Most major properties that are designed with franchise potential in mind are imagined as the first in a trilogy, but that doesn’t typically tend to be the case in the horror genre. When it comes to scaring audiences out of their seats, a lot of new titles are released as a standalone story, with sequels almost instantly given the green light based on the opening weekend box office numbers.
Halloween is no stranger to sequels, of course, and when David Gordon Green and Danny McBride signed on to reinvent the classic slasher series for modern audiences, the duo always had a three-film arc in mind. And after their 2018 hybrid of sequel and reboot scored the best reviews Michael Myers had seen for 40 years and made more money than the last five installments combined, Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends were almost instantly approved and dated for release one year apart.
That’s still the plan, but we just have to wait a little longer than expected for it to play out after Kills and Ends were both pushed back by twelve months due to the Coronavirus pandemic, because it isn’t like you can release a movie with Halloween in the title in any other month than October. True, five entries in a row from The Curse of Michael Myers to Rob Zombie’s Halloween II arrived in either July, August or September, but that’s beside the point.
Sequels always deliver bigger, bolder and badder action, which certainly seems to be the case with Halloween Kills, but in a new interview, Green admitted that the trilogy’s closing chapter will head back to basics and narrow the stakes in a departure from the norm.
“Halloween Kills gets right to the action. It’s very aggressive. It’s more efficient. We wanted it to be an explosive middle before things get streamlined and personal again in Halloween Ends.”
Based on how the first one turned out, Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends have the potential to wrap up one of the all-time great horror trilogies, especially if Green sticks to his word and trims the fat.
Published: Jan 9, 2021 10:22 am