Performance Review: Wendy Kaplan in "Halloween 5" (1989)

If your a Halloween junkie, you'll know what I'm talking about here. In one of the most brilliant, exciting movie franchise's to ever hit the big screen, there has never been a character quite like Tina Williams. Her single appearence in Halloween 5, sparked alot of frustration in filmgoers and major direhard fans of the films, which still goes on to this day. Is there a more opinion-divided character to ever be in one of the eight Halloween films and cause so much talk? One things for sure, she is certainly a memorable entity in horror film history, and its because of the performance given by....

...Wendy Kaplan in Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)

Wendy Kaplan plays Tina Williams, the loud and lively friend of Rachel Carruthers (Ellie Cornell, in a part cut down to about only fifteen unfortunate minutes) who's there for her during a rough patch in her life.

It breaks down like this: It has been a year since the unstoppable killer Michael Myers returned to Haddonfield to find his neice and get his job done. That one helluva night left Rachel and her little adopted sister Jamie (Danielle Harris, giving a remarkably mature and multi-faceted performance) emotionally scarred and the pain has yet to go away (Jamie now resides in a children's clinic due to the outcome of last Halloween, but is now very much more weary about her surroundings).

Tina is one wildly concocted character who's youthful energy is either embraced or rejected (by the auidence, mind you). In other words, she perfectly fits the mold for the typical run-of-the-mill teen in a bloody slasher film in the '80s when such character's were breaking out and eventually took over. Yet, with Kaplan's Tina something a little deeper is happening at the center of all of this, something that seperates her from the other teenage characters in this film or any other at this time.

Now, with everything coming back for the worse, Tina gets sucked into the situation which revolves around the fate of Jamie on this ominous day. With subtle hints and shadings, Kaplan communicates that Tina is slowly becoming more emotionally/morally involved in something she thought would never happen.

The character is mainly written as a source of comic relief amid the seriousness of her surroundings, however director Dominique Othenin-Girard seems a bit more interested in the character than one might think. Take, for example, the scene after Rachel is murdered and Tina comes in looking for her; she goes about the house and into a bedroom and quietly examines the dolls before hugging it while lying down.

It's an odd little moment which feels almost out of place, but Girard takes this moment to show a different beat in the character's arc -- a more lived-in, thoughful, and pensive feeling.

Kaplan effectively captures these flickering feelings of foreboding uncertainty through her eyes, even when Tina's mind and actions are saying something else. But the actress' biggest accomplishment is balancing Tina's conflict between being a free-spirited conventional teenager, who likes to...

...go for rides in her Fonzie-like boyfriend's car...

...or discuss exciting sexual escapades with her friend...

...or just being a ditzy flirt -- all of which is what she feels is right...to being the loving protector/guardian of the troubled Jamie which is what she knows is right.

It's this escalating feeling which Tina feels (and Kaplan conveys) that deepens the character beyond the norm, and turns into a person who is actually essential to the film.

When these two separate pieces of the character start to combine, Tina chooses to ignore the warnings given by Jamie that Michael Myers is near and that they are both in grave danger. Kaplan's clarity really does make us genuinely believe that Tina truly does love Jamie and that she is now in the scary position of leaving her frivolous life/personality aside to act as the adult to protect Jamie.

In the later stages of the film, Tina's fear/terror jump starts her true moral instincts and she understands that maybe "feeling" and "knowing" can both coincide into something more devastating, and real than she ever imagined.

With her head clear, Tina snaps into the current situation to physically rescue Jamie from attacked and killed by her Uncle Michael. It's now where she realizes how much she underestimated Jamie's pleas, and Kaplan emanates Tina's forthright moral obligation to do the right thing.

But doing the right thing comes in the form of a selfless act, where Tina sacrifices her own life to save Jamie's. We never really know if Tina actually dies, but its soul that we know will keep on glowing wherever she goes.

Tina Williams is a character memorable for the energy, humor, and heart Wendy Kaplan brings to the role and the film, but also for the surprising amount of emotional resonance and clarity included in the package. Kaplan's is a full, delightful, shaded, and humanized character arc that's way more than the script called for. For a character and performance that usually gets a bad rep among Halloween fans, I offer this as a serious standpoint to the contrary, and as thanks to a memorably effectivley job well done in what is one of the most famous roles in the amazing series of Halloween films.