Director David Gordon Green’s HALLOWEEN is now available on DVD and Blu-ray (you can pick up a copy at THIS LINK), but if you want to check out another deleted scene before you get the disc, a third one has arrived online. Following “Shower Mask Visit” and “Cameron and Cops Don’t Mix” is “Jog to a Hanging Dog”, which shows exactly what it says it’s going to. Allyson (Andi Matichak), granddaughter of original HALLOWEEN heroine Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), is out for a jog when she discovers that a dead dog has been strung up and is hanging from a tree – a grisly Halloween decoration courtesy of Michael Myers, who hasn’t yet changed into his traditional outfit.
“Jog to a Hanging Dog” is the second of two “Allyson out for a jog” scenes that didn’t make it from the script to the screen. The first jogging scene in the script was part of what convinced Curtis to sign on to be in the movie. She told Nerdist,
The reason I said yes was because the script [had a scene]—and it’s not even in the movie—the script opened with Alyson running, jogging through Haddonfield on a morning run because she’s on the track team. Then she came home, said hi to her mom, and went up to her room to change for school. She opened the louvered closet door in her room and pulled the string with the bare bulb. That’s when I knew what (screenwriters David Gordon Green, Jeff Fradley, and Danny McBride) had done. That they had immediately put the reader back in Haddonfield 40 years later, with the descendents of the trauma, and yet seemingly they were all fine, but we were back in the closet 40 years later. There was something so simple and so beautiful about it.”
Green told Collider that the “Jog to a Hanging Dog” moment was cut for pacing reasons.
We had a few scenes that were cool in their own right, but just didn’t work with the pacing of the movie. And so (Michael’s) first presence, even before his first human kill in the first cut of the movie, which was way too long and had pacing problems – we had to try to massage and figure that out – it was actually a pretty interesting scene of Allison on a jog and sees this dog hung upside down in a tree.”
Ignoring the events of every HALLOWEEN except the 1978 original, this HALLOWEEN is about
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.
Curtis and Matichak are joined in the cast by Judy Greer as Laurie’s daughter Karen, Dylan Arnold as Allyson’s boyfriend Cameron Elam, Will Patton as Officer Frank Hawkins, Virginia Gardner as Allyson’s friend Vicky, Miles Robbins as Vicky’s boyfriend Dave, Drew Scheid as Oscar, Toby Huss as Ray, Jefferson Hall as Aaron Korey, Rhian Rees as Dana Haines, Omar J. Dorsey as Sheriff Barker, Rob Niter as Deputy Sheriff Walker, Jibrail Nantambu as Julian, Haluk Bilginer as Dr. Ranbir Sartain, Nick McKeever as Deputy Keeve, and Diva Tyler as a caretaker. James Jude Courtney plays Michael Myers, with original Michael Myers performer Nick Castle also wearing the mask for one scene.
If you look closely, you might spot Castle making a cameo of a different sort in “Jog to a Hanging Dog” as well.