'Halloween 4' Final Cut (2001) (V)

User Rating:

6.4/10   

Director:

Mark Cerulli

Release Date:

9 October 2001 (USA)

Genre:

Documentary | Short

Plot Keywords:

Behind The Scenes | Michael Myers | Interview | Making Of | Filmmaking

Cast

Dwight H. Little	...	Himself (as Dwight Little)
Ellie Cornell	...	Herself
Danielle Harris	...	Herself
George P. Wilbur	...	Himself
Alan B. McElroy	...	Himself
Moustapha Akkad	...	Himself
Paul Freeman	...	Himself
Alan Howarth	...	Himself

Runtime:

17 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Company:

Anchor Bay Entertainment

Trivia:

This documentary is featured on the DVD for Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988), released in 2001.

Movie Connections:

Features Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

Quick and to the point.

At a mere 17 minutes, it's obvious that this short making-of documentary doesn't go into great detail about the making of Halloween IV, but it does have some excellent interviews, such as the one with George Wilbur, who played Michael Meyers in the film. I wasn't that impressed with Wilbur's performance, he just didn't have the right body style and didn't move the way Michael Meyers does (especially in scenes like the shooting at the very end), but it was the first time I had ever even seen the face of someone who had played Meyers in one of the movies, so I found that very interesting.

More time is spent talking about pre-production than any behind-the-scenes, probably because the movie was made before DVDs and no one thought to do any shooting behind the scenes. There is, however, a great interview with Moustapha Akkad where he talks about many aspects of pre-production, such as who agreed to sign on and who didn't and who then signed on instead, etc. Danielle Harris also gives an interesting interview about working on a horror movie set as a little girl, and how Wilbur would always take off his mask between takes to remind her that he wasn't really the boogeyman, he was her friend.

Another interesting interview was with Ellie Cornell, who played Rachel in the movie and talked about the film's release, telling an interesting story about how she and some other cast members went to see the movie in LA to see if people would recognize them. They didn't. Harris did, however, dress up in her clown outfit after the movie was released to freak out her family.

I think that this documentary was so short because they really didn't have a lot to work with, since all of the interviews were done more than a decade after the movie was released, but it works out at this length. This is a sequel that's pretty hidden within a huge number of other Halloween films, so there is really no reason to make a lengthy documentary, since not many people are likely to see it, which means that even less people are likely to read what I'm writing right now. But if you do find yourself reading this, make sure to let the credits play at the end, where there is a great performance of the Halloween theme song on the piano.