Halloween Movies Continuity Explained:
The Confusing Timeline of Michael Myers.
We all want to leave something of value for future generations. Some will leave great innovations. Others, works of art. And some will raise the children who will lead our planet in progress and prosperity for all mankind. What will be my contribution? My legacy?
Clarity…
Insight….
Wisdom…
…in regards to the Halloween movie franchise.
Let’s face it people, the continuity of the Michael Myers saga is simply a mess. One I fear the children of tomorrow may not be equip to handle. There’s sequels, and requels, and reboots, and a part 4 that’s really a part 3 and a part 7 that’s also a part 3, and 3 films just called Halloween, and now a 3rd Halloween 2 that’s also the 3rd one called Halloween??!!!!
Not even the Rambo franchise can compete in confusion (First Blood, Rambo: First Blood Part 2, Rambo 3, Rambo?!).
So here it is, the Halloween series continuity explained.
You’re welcome tomorrow.
Continuity A:
Halloween (1978)
Halloween 2 (1981)
Sequel: a continuation of a fictional story often featuring the same characters, and expanding on the established premise. ie: Jaws 2, The Empire Strikes Back, The Godfather Part 2.
Ok, so…in the beginning we had the original. Halloween was a shockingly huge hit with both audiences and critics. It’s budget was so tiny that it’s international success established it as the most successful independent film for several decades.
It’s plot was simple: a young boy named Michael Myers kills his sister on Halloween and then escapes a mental institution years later. His former psychiatrist, Dr. Sam Loomis played by Donald Pleasance “Van Helsings” around town trying to find the masked Michael as he silently stalks and murders women for reasons left somewhat mysterious, the main one of whom is Laurie Strode played by Jamie Lee Curtis.
And that’s pretty much it.
It’s shocking that this is the plot is of a horror classic, but as all horror fans know, it’s the atmosphere, music, and pacing that make Halloween a masterpiece. It’s overall vibe of the bleakness of late autumn and the anxiety of inevitable death, make it much more than its cheap 80s imitators.
Which were many.
Halloween rip-offs were so profitable in the 80s they quickly became their own horror sub genre: The Slasher Film. So it’s no surprise the film studio pressured the makers of the original (John Carpenter and Deborah Hill) to make a Halloween 2. The pair never intended to do this and didn’t want to, but they used the idea as a bargaining chip to get the studio to produce the movies they really wanted to do.
And so begins our first adventure in continuing a story that really didn’t have all that much to work with in the first place.
As far as the villain returning; that was the easy part. Michael Myers wasen’t blown up like the Jaws shark or decapitated like Jason’s Mom. He was just shot a few times and fell out of a window. And the twist at the end of the last movie established he survived said events, and disappeared into the night, suggesting some kind of supernatural immortality.
What was tricky was establishing why Michael Myers would keep stalking Laurie Strode, as he appeared to be killing women at random in the first film, the only perquisite being that they remind him of his sister. I guess they really wanted Jamie Lee Curtis back, so we get an Empire Strikes Back-esque, “Laurie is Michael’s other sister” reveal. Michael discovers this definitively in Halloween 2 from a police scanner that also explains what hospital she’s in.
They’re kind of retconning Michael’s motives, or lack of motives from the first movie by suggesting he was trying to kill his other sister all along but wasen’t sure which babysitter was her.
Maybe he should have done that Ancestry.com thing.
Strangely, (and I never noticed this before YouTube comparisons) the opening recap of the closing scene from Halloween 1 features an alternate take of Laurie and the kids, with slightly different lines. No clue why.
We also get kind of a forced continuity with the now iconic white mask that Michael is still wearing in this one. Wasn’t the whole point of wearing a mask on Halloween to keep from being recognized? Wouldn’t he at least change it now that the whole town is hunting him down? But like Jason’s hockey mask, or Freddy’s glove, the white face became a part of horror iconography and was required to return.
Anyway, Michael follows Laurie, and Loomis follows Michael, and what results is a gorier, nastier version of the original except set mostly in a hospital. Apparently John Carpenter didn’t want to direct this one, but still retained creative control as the producer, and insisted on upping the violence to keep up with the very movies that were copying the first Halloween. So I guess we have a strange case of a film franchise ripping-off the same movies that ripped it off.
Halloween 2 is not as effective as Part 1 but it does have enough moments of pure suspense, and a gritty, nasty, medical vibe all it’s own, enough so for many horror fans to consider it a slasher classic in its own right.
As far as continuity, Halloween 2 is about as sequely a sequel one could ever ask for. The main actors including Pleasance and Curtis, return and pick up literally like it’s been a few minutes since the original.
Think Rocky 2.
Carpenter and Hill seemed very determined to never have to face the dilemma of having to make a 3rd Michael Myers movie, and so the film ends with Laurie shooting out her brother’s eyes, and Dr. Loomis blowing himself up, along with Michael who collapses into a smoldering lump of charred flesh.
The villain isint just dead. He’s freakin’ incenerated.
And blind.
Series over. Right?
Continuity B:
Halloween 3: Season of the Witch (1982)
Stand Alone Sequel: A work that uses the theme and title from a previous release, but had little connection to its namesake, often set in a different world. ie: Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, Home Alone 3, Troll 2.
Ok, so the filmmakers left Michael dead, dead, dead in the last one, and since the 80s hadn’t yet figured out that audiences only want their star villain in every frame of every movie, they attempted a taboo in the world of horror…doing something different. They figured, we don’t have the original story to continue, but what if we make a different Halloween-themed tale for each entry moving forward?
Really not a bad idea on paper.
And so they made this bizarre but pretty entertaining movie that has nothing to do with Michael Myers, or Laurie Strode, or Dr. Loomis or anything.
In fact, the original Halloween is advertised as a movie itself within this movie, ala Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, only without the self-awareness.
Oh, and apparently Jamie Lee did a little voice cameo. But not as Laurie, just as…some random voice.
The plot of Halloween 3, which feels more like a nod to campy 50s sci-fi than a slasher, centers on a cop exploring an evil Druid factory owner, who plans on killing a bunch of kids through the distribution of lethal masks.
It’s actually more entertaining than it sounds.
There’s robots, and a creepy mystery town, and characters who are not what they seem, and freakin’ Stone Henge! AND one of the most F-ed up, Twilight Zone-esque, twist endings ever.
As far as continuity goes, this one stands alone. It has no plot connections to anything else in the series save for a tiny yet loving nod from Part 6 writer Daniel Farrands, who names one of his characters after a mentioned chareceter in this one.
Halloween 3 is largely seen as an example of what not to do in horror franchises, though it’s gained a cult following in recent years and is largely considered superior to many of the later entries.
AND it’s the only movie in this (or really any horror franchise) where there is no sequels, no reboots, not even a damned prequel…to a PART 3!
This one flopped at the box office and so of course the wheels started turning on how to get the guy in the white mask back.
Continuity C:
Halloween
Halloween 2
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)
Requel: A sequel that disregards specific elements introduced in previous entries, while retaining others, usually from the original production. It often acts as both a remake, and sequel to a previous entry. ie: Superman Returns, Terminator: Genysis, Prometheus.
After Halloween 3: Season of the Witch failed to make serious money, the studio we deadset on getting their star slasher back on the screen.
Originally, John Carpenter wrote up a treatment that would kind of have the “spirit” of Michael Myers haunting the town of Haddonfield, which banned the holiday after the original murder spree. The script sounds pretty awesome with it being more of a thought piece on the nature of the human desire to suppress trauma, and a look at our societal celebration of violence.
Although the climatic scene of a 12 foot tall Michael destroying a drive-in seems a little silly.
But the studio felt they really, really needed a real flesh and blood Michael back…but not so much a John Carpenter or a Debra Hill. And they needed fans to know this one was all about the star maniac of parts 1 and 2. Not only was the resulting film subtitled The Return of Michael Myers, but the poster art is pretty much just the face of the once shadowy phantom.
Of course the biggest issue with continuing the Michael Myers story is that he was, well…dead. I don’t mean like he had a machete in his arm or was hit with some grenade shrapnel. He was a pile of ash on the floor. And so how do they solve this plot dilemma in Halloween 4?
By brushing it off with a “he almost burned to death” line, and giving Michael some minor scarring. They couldn’t even add in new footage of his body being extinguished or anything.
And like many burn victims he’s…in a coma?
Not only do we have to accept that the near-cremation level Myers, got out of the last one like he leaned against a hot stove, but Dr. Loomis survived as well!
What?!
Oh, and, AND, remember how Laurie shot out BOTH of Michael’s eyes last time? Not even brought up. He seems to be seeing just fine.
Originally they considered filming a new scene where Loomis is blasted through the wall at the end of 2 making it slightly more likely he would live, though wasent the whole reason he sacrificed himself was that he had a fatal wound anyway?!
Well, I guess that’s the advantage of getting stabbed and blown up in a hospital.
AND of all the characters who were killed off since last time, who are we now asked to accept as dead? Laurie Strode! Our SURVIVOR. I guess by this point in her career. Jamie Lee Curtis was a major Hollywood star and there was no way she was getting in bed with the late 80s assembly line of slasher movie sequels.
So, we’re forced to accept some pretty glaring contrivances that are tossed off in the first few minutes of Halloween 4 to get things rolling, but we aren’t done yet. Now that Laurie is declared dead in an unrelated car accident (as well as the paramedic from part 2 who I guess she started a family with) our new protagonist is Laurie’s daughter confusingly named Jamie.
Now, it’s a little silly to stretch this simple plot to the point where Michael is now obsessed with killing anyone he is related to, but the addition of Danielle Harris is one of the better parts of this movie. She’s one of the least annoying, well-acted child performers ever, and having a little girl in the center of things is a fresh take in an otherwise stale franchise/genre.
Anyway, back to the plot. So, of course Michael wakes from his stupid coma on Halloween, and he snatches up clothes identical to part 1, and the requisite white mask, and chases Jamie around, and that’s pretty much it. For some reason Part 4 is beloved by many fans of the franchise, but I’m not sure why as it’s pretty terrible. Though I admit the last act is kind of fun in a campy way.
Michael’s required 3rd-act vanquishing (but not so vanquished that we can’t make a part 5) comes at the hands of a group of cops and vigilante rednecks who shoot him into some kind of hole in the ground.
Yeah. That’ll do it.
But…then we get a fairly disturbing final scene where, out of nowhere little Jamie basically becomes child-Michael from the opening scene of the first movie, and stabs her adoptive mother! Well, this movie may not be great but at least we set thins up for a very interesting part 5!! Right?!
Nope. They drop the Jamie is now little Mikey thread ASAP. Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers picks up a year later with Jamie in a mental hospital, and Michael being nursed back to health by a…hermit…with a parrot. Supposedly they were going to kick the franchise into mildly supernatural territory with a Satan worshipping/voodoo/goth/pagan guy resurrecting Myers, but that scene was cut and replaced with…a hermit…with a parrot.
Oh, they also for some reason added a scene where the mob at the end of the last one, dropped some dynamite on Mikey but missed as he crawled out the bottom end of the mine shaft or whatever that was, and coasted down a river.
AND Jamie’s Foster-Mom was not killed, just stabbed.
This definetly feels like Part 4 part 2 as most of the cast returns. We also get a teenage “Lindsay” (the little girl from Part 1) taking a lead role here. By this point the franchise has no intrest in even attempting mood or atmosphere and this feels like any lame-ass late 80s slasher sequel.
The plot is exactly what you would expect. The only twist this time being that a mysterious “Man in Black” is following Michael and Jamie around, for unknown reasons. And also, Michael now has a weird shark-fin lookin’ tattoo on his wrist that you’d think we would have noticed before.
The creators of the hastily produced Part 5 have since admitted that the Man in Black and the weird tattoo stuff were shoehorned in last minute, with no solid ideas as to why. They just needed some mystery to fill out an empty plot.
Halloween 5 ends with Michael chasing Jamie around his (supposed) old family home, though it looks more like a Disney Haunted Mansion ride. We get a very brief “unmasking” scene where we learn that not only is Michael fully recovered from that whole “being burnt down to the bone” thing, but he also is now way darker in complexion, I guess to look more like Jamie.
It ends with Loomis setting up a Scooby Doo trap complete with falling net, and then beating Michael with a piece of wood.
Can you just put the guy through a meat grinder?
For the last scene we get a ridiculous shot of Myers sitting in jail with his mask on?! And our big cliff-hanger at the end, this time? That mystery man kills all the cops at the station and breaks Michael out for some reason.
Well, at least Jamie screams the word “noooo!!!!!” a lot.
Unlike Part 4, the quickly produced and released Part 5 was not a box office success, and the Michael Myers saga was put on hold for 6 years, when we finally got…
Many stories have floated around about the making of Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, including the rumor that Quentin Tarantino was involved at one point, and that John Carpenter thought it would be cool to set this movie in space.
And then there was the absurd rumor that this movie would feature a Druid cult ala Part 3, and make Michael impregnate Jamie, and comedic actor Paul Rudd would play Tommy Doyle and …oh wait. That one came to fruition.
Yes, Halloween 6 is one of the strangest films in horror franchise history and is often summed up with one word: “mess.” I personally appreciate this entry more than the previous 2 because they actually tried.
I mean, we’re talking a movie that came out 6 years after a part 5 that no one saw, and they still felt obligated to try and keep all the plot threads going. They could have easily just ignored all that and did a quick cash grab with another non-story. As ludacris as this entry is, I really get the sense that this one was for the real Halloween fans, and not the lowest common denominator.
That said, let me try and explain this plot:
Well, we start with candles and hooded figures and…a baby. A nurse escapes this Druid sewer lair with said baby as Michael chases her. As I guess that’s where the Man in Black took him after the last movie.
Jamie (played by some other actress) is also there and she escapes with her infant. Eventually Michael kills her, but not before she hides the child in a bus station.
The baby is eventually discovered by Tommy who now lives across from the new family in the restored Myers house, finally sold to relatives of the Strodes that had adopted Laurie…which makes sense a little, as they explain they couldn’t sell it to anyone else.
Alright.
Tommy kind of teams up with Loomis and the main girl named Kara, and they unravel the mystery that attempts to explain why Michael is so hard to kill, and why he murders his family on specific Halloweens, and for some reason there are the mcguffuns of keeping the baby from Michael, and from keeping Kara’s little boy from becoming the next Michael…or something.
Apparently this entry was originally conceived by scriptwriter Daniel Farrands, a massive fan of the franchise who tried his best to make the ultimate Halloween film, but watched his dream project dissolve as the studio demanded change after change, until the final product became completely non-sensicle. It didn’t help that Donald Pleasence died in real life (RIP), before the reshoots and had a body/voice double in many scenes.
Its bugnuts crazy but like I said, this movie really went the extra mile to try and make some sense of this whole confusing series timeline, and justify the endless franchising of a story that was barely a story to begin with.
So what is the explanation? What makes Michael tick?
A Druidic cult. That’s right, just like in part 3.
In fact we get a tiny tie-in to “Season of the Witch” via the naming of Michael’s childhood babysitter/cult recruiter as Mrs. Blankenship. As we all remember the guy that gets killed at the beginning of part 3 was having lunch with said woman. So, does that mean this one is continuity with part 3?!
Ugh. I can’t handle another canonical lineage.
Back to the Druids.
We learn that this cult believes that every time that “thorn” symbol appears in the stars on a Halloween, a village must select one poor soul to sacrifice all the members of their family, so the tribe can succeed.
Yeah. The shark fin tattoo is supposed to be a thorn.
In Haddonfield the modern version of this myth is put into practice by a bunch of residents who use the insane asylum as their base of operations, and of course Michael has been tasked with performing the sacrifice his whole life. The Man in Black we met last time is neither Tommy Lee Jones or Will Smith, but in fact, Loomis’ fellow Doctor we met briefly in Halloween 1.
What’s weird though, is they never explain why he wears the white mask and coveralls. Give me an ancient god with a white face or something Halloween 6.
So, this attempt at uniting a bunch of convoluted plot threads into one mythology ends with Michael getting beaten by Tommy with a pipe (I guess we have a theme going after the finale of Part 5). And then for some reason his mask is vacated and Loomis (or maybe his stand-in) screams a lot.
Hmmm. Not much of a cliff hanger but at least we have a lot of weird stuff set up for part 7, right?
Continuity D:
Halloween
Halloween 2
Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later
Halloween: Resurrection
Soft-Reboot: A sequel that mostly ignores specific events in previous entries, but doesn’t directly contradict, or negate them. The understated plot elements don’t impact the new plot much, and are ususally played down to allow the new work to tie into the original. ie: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 and 4, Curse of Chucky, A Nightmare on Elm st. 3.
Something amazing happened in 1998, 20 years after the release of Halloween. A major Hollywood star returned to the horror franchise that started her career; Jamie Lee Curtis was back in a Halloween film. It may not sound all that incredible now but if you were around horror movies in he late 90s, you would understand what a big deal this was.
You see, the Slasher Movie craze of the early 80s slowly petered our until it was pretty much dead by the early 90s. The genre was considered (like so many things from the 80s) a cliched joke, and completely passé. By the late 90s almost all the series had either halted or gone straight to video.
Sure, Johnny Depp, Kevin Bacon, and Patricia Arquette has all gotten their start within the genre, but most had disatanced themselves as much as possible, since.
But then Scream happened.
The horror-comedy mocked the now-tired genre but also revived intrest in it. And so with a renewed sense of nostalgia, Jamie Lee Curtis was somehow intinced to veer from mega-blockbusters like True Lies and Trading Places to this now-bargain bin B-film series in (the horribly titled) Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later.
So what did this shocking turn of events mean for continuity? Well, like all things Halloween, it was complictated.
They establish pretty early on that we are mostly writing off, not only the Myers-less part 3, but also 4,5, and 6. But…not completely. I guess the filmmakers didn’t want to close the door 100% on those ones, and throw in a line about Laurie faking her death, and Loomis not actually dieing at the end of Part 2. Also, Michael’s smoldering corpse seems to have disappeared. And of course, no word on the bullets in Laurie put in both Michael’s eyeballs!
So…they brush off all the events from 4 movies but for some reason seem obliged to put a spotlight on part 2 which established Michael and Loomis as smoking embers.
Why not just not mention that too?!
They also set most of the film outside of Haddonfield so they don’t have to do much explaining about the repeated Halloween massacres that have left like a thousand people dead. Though really, it’s pretty nuts to kind of acknowledge these things kind of happened but decide we’re just not talking about them.
So, we’re in this strange world where 1 definetly happened, 2 happened but again, that little fire thing at the end wasent that big a deal, 3 definetly didn’t happen, and 4, 5, and 6 maybe happened but we’re just not going to bring them up unless we absolutely have to.
And the fact that Michael murdered Laurie’s daughter in the last movie? Eh, not really worth a mention.
Anyway, the film starts with Michael hunting down the chain-smoking nurse from the first 2 movies, as she apparently has all of Dr. Loomis’ records which point to where Laurie disappeared to. He finds her working at a boarding school in California, raising a son played by Josh Hartnett.
Michael makes his way there and we get the standard formula except this time, Laurie forces herself to face her tormentor and refuses to back down until one of them is dead.
The film ends with her triumphantly…chopping his head off!
H20 isint the best Halloween movie ever, but it’s pretty damned good and it dared to break all the genre stereotypes with that bold ending. Finally, it seemed respect for the franchise triumphed over blind capitalism. The horror nerds won!
Only one problem. This film made money. It was super-successful. And so Halloween H20, this love-letter to genre fans was sequalized with a flaming bag of dog feces to fans, a 2002 movie called Halloween Resurrection.
Now, I’m normally not all that offended by cash-grab sequels. I don’t go around claiming that the new Ghostbusters ruined my childhood, or refusing to accept that Alien 3 exists. I mostly just don’t care, and would rather see a mediocre continuation for the novelty of it, than nothing at all.
But when it comes to Halloween Resurrection, my horror-nerd rage rears it’s awkward, greasy head.
It begins with the most contrived ret-con maybe in movie history, as we re-examine the ending to the last film to discover Michael’s decapitation never happened! Actually… it was a paramedic whom Michael somehow crushed the larnex of and swapped clothes.
Laurie beheaded the WRONG GUY!
Yes. Apparently, the filmmakers made it contractual that they had to leave some kind of door open at the end of H20 to bring Michael back. And so if you squint your eyes just so, and accept that no one confirmed it was Michael in the suit and mask, and also take a large, extra-strength dose of stupid pills upon viewing, this could technically make sense.
And to make this intro even more infuriating, Michael straight up kills Laurie in the first 10 minutes. She sets up a trap to drop him off the building, and Michael once ensnared, tricks her by clawing at his mask, prompting her to check before she finishes him off.
Great idea!
Where does he always get these masks, by the way?
Of course he stabs her and drops her off the building.
And why did Jamie Lee Curtis agree to do this movie? I’ve read several explanations and none of them really make sense to me. I’ve heard she was contractually obligated (why?) that she wanted to kill off her character (ok?), or that she liked the first version of the script so much, which didn’t include the opening scene, that she insisted on being in it (no?!!).
Also, in the first act we very conveniently get an exposition scene where an inmate reiterates the fact that parts 1,2, and H20 all happened but the other ones are whatever. Either they didn’t happen, or they aren’t important enough to bring up.
Well, at least this disappointing mini-movie up front is all out of the way and we can concentrate on moving things along with a new story, right?
Yeah, but it sucks.
Now Myers is back at his old abode in Haddonfield where some dumb kids are shooting a reality show or something. It’s really stupid and not worth getting into.
After the intro pretty much nothing happens that has anything to do with the characters, the story, the town, the history. Anything. So there’s really not much to discuss continuity-wise.
Apparently the whole reason they reshoot a scene in H20 that let LL Cool J’s character survive was so he could return in this film. But when he read the script, they had to get Busta Ryhmes to fill in.
I mean, it’s fine to do a stand-alone sequel that doesn’t have much to do with the story (especially since there never really was much story) but…the movie just sucks either way.
I guess it’s worth noting that the iconic house burns at the end, and Michael gets electrocuted and of course wakes up in the morgue.
And with his cliffhanger sending us off to another potential sequel, guess what happened again? A terrible response prompting the series to be scrapped indefinitely.
According to rumour, the original plan had Josh Hartnett return to play Laurie’s avenging son in Part 9. But….no.
Guess we will never find out how Michael would escape the morgue.
Continuity E:
Halloween (2007)
Halloween 2 (2009)
Remake: a new version of an established story, often with the same characters and title, usually set in a different reality than the events of the original, and restating the story from the beginning.
After the massive backlash against Halloween Resurrection, plans for a Part 8 (or 5 or whatever it would be) were scrapped, but thankfully for the studio a new trend had emerged in the 2000s; the Slasher Film Remake. There was a new Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a new Hills Have Eyes, a new Black Christmas, etc.
The master of scary 90s music videos, Rob Zombie was brought in to start the franchise all over with his “Art House Meets Grind House” ascetic that he perfected with House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects.
Although mostly an altered version of the original (the only sequel element incorporated is that Michael and Laurie are siblings), Zombie had the guts to play with the established slasher movie pacing, and spent ample time setting up the killer’s backstory; something that is usually brushed off in the first scene.
In this new continuity Michael is raised in an abusive household and is bullied at school. He finally breaks on Halloween and goes on a murder spree sparing only his baby sister, Laurie whom he loves. He’s also cool with his Mom but she eventually loses it under all the stress and kills herself.
Yes, this is one dark and depressing take on the story.
Like a white-trash Batman Begins from hell, we watch as a kid is abused into a perfect psychopath, and kills with indifference between playing innocently and eating candy.
Our Loomis this time is played by Andy McDowel who we see spend years trying to help Michael in the hospital, and then chasing him down upon his requisite Halloween escape.
We jump ahead in the 2nd half and Michael (this time a massive beast of a man, obsessed with mask-making) breaks free just in time for Oct 31st. Of course he leaves a trail of blood and guts on his way, including a sympathetic orderly, played by Danny Trejo who was always good to Michael, just to show how messed up he really is.
After stealing the coveralls from a trucker, he tracks down his sister, but…this time, he doesn’t want to kill her, he just wants her love. But she screams and runs.
And then he wants to kill her.
In the end our new Laurie played by Scott Taylor-Compton holds a gun to Michael’s head and pulls the trigger. Michael puts his hand on her arm and Zombie leaves it ambiguous as to wether he is trying to stop her or help her.
The director made it clear in the past that he had no desire to become a cash-grab sequel, franchise horror director so it was quite surprising when a new Halloween 2 suddenly popped up out of nowhere. For myself, it was the first time since the 90s where I learned of a movie by a poster in a theatre. This one was so rushed I didn’t even read about in on the internet.
So, we get not just a sequel to the Halloween remake but an actual remake of the original Halloween 2…at least for a few minutes.
The opening is a lot of fun watching Michael reak havoc through a hospital, justvlike the original Part 2, only modern. This should have been the whole movie, but instead is just a dream.
In real life, Michael apparently didn’t get shot that bad ( I guess we never actually saw where it landed) and escapes his ambulance, when the drivers promptly hits a damned cow! He then roams around like a hobo waiting for the next Halloween.
In the meantime Laurie is dealing with her demons and Loomis has sold-out turning her ordeal into a sensational true-crime novel.
Also, Weird Al is there for some reason.
The inevitable Halloween massacre ensues, the only real twist being that we finally kind of see Michael’s mental perspective witch consists of spooky, surreal, visions of his family, and human-eating pumpkins, and a white horse.
A litte more arthouse, a little less grindhouse, this time around.
Surprisingly, this Halloween 2 actually incorporates elements of the old parts 4, and 5 as Laurie now has a psychic link to her brother, ala little Jamie. Oh, and too make things more confusing, Danielle Harris (our original Jamie) is back in these films as Laurie’s best friend (it’s good to see her again).
In the climatic scene, Loomis gets killed by Michael while Laurie is starting to experience her brother’s delusions. Michael’s hallucinatory Mother tells him it’s over and Laurie stabs him to death. But…she ends up in the hospital with a vision of Michael’s Mother in her head.
And then we finally get the iconic music for the first time in this movie.
Apparently Zombie was not happy with experience in making Halloween 2 and utterly refused a third. The studio tossed around ideas for ahwile there though, including a 3-D follow-up to Zombie’s film where, (of course) Michael survived the bullets again. Theybtoued with anither one called Halloween Returns, that would be another reboot taking place after the original and having Michael escape from death row.
But…just in time for the 20 year return cycle, Jamie Lee Curtis decided to give Halloween one more go around, and this time John Carpenter is with her…well kind of.
Continuity F:
Halloween (1978)
Halloween (2018)
Re-re boot, or a new direct sequel…or a fourth requel, I don’t freakin’ know anymore: Ugh. I guess like a new part 2 that dismisses everything except part 1. I think they may have done this with some of the Japanese Godzilla sequels.
All these years. Forty damned years, and where does this new sequel go? Back to the very beginning. We get Jamie Lee Curtis back. We get John Carpenter back…but just as the musical composer (which he does another amazing job at) AND, we even get our original Michael back with Nick Castle in the suit, and Tony Moran for the unmasked scenes.
And every Halloween sequel, every damn one, is being ignored. NONE OF THEM HAPPENED except part 1. That’s 9 films down the crapper. Let’s hope it’s worth it.
Much like H20, Laurie is now a paranoid alcoholic but feels a lot more like Linda Hamilton’s character in Terminator 2. She’s not only dedicated her and her daughter’s life to survival, but she’s also rigged her house to be one giant Panic Room for when Michael comes calling.
And where is Michael? What happened after he was shot out of the window at the end of the original and then disappeared? He apparently was apprehended by a cop who kept Loomis from finishing him off. It would have been cool to see this but we just get exposition.
I kind of feel like this device betrays the first movie a little, in that the disappearance of Michael’s body kind of confirmed Dr Loomis’ rants implying that he was some sort of supernatural embodiment of evil who escaped into the night, and not just some crazy person who could be captured.
Anyway, Michael is now an old man who hovers quietly in the ole’ sanitarium, complete with accurate battle scars from the first film. We meet 2 British podcasters who visit the hospital, presenting his old mask in hopes of getting him to speak. This is at the encouragement of his new doctor, who feels like the evil twin of Loomis, and we later learn is responsible for setting up the inevitable escape and Laurie-hunt.
It makes a little more sense this time around to have the requisite Halloween killing spree be orchestrated by an outside force. I mean, what are the odds Michael would just happen to escape on Halloween and track down Laurie, if we are going with the first movie’s premise that she is not his sister?
And she’s not by the way, which is made clear in one of the many meta-references, with teenage characters discussing the “rumor” that they may be related.
Speaking of rumors, there’s a real-life one floating around that the original cut of the film had Laurie responsible for Michael’s escape because she wanted to kill him so bad. Apparently this version flopped with test audiences and reshoots with the evil “new Loomis” ensued.
Unfortunately this above average movie has the standard “teenagers partying and getting killed” thread forced into it, in the form of Laurie’s grandaughter, and friends. The mother of whom has spent her life dealing with her paranoid, arms-stockpiling parent.
It all pays off though on Halloween night 40 years later, when the 3 women join forces and finally trap Myers in the house, which we learn was contruscted not so much to be a bunker, as a prison for Michael. One with plenty of gas outlets.
Of course, we don’t actually see Michael’s body ablaze in this latest inferno…I wonder why??!
So there it is, children of tomorrow. I hope this helps. Of course there is many other timelines if you throw in all the Halloween comic books, and novels, and the piles of fan fiction found online. But as far as the movies go, this is it. Not bad for a independent picture with almost no plot.
Not even Steven Hawking could have theorized on a multi-verse as tangled as the Halloween franchise.
Thanks for reading!
