the m0vie blog

Hosted by Andrew Quinn, Darren Mooney and Joey Keogh, this week with special guest Peter Keenan, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

This year, we are running a season looking at the films in the Halloween franchise. So this week, Dwight H. Little’s Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers.

It has been ten years since Michael Myers’ rampage through Haddenfield. For that decade, the killer has lain dormant. However, during a routine transfer, the innocuous mention of Myers’ last surviving blood relative stirs the slasher from his slumber. Myers makes his way towards Haddenfield, and towards his innocent young niece: Jamie Lloyd.

At time of recording, it was not ranked on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

Show Notes:

• Recorded 21st September 2023.
• Note: Due to the COVID-19 situation, this episode was recorded remotely. We suspect, going forward that a lot of our episodes will be until the crisis resolves.
• Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers at The Internet Movie Database.
• Follow Joey on Twitter.
• Read Joey’s articles at Wicked Horror.
• Read Joey’s articles at Vague Visages.
• Follow Peter on Twitter.
• Buy Taking Shape by Dustin McNeill and Travis Mullins at Amazon.com.
• Buy Taking Shape II: The Lost Halloween Sequels by Dustin McNeill and Travis Mullins at Amazon.com.
• Rick Springfield talks to USA Today about his appearance in the second season of True Detective, August 2015.
• The A.V. Club ranks the Halloween franchise, October 2023.
• Den of Geek ranks the Halloween franchise, October 2023.
• Vulture ranks the Halloween franchise, October 2023.
• Variety ranks the Halloween franchise, October 2022.
• Dwight H. Little and John Murdy talk to Halloween Movies about inspiring the Halloween Horror Nights maze at Universal Studios, November 2018.
• Pamela McClintock writes at The Hollywood Reporter about the re-release of Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers to mark the release of Halloween Ends, September 2022.
• Dennis Etchison talks to Blumhouse about his unrealised plans for Halloween 4, January 2017.
• Rachel Treisman at NPR reports on Mariah Carey’s attempt to copyright the title “Queen of Christmas”, November 2022.
• Cindy Y Rodriguez at CNN reports on Disney’s attempts to trademark “Day of the Dead”, May 2013.
• Meagan Navarro at Bloody Disgusting offers a brief history of the Golden Age of Slashers, April 2020.
• Chris Sasaguay at Collider looks back at the controversy over April Fools Day, April 2023.
• Chad Collins at /film looks at some unlikely slasher movie spin-offs, June 2022.
• Padraig Cotter at ScreenRant reports on the early drafts of Halloween 4 that brought back Jamie Lee Curtis, January 2022.
• Shem Bitterman talks to The Los Angeles Times about the speed with which Halloween 4 came together, May 1990.
• Josef Adalian at Vulture writes about the collaboration between AMC Fear Fest and Shudder, August 2023.
• AMC celebrates the 20th anniversay of Fear Fest, October 2016.
• Shawn Van Horn at Collider wonders why Michael Myers’ mask looks so bad in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, October 2023.
• Kara Hedash at ScreenRant considers the brief moment where Michael Myers went blonde in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, March 2021.
• Walter Mondale protests in The New York Times that Ronald Reagan is blurring the boundaries of church and state, September 1984.
• Juan Williams at The Washington Post reports on Ronald Reagan’s embrace of the religious right, March 1984.
• Christianity Today reports on the controversy over Ronald Reagan declaring “the year of the bible”, June 1983.
• Steven P. Miller at Salon considers how Ronald Reagan’s embrace of evangelicals reshaped American politics, May 2014.
• John Herbers at The New York Times reports on concerns about Reagan’s obsession with “Armageddon”, October 1984.
• Michael Hirsley at The Chicago Tribune reports on the controversy around Nancy Reagan’s embrace of astrology and new-age-isms, May 1988.
• Robert Hilburn and Chris Willman at The Los Angeles Times report on a new embrace of spirituality on popular music, June 1987.
• The New York Times reports on the growth of fundamentalist sects in the United States, June 1986.
• Russell Chandler at The Los Angeles Times reports on the religious right’s engagement with the mainstream of politics and culture, March 1986.
• Carl F.H. Henry talks to The Los Angeles Times about Christian concerns about a resurgent paganism in contemporary American culture, November 1987.
• Charlotte Lowe Allen at The Los Angeles Times writes about Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and The Accused as a movies about masculinity in crisis, November 1988.
• Alan Yuhas at The New York Times looks back on the satanic panic as it stirred through eighties America, March 2021.
• Keith Roysdon at Crime Reads considers the sway that the satanic panic held over American culture, April 2022.
• Clyde Haberman at The New York Times reflects on the legacy of the McMartin Preschool scandal, March 2014.
• KCAL News reports on the consequences and fallout of the McMartin Preschool case, August 2014.
• Rich Juzwiak at Jezebel considers the shadow cast by the “stranger danger” hysteria of the eighties, October 2020.
• Rita de Brún at The Irish Examiner looks at the truth concealed by “stranger danger”, October 2015.
• Moustapha Akkad talks to The Hollywood Reporter about the success of Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers on home media, April 2007.
• James Lardner at The Los Angeles Time reports on the growth and the emergence of home media and how that affects Hollywood, April 1987.
• Susan Chira at The New York Times reports on Sony’s pivot away from Betamax and towards VHS, January 1988.
• Aljean Harmetz at The New York Times reports on Steven Spielberg’s decision to release E.T. on VHS, May 1988.
• Matt Cohen at Mother Jones writes about the thrill of watching old horror movies on VHS, May 2020.
• Erik Piepenburg at The New York Times considers the enduring appeal of VHS as a format for horror movies, October 2011.
• Dwight H. Little talks to Starburst Magazine about making Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, May 2019.
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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: america, culture, dwight h. little, evangelicals, franchise, halloween, halloween 4, halloween 4: the return of michael myers, halloween iv, horror, joey keogh, michael myers, moustapha akkad, peter keenan, politics, religious right, sequels, slasher, stabbing, stranger danger, violence |