| Halloween 4 History: For five years, moviegoers everywhere were left without a new Halloween movie at the theaters. Of course all the previous entries aired on television at that time of the year, but the story was not yet complete. In 1988, things began to pick back up. Moustapha Akkad returned as executive producer, along with producer Paul Freeman, to cater to the fans and the audience once more. A story was devised at this point by three men by the names of Dhani Lipsius, Larry Rattner, and Benjamin Ruffner, that had Michael Myers returning from a coma ten years after his original rampage of murder in the first two films. His long-time nemesis, Doctor Samuel Loomis, was also found to be alive, surviving an explosion he caused in the Haddonfield Memorial Hospital that supposedly had killed him and Myers. The killer was returning to Haddonfield to kill his niece, Jamie Lloyd, after Laurie Strode and her husband had died in a car crash. Alan B. McElroy, an enthusiastic fan of the first two movies, was brought in to touch up the story and eventually pen the screenplay that would ultimately be produced as HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS.This time however, the movie did not have a major picture distributor such as Universal to aid them in the well-faring of this film intended to revive the series that had supposedly died with HALLOWEEN III. Trancas International Films, of which producer Moustapha Akkad was in charge, won the legal rights to continue the HALLOWEEN franchise. The film was released to theaters by the Galaxy Corporation and was directed by Dwight H. Little, who went on to direct several successful films such as 1996's MURDER AT 1600. Donald Pleasence returned as Dr. Loomis, who was after Michael Myers again, who was played this time by George P. Wilbur. Although the new Halloween movie was a hit at theatres and received improved critical reviews over the past two films, John Carpenter had opted not to be associated with the film at all. He had his mind set that he did not want to have anything at all to do with any HALLOWEEN sequels from now on, forgoing the title "Based on Characters by John Carpenter". Despite his protests, the title "Halloween Theme by John Carpenter" does appear by itself in the main title sequence. Of course, this time, he really had nothing to do with the performace of the soundtrack, which was solely composed by Alan Howarth, who had assisted Carpenter on the soundtrack for the first three films. |
