Post by The Social Introvert on Jun 28, 2018 10:06:19 GMT
Video version of this post:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b1jnaYNbnI
So we have a new Halloween movie coming out...again. David Gordon Green is helming the picture which will ignore all previous sequels and the remake series and instead be a direct continuation of the first film, with events taking place 40 years after the night he came home. I’ve never really been a big fan of the idea of new sequels coming into a franchise and retconning previous ones out of existence, even if they’re good. It’s a bit disrespectful, especially to the audience who had to sit and pay to watch those films and all of a sudden you’re saying they no longer exist. Anyway it’s a common practice these days and the Halloween franchise has already done it twice in a way. First you had Hallween 4 which ignored the previous entry Season of the Witch, which was supposed to be the beginning of a new Anthology style Halloween series, and retconning the ending of the second film where clearly there was no way Michael Myers and Dr Loomis could have survived, but they did. Then you had Halloween H20 where Jamie Lee Curtis wanted to make an anniversary film and the result ignored Halloween 4, 5 and 6’s timeline instead picking up 20 years after the second movie.
Curtis is lucky in that she has another stab at the franchise, with low-budget horror specialists Blumhouse picking up the project and some really passionate people like Danny Mcbride going on about how they really want to make it work. They’ve even got original director John Carpenter on board to produce, though that isn’t saying much seeing as though he’s not afraid to say that as long as studios pay him, he doesn’t mind offering a helping hand to remakes of his films and when you look at movies like 2005’s The Fog, the bar hasn’t been set very high. What is very exciting however is that Carpenter is going to score the movie, which is huge news and for a lot of horror fans I’m sure one of the primary reasons to watch the film. No doubt we’ll have a variation of the original theme but I also look forward to seeing what else Carpenter cooks up. Recent albums from the man like Lost Themes shows he’s still got it.
Following the uninspired pattern of films like The Predator and The Thing, Halloween’s sequel is for some reason being called…Halloween. It’s pretty weird and will probably cause confusion with some people thinking it’s a remake. Saying that though, watching the trailer you could make the argument that it is a reboot of sorts. We can hazard a guess that it will replicate the beats of the original with Myers escaping from the asylum and then wreaking havoc in Haddonfield. There’s nothing wrong with that – a Halloween sequel doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel, in fact it’s probably advisable that it doesn’t, it just needs to be an effective horror film. If it’s engaging, well-shot and scary I think that’s all that’ll be required of the movie. And it does look well shot, doesn’t it? Just like with the original, the budget is super low and yet carries a really professional, top quality look.
It’s an interesting decision they made having Myers captured and locked up after the events of the first film. You could argue it nullifies the terrifying ending of the original where he gets shot but does a runner and you can hear the boogeyman breathing but you can’t see him. He could be anywhere – under your bed, in your closet, and he’s out there. But what this film says is “Lol only joking, he probably passed out next to a tree 2 minutes after the first film ended and was thrown back behind bars”. A major change with the new film though sees Jamie’s character locked and loaded, Sarah Connor style, having waited for Myers to escape. With Loomis’ death I guess she was the only person who really recognised that Myers was an unstoppable force of evil, and thus became obsessed with him and anticipating his escape. It’s an interesting departure to her character’s nature in H20, and it remains to be seen which movie the older Laurie betters.
The trailer has some really good shots, some of the stand outs being the way the scene at the asylum is filmed and Micheal dropping the teeth in the bathroom stall. He looks terrific. They really got the mask absolutely spot on. Apparently it is actually the same mask from the original, or so I’ve heard. But anyway with the numerous sequels Myers tended to look really different in different films, there’s been all sorts of horrible renditions of the character, with see through peek-a-boo eye holes and even a CGI mask, but this is the first film, going of the trailer at least, that has perfectly captured the look of the original Myers. He’s being played by the same actor too, bar the stunt scenes. All these attentive little details, including things like the hole in the side of the mask where Myers was stabbed in the original, really shows the film makers are taking this one seriously.
The trailer humorously makes it clear that it isn’t going through on the sister-angle storyline. A character says “Wasn’t Laurie Micheal’s sister” to which another replies “No that was something people made it.” Which was pretty funny. I was half expecting the next character to say “Wasn’t Micheal unkillable because he was part of a thorn cult?” or “Didn’t Laurie chop Micheal’s head off only for her to get the wrong man?” Speaking of which, this new movie is supposed to reference every film in the franchise, and there’s several examples in the trailer, like the screech noise when Micheal bumps into the kids harking back to the popular scene from the second movie, the knife flip which also occurs in Resurrection, and the scenes in the garage and bathroom which reference Halloween 4 and H20.
I am really looking forward to this, more than I thought I would initially several months ago when the project got traction. Seeing that they are really giving it a go, and that Carpenter will pump out another score makes me want this film to be a success. I heard the test screenings were successful, with people not blown away but reacting positively to the movie, aside from the ending which seemed to be unanimously hated, which has since been retconned. A sequel is planned according to McBride. I wonder if that means we’ll get an open ending, which we probably will seeing as though every Halloween movie traditionally has one.
I want this film to be a success. We’ve seen quite a lot of new low budget, concept-based and atmosphere-reliant horror films that have been huge successes. My expectations for the film is that we go to the cinema, get a decent premise, a cool synth soundtrack, a couple of scares and surprises, established characters are respected, and that’s it. A 7, maybe 8/10 nicely packaged 1h 45 m film, and that would be perfect. There wouldn’t be anything wrong with that. Here’s hoping the film delivers.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b1jnaYNbnI
So we have a new Halloween movie coming out...again. David Gordon Green is helming the picture which will ignore all previous sequels and the remake series and instead be a direct continuation of the first film, with events taking place 40 years after the night he came home. I’ve never really been a big fan of the idea of new sequels coming into a franchise and retconning previous ones out of existence, even if they’re good. It’s a bit disrespectful, especially to the audience who had to sit and pay to watch those films and all of a sudden you’re saying they no longer exist. Anyway it’s a common practice these days and the Halloween franchise has already done it twice in a way. First you had Hallween 4 which ignored the previous entry Season of the Witch, which was supposed to be the beginning of a new Anthology style Halloween series, and retconning the ending of the second film where clearly there was no way Michael Myers and Dr Loomis could have survived, but they did. Then you had Halloween H20 where Jamie Lee Curtis wanted to make an anniversary film and the result ignored Halloween 4, 5 and 6’s timeline instead picking up 20 years after the second movie.
Curtis is lucky in that she has another stab at the franchise, with low-budget horror specialists Blumhouse picking up the project and some really passionate people like Danny Mcbride going on about how they really want to make it work. They’ve even got original director John Carpenter on board to produce, though that isn’t saying much seeing as though he’s not afraid to say that as long as studios pay him, he doesn’t mind offering a helping hand to remakes of his films and when you look at movies like 2005’s The Fog, the bar hasn’t been set very high. What is very exciting however is that Carpenter is going to score the movie, which is huge news and for a lot of horror fans I’m sure one of the primary reasons to watch the film. No doubt we’ll have a variation of the original theme but I also look forward to seeing what else Carpenter cooks up. Recent albums from the man like Lost Themes shows he’s still got it.
Following the uninspired pattern of films like The Predator and The Thing, Halloween’s sequel is for some reason being called…Halloween. It’s pretty weird and will probably cause confusion with some people thinking it’s a remake. Saying that though, watching the trailer you could make the argument that it is a reboot of sorts. We can hazard a guess that it will replicate the beats of the original with Myers escaping from the asylum and then wreaking havoc in Haddonfield. There’s nothing wrong with that – a Halloween sequel doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel, in fact it’s probably advisable that it doesn’t, it just needs to be an effective horror film. If it’s engaging, well-shot and scary I think that’s all that’ll be required of the movie. And it does look well shot, doesn’t it? Just like with the original, the budget is super low and yet carries a really professional, top quality look.
It’s an interesting decision they made having Myers captured and locked up after the events of the first film. You could argue it nullifies the terrifying ending of the original where he gets shot but does a runner and you can hear the boogeyman breathing but you can’t see him. He could be anywhere – under your bed, in your closet, and he’s out there. But what this film says is “Lol only joking, he probably passed out next to a tree 2 minutes after the first film ended and was thrown back behind bars”. A major change with the new film though sees Jamie’s character locked and loaded, Sarah Connor style, having waited for Myers to escape. With Loomis’ death I guess she was the only person who really recognised that Myers was an unstoppable force of evil, and thus became obsessed with him and anticipating his escape. It’s an interesting departure to her character’s nature in H20, and it remains to be seen which movie the older Laurie betters.
The trailer has some really good shots, some of the stand outs being the way the scene at the asylum is filmed and Micheal dropping the teeth in the bathroom stall. He looks terrific. They really got the mask absolutely spot on. Apparently it is actually the same mask from the original, or so I’ve heard. But anyway with the numerous sequels Myers tended to look really different in different films, there’s been all sorts of horrible renditions of the character, with see through peek-a-boo eye holes and even a CGI mask, but this is the first film, going of the trailer at least, that has perfectly captured the look of the original Myers. He’s being played by the same actor too, bar the stunt scenes. All these attentive little details, including things like the hole in the side of the mask where Myers was stabbed in the original, really shows the film makers are taking this one seriously.
The trailer humorously makes it clear that it isn’t going through on the sister-angle storyline. A character says “Wasn’t Laurie Micheal’s sister” to which another replies “No that was something people made it.” Which was pretty funny. I was half expecting the next character to say “Wasn’t Micheal unkillable because he was part of a thorn cult?” or “Didn’t Laurie chop Micheal’s head off only for her to get the wrong man?” Speaking of which, this new movie is supposed to reference every film in the franchise, and there’s several examples in the trailer, like the screech noise when Micheal bumps into the kids harking back to the popular scene from the second movie, the knife flip which also occurs in Resurrection, and the scenes in the garage and bathroom which reference Halloween 4 and H20.
I am really looking forward to this, more than I thought I would initially several months ago when the project got traction. Seeing that they are really giving it a go, and that Carpenter will pump out another score makes me want this film to be a success. I heard the test screenings were successful, with people not blown away but reacting positively to the movie, aside from the ending which seemed to be unanimously hated, which has since been retconned. A sequel is planned according to McBride. I wonder if that means we’ll get an open ending, which we probably will seeing as though every Halloween movie traditionally has one.
I want this film to be a success. We’ve seen quite a lot of new low budget, concept-based and atmosphere-reliant horror films that have been huge successes. My expectations for the film is that we go to the cinema, get a decent premise, a cool synth soundtrack, a couple of scares and surprises, established characters are respected, and that’s it. A 7, maybe 8/10 nicely packaged 1h 45 m film, and that would be perfect. There wouldn’t be anything wrong with that. Here’s hoping the film delivers.
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