Wednesday Editorial: Halloween Returns?

When I first started writing this blog, it was always my intention to use Wednesday both for reviews of recent horror movies, and for editorializing. I haven’t, however, had much to say on the editorial front. Today, however, that changes, because I do want to talk about my feelings on a subject: The new Halloween movie. More specifically, I want to talk about the obstacles I see for this movie to overcome.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit I’m excited about this. While I’m not always Jason Blum’s biggest fan, I do know that the guy is a businessman who effectively runs a factory. If he believes there’s a dime to be made with the Halloween name he will make sure that the movie happens. Any quality concerns Blum may bring to the project are washed away by Mike Flanagan in the director’s chair, and John Carpenter himself doing the score.

That said, my question for this production is this: So, what’s the story?

It’s kind of ironic that Halloween has somehow kept its roots firmly planted in the legacy of the first movie, while simultaneously having worse continuity than any other long-running Slasher series. Reviewing the ten films, only Halloween 2 and The Curse of Michael Myers followed up on the previous film without any major retcons. All the others were either alternate continuities, remakes, ignored some or all of the previous sequels, or just outright used an asspull to get out of whatever was established in the last movie (looking at you Halloween 5 and Resurrection). Let’s not even get into how Michael Myers can still see two decades after losing both eyes.

Furthermore, Curse only follows the ending of 5 because the makers of 5 knew that attempting to end the series, and attempting to plan ahead, were both equally pointless. So, 5 gave us a cliffhanger so absurdly vague that the next movie was free to do whatever it damned well pleased, and that’s exactly what Curse did. I’m sure we all remember how that turned out.

Getting off my tangent, however, in spite of all of this wild continuity, one constant has remained that’s almost unheard of in Slasher franchises: Every single film in the series (barring 3, of course) has featured at least one character from the original movie. For Halloween 2 we kept both Dr. Loomis and Laurie, in 4-6 Loomis kept coming back to hunt Michael, and just as Donald Pleasence passed away in real life, Jamie Lee Curtis decided it was time for Laurie Strode to make her return appearance. Then, with the remake and its sequel, both character returned with new actors.

Now, I’m sure lots of people are thinking “Laurie was barely in Resurrection.” That’s exactly right! And that’s why it’s Halloween: Resurrection! That was the one time in the series that the filmmakers tried to cut ties with the original Halloween, and it was an utter disaster.

I’m sure we can all list reasons why Resurrection sucked that are completely independent of Pleasence and Curtis. However, we do have to consider that Halloween is not a fresh franchise open to limitless experimentation. We’ve had decades to learn just what Halloween is, and it’s not a series like Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13^th where you can just place the killer in a new environment and let the blood flow. Michael’s story is tied to that town, that house, and those people, who he killed on that night.

With that in mind, we can begin weeding out what stories can and cannot be told in Halloween at this point. To do so, let’s deal with what’s been done already:

-We’ve dealt with a direct follow-up to the events of the original movie, and seen Michael die (even if it didn’t stick).

-We’ve seen Michael return to attack the offspring of the protagonist of the first movie.

-We’ve explored Michael as a supernatural figure.

-We’ve gotten an explanation for Michael’s origin (and were suitably disappointed).

-We’ve seen the protagonist of the first film return to finish old business.

-We’ve seen Michael attacking people with no connection to the first movie.

-We’ve seen the first movie done again with more emphasis on backstory.

-And most recently, we’ve seen a long, bloody meditation on the significance of family to Michael.

That’s a lot of ideas that have already been used. I’m not going to act as if some of them couldn’t be done better, but if the writers choose to go back down a path they’ve already covered they risk redundancy. We’re currently living in the longest gap between Halloween movies since the series premiered. (The last one came out seven years ago. Previously, the longest gap was six.) Do any of us want to end that drought with a rehash of one of the previous movies, no matter how much better?

Getting (at last) to my point, I think there’s only one story left to be told. Since there’s ample precedent in the series to ignore past movies, they can easily ignore Curse, and bring back Danielle Harris to play Jamie Lloyd as an adult. As a horror geek, this is the best option I can think of. However, it doesn’t seem like the kind of risk Blumhouse is likely to take.

While it’s true Harris is now well-known for her horror roles, and was one of the redeeming features of her two films, Halloween 4 and 5 seem to have a reputation as “the ones that are on cable all October because the rights are cheap, and they’re better than Curse.” (Is that still true? I haven’t really watched television in years.) It seems like it would be too risky for studio execs to go back to a story written out of continuity four films ago.

That said, however, it also seems like the perfect set-up for a great Halloween story that hasn’t really been told yet. While it’s true H20 had Laurie facing her brother after many years, the fact remains that he had terrorized her as a near-adult. To Laurie Michael was a human, if a far from normal one. To Jamie, who faced Michael Myers before she faced puberty, Michael is and always will be the Boogieman.

Furthermore, the family aspect of the story is far more prominent with Jamie than Laurie, giving us ample room to explore the relationship between the two, regardless of whether it’s real or a product of Jamie’s imagination. Laurie found out Michael was her brother well over halfway through his initial rampage. The only film in which Laurie acknowledge a strong fraternal connection with Michael was the Zombie sequel, and even there it’s treated as more a part of her insanity than of her identity. Jamie grew up knowing “my Uncle is the Boogieman,” and in any further sequels would presumably be a functioning adult with many years to incorporate that into her understanding of the world. That’s a very different relationship, and Harris definitely has the chops to pull it off.

Will this happen? Sadly, probably not. However, in the absence of a return by Jamie Lloyd I’m drawing a blank on what new things Michael could get up to. Maybe Mike Flanagan and John Carpenter have better imaginations than me. I certainly hope so.