Halloween 4 The Return of Michael Myers (1988) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - October 16, 1988

It took six years, but another Halloween sequel "course corrected" the perceived creative misstep of Halloween III Season of the Witch (1982).

Picking up ten years after the events of Halloween (1978) and Halloween II (1981), this sequel introduced Laurie Strode's orphaned daughter Jamie (Danielle Harris). When a comatose Myers (George P. Wilbur) learns that he has a relative he has yet to kill, he awakens from his ten-years long coma and sets off once again to Haddonfield, Illinois. Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance) is quick to pursue, of course.

Competently directed by Dwight H. Little and sporting a solid enough for what it is script by Alan B. McElroy, Halloween 4 gave audiences more of the same, but with just the slightest bit of difference to make it appear fresh, and, for the briefest of moments, it revived the moribund franchise from the shackles of its years long inactivity.