10 Movies Ruined By Listening To The Fans

It's easy to forget that there was a six-year gap between the third and fourth Halloween movies, largely due to the critical and commercial under-performance of Halloween III: Season of the Witch.

Halloween III made a bold attempt to shift the franchise away from Michael Myers towards an anthology format, though unsurprisingly fans cried foul about The Shape's absence.

And so, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers brought the iconic slasher back into the fold for what's ultimately one of the most formulaic and forgettable entries into a series with its fair share of duds.

Due to an upcoming writers' strike, the story was conceived and the script written in just 11 days, and the resulting film was a devastating case of "be careful what you wish for."

Beyond killing franchise icon Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) off-screen, there's nowhere near enough Michael Myers here, and to make matters worse he's also wearing one of the worst masks in the series.

Aside from its famously shocking twist ending - where Michael's niece Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris) appears to "inherit" Michael's murderous tendencies - it's a weirdly dull movie, and one that seems less interested in Michael than setting up his franchise replacement.

The original script for Halloween 4, which brought Myers back as a ghost powered by the town's fear, seemed way more ambitious and interesting, but despite receiving John Carpenter's blessing it was rejected by producer Moustapha Akkad in favour of a more conventional slasher sequel script.

Ultimately Halloween 4 only barely out-grossed the third film despite costing double, and the two subsequent, equally worse sequels saw similarly modest commercial returns.