James Jude Courtney

Halloween Tickets Are Now On Sale!

October 5, 2018 by Sean Decker

No tricks, just treats! With the frenzy nearing a fever pitch for David Gordon Green’s upcoming and hotly-anticipated Halloween, tickets for what is shaping up to be the movie event of the season have now gone on pre-sale at Fandango!

Having received rave reviews from its premiere screenings at Toronto International Film Festival, Fantastic Fest and Salem Horror Fest, you can NOW BUY TICKETS HERE to see the film when it bows in theaters everywhere from Universal Pictures on October 19th.

Says Variety’s Peter Debruge of the film, “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.

The eleventh film in the series 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.

LA Press Junket: John Carpenter & Jason Blum Talk Halloween

September 26, 2018 by Sean Decker

On Saturday, September 15th, HalloweenMovies.com sat down with executive producer and composer John Carpenter and producer Jason Blum on the Universal backlot to discuss their forthcoming film Halloween, which is set for release by Universal Pictures this coming October 19th, 2018.

Co-written by Jeff Fradley, Danny McBride and David Gordon Green with the latter directing, this eleventh entry in the franchise is intended as a direct sequel to Carpenter’s seminal 1978 film of the same name. Trancas International Films’ Malek Akkad and Bill Block additionally produce, with McBride, Green and returning star Jamie Lee Curtis serving as executive producers, along with Trancas’ Ryan Freimann.

Seated outdoors on the backlot’s Wisteria Lane, Blum said of his approach in attracting Carpenter to Green’s Halloween, which serves as a narrative recalibration of the franchise, “I went to the people who own the rights and I said that I really wanted to do a new Halloween movie, but that I had a couple of conditions. The most important condition was that I wasn’t going to do it without John Carpenter. And they said that they’d already approached him and that he’d said he wasn’t interested. And I said that I had to meet with him, because I wasn’t going to do it without him.”

“So John is very direct,” continued the Blumhouse CEO, “and he gets to the point. We had a fourteen minute meeting (together). The key, and I think this is what changed his mind, is that I said to him, ‘John, they’re going to make this movie with or without us. You may as well join the party instead of letting them do it alone.’ And I think he said, ‘Well, that may make a little sense.’”

“That’s true,” added Carpenter, “Jason challenged me to not sit on the sidelines and criticize, which is very easy to do with these sequels that have been coming out. They’re just awful. So Jason asked, ‘(Instead) why don’t you help?’ (So I said) OK, I can do that, and I helped.”

With much discussion within Halloween fandom concerning the latest film’s jettisoning of Laurie and Michael’s familial ties as established in 1981’s Halloween II (a film which in Green’s revamped Halloween universe is no longer canon), Carpenter commented, “You know the reason I wrote that was because they sold the (original Halloween) movie to NBC to air on TV, and it was too short! (So) I had to go back and shoot more material (for the television version). So I made up that silly, stupid idea (of Michael being Laurie’s brother).”

As for Laurie, inarguably cinema’s most iconic ‘final girl,’ an archetype originated by actress Curtis in Carpenter’s classic (and revisited here by her for the fourth time), Blum was asked if they would have proceeded into production on Green’s Halloween without her involvement.

Answered the forty-nine-year old producer, “We would have (but) we really wanted Jamie Lee Curtis. She had kind of quite publicly said though, ‘I’m never doing this again.’ She did the movie because of David Gordon Green. He and Danny met with her, and he shared his vision with her, and she’d actually had a meeting with Jake Gyllenhaal, who was in David’s prior movie. Jake had said to her, ‘David is a real director and someone great to work with,’ and so she agreed to do it. But yes, I think we would have (proceeded into production without her).”

Blum then asked Carpenter, “Would you have?”

“I don’t know, but the part is a great part, and she had to do it,” answered the filmmaker, before joking, “I would have beaten her up if she hadn’t.”

Also returning to the fold from Carpenter’s original is The Shape actor Nick Castle.

“David Gordon Green was sitting in my living room and said, ‘What’s going on with Nick? Has he got all his marbles?’” recalled Carpenter, “And I said, ‘Yeah, he’s great, he can do it.’” So, he called him up. And they cast him.”

“Honestly, that’s the best and smartest thing this production has done, is to get him back,” added Carpenter of Castle’s 2018 reprisal of cinema’s most infamous boogeyman (aided this time out by stunt actor James Jude Courtney). “Nick is so great in this role. His father was a choreographer, so Nick has this grace. I’ve never seen a monster walk like that. And you can’t forget it once you’ve see it. So, he’s back.”

As for the production’s decision to bring on a filmmaker whose filmography exists outside the genre, a move which surprised those who assumed that such a high-profile retool would be entrusted to a seasoned horror auteur, Blum offered, “I have a fundamental belief which exists outside of Hollywood (thinking), that great horror movies come from great directors. John has made great genre movies, and great not-genre movies. So when I look for directors, I really look for directors whose work I love. We make so many genre movies (at Blumhouse that) the scares are kind of easy. The hard part of horror is the storytelling and the script and the acting and all that stuff that’s in every movie. The horror part is the easier part. So we really look for great directors, and I have always admired Green since (his 2000 film) George Washington. I’ve tried to work with him on a bunch of different things, and he’s said, ‘No.’ With Halloween, this was the first time he said, ‘Yes.’”

And while Carpenter may indeed have passed the directorial reigns to Green, the score for the new film will be all his own (or more correctly, Carpenter’s, his son Cody’s and Daniel Davies’). Releasing from Sacred Bones Records on October 19 (you can purchase it here), the Halloween Original Motion Picture Soundtrack continues in the essence of Carpenter’s composition for the 1978 original, retaining the haunting synth sounds of its predecessor, as well as in occasion that famous 5/4 time.

Cody Carpenter, John Carpenter, and Daniel Davies, photo by Sophie Gransard.

Said the seventy-year old Carpenter (who embarks on a music tour of Europe this October which culminates in a Hollywood, CA show on Halloween night – tickets are available here) of scoring the new film, “It started when we had a spotting session with Green. He told me what he wanted. We sat in front of the movie and he said, ‘Here’s this scene.’ I said, ‘What do you want to do with this scene? What is the feeling you want out of this scene?’ So that’s how we started.”

Often succinct, the artist did take a moment to reflect on his creation’s prolific nature some forty years after he first went trick or treating, by saying, “Michael Myers to me is like Godzilla. Godzilla’s an all-purpose monster. He was a bad guy, then he became a good guy. He was beloved by children. Then he was evil again. Michael Myers can fit into any slasher movie. There he is. He’s blank. He may be human. He may be supernatural. We don’t know.”

For 2018’s Halloween, “David made him human, and he’s scary,” concluded Carpenter.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Check out the trailer below.

Actresses Judy Greer & Andi Matichak Talk Halloween from the Set

June 14, 2018 by Sean Decker

“One of the things I responded to immediately when I read the script was the character of Laurie Strode being the star of the movie,” said actress Judy Greer this past February 1, 2018 while on the set of director David Gordon Green’s then-shooting 2018 reimagining of Halloween. “I was just really happy because sometimes with a situation like this it’s like a cameo, and what I thought was so badass about what the screenwriters did was making it a multi-generational, female empowered movie, and Jamie Lee Curtis’s character is again the star.”

The first film in the slasher franchise in nine years, the simply titled Halloween is set for release by Universal Pictures this coming October 19, 2018. Co-written by Jeff Fradley, Danny McBride and director Green (see our interview with the latter two here), the entry is intended as a direct sequel to John Carpenter’s seminal 1978 film of the same name. Trancas International Films’ Malek Akkad, Blumhouse’s Jason Blum and Bill Block produce, with McBride, Green and star Curtis serving as executive producers, along with Ryan Freimann and series originator Carpenter, who also serves as the film’s composer.

Green’s Halloween as reported boldly picks up directly forty years after the original (subsequently ignoring all previous sequels), with a slight twist to the narrative: series’ boogeyman Michael Myers (reprised here by originator Nick Castle and joined by stuntman James Jude Courtney), as opposed to having disappeared into the suburban night as he so famously did in Carpenter’s classic, was apprehended by the authorities, and has been incarcerated ever since.

Incarcerated, and waiting, although if the film’s first trailer (below) is any indication, Myers isn’t the only one. Now a recluse by design, protagonist Laurie has spent the past four decades preparing for The Shape’s inevitable return.

Seated across from us in a house on a tree-lined street in Charleston, South Carolina, Greer was joined by actress Andi Matichak, the duo who in this iteration of the Halloween mythology portray two-thirds of the now multi-generational Strode clan: Laurie’s daughter Karen, and her granddaughter Allyson, respectively.

“My relationship with my mom is very estranged,” offered Greer, whose prolific career includes several notable television series and feature films ranging from Jurassic World to the upcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp, of her scripted relationship with series final girl and now matriarch Laurie, “and we would be estranged completely if she didn’t constantly try to reach out, and by reaching out I mean, check up on us to make sure that we’re always safe. (In this film) she feels like a real watchdog over me and my daughter, so I try then to protect my daughter from (who) I think is this crazy woman who raised me.”

Greer’s knack for comedy, even in discussing these heavier narrative elements of Halloween, shone through. Naturally funny, as was relative newcomer Matichak, the duo riffed with the ease of familiarity. A good sign, given the ‘mother/daughter’ relationship required of both by the script.

“In rehearsal we came up with a ton of backstory,” said Greer of the effects of Michael Myers on the Strode clan. “Even though this stuff might not come up in what you see on the screen, it’s really helpful for us to try and figure out where this all came from, and we decided that Laurie was really tough on me. She just has never been able to let go of that horrifying night (in 1978) and brought it into all of her relationships (afterwards), and because I’m pretty much the only relationship that she really has, it just all got focused on me towards the end, as people started to drop out of her life and she retreated from society. So it was a really rough childhood for me, and eventually at a young age I was removed from the house so I could have a better and more normal life. Again, this is stuff that we’ve mostly come up with in our own backstory (for the characters).”

Of the holiday of Halloween, “I think it’s safe to say that it’s always been a weird time of the year (for the Strode women) and it’s always been a time of reverence,” said Matichak, who as an actress was at the time giving her first interview ever. “Specifically (for) our family. If you can imagine Haddonfield forty years later, Michael Myers has become a myth and a legend. I mean it happened, but (the town has become) so desensitized. I’m sure that there are Michael Myers masks that kids wear on Halloween – probably not in Haddonfield – but in towns over, so I feel like we’ve been the butt of a lot of conversation. Friends at school come up (to my character) and are like, ‘Yeah, your grandma was murdered,’ and I’m like, ‘No, she survived,’ and they say, ‘All her friends were killed (though), right?’ It’s horrible, but it’s definitely not lost on our family, and it definitely dictates the way we live our lives.”

Questioned as to whether her character serves as a mediator between Laurie and Karen, “I would say so,” replied Matichak. “(My character’s) been kind of caught in between (them) since I’ve been a kid and like any kid, you do want a relationship with everyone in your family, and if Laurie’s making an effort, which she has been since (my character was) born, then yeah. I’ve always wanted to have some sort of peace.”

“What’s nice about her,” added Greer of Matichak’s character as written, “is that seeing Allyson at this age, she’s her own woman, and she can reach out to her grandma whenever she wants. If we were finding her at eleven or twelve that’s something (else), but now she has access to phones and can say, ‘Screw you, mom. I want to talk to my grandma. I want to have her at this event. I want to have a relationship with her.’ So I like that.”

Matichak was asked, ‘What does Allyson want to do with her life?’

“Allyson wants to get through her senior year of high school, alive,” laughed the actress.

As for Laurie’s evolution from the innocent yet resourceful teenager we met in Carpenter’s classic to the 2018 version, “She is a very intense character as we find her forty years later,” allowed Greer.

Image Courtesy of Compass International Pictures

“That event really shaped her life and drove her to be the woman she is now,” Matichak added, “and I think it’s pretty in line if you imagine a tragedy like this happening. I could take a lot away from (Jamie’s performance) in the first one, and I feel like Allyson is kind of a spawn of Laurie at seventeen as well. I think she sees a lot of herself in me, and that’s part of the reason why she and I are trying to have a relationship.”

Asked her thoughts in regards to becoming part of the Halloween film series, Greer said, “Well, it’s very flattering, with a legacy like this and all of these strong female characters. I think we can all agree that now is the time for strong women to come out and fight, and Laurie being a badass has only grown in our telling of the story.”

When queried as to their reaction at seeing Nick Castle as Michael Myers up close and personal, Matichak stated, “(It was) terrifying, but he’s the kindest, nicest man.”

Regardless, Castle’s performance in the original film still for Matichak packs a wallop.

“We actually went and saw it in theaters here with the entire cast and crew,” said the actress. “I just got chills thinking about it. It was insane. I had my knees in my chest the whole time. Watching it on TV or my laptop is one thing, but it’s different on the big screen.”

“It’s really dark and it’s really scary, except you can sometimes see a palm tree here and there,” teased Greer of the original’s use of Pasadena, CA (and its flora) as a stand-in for the fictional Illinois town.

“In the original you can see palm trees?” asked Matichak. “I missed that.”

“That’s good, that means you’re really into the story,” Greer responded, playfully riffing. “One day I stopped by this set before I actually started shooting, and I heard David saying, ‘We have to move the cameras because I can see a palm tree,’ so in that way it won’t be like the original.”

All joking aside, when queried in regards to her character’s outlook on Michael Myers himself, Greer stated, “(My character) in this film is a therapist, so she’s educated in what a sociopath is, and I think for her, coming from that background and that education she’s like, ‘Well, he’s this or that disorder, (and) in that facility he’s not getting out (and) he’s being treated.’ I think my mom’s idea of Michael Myers and the actual Michael Myers in my (character’s) mind (are different).”

As for the physical demands of her role, Matichak revealed, “It’s been tough. They make me jog a lot. I think this is production’s passive progressive way to tell me to lose a little bit of weight. (In all seriousness it’s) definitely been a challenge, but it’s been incredible. I’m so excited to be here.”

Assuming the cinematic surname of ‘Strode’ additionally requires mastery of another hallmark of the series: a healthy scream.

“In the audition process there were some really intense scenes,” offered Matichak, “but I guess I wasn’t really screaming my head off in those. Since we’ve been on set here there have been nights with a lot of screaming. It’s definitely been a marathon so far, but so much fun.”

The pair is asked whether or not the script in anyway speaks to America’s fascination with real life serial killers (as evidenced by the current popularity of true crime programming such as “Making a Murderer,” “Mindhunters”,” etc.), and if so, how does Myers fit into it?

“For me, Myers is like the epitome,” answered Greer. “It’s interesting because in a movie like this, in a horror film, you really get to see it all happening.”

As for how the residents of Haddonfield (in a world forty years removed and one which now brims with a constant barrage of tragic world events served up 24/7 via the world wide web) view Myers’ crimes, Matichak said, “All of these tragedies happen, and because we’re so desensitized to it, we kind of forget about it. A few days later, a few weeks later, you’re not thinking of the victims (or) what they’re going through (or) what the families are going through, and this kind of puts you in those shoes. Forty years later, this is where we stand. This is who we are, for better or for worse, and I think that that’s done really nicely in this movie.”

Greer added, “Because so much time has gone by (in this narrative) and this person or ‘Shape’ or whatever you decide to call him has been locked up for so long, we feel pretty safe and pretty good about ourselves. We took care of that problem a long time ago, so we are much desensitized to this one horrific night. As far as how it speaks to the greater desensitization that’s happening (in our world), my hope is that this movie kicks so much ass that it will scare the shit out of everyone, even the most hardened (of) souls.”

Given that Myers is as much an element to series as the pagan holiday itself, Matichak was asked, ‘In real life, are you a fan?’

“Yes!” she replied. “I was so terrified of (the film) Halloween, solely because my mom beat it into my skull that this was the scariest movie of all time, so for years I grew up terrified of the movie, but I definitely celebrated the holiday. We’d do a big event on Halloween night. My mom would make a ton of chili and a lot of margaritas for the adults while the kids got candy.”

As to whether there were any potential Myers memories associated, Matichak concluded, “There were a couple of years in a row that this happened, and I think that it had to be one of sister’s asshole friends, but somebody put on the Myers mask and would stand in the corner of our front yard for hours. My mom lost her shit. She called the cops, and he ran into the woods! So yes, we were definitely fans of the holiday, (and) I was raised to really embrace it.”

Myers Showdown! Nick Castle and James Jude Courtney Talk Halloween from the Set

June 13, 2018 by Sean Decker

The Shape returns to Haddonfield on October 19, 2018, and we sat down on set earlier this year to chat with the two men who’ve donned the iconic mask for this entry, which serves as a direct sequel to John Carpenter’s classic 1978 film Halloween: originator Nick Castle and actor James Jude Courtney.

Co-written by Jeff Fradley, Danny McBride and director David Gordon Green (see our interview with the latter two here), 2018’s Halloween is produced by Trancas International Films’ Malek Akkad, Blumhouse’s Jason Blum and Bill Block, 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.

Green’s Halloween as reported boldly picks up directly forty years after the original (that’s right, subsequently ignoring all previous sequels), with a slight twist to the narrative: series’ boogeyman Michael Myers, as opposed to having disappeared into the suburban night as he so famously did in Carpenter’s classic, was apprehended by the authorities, and has been institutionalized ever since.

Institutionalized and waiting, in this case for traumatized survivor Laurie Strode (Curtis), who herself has spent the last four decades preparing for what she believes will be Myers’ inevitable return. Actresses Judy Greer and Andi Matichak join the fray as Laurie’s daughter and granddaughter, Karen and Allyson, respectively, as do actors Will Patton, Virginia Gardner, Miles Robbins and Dylan Arnold, among others.

‘What have you got all over you?, we asked Castle and Courtney upon their entrance, as each were attired in a pair of cinema’s most infamous dark blue, and decidedly unkempt, coveralls.

“Dirt and blood,” replied Courtney.

“Yeah, we’ve been at it,” added Castle of the demands of the role, of which out of his five acting credits, two reside in the Halloween series. (Outside of acting, Castle is primarily known as a screenwriter – he penned the script for Carpenter’s nihilist 1981 classic Escape from New York – and as a director, for the 1984 cult favorite The Last Starfighter, in addition to other films).

“It’s a little bit of a mystery,” offered Castle, now seventy-years old, when asked of how his return to the role of cinema’s arguably most famous slasher came about. “I know that somebody suggested it from my end, which is, I have an agent doing horror conferences, Sean Clark, (who’s) a great guy in that business and he knows the world. He said, ‘Why aren’t you doing this thing coming up?’ And I said, ‘No one asked,’ and he said, ‘I’m just going to ask around.’ A few weeks later and Sean said, ‘Nick, you’re going to get a call and they’re going to ask you if you want to play The Shape.’”

As for Courtney, whose previous suit work includes a turn as the Der Kindestod creature in the 1998 “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” episode “Killed by Death,” “He has a stunt background, so he’s doing a lot of the physical work on the show,” said Castle. “I’m coming down to bless the set, and to do a couple of shots here and there.”

With forty years and a $9,700,000 budget difference in films, Castle was asked, ‘Has there been any directorial difference in instruction as to how to play the character?’

“It’s funny, because at both times there was very little communication in terms of that,” Castle allowed. “First of all, Myers is expressionless so really it’s about how are you going to move. I was just telling some other friends here of when I was going to do the first shot (in the original film), (which was) a night time scene, (where) Myers was crossing the street going after Laurie, that it was a determined walk…not in a rush or anything like that, and I went out in the street and stopped and went back to John and said, ‘So John, this is my first shot.’ Basically, I was asking, ‘What is my motivation?’ Something stupid, just like an actor, and John said, ‘Just go over there and (then) walk here.’ That was it. John’s embellished since then. I don’t know how true this is, but he’s said (since), ‘I always liked the way Nick walked,’ and I just kind of thought, ‘Oh, I don’t know what that means: I walk like a killer?’”

As for Courtney’s approach to the role, and in particular to the more violent aspects, he offered, “I learned how to kill from a mafia hitman who lived with me when he got out of prison. I was writing his life story, so he went to see the movie I did: it was called The Hit List. It wasn’t a big movie or anything, and when we walked out he was like, ‘Jimmy, it was a really nice movie but that’s not how you kill people.’ I’ve been complimented many times here on set on how efficiently I kill, and all I did was take what he taught me.”

“Why Malek and David brought me in,” he continued, “is because it’s just the way I move. It’s a place that exists (and) my job was to find that place. It’s a living, breathing place so when I go into that place everything is natural. I just do what that space dictates, which was created by Nick and John and Debra (Hill), and (which) has lived and breathed all (of) these years.”

Given that passage of time, the duo was queried as to whether or not they felt if age had changed that space in any way.’

“Michael Myers is carrying the space for the shadow that most human beings are afraid to look at,” observed Courtney. “Most human beings are afraid to look at the fact that there’s a killer inside them, (and) that there is someone capable of heinous acts. For me, when we were (shooting) in the mental institution before Myers broke out, all I focused on was his energy that’s been building and festering and expanding, and I just held that space from again what Nick had created, and I just let it grow and grow because Myers has become more powerful. He’s defying death. He’s defying any type of restrictive condition so to me, from my perspective, what Nick created has just gotten stronger.”

Stronger, but also older. In this continuity, Michael Audrey Myers will turn sixty-one years old this year, and will celebrate his birthday on the very date of Green’s Halloween release. Given the character’s advancing age, can he still take a beating?

“He’s a bad motherfucker, man,” stated Courtney. “He’s a bad dude. I’ve got to tell you, even old fighters don’t lose their punches. I got in the ring with Joe Brown on the set of Far and Away, who was Rocky Marciano’s sparring partner for seven of his eight title fights, and he said, ‘C’mon Jim, you can throw better than that,’ and I threw hard at him, man. And that old man’s (punches) kicked like a mule, and that’s when he sat me down and said, ‘A fighter never loses his punch.’ I think it’s the same with Myers. He’s not going to lose his strength, his virility, his power and his focus. He’s taking the hits.”

With a strict attention to continuity, as evidenced by the prosthetic FX appliance Courtney was wearing over his left eye (a result of the Myer’s character being stabbed with a coat hanger in the ’78 film – see our interview with FX artist Chris Nelson here for more on that), we asked Courtney, whose skills include decades of martial arts and pugilist training, if the resultant loss in depth perception was making his job difficult.

“Well, day by day it got better and by the third or fourth day, when I was fighting a gentleman with a crowbar, I started adjusting,” answered the actor. “Normally I track movement from my left eye, but (because of the appliance) I couldn’t see anything until it came into my right eye’s field of vision. But I think it’s really gifted me too, because it takes me into a space where I’m seeing the world from a different perspective.”

We had to know, ‘In this latest iteration, is Myers supernatural?’

“In that he can take a lot of punishment,” said Castle, “they keep it pretty real. I have seen some of the sequels where they suggested other worldly reasons for his power, but this one does not have that.”

With the films previous sequels obliterated within this narrative thread, so too are Laurie and Michael’s familial ties, which had been set up in director Rick Rosenthal’s 1981 sequel, Halloween II. The pair was asked, ‘Is Laurie then just another victim Myers missed?’

“I can safely say without giving too much away that he knows her,” answered Castle.

Courtney expounded, “I think it goes back to human nature. We all have obsessions, compulsions, fixations…why doesn’t Michael get to have one? It’s interesting (because) in the original film Laurie notices him when nobody else does. She’s always the one who sees him, (from) the classroom (to) around the hedge, and everyone else is kind of distracted, so is there kind of like a reciprocal thing there, where she’s kind of the only one who notices him?”

“I think like I said that she’s on his list, and some of that is like the first one, which I think is the right way to play (it),” said Castle. “A lot of things are vague, in terms of his evil and stuff like that, (and) his motivations for things (and) why he does things, but I think in the process of reading the script a number of times I get the sense that yeah, that’s in his mind, too.”

“It’s really important to note that (real-life dictators) Pol Pot and Joseph Stalin didn’t consider themselves evil,” Courtney offered of Myers’ own perception. “There’s a judgement where people are saying, ‘Well, this is evil,’ but Michael Myers is just being who he is. He’s being true to who he is, and that’s an awesome space to occupy, man. I can’t tell you how incredible it feels.”

Of wearing the mask forty years later (the original was little more than a modified William Shatner ‘Captain Kirk’ mask purchased for a buck ninety eight at Burt Wheeler’s now defunct magic shop on Hollywood Boulevard, whereas the 2018 version was sculpted as an aged-down recreation of it by an Academy Award winner), Castle told us of the masks, “They have the exact same dimensions, (and) I think they did a great job.”

“I can tell you,” added Courtney, “when Christopher (Nelson) brought it to the set and when I got to put it on (for) the first time it was, ‘Wow! This is really perfect for killing.’ There’s so much in that, do you know what I mean? It just closes you off from the world and then, something big happens man. It’s powerful.”

“From my perspective, Michael Myers operates so instinctively and he has such an incredible intuition about him,” Courtney concluded. “I mean, my mafia friend, he could walk into a place and tell you everything about the people in it, because his life depended on him reaching out that way. I think Michael Myers is the epitome of someone who can reach out and feel everything around him, and then hiding behind that mask makes it all the more private and personal.”

James Jude Courtney

Footer