“Does my house have a sign out front that says dead babysitter storage?” This, or some equivalent, may have been uttered by an unhinged Paul Rudd in some alternate timeline, where two of the most iconic things in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino and the ever-enduring Halloween franchise, nearly collided in the early 90s. Put on your Walkmans and hit play on Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun,” because we’re going back in time, man.
Post-Halloween 5 cliffhanger, which as we all know debuted in 1989, Miramax was in a bit of a pickle. They needed someone to make sense of that dumb Man In Black ending that left Halloween fans with a sour taste in their mouth. They turned to the blossoming Tarantino, who, apparently, at that point in his life “hadn’t done anything” yet. It would have been his job to figure out the next steps in the story, and he actually came up with some ideas, as he tells Consequence of Sound:
“It would have been, if I had done it — I never got hired — but it would have been my job to figure out who the guy in the boots is. I was like, ‘Leave that scene where [the Man in Black] shows up, alright, and freeze Michael Myers.’ And so the only thing that I had in my mind — I still hadn’t figured out who that dude was — was like the first 20 minutes would have been the Lee Van Cleef dude and Michael Myers on the highway, on the road, and they stop at coffee shops and shit and wherever Michael Myers stops, he kills everybody. So, they’re like leaving a trail of bodies on Route 66.”
That’s…an idea! I mean, after that awful, awful 98 minutes that was The Revenge of Michael Myers, where are you supposed to go, anyway? The Pulp Fiction scribe had just as good an idea as any and it’s no less ridiculous than what we eventually got in The Curse of Michael Myers six years later, what with the runes and somehow younger Paul Rudd and green ooze and…whatever. What a mess, and this is before the diverging timelines.
Obviously, Tarantino never touched the Halloween franchise in any capacity, except maybe, like, for home viewings. He was never much of a franchise guy, anyways, only making a “sequel” once with Kill Bill Vol. 2, even if they were meant to be one giant, connected epic. Sure, he’s got his Tarantino-verse or whatever, but connected movies ain’t sequels, you feel me? Am I rambling? I feel like I’m rambling.
In any case, the Halloween we got is the Halloween we’re stuck with. No use ruminating on what could have been. Instead, let us focus on what may be. And on that note, I really hope Halloween Kills and Ends don’t suck.