Parents Guide for
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988) More at IMDbPro »

A girl and a boy are shown making out on a living room floor. We see them kissing passionately as the girl removes her shirt and bra (we very briefly glimpse her bare right breast.) They then resume kissing and the boy fondles the girl's bare back and clothed upper buttocks, but they are immediately interrupted after this and nothing else is shown.

Blue = Mild to moderate violence

Red = Intense/graphic violence

A man slams another man's head repeatedly against a wall (we see blood splatter on the wall) and then stabs him in the head with his finger (blood trickles down his face.)

A man stabs another man with a long, sharp pole (we only see the pole coming down.)

A man finds another man's corpse hanging by a chain in a gas station garage (we see several bloody cuts and bruises on his face.) The man then finds a woman's bloody corpse behind a counter in the gas station. Attempting to call the police, the man finds a telephone disconnected and then sees another man standing behind the counter. He shoots at him repeatedly, but the other man escapes. The man runs outside to find him, when suddenly, a truck drives recklessly out of the garage, driving down the door, and runs over several gas pumps, causing the entire gas station to explode. The man takes cover behind many trashcans as a power line is set on fire and explodes as well.

A man appears behind a girl and she turns around, frightened, screams and backs against a mirror, which shatters. Another girl, having heard the scream, rushes over, and in her haste, knocks over a shelf. But when she reaches the girl, the man has disappeared.

Two men find a dog's bloody corpse in a closet.

A man throws another man onto a power unit, electrocuting him.

Two men find a man's bloody and dismembered corpse on the floor of a police station and a telephone covered in blood.

Three men shoot repeatedly at a man they believe to be a killer and then find the corpse (although we do not see it) and realize that it is not who they believed it to be.

A girl finds a man's bloody corpse in a living room. Another man then appears and lifts the girl into the air against a door, impaling her through the stomach with a shotgun (we hear a squish and see the shotgun going through the door.)

A girl finds a man's bloody corpse on a floor and a girl's corpse hanging from a door. She runs upstairs in hysterics, looking for another girl, but she is gone. The girl runs into a boy at the foot of the stairs and they attempt to escape. The boy shoots repeatedly at a locked door with a shotgun, but they are trapped, when suddenly, the girl the other was looking for appears. As they are distracted by her reappearance, a man comes at the boy. The boy attempts to shoot him, but misses and they begin struggling. The man throws the boy against a wall, but the boy grabs a shotgun and hits the man with it. The man then returns the blow, sending the boy falling back against the wall, and then throws the shotgun over a balcony railing. The boy, now with a broken nose (we see blood running down his face) punches the man, then attempts to punch him again, but the man grabs his hand and breaks it (we hear a crunch) and then grabs the boy by the neck, sinking his fingers into his face (we once again hear a crunch as the boy is presumably killed.) The man then chases two girls who witnessed this into an attic, grabbing a butcher knife from a tin can, and the girls break through a window with a suitcase. They then climb onto the roof, and one girl attaches the other to a cable to lower her to the ground, but the man reappears and stabs at the girl, causing the other to fall a far distance. The man continues to stab as the girl rolls out of the way, but ends up hanging from the roof. The man brings the knife down, forcing the girl to let go and fall to the ground below. The other girl safely works her way down and sees the other, apparently dead (we see blood on both of their faces.) The man reappears once again behind the house and the girl runs down the street, meeting another man, and they run to a schoolhouse to hide. Once there, the other man suddenly appears and throws the second man through a glass door. The girl then runs, taking cover against a wall, but then sees that the man is gone. But he instantly appears on a stairwell and the girl runs down another stairwell to a door, but trips and falls to the ground. She crawls along the floor, the man grabbing her by the foot, but the other girl suddenly appears and sprays the man with a fire extinguisher.

A man appears on the tailgate of a truck and stabs several men to death (we hear many crunching and squishing sounds,) throwing them out of the truck to their deaths below. He then breaks through the driver's seat window with his hand, stabbing the man driving on either side of his neck, twisting and breaking it (blood is shown) as two girls in the passenger seat watch. One of the girls then shoves the man's corpse out of the car as the other man climbs onto the car's roof, reaching through the broken window and grabbing at the girl. The girl continues to drive and slams on the brakes, sending the man falling into the road and causing the other girl to fall into the floorboard. The man then gets to his feet and the girl hits him with the car. The man flies through the air and lands near an abandoned mine shaft. While the girl runs to the police, who are nearby, the other girl walks over to the man's corpse and touches his hand, when his grip suddenly tightens on the knife, and he gets off the ground. The police then shoot him several times and he falls into the mine shaft, apparently dead.

A masked figure walks into an upstairs bathroom where a woman is, and we hear her scream off-screen. Three men and a girl then rush to the staircase, where they find a girl, standing there with a bloody pair of scissors clutched in her hand.

The word "f-ck" is used once, as well as moderate uses of other strong profanities (e.g. "sh-t," "g-ddamn," "b-tch.") Some sexual references/innuendo and mild profanities are used as well.

One scene shows several adults in a bar consuming alcoholic beverages and smoking cigarettes.

Several scenes involving a young girl being stalked by a man are quite suspenseful and intense. There are many scenes depicting murder and death.