Tag: Halloween 2018

Some Questions Regarding Those Halloween Sequels

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Since Blumhouse’s reboot of Halloween earned over $250 million at the box office last year, it’s no surprise that the production company is bringing Michael back to the big screen for not one but TWO sequels.It was announced last week that Halloween Kills will be released in 2020 and Halloween Ends will be released in 2021. Jamie Lee Curtis will reprise her role as Laurie Strode, and writers Danny McBride and David Gordon Green, who also directed Halloween 2018, are also returning.  John Carpenter is staying involved, too, most likely to score both films.

The world could always use a little more Michael Myers, but there are some serious questions to ponder in the meantime:

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  • How is Michael still alive? Okay, okay, I know that Michael has survived many times before. Heck, at the end of the first film, he’s shot by Dr. Loomis before falling off of a balcony. Cue the famous end shot where he’s GONE. That said, Halloween 2018,  like the original, made Michael fairly human again. The last time we saw him, he was engulfed in flames in the Strode basement.

 

  • How does Michael reconnect with the Strodes? Like the original film, Halloween 2018 made it clear that Michael has no specific connection to Laurie. He is merely a ubiquitous presence and agent of evil. Laurie just happened to cross his path in 1978 and became an iconic Final Girl. The new film ignores all the sequels, especially Halloween II, that made them brother and sister. So in that regard, Michael really has no need to go after her or her daughter and granddaughter who featured prominently in the last film. It is possible and maybe likely that she hunts him, since that’s the role she assumed in the last film.

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  • What role will the other Strode women play? We know Jamie Lee Curtis is coming back, but what about Judy Greer, who played Laurie’s daughter, Karen, and Andi Matichak who played granddaughter Allyson? These three together on screen, especially in the closing 20 minutes, were a real highlight of the last film and there is SO much untapped story potential there. The ending of the film was poignant in so many ways. It featured the ladies working together to defeat the boogeyman, but it also had an interesting and ambiguous ending, featuring the women riding in the back of a vehicle, blood-soaked, after defeating Michael, with Allyson clenching the butcher knife. The last shot is a nice reference to both The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween 4, but that’s for another day. Let’s hope all three ladies will be together again to kick ass.

 

  • Will the sequels resonate? Halloween 2018 is really Laurie Stode’s story and how she’s processed what happened to her 40 years earlier. The film is rooted in trauma. What happens to the Final Girl after all of her friends are dead? The last film hit at the right time during the #MeToo Movement and only a few short months after the powerful testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford during the tumultuous Kavanaugh hearings. Will the sequels also resonate? We’ll have to see. Sometimes, headlines make a film all the more powerful.

 

  • Who is going to play Michael/The Shape? The original Shape, Nick Castle, returned to the role just for a scene or two in 2018, but the Shape was mostly played by James Jude Courtney. No word yet on whether or not he’s returning.

 

Blumhouse is taking a risk launching two Halloween sequels, while also rebooting the Universal Monsters, with the first being an updated version of The Invisible Man. Halloween 2018 proved, however, that these iconic horror figures can still bring in the big bucks. Feel free to share your thoughts on the Halloween sequels and where you’d like the franchise to go from here.

 

 

 

Halloween Trailer #2

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With a little over a month until its release, David Gordon Green’s Halloween has a brand new trailer, featuring a hulking, brutal Michael Myers and a well-prepared Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis).
You can watch the new trailer by clicking here.
I first noticed the number of scenes that parallel scenes from the original film. For instance, in the first few seconds, we see that Michael Myers has returned to Haddonfield after escaping prison. He bumps into a trick-or-treater who is daunted by his size and shape, similar to the scene in the original Halloween when Tommy Doyle bumps into Michael and is taken aback. This happens early in the film, shortly after Michael escapes from the insane asylum and ends up in Haddonfield after stealing a car.
Another scene echoes a shot in the first film when Laurie Strode is babysitting and sees Michael standing in the yard behind sheets billowing on a laundry line. There is a similar scene in this new trailer, though it’s unclear whose house it is.
For the most part, this second trailer highlights Laurie Strode, specifically her ability to take charge. She screams at the costumed children and their parents to get off the streets and go home. In another scene, we see what I think is her house, fitted with flood lights and other high-wire alert systems. Clearly, she’s been planning for Michael’s return for decades. Additionally, the new trailer features Laurie’s voice-over. It’s probably safe to assume that the film will mostly focus on Laurie and Michael, as well as Laurie’s daughter and granddaughter. This is underscored by the new poster unveiled at the beginning of this month, featuring Michael and Laurie’s faces.
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Finally, director David Gordon Green mentioned in this interview with Bloody Disgusting  that there is a continuous shot fairly early in the film that is supposed to be quite brutal. I am guessing that scene is featured in the trailer, after the costumed child bumps into Michael and the boogeyman then picks up a hammer and enters the houses of random neighbors for a killing spree. It’s in that same continuous shot that he trades the hammer for his trademark butcher knife.
Overall, the trailer has me even more excited for the film. If you have any comments or thoughts about the trailer, feel free to drop a line.

Halloween 2018 (What We Know So Far)

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Without a doubt, one of the most anticipated horror films of 2018 is Halloween. Instead of another unnecessary sequel, Halloween 2018 is going to follow only John Carpenter’s original film, thus wiping the universe clean and placing us back to the beginning. With John Carpenter returning as executive producer and with Jamie Lee Curtis returning to play Laurie Strode 40 years after the original, there is reason to be excited. So far, some minor details about the film have leaked, after  Jamie Lee Curtis introduced the first trailer at CinemaCon in Las Vegas a few days ago. Based on reporting, the trailer begins with a true crime documentary team investigating Michael Myers’ murders from the first film. The investigators visit Myers, who’s been held in a facility for years; obviously, something goes wrong and Myers returns to Haddonfield. Curtis has said  that this time, Laurie Strode is ready for Michael, meaning she has stockpiled guns for the day he returns. This is quite a contrast to the 1978 Laurie Strode, who was a quiet, bookish teenager who outlived her friends by following the typical tropes of final girls in slasher films (innocence, being a virgin, etc). Seeing a more confident version of the character has peeked my interest as much as the description of the trailer.

It has also been reported that Carpenter will score the film, and Laurie’s daughter will be played by Judy Greer. Her granddaughter will be played by Andi Maticha. So far it is unclear what role they will play in the film, but let’s hope that the plot centers around the Strode family, specifically each generation of women, facing off against the Boogeyman.

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There is much to be said about the first poster of the film, too. It clearly shows a mask that is aged, perhaps one that Michael has worn while rotting away in a facility years after the first film. The mask is dominant on the poster, which may indicate that the film intends to make Michael the ever-present force that he was in Carpenter’s original story, a type of evil that can be present anywhere at anytime, behind a bush, in a yard, in a house. That is what truly made him the Boogeyman in the first place. Lastly, the text at the bottom of the poster somewhat reassembles the text from the first film, which is another indication that this film intends to have more in common with the original than the many sequels.

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Halloween is slated to be released on Oct. 19. It will be directed by David Gordon Green.