10 Things You Learn Rewatching Halloween 5: The Revenge Of Michael Myers (1989)
7. The Direction Is Surprisingly Strong
When it came time to picking a director for Halloween 5, original franchise co-creator and all-around-bad-ass Debra Hill did the series one last favor.
She suggested a young French director by the name of Dominique Othenin-Girard to producer Moustapha Akkad after being impressed by his work at a couple of festivals. And Othenin-Girard does a shockingly solid job here.
The film is hindered by a lot of technical and editing issues, which can be chalked up to a rushed production and last-minute reshoots just before release, but Othenin-Girard gets what made Carpenter's original film so powerful and utilises it.
He utilises long, gliding camera movements to stalk his actors through the sets, much like Michael himself. Notably, he also gets how to create genuine suspense. Every set piece gives the audience more information than the characters, adhering to Hitchcock's classic 'surprise vs. suspense' rule, and creating some tension-filled sequences because of it.
Considering that Carpenter himself said he was aping "European cinema" with his visuals in the original film, it feels incredibly fitting to see an actual European director step in.
Othenin-Girard went on to deliver highly-acclaimed international work in the decades after this film, winning several awards along the way. So in retrospect, having an arthouse director for Halloween 5 was a pretty inspired choice on Debra Hill's part.