History Film / Halloween4TheReturnOfMichaelMyers

* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler:Zig-zagged with Kelly Meeker for stealing Rachel's boyfriend Brady from her, proudly and unapologetically, although she shows concern for Jamie, treats the guard officers with kindness, and answers trick-or-treaters at her door. Subverted with Brady himself, as he cheats on Rachel with Kelly just because she's forced to cancel their date to babysit, despite how badly she didn't want to and tried to get out of having to do it, but he does manage to redeem himself in the end by giving his life to protect Rachel and Jamie.]]

* AdaptedOut: Sadly, Michael's breathing and grunting is missing entirely. He's completely silent from start to finish, making him seem more like a literal robot than a man MadeOfIron.

* AdaptedOut: Michael's breathing and grunting is missing entirely. He's completely silent from start to finish.

* RetCon: This film retcons Michael's and Loomis's deaths at the end of ''Halloween II'', the film that was supposed to end the Michael Myers story for good by killing off both the antagonist and the antagonist's foil. Loomis is an especially poor example since he was at the epicenter of the explosion that was intended to have killed off both characters and apparently managed to survive with nothing more than one side of facial burning, an unspecified amount of body burning where we only see a burnt hand, and a limp. At least Michael seems to be severely burned from head to toe and rendered comatose by the event.

* {{Tuckerization}}: Jamie's name was originally Brittany, but she was named in honor of Creator/JamieLeeCurtis.

** Dr. Loomis managed to survive the explosion of the first floor of a hospital in ''Film/HalloweenII1981'', returning with a slightly burnt face, a limp, and mangled hands.
** The same goes for Michael, seeing as before the explosion, he got shot in the eyes by Laurie, causing him to become blind. Likewise he has no trouble moving around despite him being comatose for 10 years; one would probably have some form of muscular atrophy. To be fair, it's implied that he isn't exactly human...
* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: The nurse who asked about Michael having relatives not only sets off the events of this film, it sets off the other two films as well, resulting in dozens of people dead.
** Also Dr. Loomis telling the mob about Michael causes them to accidentally shoot an innocent person, which in turn draws away Sheriff Meeker when his staying at the house might have made a difference.
* VigilanteMilitia: The local bartender and a dozen or so of his customers appoint themselves as one of these when they drive to investigate a blackout and find that the titular serial killer has killed most of the sheriffs department. On one hand, they accidentally kill an innocent man wearing a halloween mask similar to Michael’s, but on the other hand they do try to evacuate the main characters from the danger zone and some of the surviving members help gun down Michael at the end.
* VillainBall: After successfully infiltrating the Meeker house, Michael wastes time on sadistically toying with Kelly and Brady rather than going straight for Jamie. The latter, especially, gives Jamie and Rachel time to escape.

* WhamShot: As Deputy Logan sits in the chair on guard in the locked up house, we briefly see Michael's mask in a distant corner, indicating he's already gotten inside.
* WhatTheHellHero: After Loomis riles a group of truckers into becoming a lynch mob against Michael, Sheriff Meeker calls him out on it. Loomis, however, turns the tables by pointing out that the police force is dead and the truckers may be the only defense the town has against Michael. This turns out to be wrong as several of the truckers themselves get killed by him, after accidentally shooting a bystander on the streets, and diverting Sheriff Meeker when he really would have come in handy guarding Jamie.
* WouldHurtAChild: Michael, obviously. But strangely enough, Dr. Loomis, who does not hesitate to slap iron at a child no less than twice in the movie (to be fair though, the first time he doesn't know they're just kids).

* TaughtByExperience: Michael seems to have learned a thing or two about unwanted interference. He cuts phone lines in order to keep Loomis from warning the local authorities in advance and then totals the doctor's car to leave him stranded. He also takes out the police force before making a move on Jamie. And considering how desolate the streets are during the blackout, he presumably caused it to ensure the townspeople stay huddled indoors and thus out of his way.

* StockSubtitle: Justified because, after the Myers-less third movie, the producers wanted to make it absolutely clear that Michael was back.
* SympathyForTheDevil: As Michael lies seemingly dead after Rachel hit him with a truck, Jamie walks over to her fallen uncle and touches his hand in a small show of compassion.
* TakeMeInstead: When confronting Michael at the diner, Loomis invokes the trope -- saying Michael could kill him in exchange for leaving the people of Haddonfield alone. Michael remains still following this, suggesting he turned it down and prompting Loomis to try to shoot him.
* TakeThat: In a cut scene, Michael is coincidentally looking for a new mask at a store the same time Jamie is. He grabs a UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan mask and walks off screen. A few seconds later, he throws it away and grabs the bleached Creator/WilliamShatner mask instead.

* PointyHairedBoss: Dr. Hoffman, who is dismissive of Loomis both personally and professionally and sets all of the death and chaos that follows into motion by deciding to needlessly transfer Michael under his own initiative and without proper security.
* PoliceAreUseless: The Haddonfield Police force is massacred. Only Sheriff Meeker survives. In their defense, it's indicated they put up a fight, and Meeker did have the good sense to call the State Troopers. Sheriff Meeker himself is an overall aversion of this. He's genuinely competent and professional, more than willing to give Loomis the benefit of the doubt, and actively hunts and searches for Myers alongside Loomis with a shotgun. He's also ''completely badass.''

** The guard at the asylum keeps Michael Locked in a well-secured underground cell and admits that, "I'll be glad to see this one gone, yes indeedy," despite the fact that Michael has been comatose for a decade.

* PutOnABus: Loomis is told that Sheriff Brackett from #'s I & II has retired in 1981 ([[MythologyGag which was the year the]] [[Film/HalloweenII1981 second film]] where he made his last appearance was released) and moved out of town.

* {{Sadist}}: Some of Michael's actions indicate sadism. A prime example of this is Kelly's death. He continually rocks back and forth in the chair just as the deputy did, while Kelly brings the deputy coffee and it's only when she realizes who really is in the chair that he kills her. He similarly takes his time with Brady, preferring to see Brady try to fight back against him with his shotgun and later fisticuffs, and dragging out the kill as a form of mockery. This comes to bite him later on, as it costs him valuable time to get to Jamie and Rachel.
* ScarsAreForever: Both Loomis and Michael bear gruesome burn scars from the explosion in ''Halloween II''.
* ShotgunsAreJustBetter: Averted. Brady's attempt to shoot out the lock promptly results in the lock being too hot to touch. Later, Brady tries to frantically reload his shotgun. However, he is trying to do it in a hurry, Michael has closed the gap and his shotgun is quickly rendered impossible to shoot.
* ShootOutTheLock: Subverted. Brady tries to do this so that he, Rachel, and Jamie can escape Micheal (having key locked the doors to keep him out, they now have no key or time to unlock them when he gets in anyway). Unfortunately, having been blasted with a shotgun, the lock is far too hot to touch.

* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler:Kelly Meeker for stealing Rachel's boyfriend Brady from her, proudly and unapologetically. Subverted with Brady himself, as he cheats on Rachel with Kelly just because she's forced to cancel their date to babysit, despite how badly she didn't want to and tried to get out of having to do it, but he does manage to redeem himself in the end by giving his life to protect Rachel and Jamie.]]

* PetTheDog: Kelly has a few of these: when Jamie has a freak-out at the store after seeing Michael with a bloody knife, she's among those who hurry over to see what's wrong; and later she brings Logan some coffee at his guard post. She also answers the door for trick-or-treaters.

* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler:Kelly Meeker for stealing Rachel's boyfriend Brady from her, proudly and unapologetically, as well as Brady himself for cheating on Rachel with Kelly just because she's forced to cancel their date to babysit, despite how badly she didn't want to and tried to get out of having to do it.]]

* ExactWords: Meeker asks Brady if he has handled a shotgun before he gives it to him. That Brady has no formal weapons training becomes a major reason why he gets killed, since he isn't trained enough to reload the weapon quickly enough.

** Rachel, Jamie, and the driver all fail to notice Michael tossing people off the back of a pickup truck. In fact, they don't notice him at all until he smashes through the driver's side window and rips out the driver's throat.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Reverend Sayer tells Loomis "you can't kill damnation, mister. It don't die like a man dies!" [[spoiler:Even after Michael is seemingly killed, his evil lives on, as Jamie attacks her foster mother, just as Michael had murdered his sister.]]

* GrossUpCloseup: A close-up is shown of Michael tearing a man's throat out with his bare hands.

* HighVoltageDeath: Know how Michael managed to cause a blackout? Throwing some poor schmuck into a electric generator at a power plant. He knows how to improv.

* HormoneAddledTeenager: Zigzagged with Kelly and Brady. On one hand they do end up at Kelly's house, coming onto each other pretty fast, but (off-screen) apparently did ''something'' besides just have sex for a while based on how they'e only starting to get undressed right before Rachel, the sheriff and the rest arrive, well after Rachel first saw them together.

* ImprobableUseOfAWeapon: Rather than shooting Kelly with the shotgun, Michael impales her to the wall with it.
* ItsPersonal: Loomis's stake in this. He points to his burn scars and remarks he doesn't want anyone to go through what he did.

* KidsAreCruel: Some of the kids at Jamie's school tease her for the fact that she's an orphan, and for her relation to Michael.

** Deputy Logan, whose body is found by Kelly, who realises that [[OhCrap it's not Logan in the rocking chair]]...

* TheMountainsOfIllinois: A very literal example, as the Rocky Mountains from the Salt Lake City filming location can be seen in the opening.
* MurderByMistake: A group of vigilantes accidentally shoot to death parkgoer Ted Hollister, thinking he might have been Michael.

** Sheriff Meeker mentions that Sheriff Brackett retired in 1981. ''Film/HalloweenII1981'' was when Brackett last appeared in the franchise outside of Music/RobZombie’s remakes, and later ''Film/HalloweenKills''.

* NeckSnap: Brady's death.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: The entire time that Michael is wheeled out of the hospital to the ambulance, and even during the ambulance ride, he doesn't even so much as twitch. It isn't until the EMTs start talking about his niece that he clenches his fist in rage and he springs to life. One can only wonder if he'd stay comatose if he never knew about Jamie at all.

* NightmareFuelStationAttendant: The asylum security guard's tour of the place clearly leaves the paramedics freaked out due to the grimness of the place, and Michael's dark past.

* OverprotectiveDad: Don't go thinking that Meeker didn't notice how Brady was home alone with his daughter.
-->"Oh, yeah... I catch you gropin' my daughter, I'll use that shotgun on you. You understand?"
* PetTheDog: Kelly has a few of these: When Jamie has a freak out at the store, after seeing Michael with a bloody knife, she's among those who hurries over to see what's wrong, and later she brings Logan some coffee at his guard post. She also answers the door for trick-or-treaters.

* DemonicPossession: [[spoiler:Jamie gets possessed by Michael and stabs her foster mother Darlene in the chest with a pair of scissors.
* DentedIron: Doctor Loomis, having managed to survive the events of Halloween II. He doesn't let it stop him from pursuing the escaped Michael once more.
* {{Determinator}}: Brady does everything he can to hold Michael off for Rachel and Jamie to escape, first firing at him with the shotgun, then rifle-butting him with it, and then just going for GoodOldFisticuffs. Unfortunately, since it's [[ImplacableMan Michael Myers]], he shrugs off everything.

* DoesNotLikeGuns: Michael gets his hands on two shotguns during the movie, but doesn't fire either of them; he uses one to impale Kelly, and discards the other after hitting Brady in the face with it.
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Michael forcibly rams a [[PhallicWeapon shotgun]] through Kelly's abdomen, essentially raping her with it.

* CarFu: Rachel uses her car to run Michael Myers over. But since Michael is Michael, it doesn't faze him in the slightest.

* CombatPragmatist: Rachel uses a fire extinguisher to ward Michael off at the school and later runs him over with a pickup truck.

* CoversAlwaysLie: The poster features a shot from the first movie of Michael lurking outside of Lindsay's house while he stalks Annie. There's no such scene in this film.
* CutPhoneLines: Michael doesn't just cut the phone lines of his victim's house. He destroys two diner phones and cuts (by sending fire up a pole) the long distance phone lines ''and'' causes [[BigBlackout a blackout]] in the town.

-->'''Jamie:''' I'm sorry I ruined everything, if I wasn't here you could go out.
** Rachel is a bit of a snarker too.

* DefiantToTheEnd: [[spoiler:Brady]] spends his last moments spitting at Michael.
* DemonicPossession: [[spoiler:Jamie gets possessed by Michael and makes her stab her foster mother, Darlene in the chest with a pair of scissors, which sends her to the children's clinic [[Film/Halloween5TheRevengeOfMichaelMyers in the next film]].]]

* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler:Kelly Meeker for stealing Rachel's boyfriend Brady from her, proudly and unapologetically.]]
* BadlyBatteredBabysitter: Rachel gets her share of injuries and run ins with death while watching over Jamie.

* BigNo: Loomis has the biggest no of history in the ending [[spoiler:when he sees Jamie after she stabbed her foster mother]].

* BusCrash: Laurie died in a car crash.

* TheAllegedCar: Reverend Sayers truck isn't exactly in good shape.

* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler:Subverted with Kelly Meeker. She stole Rachel's boyfriend Brady from her but to many, didn't come across as bad enough to deserve a heinous death like getting impaled by a shotgun for it]].

* BadassMustache: Deputy Logan is the only mustached deputy, and does come across as somewhat intimidating and tough, although not enough to stop Michael.

* RealityEnsues:
** A subversion; Dr. Hoffman notes that, as he's spent ten years in a coma, Michael's muscles should be atrophied to the point of uselessness. Michael being Michael, he's in killing shape the instant he wakes up.
** After the police force is massacred, Loomis eggs the bar patrons, who realized something was up when the lines were cut to the police station, to go after Michael, despite Sheriff Meeker telling them not to; Loomis justifies his actions by explaining that since all the cops except for Meeker and a lone deputy are dead, the truckers are all they have as defense. However, a bunch of drunks armed with guns aren't that competent and they end up shooting a poor guy named Ted Hollister, mistaking him for Michael.
** Brady's attempt to shoot out the lock promptly results in the lock being too hot to touch. Later, Brady tries to frantically reload his shotgun. However, he is trying to do it in a hurry, and he has no formal firearms training. As a result, Michael has closed the gap and his shotgun is quickly rendered impossible to shoot.
** Michael is left briefly disoriented when Rachel sprays him with a fire extinguisher. A fire extinguisher's liquid can seriously burn someone, so Michael left briefly disoriented is a powerful depiction of realism.

* ShootOutTheLock: Subverted. Brady tries to do this so that he, Rachel, and Jamie can escape Micheal (having key locked the doors to keep him out, they now have no key or time to unlock them when he gets in anyway). Unfortunately, RealityEnsues. Having been blasted with a shotgun, the lock is far too hot to touch.

In ''Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers'', ten years have passed since Michael Myers terrorized the town of Haddonfield, Illinois. The fire that seemed to consume both Michael and Dr. Samuel Loomis (Creator/DonaldPleasence) put Myers in a comatose state and burned Loomis over a good portion of his body, but both men lived. During a medical transport, Michael awakens from his comatose state, massacres the ambulance personnel and heads back home with a new target in his mind: his young niece, Jamie (Creator/DanielleHarris). Loomis, as usual, follows the trail back to Haddonfield, and it soon becomes a race against time to save Jamie from her psychotic uncle.

** Sheriff Meeker mentions that Sheriff Brackett retired in 1981. ''Film/HalloweenII1981'' was when Brackett last appeared in the franchise outside of Music/RobZombie’s remakes.

It's raining as the ambulance crew arrives at the hospital to collect Michael, again, just like in the beginning of the first movie.

* CallBack: The ending is one for the [[Film/{{Halloween 1978}} first film's]] opening. It's raining as the ambulance crew arrives at the hospital to collect Michael, again, just like in the beginning of the first movie.

* CallBack: The ending is one for the [[Film/{{Halloween 1978}} first film's]] opening.

* PetTheDog: Kelly has a few of these: When Jamie has a freak out at the store, after seeing Michael with a bloody knife, she's among those who hurries over to see what's wrong, and later she brings Logan some coffee at his guard post.

** Sheriff Meeker mentions that Sheriff Brackett retired in 1981. ‘’Film/Halloween1981’’ was when Brackett last appeared in the franchise outside of Rob Zombie’s remakes.

* StatuesqueStunner: Kelly Meeker stands 5’10” and is the resident MsFanservice of the film.

* [[BigBrotherInstinct Big Sister Instinct]]: Rachel to Jamie. She goes through absolute hell to protect her little sister.

* YourCheatingHeart: Brady moved onto Meeker's daughter when Rachel got tasked with taking Jamie out trick-or-treating.