Rachel...

So apologies in advance as i'm sure it's been brought up before, but there was just something so off with what they did with her character in this movie.

I find it weird they decided to kill her off so early in the film. She was one of the main characters in H4

Her name was listed earlier in the titles than Danielle in H4, but in H5 Danielle's name appeared before hers. This is not that big of a deal but I'm mentioning it to show how important she was in H4.

It's not out of the ordinary to do this with some of the characters, but I just found it strange they removed her from the story so quickly. She was an important character in H4. Since they spent a decent amount of time on her story and introducing her in H4, they wouldn't have needed to provide much in this department if they kept her around for H5, we could just carry on from where we left off. Instead, they kill her off and bring in a number of new characters that would require more time to spend on, while one of the main characters in the film is mute for half of the film. Rachel is a character we arguably would have already cared for the in this film, while it would've taken some time for the new characters to grow on us.

So with that said, was there a scheduling issue that the actress couldn't commit to the film? Or is this what production had initially intended?

Another weird thing I found with her character is how her character had changed (or not changed, depending on how you look at it) in a year, considering what she had gone through H4. Look at Zombie's H2. It's 2 years after the events of H1, and the surviving characters are still messed up from it in their own way. Yet, in H5 Rachel has progressed so much in terms of recovering from Michael's attack. Yeah they upgraded to a Doberman, which I guess shows a heightened sense of security, but then she leaves the door unlocked as she's undressing throughout the house, so this lax sense of security stuck out for me.

When Jamie wakes up to find Rachel by her side in the clinic, I guess we're to assume the messy make up on her face was because she was crying before she fell asleep, since she's worried for Jamie? They might have called the family to report Jamie's late night break down, so maybe this shows that the family was concerned about her.

I understand from continuing on with the story that some things just make it easier to move forward, but with everything they experienced the year before and with the consistent warnings Loomis may have been providing since then, I just find it weird she wasn't as paranoid or on edge as Laurie was 20 years later in H20.