MovieChat Forums > Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989) Discussion > Rachel wasn’t a heroine and got what she...

Rachel wasn’t a heroine and got what she deserved.

posted 6 months ago by AnagramYYZ (489)
8 replies | jump to latest

I’m not sure why so many people come to this conclusion about Rachel (Ellie Cornell) as Jamie’s heroic protector who should remain the final girl.

Think about it logically with what we’ve seen in H4 for 90 minutes. She sometimes says the right things to Jamie (Danielle Harris), a child, to de-escalate the familial tension, but when she’s alone with her parents or friends, it’s “I want my own life”… “I don’t want to babysit my foster sister”… “I want to make myself available to my horndog bf, so he proposes and gives me children.” Like, yeah right. Brady? She has terrible taste, no common sense, a superiority and selfishness complex. She loses Jamie while trick-or-treating. She pours coffee on her hostess during a manhunt for a killer. She was protective and courageous at times with Jamie, but it comes across as more about her reputation and self-preservation against punishment.

I think Rachel was a huge problem-child. I mean, her parents even adopted a known serial killer’s niece. It was probably a symbolic gesture to a coming-of-age Rachel to illustrate to her how ungrateful she was, and how she made them feel prepared for all kinds of challenging drama.

Face it. Jamie and Tina bonded because they were similar fun-loving creatures. Jamie longed to express her innate free-spirited nature with good humor, but Rachel, her foster family, bullies at school, and killer uncle, spoiled and suffocated her personality with trauma.

When she was trick-or-treating in H4, it was one of the only times in the Thorn Trilogy where we saw her natural carefree, fun and imaginative personality, and lo and beyond, who did it resemble?

You guessed it.

Tina.

Tina Williams was the most impressive single-installment character until Corey Cunningham came along.

The writers knew what they were doing.

Thank you, Wendy Kaplan! 🙏

[–] EleazarHisSon (654) 6 months ago

You think Rachel had a bad taste in men, but Tina didn't? Both their boyfriends were no good, although Rachel thought better of Grady while Tina was the kind of girl who's unashamedly attracted to bad boys. She even called her boyfriend psycho who although technically was Michael in disguise, her boyfriend was a bully regardless.

[–] AnagramYYZ (489) 6 months ago

Some say Tina didn’t care enough about Jamie, and should have stayed with her at the children’s hospital instead of partying. That’s Monday-morning quarterbacking at it’s finest. Of course the viewers know more than the characters, but you can’t hold that against them! 🤣

In the real world, Tina had common sense. Shrinks like Loomis needed to stop poking and prodding a child’s wounds and sprinkling them with more irrational fears. It’s called being an enabler.

Nobody knew Myers was alive until the chase at the tower farm party. He was shot dozens (if not hundreds) of times and fell down a mindshaft 365 days ago. Think about how this would sound to an ordinary citizen of Haddonfield who wasn’t indoctrinated with the “boogeyman” paranoia.

Forgive Tina. She was selfless when it mattered.

Also, her boyfriend Mike was a little angsty, but we hardly got to see enough of him in one scene to determine much of anything of his actual character, except maybe a case of “opposites attracting” w/ Tina and that he has tremendous pride in his muscle car. Never fall for tropes or caricatures like “psycho boyfriend”… people are not so one-dimensional in real-life. I thought Mike was better and more interesting than her other friends, and loads better than Brady.

[–] EleazarHisSon (654) 6 months ago

Mike seemed to be the 'greaser' type. I didn't get along with them in high school, so I admit I may have a bias against him. I fail to see how his and Tina's relationship was a case of opposites attract. They were both fairly popular people being together, I reckon. Tina was a bad girl who liked her bad boys, the way I see it (but it's a free country and she can be with whoever she wants).

[–] Megan254 (216) 5 months ago

I liked both Rachel and Tina, and the only time I considered Rachel selfish was when she was unhappy about having to babysit, but it didn't mean she didn't love Jamie. Rachel was more upset with her parents than anything. I mean, think about it, nobody likes having to cancel their plans they made last minute. Plus, Rachel apologized sincerely to Jamie, picked her up from school, took her to buy a Halloween costume, took her to get ice cream, and took her trick or treating. Also, Jamie was the one who took off with her new friends while Rachel was talking to Brady.

Rachel also protected Jamie from Michael when she could. Her and her family forgave Jamie after the ending of H4, and Rachel was reluctant to leave Jamie alone on Halloween to be with her parents in the country. As far as Rachel pouring coffee on Kelly, Kelly was being a witch to her, and Kelly had it coming!

[–] AnagramYYZ (489) 5 months ago

I take Kelly at her word that she didn't know she was breaking up a relationship.

I was perhaps a little harsh with the Rachel character, but I'm only using what's present in the film to turn the tables on the Tina haters. Some girls are goody-two-shoes girl next door type, and Rachel played it to perfection. However, 5 featured new aspects such as partying and hot costumes which Rachel had no place in. Also, Jamie was not quite simpatico with the Carruthers family, and stabbed Rachel's mom. She was her father's daughter (Jimmy Lloyd from II) and strived to move beyond her trauma and embrace a carefree spirited personality. This was the function of her bond with Tina. It told us more about Jamie, and hence Michael.

Michael struggled with his urges. He was unmasked both literally and metaphorically. Whatever humanity he has left to cling to really likes girls like Tina, and impersonating her boyfriend and stealing his car was his greatest trick-or-treat prank yet. My favorite scene.

[–] EleazarHisSon (654) 5 months ago

I take Kelly at her word that she didn't know she was breaking up a relationship.

I'm pretty sure Kelly knew this considering that she witnessed Rachel and Grady have an argument in the shop. Kelly then instantly decided to take the opportunity and go to Grady. Her face would clearly indicate that she knew.

[–] AnagramYYZ (489) 4 months ago

I watched the scene again, and thank you, good on you for pointing it out. I noticed it before once upon a time, but it wasn’t in the forefront of my memory as I forged my recent reply.

I still tend to favor Kelly Meeker’s perspective of doing what’s best for herself, and with Brady not being married. It was a life lesson that old-maid-in-training, Rachel needed to learn! Remember, she was taking advice from her friend, Lindsey Wallace, who was a trauma victim from Halloween 1978.

Kelly is being pursued by beta suck-ups like Wade all the time, was the implication. When Kelly noticed Brady standing up for himself against Rachel being a cold shower to him, she then decided to insert herself.

Brady being a flawed boyfriend is encapsulated instead in the scene where he tries to apologetically “make things right” with Rachel after being caught. He should have committed to his course of action, instead, and said that he was not "hopping onto the next-best-thing" as Rachel implies. He was moving on WITH the BEST thing! The sheriff’s daughter, Kelly.

Even despite his embarrassing display of shame and humiliation, Kelly didn’t give up on him right then and there. This indicates that she’s far more understanding and amenable than one might expect. I bet mopey Wade would be shocked to learn this.

I do give Brady credit for his courage of standing up to and stalling Myers so Rachel and Jamie could escape. But still, if he had done some digging into the Haddonfield history that he was ignorant of, and actually had a more thorough conversation about Myers with Meeker or Loomis, he may have learned that it was entirely futile to do so! Loomis would have instructed him that Myers is an Evil supernatural force-of-nature who can't be harmed traditionally. I mean, Brady was attempting to engage in fisticuffs with Myers—a man who had his eyes shot out with a .357 Magnum revolver, still lived, and his eyeballs grew back. He could have just made his way to the roof and helped to lower the ladies to safety, and then jumped.

I like to also analyze these characters as if Myers was not a factor in their lives.

If Brady had done what I said with regard to being confident in his choice of women, then both Kelly and Rachel would be fighting FOR his affections. He would be the prized specimen. If Brady, then, were to get himself a cool Mustang convertible, he would have graduated to the level of stud that was Mikey of part 5. He would have all three ladies, Rachel, Kelly and Tina perhaps, all dressing in patterned stockings, tight denim shorts and "fuck-me" purple sheer scarfs and hanging off of him as his potential girlfriends-in-waiting.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BOTk5MTUzY2QtYzNjNi00MmRmLWE1NzEtMjgwOTlhZGRjY2U2XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjQ4ODE4MzQ@._V1_.jpg

[–] AnagramYYZ (489) 5 months ago

A movie series needs to evolve, and even Ellie Cornell understood this since she rightly proclaimed that since Rachel survived one movie, as essentially the protagonist, she probably would be killed off or otherwise not serve the same function in the sequel. Even Jamie Lee Curtis did not serve the same purpose in 1981's Halloween II. She survived, sure, but she was stagnant or asleep for most of the film while they introduced many more characters than were in the original.
Tina was fun, and it led to three things that should be synonymous with the Halloween season that we hadn't seen so far in the series. 1. Autumn is harvest time, so farmhouse and barn locales. 2. Halloween 1-4 never had a Halloween party, a teenage and young adult staple. 3. Halloween 1-4 never had sexy adult costumes.

How do you incorporate Rachel in these new setpieces when she's the good girl next door?

Tina also provides more insight into the Jamie character (and by extension, Uncle Michael Myers) as Jamie was not in lockstep with the Carruthers family. Jamie is her father's daughter, and not like Laurie. Michael Myers is more fascinated by those traits in people, so he fights his curse.

I'll go to bat for Tina (and Wendy Kaplan's performance) along with French/Swiss director, Girard any day of the week. I love Halloween 5's gothic style.