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Rachel Carruthers

From EverybodyWiki Bios & Wiki




Rachel Carruthers
Halloween character
First appearanceHalloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
Created byAlan B. McElroy
Portrayed byEllie Cornell
Information
Full nameRachel Carruthers
FamilyRichard Carruthers
(father)
Darlene Carruthers
(mother)
Jamie Lloyd
(foster sister)

Search Rachel Carruthers on Amazon.

Rachel Carruthers is a fictional character in the Halloween series of slasher films, and is the final girl of the film Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988). Rachel is the foster sister of Jamie Lloyd, who is the niece of serial killer Michael Myers. In Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989), she becomes Myers' 35th victim. Rachel was portrayed by actress Ellie Cornell.[2][3]

Appearances

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers

Rachel Carruthers is the only child of Richard and Darlene Carruthers. In November 1987, Jamie's biological parents Laurie Strode and Jimmy Lloyd were (apparently) killed in an automobile accident. According to Rachel, Laurie babysat her when she was younger. Laurie's friends Richard and Darlene then became Jamie's foster parents. Rachel is older than Jamie by nine years and became a surrogate sister to her.

On October 31, 1988, Rachel sees that Jamie is again wide awake in the living room. This is the fourth night the young girl has had difficulty sleeping. Rachel insists that Jamie return to bed. Jamie questions if Rachel loves her. Rachel answers that she does indeed love her. But Jamie wonders if her adoptive sister loves her as a real sibling. Rachel admits that she and Jamie are not real sisters, but that she does not love her any less because of that.

At first, she sees Jamie as a problem to her plans with her boyfriend Brady. Throughout the film, Rachel takes Jamie out to pick an outfit to go trick-or-treating in (which happens to be a clown costume which looks very much like the one her uncle wore), flirts with Brady, and eventually protects Jamie from her uncle and seeming assists in killing him.[4]

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers

The character of Rachel only makes a quick appearance in Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers before being killed off and having her role as Jamie's protector taken over by her friend Tina. At the beginning of the film, Michael stalks Rachel around her house after she gets out of the shower and eventually kills her by stabbing her in the chest with a pair of scissors. Near the end of the film, Rachel's body makes one final appearance in the attic that Michael chases Jamie into.[5]

Development

“The interesting thing with Ellie Cornell was that we were down to the last two or three girls who we thought could play that part, and there was some disagreement between myself and Moustapha and [Galaxy International Releasing] and Ellie. We had different points of view about which way we should go.” “Ellie was very real and I felt that she came from Haddonfield and I felt like she represented a kind of wholesome quality that was gonna get our empathy and our sympathy as the movie went along and a lot of 80's sort of scream movies would have very very glamorous leads and I never felt that it was quite real to the town that they were from, and when we projected the film in the theater then Moustapha sort of understood my point of view.”

— Dwight H. Little on the casting of Ellie Cornell (2014)[6][7]

Ellie Cornell auditioned for the role of Alice Johnson in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master and Rachel Carruthers in Los Angeles at around the same time.[8] Moustapha Akkad was unsure about the casting of Ellie Cornell; it was director Dwight H. Little who pushed for her to be chosen among the final candidates.[9] Akkad later expressed regret about killing Rachel off early in Halloween 5, admitting that if he knew how popular her character would become, he might have chosen differently.[10] Akkad also stated that "I think one of the things maybe we felt sorry is we killed Ellie in the first few minutes of the film - I think we should have kept Ellie going on and on because she was very popular".[7]

Cornell did not initially plan on returning as Rachel in Halloween 5 but agreed to with the understanding that her character would be killed off early in the film. She requested that the writers change her form of death. Originally, Michael was to stab Rachel in the throat with scissors. But Cornell felt that ending her character in this way would have been too gruesome. In the finished film, she is instead stabbed in her left breast just below her shoulder.[11][12]

Erasure from the series

In a move that rankled many fans but delighted others, director Steve Miner retconned the series with Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) and Halloween: Resurrection (2002), revealing that Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) had faked her own death in order to avoid detection by Michael. She then fled to Summer Glen, [Northern] California, under an assumed identity, along with her son, John Tate (Josh Hartnett). In addition, the events of parts 4-6 are never explained, and thus never happened. Halloween (2018) would in turn further muddle the continuity of the series by ignoring both those timelines.[13] In Halloween H20 during the prologue in Dr. Loomis' office, several newspaper clippings and evidence photos are seen. One photograph shows a pair of bloody scissors with the caption "stabbed through the aorta". To date, Rachel is the only character to be stabbed in the heart with a pair of scissors by Myers.

Reception

Rachel is often cited as one of, if not the, second most popular recurring protagonist of the series behind the obvious Laurie Strode.[9][14] Medium.com lists Rachel as the 27th best out of 100 final girls.[15] Rachel's early demise in Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers brought negative backlash from fans of the series, who had hoped to see Rachel survive longer. The character's replacement in the story with the character of Tina further frustrated fans, as audiences found Tina to be grating and irritating, often citing her as one of the most annoying characters in horror film.[16][17][18] On the documentary Hallowen: 25 Years of Terror, film critic John Fallon states that "Tina, the character of Tina, in all my experience with horror films, the character of Tina has been the only where I wanted to choke her, choke her a lot."[19]

Rachel's development throughout Halloween 4 was seen as a strong point for acclaim throughout the movie, with audiences reacting positively to Rachel maturing into a protective sister for Jamie. Ellie Cornell's acting in the film was also seen as a high point, especially considering the performance was Cornell's acting debut. Professional critic John Kenneth Muir states that "Ellie Cornell is particularly strong as Rachel, a delightful girl-next-door with just the right measures of sassness and sweetness" and that she is Laurie Strodes equal in resourcefulness and resilience. Muir also expresses annoyance and disappointment that the sequel did nothing to honor Rachel's memory after she had been killed off, arguing that "Halloween V never recovers its footing after the death of Rachel Carruthers, a character audiences care deeply about. And it's worse that others (including Jamie) don't seem traumatized by it. The remainder of the film includes a mysterious stranger and comedic cops, and doesn't really honor Rachel in any significant way, or even treat her character with respect.".[10] Rodolfo Salas on Screen Rant adds in that "Before Rachel's body went cold, this sequel added some shame to her shallow grave. Rachel is replaced by Tina Williams, a naive, boyfriend-obsessed youngster."[20]

References

  1. ↑ Rhiannon Elizabeth Irons (September 27, 2016). "KILL OF THE WEEK: RACHEL CARRUTHERS". Truly Disturbing. Retrieved October 10, 2019.
  2. ↑ https://books.google.com.au/books?id=lWGwvgEACAAJ&dq=%22Rachel+Carruthers%22+-wikipedia&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiNisiPipjlAhWYV30KHQFhAR8Q6AEISjAF
  3. ↑ "Halloween 4: Celebrating three decades of The Return of Michael Myers". 1428 Elm. 2018-10-22. Archived from the original on 2019-10-13. Retrieved 2019-10-13.
  4. ↑ Dwight H. Little (director), Alan B. McElroy (writer) (1988). Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (DVD). United States: Galaxy International Releasing.
  5. ↑ Dominique Othenin-Girard (director, writer), Michael Jacobs and Shem Bitterman (writers) (1989). Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (DVD). United States: Galaxy International Releasing.
  6. ↑ Jamie Lee Curtis, Josh Hartnett, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Donald Pleasence, Danielle Harris, John Carpenter (2014-09-23). Halloween: The Complete Collection - Limited Deluxe Edition (Blu-ray) (Documentary (extra discs)). Anchor Bay. Retrieved 2019-10-10.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 The Making of Halloween "Part 4". and "Part 5". (extra discs documentary)
  8. ↑ "10 Fun Facts You May Not Know About 'Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers'". Bloody Disgusting. 2017-10-21. Retrieved 2019-10-05.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Andrew Pollard (October 17, 2018). "Ellie Cornell | HALLOWEEN 4 & HALLOWEEN 5". Starburst.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Muir, John Kenneth (2007). Horror Films of the 1980's. McFarland & Company. ISBN 9780786428212. Search this book on
  11. ↑ Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers DVD commentary featuring Danielle Harris and Ellie Cornell
  12. ↑ "Michael Myers Was Here: You can Tour the House from HALLOWEEN 4–And Buy It!". Dread Central. 2019-07-01. Retrieved 2019-10-13.
  13. ↑ Cody Hamman (2019-05-16). "Halloween H20 editor discusses scripted scene that referenced Jamie Lloyd". JoBlo.com. Retrieved 2019-10-10.
  14. ↑ "Four Underrasted Final Girls by Mathew A." Kindertrauma. 2017-04-13.
  15. ↑ Patrick J. Mullen (2018-10-28). "Best Slasher Movie Final Girls". Medium.com. Retrieved 2019-10-10.
  16. ↑ "Myers Monday: Is Tina Williams the Halloween series' worst character?". 1428 Elm. 2019-04-29. Retrieved 2019-10-05.
  17. ↑ "Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers Remains Awful 25 Years Later". Consequence of Sound. 2014-10-10. Retrieved 2019-10-05.
  18. ↑ "The Top 7 Most Annoying Horror Characters of All Time". Slasher Studios. 2011-08-22. Retrieved 2019-10-05.
  19. ↑ Halloween: 25 Years of Terror (DVD). Anchor Bay Entertainment. 2006-07-25. 29 minutes in. ASIN B000FC2GA0.
  20. ↑ "Halloween Franchise: 5 Most Chilling & 5 Eye Roll Inducing Moments". Screen Rant. 2019-09-30. Retrieved 2019-10-05.

External links

Category:Halloween (franchise) characters Category:Fictional characters introduced in 1988 Category:Fictional characters from Illinois Category:Final girls Category:Teenage characters in film


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