One year after Halloween 4 brought Michael Myers back to the screen, the next installment hit the theaters. Such quick turnaround is usually not a good sign and this film was not the exception. As a young community college freshman, I enjoyed the film, but I was a different person back then. I was desperate for anything to keep the slasher genre alive, and this one went through the motions like a champ. If a mindless slasher with annoying teenagers is what you're looking for, then this film is still a fun little romp. If you want another great chapter in the Halloween story, it wasn't happening this year, or anytime soon for that matter. It took a good five or six years before they dared continue on from this film.
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers was the second film in a trilogy of sorts. You can call it the Michael Myers trilogy, as all of the films' subtitles contain the name Michael Myers. You can call it the Dr. Loomis trilogy, ad the Myers/Loomis dynamic is central to these films. You can call it the Jamie Lloyd trilogy as that character ties all of these films together. You might even call this the Thorn trilogy, due to a plot element introduced in this film, but it's absent from the preceding film so that's not really the best descriptor. Whatever you want to call this trilogy, this installment is where it really started to go wrong.
As I mentioned in the article on Halloween 4, I have a weird fondness for this trilogy. It tried to get it right and at times it came very close to getting it right. In this film, however, I'm convinced that anything it came close to getting right was completely accidental. What's more, it squandered a great set-up from the previous film, then set the next film up to fail. A lot of what happened in between is just painful to watch if you care about this series at all. There's a lot to slog through here, so let's get started.
Obviously, Michael wasn't finished off in the last installment, as he is mentioned by name on the movie posters. His "revenge" could have been metaphorical, and should have been if they did things right. To have his young niece become his replacement or even sidekick would seem like the way to go, especially after the ending of Halloween 4. Instead we get a literal revenge or, more accurately, more of the same. Michael conveniently lies comatose in some hermit's shack for a year until next Halloween, at which point a non-homicidal Jamie is still recovering from her ordeal, and the connection to her uncle is re-established. She's still not homicidal anymore, thus the complete squandering of the great ending to the previous film.
Jamie's foster sister Rachel returns for this film, but only for about 15 minutes before she is killed and we're left with her annoying friend Tina. There were a lot of Tinas in the slasher genre for some reason; I might do a study on that someday. Regardless, Tina is now basically in charge of Jamie's safety, but being the standard model of teenage girls in the 1980s slasher genre, she is intent on going to a Halloween party with her friends. She does later get killed trying to save Jamie from Michael, so there's that, at least.
Well, Tina isn't so bad compared to the goofball cops that arrive on the scene, complete with comedic music. I seem to recall actually cringing when these clowns were introduced. I guess after Michael killed pretty much the entire sheriffs department in the previous film, this was the best they could get. Thankfully they get killed off too.
Dr. Loomis is the one character who makes this film slightly interesting. He still plays that same Van Helsing type of role, but this time his obsession with ending this menace brings him to resort to more desperate measures. Loomis using a terrified Jamie, holding her between Michael and himself, to lure Michael into a trap is an interesting choice with this character. Did he know what he was doing or did his desire to finally defeat Michael push him over the edge to where he is putting this young girl in danger?
In the end, when Michael is caught in the trap, Loomis goes as far as to sacrifice himself to make sure Michael is subdued. It's not clear if Loomis actually dies here, but collapsing motionless on top of Michael suggests that he has finally met his fate, and in the next film he does reveal he had a stroke. If the Loomis character had indeed died here, then this continuity may have had a chance at salvation. In my previous article, I said bringing back Dr. Loomis was necessary, and it was, but once that link to the past is established then with the correct plot and character development, the series can continue without that link. It did appear that they were on track to take this series to the next level like that, but in reality that was not the case.
As this film was nearing completion, director Dominique Othenin-Girard realized the existing story just wasn't enough. So he introduced a new plot element that added a new mystery to the series. There wasn't really much mystery involved with Michael after it was established that his motivations were family oriented. We are first introduced to this new plot element when Michael is comatose in the hermit's shack and we see a strange mark on his wrist: a "thorn" rune. 
I recall wondering if that had always been there when I first noticed it, and indeed it had not. This was added in order to connect Michael to a new character: the Man In Black.
In the middle of the film, a man dressed all in black steps off of a bus in Haddonfield. We do not see his face, but we do see he has that same rune on his own wrist. Who is this person? He appears briefly through the rest of the film and then only in the final scene does he make his presence known. Michael is locked up inside the sheriff's office awaiting transfer to a maximum security facility when the Man In Black enters and shoots the place up, detonates an explosive and frees Michael. Nothing else is revealed, we are left with Jamie going inside to see the death and devastation.
Had this installment been used as a transitional film to begin something new, great things could have happened. However, since this new element was introduced to prop up a weak story with no thought given as to where it would go or who that man was, this was not to be. In the next film we had a new writer and director who were handed these plot threads and told to do something with them.
It's too bad it was treated that way. I remember being excited for the next movie to find out who this mysterious man was. What do they have planned for this? Of course the answer was that they didn't. It's another "what happens next" story in a franchise where people want the creators to have a solid vision of what happens next. It's not fair to the fans and it's not fair to the people who have to make the next movie.
This could have been a great film in the series, but both the producers and director approached it the wrong way. Such a great set up with Jamie following in her Uncles bloody footprints was walked back in such a disappointing way. Even if Jamie didn't become the killer or at least help her uncle kill, a story built upon her struggle to stop herself from becoming that person would have had enormous potential. Giving Dr. Loomis a definite end could have had a big impact with a lot of emotional weight and forced future writers to come up with something new. At the very least, they could have put more thought into the Thorn plot to give viewers a clue about what was to come. They almost made a really good Halloween film, instead they slapped together a mediocre Michael Myers movie that hadn't yet lost all of its Halloween soul.
I'll round out my list of grievances with a few more common complaints. The mask is really weird; it's supposed to be the same mask from the previous film, which I didn't care for either, but it's completely different than anything before or since. They probably used the original in the poster because no one would recognize this one as being Michael. When the mask is removed you can see somewhat clearly that the actor is Native American; I know burn scars can do weird things to a face, but... Also, who put on all the additions to the Myers house? How did it go from a modest two story to a McMansion? It's pretty obvious they just didn't really care, which makes it difficult for me to care.
The next chapter is where things get really confusing. Halloween 5 had the writer/director set up the series to fail, but in Halloween 6, external forces pushed it beyond redemption. Even so, part six is my favorite of the trilogy. One of them is, anyway. See you soon.