Halloween Kills Postponed by Pandemic...
But is Still Building Hype
Contributor: Zach Roozendaal
Halloween is a time for costumes, candy, scares, and a big corporatized opportunity to gain companies lots of cash, whether it be through the sale of decorations and fun Halloween themed treats and games, or through movies and music, and as John Carpenter and Jamie Lee Curtis can tell you, Halloween is a time like no other for horror movies, and that the scares are real for the residents of Haddonfield, Illinois in the film series of the same name, and Halloween is the night that HE came home.
Who exactly? None other than the jumpsuit clad emotionless psychopath with a huge fanboy admiration of William Shatner and knives. That’s right, Michael Myers is who HE is, first popping up in Halloween, and being given the nickname “The Shape” in the 1978 John Carpenter horror classic that launched the career of Jamie Lee Curtis as the iconic final girl Laurie Strode. Over the years, many Halloween films have been released, with all sorts of stars, and they’ve featured quite a few notable names over the years, including Paul Rudd, Busta Rhymes, the late Donald Pleasence, Tyra Banks, and as mentioned before, Jamie Lee Curtis.
The original film is about a young boy who brutally murders his sister and ends up institutionalized due to his young age making him unable to face criminal charges, and then over 15 years later that boy to have grown into a tall intimidating and silent monster, (only in the metaphorical sense), breaking free to return to his hometown and hack and slash his way around, donning a mask that was originally supposed to be from a Captain Kirk costume, along with a blue jumpsuit and kitchen knife, eventually stalking and trying to kill a blonde high school student named Laurie Strode, while his psychologist Dr. Samuel Loomis attempts to track him down and end his reign of terror.
Since that first film, many sequels and even a duology of remakes from Rob Zombie have been released and several times there have been retcons, with the latest film in 2018 being a direct sequel to the first from back in 1978, undoing some storylines, most notably the plot point of Michael and Laurie actually being siblings, with Laurie being put up for adoption following Michael’s murder of their sister Judith. John Carpenter returned to the franchise with that movie for the first time in over 38 years since the 3rd film, Halloween III: Season of The Witch, the only film in the franchise with a storyline unrelated to Michael Myers, choosing instead to focus on an evil Irish toymaker and his android henchmen manufacturing hexed masks to kill children on Halloween.
After the 2018 film, it was announced a sequel would be released in 2020, and despite Michael being shot, stabbed, punched, kicked, and even burned alive at the end of the latest film, he’s back in a recently released trailer, and isn’t about to give up his pursuit of Laurie. He may be in his 60’s but that’s not stopping him. But what is stopping the film itself from being theatrically released is of course the Coronavirus pandemic. Though Michael Myers seems to be unkillable, the rest of the public isn’t and for the safety of movie goers around the world, the film has been pushed back until October 15th 2021, as releasing a Halloween film any other time besides Halloween wouldn’t feel right to even the most diehard of fans. The original release date of October 16th 2020 just won’t happen unfortunately.
Carpenter tweeted a screenshot of a letter for fans on July 8th about the conclusion that he and collaborator David Gordon Green had come to with regards to the release date of the film, and rather than give the editorial staff a harder job by having to add the text to my word count, I’ve instead included the screenshot below for you to read if interested.
While the delay was likely inevitable, the bonus came in the form of Carpenter’s upcoming sequel getting a trailer, as well as the announcement of an IMAX presentation. Like with most other big films from popular franchises like the Marvel Cinematic Universe or James Bond, the idea of just going directly to a streaming service like Netflix or Hulu would be absolutely disappointing for many fans.
While many movies have skipped theatrical releases, (just look at all the unnecessary direct to home release sequels to classic animated Disney films for example) it should go without saying that for the amount of time and effort that are put into these movies with an incredible cast and crew, they deserve a theatrical release. Skipping theatrical releases for big movies like this one is also a bad move financially, while the studio would still get money through merchandise sales, royalties for character’s use in TV games and other films, and through purchases on Google Play and iTunes store, the reality is that a large amount of sales are from tickets to see these films, so they’d lose a lot on that by skipping it.
In the meantime, all we can do is get excited, or visit pirate bay or some bootlegged hacked copy of the film from the studio’s database and get the movie ourselves for a private screening at our homes, although the latter is a joke so Universal please don’t blacklist me from seeing your films.
Halloween Kills is part of a trilogy, and as stated before, it’s set to pick up where the last film, Halloween (2018), left off, and the last film is a direct sequel to the original film in 1978, ignoring the subsequent sequels on various timelines from afterwards. The final film in this new trilogy is set to release in October of 2022, and is titled Halloween Ends, so it’s very unlikely that Michael Myers is going to be killed off in the next film. I mean, the guy’s taken bullets to the face and being immolated, and he’s still going, somebody give him a trophy or something because he’s the textbook definition of perseverance.
Until then, just binge the franchise if you want your fill of Michael Myers (skip Season of the Witch if you’re only doing it to see Michael), and be safe, wash your hands, social distance when and if possible, and I’ll leave you with my final thought, but first, here’s a quote from the original Halloween from Donald Pleasances’ character Dr. Sam Loomis:
“I met this six-year-old child with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and the blackest eyes, the devil's eyes.”
And now for my final thought:
Can a person truly be born evil, or is evil something that we all have laying dormant in us until something awakens it?
Thank you for reading, stay safe, wash your hands, wear a mask and social distance when possible, take care of each other, and remember that on Halloween everyone is entitled to at least one good scare.
Until then, I’m Zach “The Shape” Roozendaal.
Goodbye for now!