Halloween Kills is about the unravelling of a community

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

A teaser trailer for the upcoming HALLOWEEN sequel HALLOWEEN KILLS arrived online earlier this week, just to let us know that the release of the film has been pushed back from October 16, 2020 to October 15, 2021. Before the film's one year delay (which happened due to the COVID-19 pandemic), writer/director David Gordon Green and co-writer Danny McBride did an interview with Empire Magazine in which they confirmed that the film takes place on the same night as HALLOWEEN 2018, picking up at the exact moment the previous film ended. (As you can see in the trailer embedded above.)

McBride went on to say that 

events in the film bring together a lot of characters who were in the 1978 film who we didn't see last time. They gather to try, once and for all, to take down Michael, to stop this madman."

Green said that while the previous movie was a "personal" story about franchise heroine Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), 

This is more about the unravelling of a community into chaos. It's about how fear spreads virally."

Which isn't to say that Laurie gets overshadowed in the new film. After working with Curtis on HALLOWEEN 2018, 

We learned that Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie is capable of anything! We didn't know what to expect working with her (the first time). The fact she could do her own stunts, kick everybody’s ass and be a joy to work with – that definitely meant re-evaluating what we wanted to do with the next chapter of the story. We were excited to write without limitations about what Laurie can do."

Green and McBride wrote the HALLOWEEN KILLS screenplay with Scott Teems. In addition to Curtis, the film stars Andi Matichak as Laurie's granddaughter Allyson, Judy Greer as Laurie's daughter Karen, Robert Longstreet as Lonnie Elam, Dylan Arnold as Allyson's boyfriend / Lonnie's son Cameron, Kyle Richards as Lindsey Wallace, Anthony Michael Hall as Tommy Doyle, Nancy Stephens as Nurse Marion, Charles Cyphers as Leigh Brackett, Jibrail Nantambu as scene stealer Julian, child actress Victoria Paige Watkins as a character named Christy, and James Jude Courtney as Michael Myers. Nick Castle, who played Michael Myers in the original HALLOWEEN, is also in the cast, possibly making another masked cameo like he did in the previous film.

Another sequel, HALLOWEEN ENDS, was originally scheduled to come out on the date KILLS has now taken. HALLOWEEN ENDS was also pushed back a year, to October 14, 2022. The script for that film has been written by Green, McBride, Paul Brad Logan, and Chris Bernier. 

Malek Akkad is producing these films with Jason Blum and Bill Block. Green, McBride, and Curtis serve as executive producers alongside Couper Samuelson and John Carpenter. Carpenter has composed the score for HALLOWEEN KILLS.