10 Things You Learn Rewatching Halloween 5: The Revenge Of Michael Myers (1989)
I knew that hell would not have him.
Following the surprise success of 1988's Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, the producers behind the Halloween series found themselves, once again, sitting on a gold mine.
Even as other slasher franchises such as Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street were entering periods of financial decline, Halloween had resurrected Michael Myers to huge financial results. But with the future of the subgenre's viability so uncertain, it was believed that another Halloween sequel would have to be cranked out immediately in order to capitalize properly on the fourth film's success.
Thus, audiences got Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers a mere year later. To this day, it remains the lowest grossing film in the franchise and has a practically toxic reputation.
But is this reputation fair? Is this film really a nose-dive for the franchise, or is there more than meets the eye...
10. The Music's Downfall
For the first time in the franchise's history, the music does this installment absolutely no favors.
Long-time franchise composer Alan Howarth returns but seemingly forgets to bring any of the vigor or enthusiasm that made he and John Carpenter's prior scores such successes. Instead, Howarth's score here relies on fidgety, weak piano parts and an excess of dollar-store-Halloween-sound-effect samples.
This also marks the first time that electric guitar is incorporated into a Halloween soundtrack and this is a very bad thing. This can be heard on tracks like Victim #1 and Stranger Things and it is used to strikingly poor effect, most notably when the audience is being introduced to Samantha. It's as if Howarth was going for a sultry kind of sound but it just comes off as jarring and totally out-of-place.
Howarth has stated in the years since;
"The director kind of wanted to go back to Halloween 1 in his mind... to feature the piano. So I went for the craziness."
And that's exactly what it sounds like throughout the film; as if Howarth is completely bored by the composition and is just throwing anything in, regardless of if it fits. The end result is a score that sounds tinny and shallow in all the worst ways.