Jeff Fradley

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.