Yes, it seems he’s done it again. Somehow, against all the odds, Michael Myers has survived. By ignoring all those ridiculous follow-ups and only counting the original film as canon, 2018’s Halloween somewhat does away with making Michael the totally superhuman monster he became but, much like the original saw him inexplicably survive a gunshot and a fall from a second story window, this movie depicts him as defying death yet again.
The subtlety with which his fate was handled was presumably because Blumhouse weren’t sure that they were going to make more Halloweens beyond this one during production. Director David Gordon Green’s revealed that they almost shot two back-to-back but decided to hedge their bets in case this one was a flop. If it was a bomb and marked the end of the franchise, we could infer that Michael had died and Laurie got her revenge.
However, producer Jason Blum has since made clear of his intention to do at least one more Halloween, so we can take comfort in the knowledge that Myers didn’t perish. Exactly what the story of the next film will be is hard to say right now, but in the old days, when he survived a near-death experience, Michael would sink into a coma until he was woken up a year later on the next Halloween. That’s an option here, too, as it could take him a while to recover from any terrible burns he sustained in the fire.
Alternatively, if they’re going down the route that Michael’s an unstoppable force, then the sequel may mimic 1981’s Halloween II and follow on directly after the events of this film. Despite its less-than-stellar reputation, that sense of immediacy did work in the sequel’s favor, so if there’s anything Blumhouse wanted to keep from that movie – and its revelation that Michael and Laurie are siblings is clearly not one of them – then it’s that.
But will Jamie Lee Curtis return for this new Halloween 2? Well, that certainly feels like the intention from the movie’s final scene, as Laurie, Karen and Allyson break the conventions of the genre and all make it out alive as three final girls. There’s a lot of interesting material a sequel could mine from the three of them as hardened survivors now, too, instead of just Laurie, so let’s hope Curtis has still got the Halloween bug and is up for coming back for what’d be her sixth entry in the series.
Word has it that a sequel’s already in development, too, so it’s likely that Blum and his team are hoping to get it out in time for next October. If that’s so, we could be hearing details about a new Halloween, and a further return for Michael Myers, very soon indeed.