John Carpenter's 1978 classic HALLOWEEN introduced us to an incredible horror villain with Michael Myers, a.k.a. The Shape. A silent stalker with a blank, pale, emotionless face covered by a white, emotionless mask, a purely evil being who would stalk and kill people at random – whether they be his teenage sister when he was six years old, or a babysitter and her friends fifteen years later. He was the boogeyman… But when Carpenter was faced with having to write HALLOWEEN II, he couldn't come up with much of a story so he added a twist that gave this homicidal maniac a motivation: he was out to kill his family members. The franchise kept that idea going through several more sequels and a remake.
Now Carpenter serves as executive producer on (and is composing the score for) a new sequel that ignores all previous sequels and remakes, acknowledging only the events of HALLOWEEN '78. In doing so, it finally ditches the "Michael Myers wants to kill his family" idea that has been dragging the character down since 1981.
The new film is directed by David Gordon Green, and during an interview with the L.A. Times Green gave a description of Michael Myers that makes it sound like this sequel really is a return of the boogeyman as he was when we were first introduced to him.
Michael Myers hasn’t evolved as a character in any way, shape or form [since 1978]; he’s the essence of evil. He has no character. He has no personality. He has no interests. He never has. He’s someone that is moving forward and reacting to the world around him, but not with any sort of conscious objective. And how the world around him reacts to his behavior is where our story comes to life."
Written by Green, Danny McBride, and Jeff Fradley, the new HALLOWEEN brings original heroine Jamie Lee Curtis back in the role of
Laurie Strode, who comes to her final confrontation with Michael Myers, the masked figure who has haunted her since she narrowly escaped his killing spree on Halloween night four decades ago.
Green says the way Laurie is presented as a badass in the new film has its roots in Curtis's delivery of a line at the end of HALLOWEEN '78:
She has a line in the original film when she’s talking to young Tommy Doyle at the climax of the movie. She says, 'Do as I say.' And she says this line with a command that she hasn’t had for the entire film. 'Do as I say.' We took that to be her mantra for our film. She’s taken that pivotal moment in her life, and her recognition of facing her fears, and now has been chanting that in meditations for 40 years. She’s reached a point of a perceived almost psychosis of authority and built from this ambitious, kind of romanticized academic school girl into a woman that you don’t want to [mess] with.”
Also in the cast are Judy Greer as Laurie's daughter Karen; Andi Matichak as Laurie's granddaughter Allyson; Miles Robbins, Virginia Gardner, Dylan Arnold, and Drew Scheid as Allyson's Haddonfield High classmates; Will Patton and Rob Niter as police officers; Rhian Rees as a character named Dana; and Diva Tyler as a caretaker. Original Michael Myers performer Nick Castle and stuntman James Jude Courtney both wore the mask of the iconic slasher this time around.
HALLOWEEN is scheduled to reach theatres on October 19th.