Halloween IV: The Ultimate Authorized

by Nicholas Grabowsky

Announcing a very special 2022 Hardcover large 6X9 case-laminate version of the novelization of the fourth film in the Halloween series! Presenting the original 1988 novelization of Halloween IV, injected with all the extra scenes of the 2003 Special Limited Edition designed specifically for the Halloween25 convention (including the legendary “Reverend Jack Sayer” scenes and the “Laurie Strode vision/ghost scene,”) and fused with the 2013 Ultimate Edition but freshly and expertly edited, perfected, definitive, and final. Includes THE FALLING, the short story inspired by the Halloween 25 Years of Terror convention, the original essay for Shroud Magazine HALLOWEENED BE THY NAME, the original introduction for the 2003 Special Limited Edition, and the original epilogue intended to introduce a totally different Halloween V that never happened.
Based on the screenplay by Alan B. McElroy, from an original story by Danny Lipsius (as Dhani Lipsius), Larry Rattner, Benjamin Ruffner and Alan B. McElroy for the 1988 motion picture from producers Moustapha Akkad and Paul Freeman. Published by arrangement and authority of the copyright holder. the novelization included in this publication is copyright 1988, 1989, and 2003 by Nicholas Grabowsky, all rights reserved by the author from original 1988 copyright and subsequent registrations and original publication agreements.

Genres: Horror, Halloween

178 pages, Hardcover

Published January 9, 2022

About the author

Nicholas Grabowsky’s novels of horror/fantasy and mainstream pulp fiction, both as himself, as Nicholas Randers, and as Marsena Shane, have generated worldwide acclaim for over three and a half decades and praised by many of today’s popular horror gurus in the literary world and horror industry at large. He began his career in traditional publishing houses with brisk sellers in mass market paperback horror and romance, and in the last two decades is seen by many as a mentor to many authors and the smaller presses, which has become to him a passion.
His body of work includes the award-winning macabre aliens-among-us epic The Everborn, The Rag Man, Pray Serpent’s Prey, Halloween IV (and its special editions), Diverse Tales, Reads & Reviews, The Wicked Haze, Sweet Dreams Lady Moon, Red Wet Dirt, numerous anthologies, magazine articles, and self help books, with projects extending to screenplays, poetry, songs, film, and a wide variety of short fiction and nonfiction since the 1980s.
He’s a veteran special guest at numerous genre conventions and makes appearances and signings across North America. He has been in the limelight a radical gospel preacher right out of high school and in the following years a rock vocalist, teacher, lecturer and activist, editor, publisher and founder of the Sacramento-based Black Bed Sheet Books, which publishes “exemplary literature, fiction & non” but specializes in horror/fantasy, and Blue Bed Sheet Books, which published children's books, and subdivisions in progress.
Currently, Nicholas is at work with numerous anthologies, graphic novels and comic books, an Everborn sequel and the novels The Downwardens and The Sirens of Knowland. His independent film projects include the slasher creature feature Cutting Edges.

Quotes about Grabowsky:

"My Dear Nicholas: You seem to me---in a way that's entirely admirable----a man out of time. You're writing horror epics when the audience has become increasingly numbed by cinematic hokum and stale ideas. I salute you: your ambition, your dedication, your achievements, your blissfully complex imagination...." ----Clive Barker (bestselling author & director, Hellraiser, etc.)
"Grabowsky succeeds in making the whole world creepy...." ----Heidi Martinuzzi, E! Entertainment Television
"Grabowsky's writing is at times touching and emotional, however, his real talent is his ability to infuse his writing with a sense of dread and loathing that I have not experienced since H.P. Lovecraft..." ----Tahoe Daily Tribune
"Grabowsky has imagination to spare.....!" ---Sacramento Bee
"Impressive storytelling....." ----Wes Craven (Dir., A Nightmare on Elm Street)
“…..soon we’ll all be hearing about this Grabowsky guy….” ---Joe Dante (Dir, Gremlins, The Howling)
“Keep ‘em coming, Nicholas….” ----Stephen King
“All hail Grabowsky!” ---Horrorweb.com
“Grabowsky melds horror and Sci-fi with such expertise that I am left speechless.” ---Gorezone Magazine

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

Die erste Hälfte des Buches gefiel mir ganz gut, aber dann begann es sich zu ziehen und ich hatte den Eindruck, dass Grabowsky Gefahr lief, den Faden zu verlieren. Über lange Strecken tauchten die Hauptpersonen nicht auf und die Handlung drohte in Nebenschauplätzen zu versanden.
Ärgerlich waren auch die enorm vielen Drucl- und Grammatikfehler.

[David Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must read for Halloween fans

Since the original Halloween came out, I was a confirmed fan. 40 years later, yup, still a fan. But I tell people of like mind that it's often important to read the novelization, for in them we find information not found in the movies.

[christian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I absolutely love Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. I think it's my favorite in the franchise after the original. There's something so nostalgic about it that I just feel like a kid whenever I watch it—or maybe that's just because I was a kid when I saw it for the first time.

I really enjoyed the novelizations of the first two films, and I was super excited to read the novelization of my favorite sequel in the franchise.

Until I discovered that the novelization was full of constant grammatical errors on every page, having an — where there should just be a - or starting a new paragraph mid-sentence. The formatting on both the EPUB was horrid, so I purchased the hard copy available for purchase on Amazon, just to find that the paperback copy was just as bad.

I think behind these intense errors that nearly rendered the book unreadable, there's a really good novelization that has a purpose. It fleshes out the characters a lot—maybe even more so than the first two novelizations—and it includes scenes that were not in the movie (or the screenplay, I believe).

And just when I thought I couldn't sympathize with little Jamie Lloyd any further, Nicholas Grabowsky manages to take it one step further and really put us in her shoes—which was absolutely crucial to the book's success. Though I already knew the outcome of the movie, I still found myself fearing for her life.

All in all, I think this is a good novelization. The novelization in itself is probably a 4 or 4.5, but the formatting is so bad that I can't help but dock points for it. It's seriously so bad I nearly stopped ten pages in. But I'm glad I powered through, because there were some really great moments.

[KAggie97 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great version, but the almost-every-page-grammatical-errors are distracting. Whoever edited this book deserves severe punishment.

[Mikepottz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A place where society dumps its worst nightmares, a 10 year old who killed, cooked and made sandwiches of his families flesh and gave to his school mates. Michael Myers the Shape was among them in this maximum security facility. Comatosed for 10 years he is being transported to Smiths Grove, driving down the lonely, secluded, rainy country road. Later the van found, twisted bodies in a bloody pile, an ear lobe found next to the van. No sign of Michael. Michael hospital gown, massive scars on his arms, shoves a steel rod through the jaw, into the brain, playing peekaboo out of the skull. He will put on the mechanics overalls. Michael likes to see his 6 year old nice in a clown costume, great memories for him with his first kill. Michael will break a neck of a dog, impale a man on a circuit jumping box, the blood and flesh sizzling, sparks flying, he cocks his head in morbid fascination. Dr Loomis telling everyone Michael is EVIL. A vagrant preacher will have his eye sockets become hollow crates, blood dripping down yelling "you are all doomed to death, there is no stopping it". The Shape impales a girl with a riotgun through the torso and gazes in morbid admiration of his work. The Shape will follow Jamie and her foster sister Rachel to the roof methodically and soundlessly. Luckily escaping Jamie asks Loomis "is my Uncle the boogeyman?" and Loomis replies "he is much worst". The shape throws men from a moving vehicle like dolls. The shape will be hit repeatedly with a vehicle, Jamie will touch his hand and tell him he is forgiven and Michael will be blown away with bullets and dynamite and disappear down a shaft. Jamie with clutch scissors stabbing her foster mother. Great movie but this author is terrible, easily the worst of the halloween novelisation authors.

[Brian McDonald · Rating 2 out of 5]

bad.

[Bernadette · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bearing in mind that it’s a novelization of an 80s slasher movie, written by someone who was young at the time and written quickly:

There’s a compelling story here about trauma. Generational, collective, personal, and so on. The Halloween franchise isn’t about Michael Myers, it’s about the survivors and how they deal with the trauma he causes.

As others have mentioned there’s a lot of grammatical and other errors in this book that are jarring enough to break your immersion.

It would be interesting to read this book if the author had written it with a bit more mileage on the soul, as it were, and some more maturity, to do more than just touch on the underlying themes. That’s not necessarily criticism as it is an idle curiosity for a compare and contrast study.

[Matthew Fleming · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been reading the first Halloween novelisation for around 9 months. It's a struggle: dated and not well-written, it just isn't a great time. This, however, is everything that's not. The most important thing is that Grabowsky really gets who Michael is, and the Shape is therefore genuinely scary on the page. There are some great descriptions, and the two denouements (the car etc / Jamie at home) are impressively well brought to life. Sure, the whole thing's been proofread by someone with no eyes, but you can't have everything. Perhaps Michael was the proofreader? Part 2 did fuck his face up well bad.

[William Wessex · Rating 4 out of 5]

An amazing novelisation of Halloween IV. Well worth a read and good to see a few extra scenes not in the movie. Only reason I didn’t give it five out of five is due to quite lot of silly grammar mistakes dotted throughout the book. Including a sentence that is missing a word or two at the end of it on page 57. I saw other reviews saying this, but when I received my copy it said in the front, Freshly edited and final version 2022. So was hoping it was fixed but it is not.

[kesseljunkie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I admire and respect Grabowsky for making this ultimate edition and for it being available for fans.

But the editing on this was so weak that a “three stars, but you have to be a fan” rating sank to two stars. The typos, the malapropisms, and the cases of character names being flopped within conversations really detract from any achievement of the book to give an interesting alternate take on the screenplay.

So it pains me to hit this with a two, but it is what it is.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is some exceptional capturing of atmosphere in this novelization and the extra bits with characters like the crazy Preacher are fun.

Unfortunately this one loses some major points for adding in some homophobia and a few slurs that WERE not in the original movie.

Still those bits were literally only like three lines, the rest works quite well if you enjoy the film.

[Jennifer Hoey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nicolas did a great job on this especially expanding the characters and allowing us to get into their heads a bit. The epilogue was also a treat because it better explained what happened to Jamie in the end.

[Riley Pearson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read. Just like the movie.

[Michael Sowinski · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love Halloween IV but this author did not bring anything worthwhile to the novelization. Pretty disappointing.

[Happy Scrappy Hero Pup · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is utter garbage. I only finished it because I’m a horror geek and a completionist.

Most novelizations are pretty good; you get to see scenes and characters’ thoughts that weren’t in the movie and this provides a fresh, usually fun perspective of the moviefilm. That holds true for the novelization of Halloween, which is brilliant! We get to see the ancient Irish Druidic beginnings of the scapegoat story…IYKYK. Anyway, this book provides too little of that. There’s nothing ‘new’ here; no fresh perspectives, no really compelling character development beyond what we see onscreen.

I gave it three stars because I love the Halloween franchise and I think it would be a 3-star book for Halloween fans, in general, but for the average reader with no particular interest in the Halloween series, this book is a hot, steaming pile of cockadoodie, as Annie Wilkes would say.

Unless you’re a Halloween fan and just want to read this book, don’t.