The state of Illinois inexplicably decides to transfer Michael Myers to a different mental health facility on Halloween, unrestrained, in the back of an ambulance, without consulting Doctor Loomis. HE COULD HAVE WARNED THEM.

Yes thanks to your whining about Halloween 3 it's the return of Michael Myers, sporting a particularly pallid and featureless Shatner mask this time around. And just as importantly we return to Haddonfield. I dearly love my Friday the 13th, but it still carries the vibe of warm Indian Summer nights; when that late October fog rolls in and the tomatoes are all rotten and weariness has descended upon the soul it's time we go back to Haddonfield, where every night is Halloween, to trick-or-treat its pumpkin lit streets through its wind blown Autumn leaves, while a certain young man {Loomis: "Not a man!"} in a mask watches motionlessly from behind a hedge. When I first hear that theme I honestly get a chill and a tear, like coming home.

What sets this franchise apart is that these are true vibe slashers. Yeah it's a guy in a mask killing people, but it's also the essence of Halloween night. No I'm not one of these people who think the movies are better for having less gore; I actually think more visceral murders would have elevated these to high horror art, but the vibe is so thick I hardly miss it. My only real complaint is that the movies try to substitute thrill for gore by having particularly long drawn out chase endings which get a bit noisy for my sensibilities and I'm usually carving another pumpkin or something for the last twenty minutes.

And the Halloween franchise is one of the very few to have some pretty damn decent sequels. You could really watch these in a marathon, and I might even argue that the combined enjoyment of IV and V weighs a bit more than that of I and II. I'm just going to come out and say it, I like Danielle Harris quite a bit more than Jamie Lee Curtis. I know I'm supposed to hate kids in movies, but this is no butt kicking uberbrat; she's got this creepily terrified face, almost sinister at times even before what happens at the end. And holy host of bloody banshees does she sell those screams. Kind of bonus creepy seeing her as a little girl again now after being topless and dropping F-bombs everywhere in those lurid Rob Zombie things.

I don't seem to have said anything about this movie in particular. It's just pure Halloween, a throwback to the original. It's Haddonfield, Doctor Loomis, Halloween night, The Shape. When he stands up from the darkness with that shotgun I think it's the most chilling Michael scene in the franchise. There's a certain unique anima to The Shape; one minute he's a statue, the next a spider suddenly all alive.

Best ending of the series too, though Doctor Loomis almost shot a little girl and killed the next movie right then and there. Him and that gun I swear. He's having such a nervous breakdown there I think Halloween V should have been a Doctor Loomis shooting spree, charging around in that trench coat blasting everything in sight thinking it's Michael Myers. Man I miss Donald Pleasance in these. Remember when there'd be a new Friday and Halloween every year? You'd start seeing the trailers on TV around September while you were watching Magnum or something. I wish it could all come back.