10 Things You Learn Rewatching Halloween 4: The Return Of Michael Myers (1988)
9. Myers As Myth
The film does a wonderful job of building up the myth of Michael Myers, both in-narrative and out.
After spending Halloween III away from him, producer Moustapha Akkad knew that if they were going to bring Michael back, they had to earn it. And to his immense credit, the opening sequence totally does.
Between Howarth's score and the dark-and-stormy-night visuals, the opening sequence plays like the opening of a fireside ghost story. It builds and builds, with Black and Evans entering Ridgemont Federal Sanitarium and descending into the depths of 'hell' itself to retrieve Michael.
The exposition spouted by James, the over-eager security guard, as he takes them to Michael only accentuates all of this. Michael feels positively mythic here, precisely because the audience is being shown all of this from the perspective of these side characters.
As a result, Michael's presence looms over the opening sequence. And then when he's finally shown, slaughtering Black and Evans in the ambulance, it sets the stage for a new kind of Michael Myers story.