A nurse runs up and tells her it was another horrible nightmare, and asks Jamie if Jamie wants the nurse to call “her mom.”

So it looks like they’ve decided to “it was all a dream” away the last few minute of part 4. I’m guessing someone said, “I don’t really WANT to make a movie about a killer kid. Why don’t we go ahead and get rid of that bit…”

Jamie continues to not-scream, and we cut to a shot of her hand flexing on the bed.

Then we cut to a shot of Michael’s hand, which appears to be lying on some kind of rock with paint or chalk drawings on it.

Michael’s hand flips over, and we can see a tattoo on his wrist, which looks kind of like a triangle.

Now we get a lot of intercutting. Jamie starts staring at her own hand, and then the nurse takes off, and she writes, “He’s Coming for Me” on a little chalkboard she has.

Michael wakes up, sans mask, and he looks around, and we sorta-kinda get to look at his face for the first time since the end of part I. He pulls on his mask.

Jamie, meanwhile, mimes putting on a mask.

Michael goes over to the old guy who saved his life, and kills him.

Jamie flips out and goes into a seizure of some kind. Other people arrive, and they wheel her out of her room and into another room, where they hold her down with a towel and prepare to cut open her trachea.

Only Dr. Loomis is there, to tell them not to do that. Jamie spontaneously stops choking. Looms follows this up with, “She has something to tell us.”

Is it worth mentioning that his burn makeup looks different? Because it does.

And now it’s the next morning, and Rachel is kind of sleeping in a chair next to Jamie. They both wake up, and sort of communicate their love by having Jamie tell Rachel that her makeup is smeared, only she doesn’t say it out loud.

A dark-haired teenage girl pounds on the window, demanding to be let in. She’s got a dog with her. The dog comes in, and Jamie gets all happy to see the dog.

Rachel tells the brunette, “She can’t even remember,” while the audience goes, “Uh, is anyone going to tell us who just came in the window?”

A Halloween costume is brought out. There are lots of hugs, and other cutesiness-and-dopiness.

Then Loomis walks in, and everyone calms down, and the brunette goes to lead the dog out, and everything is subdued, and then…

CRASH. A rock with a note on it comes through the window. Loomis picks it up and reads it: The Evil Child Must Die!

Outside moments later, Rachel and Loomis chat about this. Rachel wants to know why people won’t leave it alone. Loomis says that people know she’s related to Michael, and that she attacked her stepmother.

So I guess it wasn’t a dream after all. Jamie is still a serial killer, just not a very successful one.

Rachel expresses guilt over the fact that she’s heading out of town for two days. Loomis says that someone will take care of Jamie.

Rachel heads home, and it turns out that the dog belongs to their household. The dog starts barking at a branch that’s moving. Rachel, who hasn’t yet learned the value of paranoia, pulls the dog away and takes him inside.

As she heads in, we get a shot of what’s behind the trees. It’s Michael, in his mask.

Dude. Seriously. By this point, if someone sees a guy in that mask, lurking in some bushes – any bushes at all – the police need a jingle. It’s broad daylight. What is wrong with people?

Rachel heads upstairs to the shower, while Michael lurks around outside.

Jamie, who is currently in art class, freaks out, grabs some markers and starts scribbling on the wall. Someone says her name and she turns around and starts “yelling” in sign language about Max, the dog.

Rachel, still in the shower, hears the phone ring. She throws on a towel and answers it. Loomis is on the other end, asking about Max.

Rachel heads downstairs to check on him. Michael can be seen in another room as Rachel runs to the door – which is open.

She grabs the phone and says that Max is gone, and Loomis tells her to get out of the house. She runs outside and finds a neighbor, who is more than willing to help her because she’s an attractive young female dressed in a towel.

A little later, two cops come out of the house, accompanied by comedic music. They didn’t find anything. Rachel starts to apologize, when suddenly Max comes running down the sidewalk, dead animal in jaws.

The cops say it’s their job to, “Rescue cats,” and, “Find dogs.” Based on the musical accompaniment, this is obviously supposed to be hilarious. But considering the fact that every cop except two was slaughtered one year ago, the funny is slightly dulled. No wonder all the cops were killed: They were dopes.

We get more zany music to let us know that the Krazy Koppers have finished their routine, and the scene comes to a close.

Rachel calls Jamie to tell Jamie that she’s okay, and they hang up the phone.

Jamie gets upset, clearly concerned for her sister, and Loomis tells Jamie’s friend Billy (the kid who asked if she was okay earlier) that Jamie needs some rest.

Loomis waits for Billy to leave the room, then goes to Jamie with a marker and some paper and demands that Jamie write down what she knows. Jamie resists. Or maybe doesn’t resist. She’s not talking, and her head motions are kind of vague.

Back at Rachel’s place, Rachel takes off the robe she borrowed from her neighbor, and goes to her closet with no clothing to hinder her. She tries to pick out something to wear, and a hand reaches up and fondles the bar of her closet.

Then we get a reverse shot of the closet with Rachel standing in it, and we realize: There is NO WAY a human being could fit in that thing and not be seen. It’s about four feet deep and four feet wide, light is practically pouring into the thing, and the door is completely opened inward.

Where, exactly, is Michael hiding?

No matter. Rachel steps out of the closet, and moments later, Michael peeks his head out. As Rachel slips the sweater (and nothing else) on, she can hear Max barking.

Michael, meanwhile, randomly wanders out of the room.

Rachel turns around and walks out of the room, and into the hallway. She looks out the window and realizes that Max is outside, barking. She hears a noise in the room next to her.

She goes in, and finds a framed picture of Jamie lying on the floor. The glass is cracked, and there’s a bloody mess on the picture near the top of Jamie’s head.

Rachel picks up the picture, hears a noise, and turns around.

And finally, there’s Michael, who stabs her with a pair of scissors.

Back in the hospital, Jamie has yet another seizure.

Elsewhere, Loomis confronts the sheriff about Michael, trying to convince the sheriff of… something. That Michael is evil, I guess, because he goes off on one of his speeches, concluding with, “I prayed that he would burn in hell. But in my heart, I knew that hell would not have him.”

Another cop arrives, calling out, “Sheriff. They want you down at the cemetery.”

Back at the ex-Rachel’s house, Brunette Friend shows up, bearing groceries. No one answers the front door, so she uses the keys to let herself into the back door.

Michael-cam alerts us to the fact that Michael is still around, while Brunette Friend wanders around yelling out, “Rachel. Rachel?” Oh, and she also discovers that a record has ended, but has been left on the player.

I don’t recall any music playing in earlier scenes, so this would suggest that Michael killed Rachel, then headed downstairs to listen to some music.

Brunette Friend takes the needle off the record and heads upstairs, giggling. Which is her default.

Upstairs, she heads into the room that I think Rachel was just in, only the director doesn’t bother to establish any geography. Instead, he holds the camera on Brunette Friend while she picks up a stuffed bear, hugs it, then lies down on the bed for a while, then gets up and sees the picture frame with the crack in the glass, only there’s no picture of Jamie any more.

Where’s Rachel? And why is the picture gone? It isn’t like Michael doesn’t know what Jamie looks like, right? And it’s doubtful that her current address is listed on the back. What’s the deal? It’s like the people making this didn’t even attempt to have it make sense.

The doorbell rings, and Brunette Friend goes downstairs, only there’s no one at the door.

I guess Michael ding-dong-ditched the house. What a jerk. Killing people, fine, but that’s going too far.

Then we get ye olde fake care, as Blonde Friend We’ve Never Seen Before accidentally-on-purpose scares Brunette Friend. They yammer about having the house all to themselves.

Seriously, y’all, I have no idea what’s going on or who these people are. Rachel made some sort of comment about “moving out,” so I guess these could be her roommates, but no one is bothering to establish who anyone is or what they’re doing. The brunette could be Lindsay, from the last movie, but I have no idea who the blonde is.

They talk about Rachel going to the country with her friends. Aren’t THEY her friends?

I guess I should just pipe down and realize that this whole “in the country” thing is just a lazy screenwriting excuse to keep people from looking for a very dead Rachel.

Either way, the two friends leave, and we get a shot of Michael in the window to let us know that Michael is still in the house.

Blonde and Brunette go for a walk, yammering about you know, boys, and how they enjoy having adult relations with them. Eventually, Brunette’s boyfriend, who is named Michael, pulls up in a car and the girls get in.

Great. An extra Michael. From how on, he’s called Brunette’s Boyfriend. Brunette, by the way, does not appear to be Lindsey, but I refuse to try to figure out her name, because the movie really doesn’t care.

Back in the hospital, Jamie starts to freak out again. She runs to the window to look outside, and there’s Michael.

Jamie runs out the door and heads out into the hallway. At the end of the hall is a door outside. She sees a shadow through the glass in the door, and runs away, which is dumb, because she’s on the SECOND floor, not the first.

She runs back the opposite way and heads downstairs, which is REALLY stupid, because Michael is currently outside, so this takes her closer to him, instead of farther away.

I’m puzzled, though, because no one else seems to be around. At all.

Jamie runs down some more stairs, to the basement, and into a large room with a bunch of clotheslines. Sheets are hanging down from them, and there aren’t a lot of lights.

She races around, not sure where she’s going, and finally gets into another room. She sees a window well and climbs up a chair and into the window well.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, when she got to the basement, a shadowy figure who looked like Michael was Just a Few Steps Behind Her.

Let’s lay out a few more logic flaws, while we’re here. Where is everyone? Why are they hanging sheets in the basement? Don’t they have a dryer? How did Michael get into the building? Is there no security at all?

Jamie hides in the VERY well-lit window well, and here comes… The Janitor! Jamie signs at him frantically and then here comes… The Nurse! Who asks what’s wrong.

They pick her up and take her back to her room.

In her room Loomis confronts Jamie. He tells Jamie she has to help him. They both know that Michael is alive (uh, in the last movie he said that Michael was dead… time to take a senility test, I suppose). And Jamie knows where he is, and nothing will prevent Michael from finding her.

He goes on to say that someone dug up a coffin in the graveyard, then throws in a few more pleas for help.

The nurse is there, and she does not approve of Dr. Loomis’s methods of counseling.

Elsewhere a bus pulls to a curb, and a man wearing boots with silver tips steps off of it. He sort of kicks a dog out of the way, and a kid looks at him funny, and there’s ominous music, so I guess it’s important.

Some other place, Loomis pulls a gun out from under his coat and heads into a house. I guess it’s the Myers house, but it looks nothing like the Myers house. He calls out to Michael, because I guess his death wish is growing.

He keeps talking. “Have you come home, Michael? I know what you want from her.”

He goes upstairs. He checks the laundry chute. He walks on. Right behind him is… the man with the silver-toed boots. The camera pans up to show us the symbol tattooed on his wrist, which looks quite a bit like the symbol on Michael’s wrist.

Dr. Loomis heads to the basement, and tries to turn on the lights. Which is stupid, because the house has been free of occupants for more than a decade.

He opens up the laundry chute from the bottom, and a dead animal falls out.

Out on the street, Brunette’s Boyfriend runs a cloth over his car, while Michael looks on from a distance. Brunette scares him with a mask. They get in the car and make out.

Blonde friend appears. Blonde’s Boyfriend steps out of a nearby store. Brunette and Blonde go into the store. Blonde’s Boyfriend tells Brunette’s Boyfriend that they can get three cases (of what, they don’t say) and that he needs to pull around back.

Brunette’s Boyfriend goes around back, tires all a-squeal.

Michael looks on.

Blonde’s Boyfriend loads up the car with three cases of… I have no idea. No one will tell me. What, am I too young to know? Is it not important? Why does no one tell me anything? I’m old enough. I’ll understand.

Blonde’s Boyfriend goes back into the store. Brunette’s Boyfriend decides to sit for a minute and look at himself in the car’s mirror. Behind him, in the mirror, he sees a hand take a garden implement and damage the paint job on his shiny, shiny car.

This makes him angry. And you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry. Or sleepy. Or hungry. Really, there’s no reason to like the guy at all. So when he ends up dead in like a minute, I think everyone is a winner.

BB goes to confront Michael, who grabs him by the neck, chokes him, then jams the garden implement into his head. BB lies there for a second, dying, and Michael drags his body away.

Over at the place where the kids with mental problems stay, Jamie is all dressed up in her princess outfit, and Bobby comes over to give her some flowers. And a bracelet that he wears all the time. He says it’s for good luck.

She kisses him on the cheek.

I’d make a crack about young love, but really, this write-up needs that like a gardening implement in the face.

Everyone lines up to show off their costumes for the yearly costume pageant. Awesome idea. Take a bunch of mentally unstable kids and have them compete. Perhaps they could toss a live grenade into the crowd while they’re at it.

Back at Rachel’s house, Silver Toes is on the prowl. Brunette’s Boyfriend pulls up in his car, only that guy is dead, so you have to presume that Michael is driving. Or the car is driving itself.

In a movie filled with totally disconnected plotlines, a sentient car doesn’t seem all that crazy.

Inside the house, Brunette is dressed up like… I don’t even know. She doesn’t look all that different that she did before. She just went from wearing a short black dress to a short white one.

Ah. She has a black and red cape. She’s a vampire of some kind. Tee-hee.

She goes to the car and tells Michael (who she thinks is her boyfriend) to open the door. Even more tee-hee.

Michael opens the door, and Brunette gets in. Michael is wearing the mask that Brunette scared her boyfriend with earlier.

All this is intercut with Jamie freaking out and going into a seizure, which once again is supposed to indicate someone is in danger. Everyone tries to help her, except Loomis, who keeps asking Jamie to tell him where Michael is.

Brunette tells Michael she wants a pack of cigarettes, and she gets mad that, a) Her “boyfriend” is giving her the silent treatment, and b) He’s driving around like a psycho. Apparently both these things are common with her boyfriend. The garden implement to the skull was too good for him, really.

Michael drops her off to get her cancer sticks.

At the hospital, Jamie spits out words. She describes the sign on the front of the store there Brunette has just walked in.

In the car, Michael takes off his mask, picks up a knife, and puts on His Mask.

The girl walks out the door, sirens scream, and a gaggle of cop cars pull up telling her that if she’s Tina, she needs to stop where she is.

Oh, hey! A name. Tina. That took long enough.

The cops tell Tina she needs to go see Jamie, and Tina goes to tell her “boyfriend” what’s happening… only his car is gone. No surprise there.

Tina goes to see Jamie, and Jamie says, “Tina!” She can speak again. Hooray! Tina is very happy.

Tina tucks Jamie into bed and Tina says she has to go to the party. Tina is a moron. And a heartless one at that.

Loomis tries to stop Tina from leaving, explaining that Jamie, who is crying a LOT in the other room, thinks that Tina is in danger.

Oddly, Jamie referred to Michael as The Boogeyman again, which makes no sense whatsoever. Everyone knows his name now. He’s a public figure. On the record. A part of local lore.

Tina leaves, proclaiming, “I’m never sensible if I can help it!” Loomis calls out to two cops to stop her, but unfortunately, it’s the Keystone Koppers, and they don’t do anything. Again.

Assuming Tina is going to die, and I do, that means they are indirectly responsible for the deaths of two people on the same day.

Loomis gets ready to go off on a rant about how if Tina dies, it will be All Their Fault, and they go to tail her. They get outside and explain that, yep, they’re following her, and she tells them to give her a ride to the party.

I guess she really does have vampire powers, because they agree to take her to the party.

Jamie stares out her window as the cop cars drive away – and right behind them is Michael, in his stolen car.

Jamie freaks out a little bit.

Moments later, the nurse appears, crying out that no one can find Jamie. Loomis prepares to go after Jamie when the sheriff arrives. Loomis tells him that Jamie is gone.

Outside, Jamie is wandering around. She runs into Billy, who says that he knows where Tina is. The Tower Farm. That’s wonderful. Now they just have to learn how to boost and drive a car.

At The Tower Farm, the party is in full swing. The Keystone Koppers are sitting outside, waiting for something to happen.

Michael drives up in his car, and the Koppers decide that it isn’t a life-threatening situation. They opt to play cards.

Inside the party, Blonde Friend tells Tina she has a “great” idea. I’ll bet.

Tina and Blonde Friend run outside, screaming. Michael gives chase behind them. The Koppers get out of their car, drawing their guns.

Michael pulls off his mask, revealing that he’s actually Blonde’s Boyfriend. The Koppers chastise them for this prank, pointing out that someone could have gotten hurt. “Fortunately, we’re lousy cops,” says one of them.

Seriously, did someone accidentally drop some pages from a “Police Academy” movie into this script? More or less at random?

Blonde Friend finds a kitten, and she, Tina, and Blonde’s Boyfriend run into a barn. Because it’s a farm, you see.

Ah, I get it now. They’re looking for kittens. They find a bunch, and Tina chases after one that opts to run away from the stupid people. On the other side of the barn, Michael walks in the door and prepares to do some damage.

Tina loses the kitten in the dark, and then, WHAM! Kitten attack! No, I’m kidding. I’m just depressed that this movie is lame enough to use the “cat jumps out of the dark and scares everyone” tactic.

I mean, really.

Tina gets up and goes to rejoin her friends. She sees something in the dark, and jumps a little bit. She resumes the search for her buddies, and something almost falls on her. It’s a hay bale, dropped by Blonde’s Boyfriend.

Tina leaves B and BB (er… BB2?) to do, like, whatever. Only BB2 ain’t there neither. B starts to freak out a bit. She thinks she sees her man-friend, only he vanishes, and then she thinks she sees him again, only it’s Michael, who stabs her.

No, wait, it’s her boyfriend again, wearing the mask and fake stabbing her. She gets super-angry, but then – kissing.

Man, remember when Halloween used to develop characters, at least a little bit? I miss those days.

Things progress. Blondie is going to get some action on a hay bale. This is going to be itchy.

She finally protests, pointing out that she doesn’t have any protection. But her boyfriend does. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have any protection from pitchforks, and as things get a little more… uh… heated? Yeah. Michael comes up and gives him a pitchfork in the back.

Michael then casually walks away while the boyfriend dies. However, his impaling didn’t extend through the boyfriend and into Blondie, so she decides to go the standing up and screaming route.

They say you never forget your first time, but I have to say it’s particularly true, in this case.

(Okay, I need to pause for a second and address something. This movie doesn’t make a lick of sense. None. None at all.

Let’s take the first Halloween. Michael kills his sister. Okay. Then he kills another dude for some clothing (logical) and then three babysitters attract his attention when they yell at him on the street. It’s a wrong place, wrong time thing.

Then we learn that Laurie is his sister, and he’s actually back to kill off the rest of his family. A little screwball, sure, but it still gives us a little logic to hang with.

Part four, he’s still after family members. Fine. All well and good. Some people get in the way, and he seems to have really elaborate plans on how to accomplish his task, which somehow involve killing all the power in town, but still. Dude had a goal.

This time, though. What’s his deal? Killing Rachel, okay, Rachel can be viewed as family by adoption. Killing Jamie, fine. The psychic connection thing is more-or-less out of nowhere, but we’ll run with it.

Why on earth is Michael tracking down and killing Rachel’s friends? He’s never met them. They didn’t taunt him. And it’s taking a LOT of work to kill ‘em, because unlike the first movie, where they’re all in one place, he has to drive to the middle of nowhere to do some killin’.

Michael needs a game plan, folks. Anyone want to hand the dude a life coach?)

Back to Blondie. She backs away from Michael, who has now located a scythe. She yanks the pitchfork out of her boyfriend, and attacks Michael. Michael dodges, and kills her with the scythe.

We don’t get to see how. Probably to avoid an X rating. Who knows?

Outside, the Keystone Koppers finally notice that the screaming going on seems sort of genuine, so they get out of the car to check things out.

Michael comes out the barn, carrying the pitchfork. The cops point out that, “Someone is going to get hurt with that thing.” They get ready to get all authoritative.

Back at the party, one of the guys tries to convince Tina to come skinny-dipping. Tina says she can’t just leave her friends.

As everyone else heads out for a night of debauchery, Tina goes to the barn and starts yelling to her now-dead buddies. She looks around and spots a kitten, covered in blood.

At the same time, Jamie and Billy finally make it to the farm. How they got there, and how long it took them, and why no one felt compelled to help out some kids running around in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night is anyone’s guess.

At the barn, Tina picks up the bloody kitten. She spots the bloody scythe, and her dead friends tumble from atop the hay bales.

She runs outside, calling for help, just as everyone drives away.

She goes to the cop car, but the Koppers are dead.

She looks over and spots her boyfriend’s car, only Michael is behind the wheel.

Jamie and Billy suddenly arrive and yell to Tina.

Michael fires up the car and goes to run down Tina. Tina runs away.

Jamie and Billy yell at the car, telling Michael to come for them. Michael figures, okay, sure, and chases them.

He hits Billy, who rolls to safety. He’s hurt, but I’m sure he’ll be okay, because most movies don’t have the guts to kill a kid. Unless cancer gets them. That’s okay.

Michael chases Jamie in the car until he crashes into a tree. The car goes up in flames, but of course Michael is unharmed. He gets out of the car and comes for Jamie. But Tina runs into his path and gets stabbed.

Billy runs up, and grabs Jamie, and they walk away. Slowly. With Michael maybe behind them. I think.

He doesn’t catch them, as Loomis suddenly appears out of nowhere and brings the kids to the cops.

Tina and the two kids are loaded up into ambulances, and Loomis asks Jamie if she’s willing to help him.

“Can you kill him?” asks Jamie.

“I think so,” says Loomis. Who, up to this point, has failed a LOT at the whole killing Michael thing.

The various cops and ambulances drive off, and Loomis stands alone out by the farm, and yells into the woods, and tell Michael that someday his anger will destroy him too. “You have to fight it!” says Loomis. “In the place it all began.”

Ah. Everyone is headed back to the Myers house. Where they stick a nine-year-old girl in Michael’s sister’s room, and have her brush her hair, the same way that Michael’s sister did, only less post-coitally.

Jamie and a cop practice their signal for when Michael shows up. Things seem to be all set to go. When suddenly, Jamie starts to seize up, crying, “Billy! Billy!”

The cop shouts for Loomis, who is downstairs walking past some fresh graffiti on the wall. The graffiti in question is, of course, the symbol tattooed on Michael and Silver Boots.

Loomis pages the sheriff, and tells him that Michael is at the clinic. The sheriff sends all mobile units to the clinic.

Then he radios to Loomis that they’re going to take Jamie to the police station, where she’ll be safer. Sure.

And Loomis says, “Now you’ll come, won’t you Michael?”

Upstairs, Jamie’s cop buddy, whose name is Charlie, confronts Loomis, who says they aren’t going anywhere.

Outside, another cop radios to Charlie that there’s a cop car approaching. The car rams into his vehicle, then the driver shoves a hand through his window, chokes him, and beats his brains out on the steering wheel. Is it Michael? You get one guess.

Inside, Loomis tells Charlie to watch Jamie, and he heads downstairs.

Loomis wanders the ground floor until he finds Michael, and then Loomis gets to monologueing, telling Michael that he knows that, “The little girl can stop the rage inside you.”

He tells Michael that “the little girl” is in the middle of the house, and says, “Let me take you to her.” It seems like it’s going to work, but then, no. Michael stabs Loomis, smashes him into a window, then throws him over a banister onto the floor a half-story below.

Charlie and Jamie, meanwhile, try to escape out the window using a rope ladder that came from somewhere-or-other.

Michael breaks through the door, and Charlie shoots him a lot. But it’s no good. Jamie runs away.

Charlie, however, gets hung on his own rope ladder.

Over at the clinic, kids are fleeing what I guess is a fire. No one actually says it is a fire, but there seems to be smoke. Or mist. I have no idea what’s going on there.

Back at the Myers house, Jamie finds the laundry chute and decides the best course of action is to go down it. Strangely, Michael, who just broke through another door like it was nothing, has a lot of trouble getting through the door just behind her.

Once he breaks through. Michael checks the laundry chute right away, spots his niece, and tries to grab her. She lets go, and falls all the way down to the bottom, which is locked.

Michael goes to the basement, finds the bottom of the chute, and tries to open the door. It sticks.

Jamie tries to climb back up the chute, while Michael frees the door and tries to reach up the chute. Then he tries to shake the chute. Then he starts stabbing into the chute.

Jamie, meanwhile, manages to pull herself up and out of the chute.

Out on the street, cop cars drive somewhere, fast, lights blazing.

Jamie heads to the attic, which is not the best decision she could have made, and there she finds several things: some blazing candles. Her large school photo which was formerly property of Rachel. Brunette’s Dead Boyfriend. And Dead Max the Dog. And Dead Rachel.

Jamie cries out, “No!” and then hears footsteps behind her. Michael is coming up the stairs. And there he is.

Jamie climbs into something that looks like a coffin, and lies down. (It is a coffin. Michael dug it up earlier. I guess it’s nice that this totally random act has a payoff.) Michael gets ready to stab her, and she says, “Uncle? Boogeyman? Let me see?”

Michael lowers his knife and takes off his mask. We don’t really see his face, but we see a single tear roll down his cheek.

“You’re just like me,” says Jamie. “Let me?” And she goes to wipe away his tear. Michael freaks, puts on his mask, and goes back to stabbing, but Jamie has already run away.

She goes downstairs, and finds Loomis who is quite alive. Loomis picks up Jamie, and yells out, “You want her! Here she is! Come and get her!”

But he keeps walking backwards, leading Michael downstairs, to the middle of the living room. Suddenly, Loomis pulls a rope on the wall, and a net made of heavy chains falls on him. Then Loomis shoots him twice with a dart gun of some kind. Then he beats Michael with a two-by-four, yelling out, “Die! Die! Die!”

Finally, Michael falls to the floor. Loomis collapses on top of him, eyes open. Maybe dead, but probably not, because this series has three more movies to go.

Red-and-blue lights show outside. The cops have arrived. I have no idea who called them.

Later, Michael is locked up in a prison cell. The sheriff declares, “The National Guard will take him to a maximum security facility. Where he’ll stay ‘til the day he dies.”

(Um, why is his mask still on? Is it normal to leave masks on a serial killer, after he’s captured?)

Jamie says, “He’ll never die.”

The sheriff tells the other cops to take her back to the clinic. For being sassy, I guess. The cops lead her away.

Outside, Silver Toes stamps out a cigarette, and walks into the police station.

Nearby, a cop puts Jamie into his car, when suddenly there’s an explosion in the police station.

A barred door, red light behind it, silhouettes Silver Toes, who appears to be shooting with a machine gun.

The cop with Jamie says, “Wait in the car,” and runs in to see what’s going on. Jamie, of course, gets out of the car and heads into the police station. All the cops are dead. Again.

All the police in town killed on Halloween, two years in a row. Recruitment for the next round is going to be rough.

Jamie finds the cell Michael is supposed to be in, only the door has been blown off of its hinges. As has the door to the outside world.

Jamie starts to cry, softly stating, “No. No.”

Really, movie? That’s how you’re leaving things? With some dude in silver-toed boots and a cowboy hat and a flappy kind of coat thing breaking Michael out of jail?

Yep, that’s how they’re leaving things.