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Halloween Has Premiered in Texas at Fantastic Fest and here’s what the Critics are Saying

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Ahead of its October release via Universal Pictures, director and co-writer David Gordon Green’s Halloween held its Texas premiere to a packed house this past Thursday, September 20th at Fantastic Fest in Austin (which runs through September 27th), and the critical response continues to be overwhelmingly positive.

Photo credit: Austin 360 (l to r: Jason Blum, Bill Block, Andi Matichak, Jamie Lee Curtis, Malek Akkad, Jeff Fradley, Danny McBride)

Says ComingSoon.net’s Alan Cerny, “Green and McBride are not reinventing Carpenter’s wheel.  Instead, they’re adding some torque and drive to it, and the result is one of the best horror sequels in many years,” while Richard Whittaker of the Austin Chronicle proclaims, “When David Gordon Green announced he was taking on the Halloween franchise, there was general befuddlement. But seeing what he has achieved with a sequel that is both loving and insightful, it makes all the sense in the world.”

That’s not all. Joe Gross of Austin 360 states, “This is Curtis’ show; her third-act confrontation with the man who destroyed Strode’s life plays out with tension and chills,” and Bad Feeling Magazine’s Gabriel Sigler effuses, “Green nails the film’s tone down perfectly, capturing Michael Myers in a way we haven’t seen since John Carpenter’s original.”

Halloween next plays on October 6th at Beyond Fest in Hollywood, CA at the Egyptian Theater as part of ‘Halloween Day’ (along with 1974’s Black Christmas and 1978’s Halloween, with Halloween series producer Malek Akkad in person, and more) before opening wide in theaters on October 19th, 2018.

The eleventh film in the franchise and co-written by director Green, Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley, Halloween is intended as a direct sequel to Carpenter’s ‘78 film, and thusly disregards all of the series subsequent entries. Trancas International Films’ Malek Akkad, Blumhouse’s Jason Blum and Bill Block produce, with McBride, Green and star Jamie Lee Curtis serving as executive producers, along with Ryan Freimann and series originator Carpenter, who also serves as the film’s composer.

Check out the trailer below.

LA Press Junket: Jamie Lee Curtis Talks 2018’s Halloween

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This past Saturday, September 15th, HalloweenMovies.com sat down with film star Jamie Lee Curtis on the Universal backlot to discuss her forthcoming movie Halloween, which is set for release by Universal Pictures this October. Co-written by Jeff Fradley, Danny McBride and David Gordon Green and directed by the latter, Trancas International Films’ Malek Akkad, Blumhouse’s Jason Blum and Bill Block produce, with McBride, Green and returning star Curtis serving as executive producers, along with Ryan Freimann and series originator Carpenter, who also serves as the film’s composer.

Seated outdoors at a picnic table on the backlot’s Wisteria Lane, which was decked out for the occasion in Halloween décor, Lee said of the film, which ignores all existing sequels subsequent to Carpenter’s seminal 1978 film and which pits Curtis’ character of Laurie Strode up against original nemesis Michael Myers, albeit in a fresh way, “It’s a movie about trauma. There’s no question. Generational trauma. But you know, it can’t be (too) heavy. It’s a horror movie. It’s a Halloween movie, so it can’t be laden with psycho drama. Do you know what I mean? It has to be judicious.”

The generational trauma Curtis referred to is the PTSD her character now suffers after having survived the (now random, as they aren’t related in the new narrative) October 31, 1978 attack by escaped mental patient Myers, as set forth in Carpenter’s original. And as with any tragedy, the ensuing trauma has impacted everyone in its path. In Green’s Halloween that includes Laurie’s daughter Karen (portrayed by actress Judy Greer) and granddaughter Allyson (newcomer Andi Matichak).

Expounding on the familial damage the attack would inflict, as well as the personal, Curtis recalled of the shoot, and of her head space during, “The entire movie I was very isolated. I’m a homebody. I’m a mom. I’m a card carrying friend. Do you know what I mean? I buy a lot of birthday presents. I’m that girl. And I left (my home) and went to South Carolina to make this movie and I was very isolated. And from the moment I began the movie, Laurie’s trauma just all came back. The first time I walked on set it was very emotional. And it was that way all of the way through.”

Curtis continued of ‘finding’ Laurie four decades later, pointedly in a moment which serves to communicate the enormity of her trauma, “It was the last scene (of the film) that we shot, and as written in the script, Laurie sits in the truck, her truck, and there’s a gun and there’s alcohol and basically forty years of trauma comes back. Now, what do you do? So I prepared, and we were shooting it in the middle of nowhere in Charleston on a street called Ashley Phosphate Road in that truck and in a parking lot at night, with a bunch of lights and a bunch of people.”

“You need to know in advance that when I make a movie I like crews to wear name tags for the first few days of the production,” expounded the actress, “Because I like to know who you are. So on this last day, as I walked to Laurie’s little truck under this bank of lights and cranes (ready to shoot the scene), I realized that the entire crew were (instead) wearing names tags which read, ‘We Are Laurie Strode.’ The entire crew was saying, ‘We are with you. We are all in this together, and we believe in you.’ Needless to say, it was an incredibly emotional gift for them to give me, and something that for me was sort of the underpinning of the whole thing. It was beautiful.”

As Green’s Halloween cuts a new path in the franchise, talk then turned to the complicated narrative of the Halloween series, from the introduction of Jamie Lloyd as the daughter of a deceased Laurie in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers in 1988, to the re-introduction of Laurie (and that of a new timeline) in 1998’s Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later, the latter of which was intended as the final showdown between Laurie and Michael.

“H20 was my simplistic idea of, ‘Hey! We’re all still in show business and the movie’s twenty years old. How often does that happen? Let’s make a twentieth anniversary movie and deal with the trauma,’” offered Curtis of the Steve Miner-directed film.

“(In that film) she was running (and had) changed her identity,” she continued. “She was an alcoholic and a drug addict, and we tried to explore it a little bit in that movie, but she wasn’t Laurie Strode. She’d already given up her identity. And it just didn’t work. I mean it was good. There were great things in it. It just wasn’t great.”

“What was beautiful about what David, Danny and Jeff did is,” Curtis mused of the writers’ decision (which was to ignore, barring the first film, its predecessors), “is that if you imagine all the Halloween movies as their own inner tubes on a lake, all they did was untie them from the dock. And they floated away. And they all exist. There’s Halloween II, there’s Halloween 4, but the only one that this movie relates to is the first one. Because in order to tell this story, that was the way they could. If they had to take all of those stories and try to weave them together, it wouldn’t have been possible, because Laurie died (in Halloween: Resurrection)! So I think the way that they did it was beautiful, and all of those movies still exist. None of them have been popped and or drowned. Do you know what I mean? They’re right there. But this is the story we’re telling today.”

And in this story, the character of Laurie’s granddaughter Allyson factors significantly. Portrayed by newcomer Andi Matichak, Curtis effused of the young actress (who bears a striking resemblance to the nineteen year old version of the grande dame of scream queens in not only physicality but in demeanor), “Andi (apparently) was going to go to college on a soccer scholarship, and that summer, before college, she went to model in Greece and met an actor’s manager there, who said, ‘You could be an actress.’ And she gave up college and moved to New York to become an actor at nineteen.”

Curtis continued of the shared similarities in their respective career trajectories, “When I was nineteen I was going to college, and I ran into an actor’s manager who said, ‘You could be an actress,’ and I went up for a part and ended up quitting college and becoming an actor. (1978’s) Halloween was my first movie. (2018’s) Halloween is her first movie. Neither of us were going to be actors, and we both ended up being actors, and in a Halloween film for our first movie.”

She concluded of Matichak, “She’s gorgeous, she’s grounded, and she’s gonna’ be a big star.”

David Gordon Green’s Halloween arrives to theaters October 19th, 2018 from Universal Pictures.

Check out the trailer below.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

LA Press Junket: Director David Gordon Green Talks Halloween

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This past Saturday, September 15th, HalloweenMovies.com sat down with director David Gordon Green on the Universal backlot to discuss his forthcoming film Halloween, which is set for release by Universal Pictures this coming October 19th, 2018.

Co-written by Jeff Fradley and Danny McBride, this eleventh entry in the franchise is intended as a direct sequel to John Carpenter’s seminal 1978 film. Trancas International Films’ Malek Akkad, Blumhouse’s Jason Blum and Bill Block produce, with McBride, Green and returning star Jamie Lee Curtis serving as executive producers, along with Ryan Freimann and series originator Carpenter, who also serves as the film’s composer.

Seated outdoors on the backlot’s Wisteria Lane, decked out for the occasion in Halloween décor, Green said of his initial attraction to directing the film, which serves as recalibration of the franchise, “I didn’t want to see someone else’s (version, because) I’ve been a huge fan of the (Halloween) movies. All of them, actually. But particularly the original film, which got under my skin in a way that no other horror film – well, maybe The Silence of the Lambs – has. Those two movies really affected me. I saw them in my youth and at a time in my life where they were very exciting and terrifying.”

Talk turned to Green’s script for Halloween, which co-written by he, McBride and Fradley, ignores all existing sequels, and picks up forty years after Carpenter’s original, with antagonist boogeyman Myers behind bars and final girl Laurie waiting with bated breath for his eventual return.

“As the franchise progressed it got more and more complicated, (and) my concept and Danny’s (was to) simplify it again,” said Green of their bold approach, “and go back to the least complicated version. And so, I wanted to do that rather than having to incorporate all of the mythology the series (had) absorbed over the years.”

And he laughed, “(To) use it as a device to be able to meet John Carpenter.”

As for the return of Curtis to her iconic role of Laurie Strode, there was however no guarantee during the initial scripting process.

“We had written it already, hoping she would (return),” recalled Green, “but were prepared for her to say, ‘No.’ (But) I just wanted to hang out with her. And she’s Laurie Strode. When you think about someone else stepping into that character? There’s no one like her. It’s iconic, so I put on my sweet talkin’ salesman voice and gave it the hard sell, and she said, ‘Yes.’”

“This was (us) assuming she wouldn’t want to be very involved,” revealed the filmmaker, “(but) as I started talking to her I realized (that) she was actually very excited about it. But originally we thought, ‘Let’s just try to get her for a couple of days and see if she’ll just do a cameo in the movie.’ Our initial thought was the trauma (of the first film) having been inherited by her daughter Karen (actress Judy Greer) who has inherited this sense of trauma and identity crisis from her mother who has raised her in this kind of captive, strange, over-protective landscape, and make that the centerpiece.”

“Before we presented her with the script,” he continued, “we did a quick sleight of hand, and moved all the meat to her, and said, ‘Let’s put it all on the table and see if we can make it happen.’ But we were prepared to have to pull it back, and play with other characters and other dimensions, and take the foreground with other characters.  I’m just glad we didn’t have to do it. It seems silly to even think about it now.”

Another one of the things which changed from concept to execution was Green’s desire to re-shoot the ending of Carpenter’s original from a different perspective, a plan which existed well into production.

“It was a very complicated overhead view of Loomis shooting the gun,” illuminated Green, “and then Michael going over (the balcony). And then when we were shooting (the film), we kept pushing it off.”

“So this is interesting,” Green expounded. “We rebuilt the bedroom from the climax of the original film, so we had the bones of this room, but the budget was getting tighter, and the schedules were getting tighter and we were trying to jam this (into the) movie and finish it up, and then we were like, ‘Screw it, let’s not do that.’ And if we need it later, we can always rebuild it, so we used the set for the scene (in our film) with all the mannequins. But it is (still) a rebuild of the bedroom (from the first Halloween) down to a square inch.”

In addition to set construction, in preparation for the aborted re-imagining of the finale of Carpenter’s original, the production had also hired actors to reprise needed characters from the first film.

“We cast a Loomis double, who was actually our art director, because he looked exactly like him,” said Green of the role originated by deceased actor Donald Pleasence, “and we would have re-created Laurie with a blend of Jamie and a body double similar to a nineteen-year old Jamie. And there was conversation of utilizing footage from the original film and digitally altering it, so we could get some other interesting elements, but all of it starts costing money, and you look at what you’re trying to do (and ask), ‘Do you need the gimmick? Do you need the exposition? Do you need the set up?’”

“Carpenter actually calmed me down on set and said to me, ‘Just trust (the audience) and let them figure it out.’”

As for Carpenter’s presence on the South Carolina set, “(It was) super surreal,” Green recalled of the famous director’s arrival. “My parents were also visiting and he and my dad were just talking about comic books while I was shooting the babysitter scene upstairs. It was the scene with Vicky (Virginia Gardner), with a ghost sheet over her, so it was kind of a fun scene for John to show up on set for. But yeah, really surreal seeing Jamie Lee and Nick Castle and John kind of bonding again. Someone was showing me photographs of that day recently, and it was pretty overwhelming and emotional and nostalgic and sentimental in a lot of ways.”

Conversation progressed to the film’s score, as composed and performed by Carpenter as he did for the original, and Green offered, “He kept me out of (the scoring process and) said, ‘I wanna’ have a whole score for you. It’s not gonna’ be piece by piece. I was like, ‘Is he doing an orchestra? Is it gonna’ be the opera?’ But then I heard it and it feels very Carpenter. I can sense a little Escape from New York in a couple little pieces. I was so fucking excited to hear (it).”

Reflecting on his career, “One of the things I’m most proud of (is that) I genre hop,” said the filmmaker, whose previous features include the decidedly non-horror films George Washington (2000) and Pineapple Express (2006), along with the comedic television series Eastbound & Down.

“I can’t sit still. I gotta’ do a comedy here, a fantasy movie there, (and) a drama there. What I’m most excited about that Halloween does, (is that) it lets me exercise all of it: humor, drama, emotional honesty and action. I felt more so than any other movie (that I’ve directed) that I could jam more genres that I love into one film. And call it a horror movie. So, that’s really rewarding, particularly if an audience likes it, because I don’t have a huge relationship with an audience responding well to my films,” Green laughed self-deprecatingly.

(Writer’s note: given the positive critical reviews stemming from Halloween’s world premiere at TIFF earlier this month, perhaps for Green this relationship will change).

Concluded the forty-three year old director, as behind him Carpenter and Curtis chatted against the backdrop of ghostly Halloween decorations which shifted in the failing light, “You know, critics have been kind and I’ve managed an awesome, exciting career and have traveled the world but out of thirteen movies (only) one of them is commercially successful. I don’t have a great track record. So it would be awesome to be able to think that I can infuse so much of what I’ve learned through the various movies, TV shows and commercials that I’ve done into one thing, and have an audience respond to it, because the sky’s the limit with what we want to continue (to do) with this franchise. So a lot of this movie, for me, is about trust: getting an audience to trust me, and getting me to trust a franchise, and then let’s see what needs to happen next, if it works.”

Check out the trailer below.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

 

Laurie’s Packing a Pistol in New Halloween Stills

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With only thirty-three days left until the theatrical debut of director and co-writer David Gordon Green’s hotly-anticipated Halloween, a handful of new photos have emerged. Have a look!

Green’s Halloween is set for release by Universal Pictures this coming October 19, 2018. Co-written by Jeff Fradley and Danny McBride, the entry is intended as a direct sequel to Carpenter’s seminal 1978 film. Trancas International Films’ Malek Akkad, Blumhouse’s Jason Blum and Bill Block produce, with McBride, Green and returning star Jamie Lee Curtis serving as executive producers, along with Ryan Freimann and series originator Carpenter, who also serves as the film’s composer.

Joining Curtis in her final showdown with The Shape is actress Andi Matichak (pictured above) in the role of Allyson Strode, Laurie’s tenacious granddaughter.

Check out the trailer below.

Halloween Has Premiered at TIFF and the Critics are Raving

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Ahead of its October 2018 release via Universal Pictures, director and co-writer David Gordon Green’s Halloween held its world premiere to a packed house this past Saturday, September 9th at Toronto International Film Festival, and the critical response has been overwhelming.

Says Variety’s Peter Debruge, “Why choose when you can have tricks and treats? David Gordon Green does horror fans a favor, bringing Michael Myers’ slasher-movie saga back to its roots,” while Katie Walsh of Nerdist proclaims: “David Gordon Green delivers the best Halloween sequel ever.”

That’s not all.  Leah Greenblatt of Entertainment Weekly  states, “Long live Michael Myers, so maybe someone can finally kill him — in a big, funny, scary, squishy, super-meta sequel that brings it all back to John Carpenter’s iconic 1978 original,” Dreadcentral’s Jonathan Barkan muses, “After years of waiting for a Halloween sequel that felt like it did justice to John Carpenter’s original masterpiece of slasher horror, David Gordon Green has brought us a vision of terror that gives fans what they’ve been craving,” and originating filmmaker Carpenter himself has declared that following his 1978 original, Green’s is the best in the franchise.

Perhaps some of the TIFF audience agreed, as following the screening, Jamie Lee Curtis and assembled cast and crew took the stage to an enthusiastic standing ovation, to which Curtis playfully said, “Happy Halloween, mother*ckers.”

The eleventh film in the franchise and co-written by director Green, Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley, Halloween is intended as a direct sequel to Carpenter’s ‘78 film, and thusly disregards all of the series subsequent entries. Trancas International Films’ Malek Akkad, Blumhouse’s Jason Blum and Bill Block produce, with McBride, Green and star Jamie Lee Curtis serving as executive producers, along with Ryan Freimann and series originator Carpenter, who also serves as the film’s composer.

Looking forward to October 19th? We are.

Jamie Lee Curtis returns to her iconic role as Laurie Strode in HALLOWEEN

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We’re really excited to announce that Jamie Lee Curtis is returning to her iconic role as Laurie Strode in HALLOWEEN, released by Universal Pictures on October 19, 2018. #HalloweenMovie.

About the Film

Jamie Lee Curtis returns to her iconic role as Laurie Strode, who comes to her final confrontation with Michael Myers, the masked figure who has haunted her since she narrowly escaped his killing spree on Halloween night four decades ago.

Master of horror John Carpenter will executive produce and serve as creative consultant on this film, joining forces with cinema’s current leading producer of horror, Jason Blum (“Get Out”, “Split”, “The Purge”, “Paranormal Activity”). Inspired by Carpenter’s classic, filmmakers David Gordon Green and Danny McBride crafted a story that carves a new path from the events in the landmark 1978 film, and Green also directs.

HALLOWEEN will be produced by Malek Akkad, whose Trancas International Films has produced the HALLOWEEN series since its inception. Green and McBride will executive produce under their Rough House Pictures banner.

HALLOWEEN will be distributed worldwide by Universal Pictures.