Michael Myers is back to slaughter his way through Haddonfield, Illinois in this fall’s Halloween, which will also see the return of Jamie Lee Curtis as his sister his would-be victim Laurie Strode. After decades of very mixed sequels, reboots and remakes, we’re hopeful that the upcoming reimagining of the franchise will bring the long-running slasher series back to its best.
After all, it already has the stamp of approval from original Halloween director John Carpenter, who’s returning to provide the score for the movie. Not only that, but he also gave the script the once-over and provided some notes on it, as well as a piece of key advice. While speaking to Cinema Blend, director David Gordon Green, who co-wrote the screenplay alongside Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley, revealed exactly what Carpenter told them, saying:
“His advice was brilliant: make it relentless. He had notes, which is something I was extremely nervous about, we worked very hard on the script, we were all very excited. It’s one thing for three movie nerds to geek out over the opportunity of maneuvering within this property, another to basically go kiss the ring of the godfather and see how that goes.”
“Relentless” is definitely a good thing for a Halloween movie to be. The 1979 franchise-starter is still one of the most unsettling entries in the genre thanks to the ominous atmosphere and Terminator-like perseverance of Michael Myers which never lets up. This is something that mostly got lost along the way, unfortunately, as more about Myers’ background was revealed.
The new mission statement, though, is to recapture what made the original so iconic. 2018’s Halloween is even going so far as to wipe every single sequel from continuity – ditching the long-held idea that Laurie and Micheal are siblings, too – in order to make the serial killer much more unknowable and motiveless again.
Picking up 40 years after the events of the first film, it promises to be a terrifying final battle between Strode and Myers and we’ll find out if it lives up to Carpenter’s wishes for it to be “relentless” when Halloween stalks its way into theaters on October 19th.
