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My Favorite Horror Movie: Matt Mercer on John Carpenter’s Halloween

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With the re-release of 1978’s Halloween taking place next week (the film returns to theaters on September 27th via CineLife Entertainment/Trancas International Films/Compass International Pictures), we’re continuing at HalloweenMovies.com our celebration of the John Carpenter classic, via a series of essays on the subject.

Culled from the 2018 best-selling book My Favorite Horror Movie, which features 48 essays by horror creators on the films which shaped them, they serve to explore just why 40 years later, The Shape still terrifies.

Second up (on the heels of our first essay is a piece by Beyond the Gates and Contracted star Matt Mercer, who found that as a child his all-encompassing fear of that shark from Amity was supplanted by that of a featureless masked murderer from Illinois, during one simple VHS viewing.

HALLOWEEN
by
MATT MERCER

In July of 1986, ABC aired Jaws as the Sunday Night Movie. I was six years old, visiting my grandparents in Culpeper, VA, and, with my mom’s “okay”, they let me stay up late to watch it to the end. It changed my life.

For the next few months, I literally couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I convinced my mom to buy the VHS cassette of Jaws and I watched it constantly. Watched it until certain sections of the tape (mainly the attack sequences which I replayed over and over) were so demagnetized that one couldn’t make out what was happening on-screen entirely. Adjusting the tracking on the VCR didn’t make a lick of difference. Just as Bryan Adams played his guitar until his fingers bled…I played Jaws until the tape was in shreds.

I became a shark fanatic. I wanted to be Matt Hooper, the Richard Dreyfuss character. I projected a future in which I became a marine biologist – specifically an ichthyologist – who studied all kinds of sharks. I’d get myriad scars from my encounters with them. I’d live the Hooper Life, traveling the world to find giant sharks and study them. Amity Island, Brisbane, aboard the Orca or the Aurora… bring it on. I’d read every book about sharks. I was ready.

I tried to convince my mom we needed to switch our summer beach trips from Myrtle Beach, SC to Amity Island. It’d be safe… they didn’t have a shark problem anymore. The issue I encountered was when I looked on a map to find Amity Island, I could only find an Amityville in New York. The heck?! Where was the island? Must be some mistake.

We had a fish tank and I cruelly tried to tie a soda can to one of my pets with a string to see if I could recreate the yellow barrel scenes from the film. It didn’t work. Beta fish are slippery. And fast. (As Hooper would say, “Fast fish.”) I also “recreated” several attacks from Jaws in the bathtub with little green plastic army men and a rubber Great White. These reenactments came to a halt when my stepmom couldn’t find her McCormick red food coloring and I got in trouble for stowing it under the sink in the bathroom, having used almost all of it for the attacks.

When the school year started, my first grade teacher Mrs. Jones expressed concern when, for the first show-and-tell of the year, I didn’t share my shell collection from a summer trip to the beach, or cookies I’d baked with Mom, or a wood shop project made with Dad… No. No, no, no. I performed Quint’s death from Jaws in all its glory. I laid on the floor in front of the entire class, and while kicking and screaming, slid down the stern of the Orca into the shark’s mouth. In my mind, it played beautifully. I flailed wildly. I kicked at the imaginary chomping maw of the shark. I maneuvered my body to make the slide seem natural, as if the floor were at an angle. I aped Robert Shaw’s giant blood- puke. And, I very clearly recall the army of blank stares I got in return from my classmates when I was done.

Further explanation of the scene and the events leading up to it didn’t help, and Mrs. Jones quickly invited me to sit down before the details became more grotesque. Enough already. I wanted to yell at them, “Don’t you get it?! I’ve experienced this incredible thing, and so help me God, you’re going to take the journey with me!”

What had this movie done to six-year-old me? Why couldn’t I stop thinking about it and wanting to relive and recreate its thrills over and over in any way possible? Was any of the movie real? How did they make it? Was Robert Shaw really killed by that shark? What was the path to more of these thrills?

These questions started to be answered that Christmas, when my grandmother (who had become aware it was Jaws 24/7 for me, and was also super-cool apparently) gifted me a copy of The Jaws Log, a firsthand account of the making of the movie Jaws by one of its screenwriters, Carl Gottlieb. Now, this book was a bit advanced for someone my age, and although I was a fairly advanced reader, I didn’t entirely get it. My filmmaking lexicon was limited at that age, obviously. But it made one thing clear for me: the movie wasn’t “real” and a group of people had indeed made it. They’d put it together, piece by piece, over a relatively large chunk of time, photographed it, and the process was all spearheaded by one person, a director, Steven Spielberg. Jaws wasn’t some crazy event that happened to get recorded by some folks near the beach. It was manufactured, piece-by-piece, and came out as this scary movie. Great.

So, that means there must be more of these movies. Right?

Not long after finishing The Jaws Log (probably early ’87 by now), I asked my mother one morning while getting ready for school, “Mom, what is the scariest movie you’ve ever seen?”

She thought for a moment. “Hmmm. Probably Halloween.”

Halloween? There’s a horror movie called Halloween?! My kid-brain caught fire. My mind started to conjure what the movie might be, and the dream-reel didn’t stop…images of demons in the autumn dark, monsters snatching trick-or-treaters off the street and dragging them into the woods, creatures with glowing jack o’ lanterns for heads…what the hell could this film be? She wouldn’t tell me. And thus began a massive campaign on my part to see the movie. I wouldn’t let up.

I mean, I really begged, and begged, and begged my mother to rent it. I could handle the movie, but I couldn’t handle waiting until I was older to see it. Her answer was a flat “no,” until honestly, I don’t recall how her change of heart exactly happened, but after a few weeks, she finally relented and agreed to let me see it on one condition: she had to watch it first, and I had to turn away during anything involving nudity or sex.

Deal.

Next thing I knew we were headed to Rent-A-Tainment, our local video store in Newport News, VA. It had a bright yellow sign shaped like a strip of unspooled celluloid, the store’s name in big bold letters on top of that – a beautiful beacon at dusk. I remember that night vividly. Prior to the video store, we’d grabbed some dessert, something called frozen yogurt (a fresh concept in the mid-’80s, and a “healthy” alternative to ice cream!) from a new place called Yogurt’s Inn. (Newport News small business owners in the mid-1980s were super clever in the store-naming department.) Walking into Rent-A-Tainment, I went straight to the Horror section, blowing past all the sections (Disney, Family, etc) that had been safe, easy, and allowed in the past…

And there it was. The VHS display box of the Media Home Entertainment release of John Carpenter’s Halloween. The iconographic box art with the jack-o-lantern and a big hand with insane vascularity, swooping down with a gleaming butcher knife in its grip where the last ridge of the pumpkin should be… it stared me in the face. Glorious. It held so much promise.

We raced home and popped it in…I don’t recall if my mother ended up doing a pre-screening or not (I think she just winged it from her memory), but I do remember the experience of watching it that night. From the opening credits, as the camera slowly pushed into the glowing, flickering pumpkin, I was completely entranced. I couldn’t move. And it just kept getting more and more intense, every element of the film perfectly calibrated to scare the living hell out of me…out of the audience. It was one of those rare times the movie lives up to the quality you’ve been cultivating in your head…even though it was nothing like the movie that had been playing in my head prior to seeing it.

But watching Halloween was more than just a defying of expectations.

That night was the peak viewing experience of my (short) life up to that point. Part of that experience was I’m sure due to the fact that I was a young, impressionable kid watching a truly scary movie for the first time, but I don’t know that another film has worked on me like that since. At least not in that way. It was everything all at once. Every element of the film wrapped around me like a dark blanket of dread and terror that, as the film played on, tightened around my mind and body until I was suffocating. But I couldn’t look away. I just wanted more. Where Jaws had imbued me with a sense of wonder and thrills, Halloween was scarier and more pure…it was perfect, shadowy atmosphere and visceral terror honed from the simplest (but well-crafted) elements. Jaws was my gateway into horror and showed the possibilities of film, but Halloween was the real deal and blew my world apart. I think I watched that two-day rental copy ten times that first weekend I saw it. To this day, I watch Halloween at least three times a year. I’m still obsessed. It still takes me on an incredible journey and inspires me to no end.

So much has been written about Halloween…the making of it, its success as a low-budget independent film, how it ushered in and created an entirely new “slasher” subgenre and era of horror films, and the techniques that made it so effective. I won’t regurgitate that here in great detail. If you’ve seen the movie, and read about it, you know these things already. The techniques Carpenter uses are transcendent and game changing. The music. The mask. Dean Cundey’s cinematography. The way he fills the ‘Scope frame. It’s a flawless intersection of technique, storytelling, atmosphere, and scares. There’s an unrepeatable and unmistakable alchemy that makes the film what it is. In other words, it’s all about how this story is told, not necessarily what it’s about. The style these elements create, added to the simplicity of the film, is the formula that makes it so effective.

In a small Midwestern town, Michael, a six-year-old boy murders his sister on Halloween. Fifteen years later, on Halloween, he escapes the sanitarium where he’s being held, and goes back to his hometown to kill again. That’s pretty much it.

Simple.

Over the years since the first time I saw the film and the countless times since, I’ve often thought about what the key factor is (beyond the aforementioned style) that makes it my favorite horror movie. I think the answer lies somewhere in its restraint. In a way, it’s not what Carpenter did do, it’s what he didn’t do that makes Halloween special. The film is nearly bloodless. He uses the frame to create a visual language that puts us on edge, as opposed to throwing gore at us (not that there’s anything wrong with that…I love a good bloodbath, but I’m glad it’s not here). Carpenter also suggests, but doesn’t overexplain, the subtle supernatural aspects of Myers. Mystery begets better terror. The first of these touches is the fact that it takes place on Halloween. In its development, the film was originally called The Babysitter Murders (which sounds scary already), until one of the producers of the film, Irwin Yablans, suggested it take place on (and be called) Halloween. This idea was a stroke of genius, because although Carpenter (wisely) doesn’t use the dark holiday to explain Michael’s killing spree, the fact that Michael “activates” on All Hallows’ Eve adds a layer of bizarre uneasiness to his motivations. It comes from somewhere dark and inexplicable. Carpenter knew better than to have a ritual or séance or possession aspect to explain the killer’s actions…it’s just simply the date when Michael goes home to kill. And that’s enough.

Another subtle touch: the methods used to make Michael the personification of Evil. As Doctor Loomis says in the movie, Myers “isn’t a man.” Well, he looks like a person, and he’s shaped like a human, but measured doses of strange behavior suggest there’s something more going on there…something more at the wheel inside Michael than just himself. He doesn’t talk, he only breathes. He wears a mask to kill. Later, he wears coveralls taken from a tow truck driver that he’s murdered, his “costume”. He inspects his kills in a curious way; after murdering one kid, he tilts his head back and forth. Later on, he sets up a haunted house of corpses as a gauntlet of terror for the main character, Laurie. He also doesn’t seem daunted by injury. When Laurie stabs him, he doesn’t stop. It’s these touches of character that make The Shape scarier. Where is this weirdness coming from? These traits culminate in the climax, where Michael is shot six times and falls from a balcony…and then disappears.

Thus, by the end of the film, these supernatural hints (and the Myers character) have fully developed and transformed into theme, the idea being that evil never dies. It can’t be killed. It will always be there, looming in the dark, ready to strike without warning.

Halloween started me on a constant diet of horror movies, and there are many in my “favorites pantheon”. Alien transported me aboard a ship in deep space and showed me creatures I couldn’t have seen in my wildest dreams. Psycho catapulted me into the mind of an isolated killer living a double life. Jaws had already whisked me away on an adventure on the ocean and given a glimpse of what lurked beneath the surface of an unknown world.

But Halloween was in my backyard. Every night. Staring up at me from between the clotheslines. It turned the most basic location, the most identifiable place, suburban America, into a terrifying landscape. A place of darkness and danger. Haddonfield didn’t feel like South Pasadena, CA, where they shot the film. No, Halloween felt like it was happening in a small Illinois town. It felt like my hometown in Virginia. The streets in it felt like my street. The houses felt kinda’ like my house.

Halloween didn’t just take me to another world; it turned my own world into something new. As I started my own career, I took that with me.

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Check out the new trailer for the re-release of 1978’s Halloween below, and for theatre and ticketing info, please visit www.CineLifeEntertainment.com

TAKEN FROM THE BOOK
MY FAVORITE HORROR MOVIE
© 2018 CHRISTIAN ACKERMAN/BLACK VORTEX CINEMA
MYFAVORITEHORRORMOVIE.COM

Matt Mercer can be found on Twitter/Instagram @MercerShark

The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Trancas International Films or any other agency, organization, employer or company.

John Carpenter’s Halloween Returns to Theaters Worldwide this September

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Celebrating its 40th anniversary, John Carpenter’s 1978 horror classic is being re-released in advance of David Gordon Green’s sequel, and will return to theaters beginning September 27th, 2018.

Read on for details, theaters and ticketing information.

From the press release:

LOS ANGELES, CA – Cinelife Entertainment, the event cinema division of Spotlight Cinema Networks, has teamed up with Compass International Pictures and Trancas International Films Compass International Pictures and to bring John Carpenter’s seminal 1978 classic back to select theaters worldwide beginning September 27, 2018.

In the film, the villain, Michael Myers, has spent the last 15 years locked away inside a sanitarium under the care of child psychiatrist Dr. Sam Loomis. On October 30, 1978, Myers escapes and makes his way back home to Haddonfield, turning a night of tricks and treats into something much more sinister for three young women, including Laurie Strode, the star-making role for Jamie Lee Curtis.

The original Halloween will be released on over 1,000 screens in over twenty countries across the globe. “I’m thrilled to have the original make its way back into theatres, as we prepare for the release of the sequel. Having both back in theatres this fall is remarkable,” says director John Carpenter.

Fans will be treated to view big screen presentations of the restored and remastered digital print, created under the supervision of the world-renowned cinematographer, Dean Cundey.

“We are thrilled to be a part of the 40th anniversary celebration, working with Compass International Pictures and Trancas International Films to bring the most fear-provoking and enduring horror movies of all time to cinema screens around the globe,” said Mark Rupp, Managing Director, CineLife Entertainment.

The release of John Carpenter’s Original Halloween comes just ahead of the release of Halloween (2018) – the direct sequel to John Carpenter’s classic. Jamie Lee Curtis and Nick Castle reprise their roles as Laurie Strode and Michael Myers, respectively. It is set for release on October 19th, a week before the 40th anniversary of the original Halloween release date.

For theaters and showtimes, please visit CineLifeEntertainment.com.

Halloween: 40th Anniversary Trailer (60 Seconds) from CineLife Video Showcase on Vimeo.

Halloween: 40th Anniversary Trailer from CineLife Video Showcase on Vimeo.

My Favorite Horror Movie: Our Editor-in-Chief on John Carpenter’s Halloween

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With director David Gordon Green’s 2018 feature Halloween fast approaching, we thought it time to further celebrate John Carpenter’s 1978 classic of the same name via a series of essays on the subject.

Culled from the 2018 Amazon best-selling book My Favorite Horror Movie, which features 48 essays by horror creators on the films which shaped them (from Fangoria’s revered Michael Gingold to Contracted star Matt Mercer, and beyond), these essays will be published bi-weekly here at HalloweenMovies.com leading up to the October 19th release of the series’ latest chapter, in an effort to explore just why 40 years later, The Shape still terrifies.

First up, the essay which I contributed to the book, and an insight into why this once Star Wars-obsessed kid jumped out of light speed and put down stakes in Haddonfield.

HALLOWEEN
by
SEAN JAMES DECKER

In October of 1978, like most eight-year-old American boys of the time, and well before it would become a hip moniker to attach to one’s self, I was I suppose what people would consider a “film nerd.” I inherited this gene from my father, who had spent his own adolescence religiously attending matinees at the Bayview Theatre in San Francisco, ingesting a steady stream of serials, cartoons and 1950s sci-fi, horror and westerns, which he then imparted to me via network (at the time, we hadn’t yet purchased that very expensive new thing called a videocassette recorder) and local television, the latter portal consisting primarily of horror host Bob Wilkins’ KTVU show Creature Features. (A year later, I’d go on to innocently hold hands with my first girlfriend, the daughter of John Stanley, the latter who had taken over hosting duties of the show: she soon broke up with me for my obsession with her father and his extensive horror collection, but that is another story).

As much as my own father was excited to share with me the films he’d grown up on, from Universal’s classic The Creature from the Black Lagoon to that wonderful giant ant film Them!, he was also as equally concerned at guarding my innocence. When George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead made its television premiere on Wilkins’ show, I wasn’t allowed to watch it, although my parents were more than happy to take me to multiple screenings of Star Wars, and to support my interest in all things pop culture related via subscriptions to Marvel Comics titles (I remember fondly the brown paper mailing sleeves they’d arrive in), a million Legos bricks, Mego Dolls (I wonder whatever happened to my glow-in-the-dark Human Wolfman), Hardy Boys books, and much, much more.

R-rated horror films though? They were strictly off the table, no matter how I pleaded.

That was until my father’s dad (who I referred to as “Papa,” as we all did), who I spent every other weekend with, often flying the skies above Half Moon Bay in his Cessna when not attending Saturday Mass or the San Francisco Zoo, offered to take me to see a revival screening of 1974’s Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla, playing in a single screen movie house in the city. Gleefully, I took the street car with him to the theatre for some kaiju G-rated fare, and arriving early, he bought us both popcorn and Cokes and suggested we sit down to watch the end of whatever was playing in anticipation of the Big G’s onscreen arrival.

And it was then that my life was forever changed.

In that darkened theatre and through my boyhood fingers, raised in an effort to shield my eyes from the utter terror which was unfolding before them, I watched as a plucky young girl named Laurie crossed a tree-lined street before entering a structure similarly darkened. Up the stairs she went, and fearfully I went with her, into a dimly-lit bedroom where a woman lay splayed out dead on a mattress, a flickering jack-o-lantern next to her and a tombstone above with the inscription “Judith Myers” cut into it. And soon other things would also be cut into, by a methodical, shambling shape with a massive butcher knife, who stalked our unfortunate heroine from room to room and house to house, and who while seemingly in the finale was brought down by gunfire by an elderly man in a trench coat with a curious penchant for scaring trick or treaters, would ultimately disappear into the very night, and into my very psyche.

Silent. Unstoppable. Ghostly. For me, without context, and now existing behind every fence in my suburban neighborhood. As for the following screening of director Jun Fukada’s Godzilla film? I don’t recall it. What I do recall are the nightmares scored by that 10/8 piano composition that plagued me in the ensuing weeks, of which I’d wake from, drenched in sweat and screaming, comforted by my concerned parents who were none too happy that my grandfather had taken me to, “That Halloween movie” (they themselves made a trip to the theatre shortly thereafter, more than likely in an attempt to understand what emotional trauma their previously unsullied son had endured).

Marvel Comics didn’t interest me much after that, although EC Comics did. And while I was certainly excited to see the follow-up to that Star Wars movie, I was more thrilled to watch the slasher flicks on Laserdisc which one of my schoolyard chum’s father had amassed (a format now primarily residing in landfills alongside that Bakelite phone which Michael used to strangle Lynda Van Der Klok), when we were left to our own devices. Sean Cunningham’s gory take on Halloween, Friday the 13th, was one of them, but in my mind, nothing could compare to the sheer ferocity of Carpenter’s film.

I was hooked, and it was merely the beginning. Unbeknownst to my parents, Curtis Richards’ novelization was hidden beneath my mattress (I still have that paperback, dog-eared and rag-tag from countless readings), and while I was allowed to see the television cut of Halloween when it premiered on NBC in 1981, I had to sneak into a theatre to see Carpenter’s follow-up, Halloween II, that same month. Thrilling, yes, but for me even then, it failed to replicate the visceral, German Expressionism-influenced elegance of the original (not that I knew what German Expressionism was at the time, or a Panaglide for that matter).

That first iconic film, written in just ten days and shot for a mere $320,000, featuring a killer in a modified William Shatner mask purchased for a buck ninety-eight at Bert Wheeler’s now defunct magic shop on Hollywood Boulevard, coupled with my parents’ encouragement of my early interest in writing, would lead to just that, from my beginnings as an editor two decades later at Universal Studios’ Horror Online, to eight years as a writer at the beloved Fangoria, to a decade of journalism at Dread Central, with a few produced films and screenplays peppered throughout.

As for Halloween and my continued fascination with it, over the course of my career I’ve had the distinct honor of meeting Carpenter himself, as well as that young, plucky babysitter, and the knife-wielding madman who assailed her. In fact, in my possession at the time of this writing is a vintage Lamson butcher knife, signed by all three. (Curtis’ written-in-Sharpie signature and message of “Happy Halloween” is still to me is as surreal as the moment in which she signed it, although no more so than when John did the same in his living room, while allowing me to prattle on to him about his film’s resonance, as if he were unaware). And in 2015, and in an interesting turn of events, I nearly portrayed the iconic killer in a proposed San Diego Comic Con teaser for filmmaker Marcus Dunstan’s aborted Dimension feature, Halloween Returns.

Why me, you ask? Because as Dunstan was gleefully aware, for the past half a decade, each year on Halloween, I’ve donned a custom-made, screen quality jumpsuit and mask, and to the delight and often sheer terror of those evening’s trick or treaters, stalked Orange Grove Avenue in West Hollywood: the very street which Laurie traversed on the flickering screen in that San Francisco cinema so many years ago before my terrified, eight-year-old eyes.

After all, everyone’s still entitled to one good scare.

_ _ _

TAKEN FROM THE BOOK
MY FAVORITE HORROR MOVIE
© 2018 CHRISTIAN ACKERMAN/BLACK VORTEX CINEMA
MYFAVORITEHORRORMOVIE.COM

The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Trancas International Films or any other agency, organization, employer or company.

David Gordon Green’s Halloween to Open Fantastic Fest 2018

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FANTASTIC FEST 2018 ANNOUNCES EPIC SECOND WAVE OF PROGRAMMING INCLUDING ITS OPENING NIGHT FILM, THE UPCOMING HALLOWEEN, WITH THE LEGENDARY JAMIE LEE CURTIS IN ATTENDANCE

Running from September 20th thru the 27th in Austin, Texas, 2018’s Fantastic Fest (now in its 14th year) will kick off with a screening of David Gordon Green’s Halloween, with series star Jamie Lee Curtis in attendance, along with producers Malek Akkad, Jason Blum and Bill Block. Do you want tickets? Need to get your hands on the limited edition, brand-new Halloween-themed Fantastic Fest collectible magazine from the Birth.Movies.Death. team before the fest even starts? Read on for info!

 

From the Press Release:

AUSTIN, TX — Wednesday, August 22, 2018 — Blasting off the festival in its 14th year will be the U.S. Premiere of David Gordon Green’s razor-sharp new contribution to the Halloween canon with legendary actor Jamie Lee Curtis—along with Halloween producers Malek Akkad, Jason Blum and Bill Block in attendance! 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.

Festival Creative Director Evrim Ersoy says, “2018 is proving to be a remarkable year for genre cinema. It is a constant delight to be able to discover both seasoned directors and newcomers pushing the boundaries of what genre can mean, using cinematic language to bring incisive, intelligent commentary on the current state of the world and still find enough ingenious methods to terrify, thrill and twist! This second wave represents the best genre filmmaking talent on the planet, and it is all crashing into Austin next month!”

Worldwide genre titles continue to explode at Fantastic Fest with the World Premiere of haunting shocker The Boat, an insidious tale of man vs sea vessel; Girls with Balls, where a female French volleyball team takes on an entire countryside of maniacs; the North American Premiere of Timo Tjahjanto’s bonkers May the Devil Take You, where Satanic rites intermingle with family in-fighting to brutal and violent effect; the World Premiere of French serial killer shocker Savage, where a summer holiday obsession becomes a dangerous and deadly game; and the U.S. Premiere of Venice Critics week opener Tumbbad, where three generations of a family face off against demons in an ever-expanding circle of greed.

And finally, the Birth.Movies.Death. team is proud to be launching a brand-new, Halloween-themed edition of their collectible magazine at this year’s festival. In addition to exclusive interviews with John Carpenter, David Gordon Green and the legendary Jamie Lee Curtis, this issue will also feature deep-dive essays into the history of Halloween, a spread featuring some of Mondo’s best Halloween posters, and many more spooky surprises. Festival attendees may pre-purchase their copies of the magazine for pickup at the festival here, or copies can be purchased online and shipped directly to buyers via this link.

Attend:

SUPERFAN Badges, FAN Badges, 2ND HALF Badges, and MIDNIGHT Badges for Fantastic Fest 2018 are available for purchase here.

New this year, the MIDNIGHT Badge guarantees admission to the movie of your choice for the final screening round of the fest (Thursday 9/20 – Wednesday 9/26), which typically begin between 11pm and 12am, and also includes access to all non-ticketed Fantastic Fest events such as the Highball bashes, Debates, and opening and closing night parties!

For the latest developments, visit the Fantastic Fest official site at www.fantasticfest.com and follow them on Facebook & on Twitter.

Halloween Comes to Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights

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Ahead of the October 19th, 2018 release of director David Gordon Green’s hotly-anticipated feature film Halloween, series star Michael Myers is set to appear in the flesh beginning September 14th at both Universal Studios Orlando and Universal Studios Hollywood, as Halloween Horror Nights unmasks Haddonfield’s infamous slasher in all-new terrifying mazes based on 1988’s Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers.

From the Press Release:

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif., ORLANDO, Fla. (August 14, 2018) – Beginning on Friday, September 14, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, from Trancas International Films, takes a stab at Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights, bringing the notorious slasher to Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal Orlando Resort in all-new mazes inspired by the iconic horror film.

Based on the fourth installment in the classic slasher series created by John Carpenter, the mazes will transport guests to the suburban town of Haddonfield, Illinois on Halloween night where Myers has escaped Smith’s Grove Sanitarium and is hungry for revenge. This time, he relentlessly stalks his niece Jamie as his next victim, stopping at nothing to kill her.

Guests will follow Myers as he escapes the mental hospital, encounters his first victims at Penney’s Gas Station and Diner, and wreaks terror on Haddonfield, all set to Alan Howarth’s ominous score. The maze will include horrifying scares by Myers in his classic featureless white mask and navy jumpsuit, with guests dodging his bloody knife at every turn. Halloween fanatics can expect a cameo by Myer’s psychiatrist Dr. Loomis and other famous characters from the film as they try to escape the bloodbath.

Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights is the ultimate Halloween event. For more than 25 years, guests from around the world have visited Halloween Horror Nights in Hollywood and Orlando to become victims inside their own horror film. Multiple movie-quality mazes based on iconic horror television shows, films and original stories come to life season after season. And, the streets of each coast’s event are transformed into highly-themed scare zones where menacing scare-actors lunge from every darkened corner.

Additional details about Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights will be revealed soon. For more information about Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal Orlando Resort, visit www.HalloweenHorrorNights.com. All tickets and vacation packages are on sale now.

Updates on “Halloween Horror Nights” at Universal Studios Hollywood are available online here and on Facebook, on Instagram at @HorrorNights and Twitter at @HorrorNights as Creative Director John Murdy reveals a running chronicle of exclusive information. Watch videos on Halloween Horror Nights YouTube and join the conversation using #UniversalHHN.

Halloween to World Premiere at TIFF 18

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Ahead of its October 19, 2018 release via Universal Pictures, writer and director David Gordon Green’s hotly-anticipated Halloween is set for its world premiere this September as a Midnight Madness selection of the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival, which runs September 6 – 16.

“This year’s Midnight Madness slate promises another idiosyncratic confluence of established and emerging genre filmmakers,” Midnight Madness programmer Peter Kuplowsky said of the selection in a press statement. “To complement some of the buzziest provocations on the festival circuit, I have sought to curate an eccentric array of World Premieres that demonstrate the dexterity of genre cinema as a canvas for both sublime satisfaction and stunning subversion. That includes – Halloween – which boldly and brilliantly builds upon its mythic iconography to thrilling and surprising effect.”

While the premiere date and time have not yet been revealed, tickets for TIFF 18 are currently available here.

Co-written by Jeff Fradley and Danny McBride, 2018’s Halloween, the latest entry in the iconic horror franchise, 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.

H40: 40 Years of Terror Guest List

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The initial guest list for H40 has officially been revealed. What can fans expect? How about a nice collection of classic actor and actresses, plus behind-the-scenes men and women who helped make the legacy that is known as the Halloween franchise.

Hailing from the 1978 original Halloween, we can expect to find Nick Castle (Michael Myers himself), alongside stars PJ Soles, Charles Cyphers,  John Michael Graham, and Will Sandin … not to mention a first-time-convention guest: David Kyle (David played Judith’s boyfriend in the opening moments of the film). Tommy Lee Wallace (who also played Michael in a key scene from the film) is also set to attend. Set photographer Kim Gottleib-Walker rounds out the initial guest reveals for the original Halloween.

Moving on to Halloween II, we have such names as Dick Warlock (who played Myers in the film), in one of his final convention appearances.

Moving on to Halloween III: Season of the Witch, along with director Tommy Lee Wallace, we have star (and fan fave) Tom Atkins.

For Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers we have a few Myers actors of note – Tom Morga, Erik Preston(young Michael), and George P. Wilbur (who also played Michael in Halloween 6).

For Halloween 5 we have Michael actor Don Shanks. A. Michael Lerner (another Michael) will be in attendance, for his role as the titular character in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers.

Next up is a pair of first time convention guests – Donna Keegan (who performed as Jamie Lee Curtis’ stunt double in many films, including H20 and Halloween: Resurrection) as well as Gary J. Clayton, who played young Michael in Resurrection.

Brad Loree is set to attend H40 (Brad played Michael Myers in Resurrection), while Rob Zombie’s Myers himself, Tyler Mane and Daeg Faerch(young Michael) will be joined by a first-timer … Chase Wright Vanek, who played young Michael in Zombie’s Halloween II. Last, but certainly not least, is the NEW Michael, from the upcoming Blumhouse-produced Halloween – James Jude Courtney, making his convention debut!

 

H40: 40 Years of Terror – The 40th Anniversary Halloween Event!

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Trancas International Films and HorrorHound Ltd. team up for

H40: 40 YEARS OF TERROR

The 40th Anniversary Halloween Event!
October 12 thru 14, 2018
At the Pasadena Convention Center,
300 E Green St, Pasadena, CA 91101

www.Halloween40.com

PASADENA, California – Every five years, since 2003, fans from the Halloween franchise travel across the globe to celebrate one of the most endearing, imposing, and enduring horror movie franchises of all time. John Carpenter’s Halloween premiered in cinemas and on drive-in screens 40 years ago, changing the landscape of horror cinema forever. The movie served as the launching pad for a series of films that would go on to span ten entries to date – and this fall, the original Halloween stars Jamie Lee Curtis (“Laurie Strode”, Nick Castle (“The Shape, Michael Myers”), and co-creator John Carpenter (the original film’s director and composer), return to deliver the most terrifying sequel yet! To celebrate this storied 40-year old film franchise, this October 12-14th at the Pasadena Convention Center, the Halloween-based convention, H40: 40 Years of Terror is set to make waves in the convention industry.

For this special anniversary convention event, Trancas International Films is teaming up with HorrorHound Ltd., the promoters responsible for the mid-west event HorrorHound Weekend, to deliver what will be the biggest Halloween convention to date. Celebrity guests (including directors, stars, and crew) from all eleven Halloween films are set to be in attendance as the H40 convention expands into a larger convention space than ever before. More space means more exciting vendors – including notable Halloween licensees – and a number of not-to-be missed events, such as a special Horror’s Hallowed Grounds filming location tour, special gallery offerings, cast Q&As, exclusive H40 and Halloween merchandise offerings, and for the first time ever at the Halloween “Terror” event – professional photo opportunities (thanks to CPO).

Ticketing launch date and pricing information (as well as special VIP packages) are expected to be announced within the month. Not to mention exact guest attendee information, event and programming schedules and plans, and special surprises revolving around the upcoming Halloween film. Make sure you keep an eye on the official H40 Web site at www.Halloween40.com – plus as the official Facebook page at www.facebook.com/Halloween40.

Be sure to check out the official Web site for the upcoming Halloween film, which is set to hit theaters this October 19th (directed by David Gordon Green), by visiting www.HalloweenMovie.com. The official trailer for the film (which stars Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, and Will Patton) is now online.

HOTEL & VENDOR INFORMATION:

To secure hotel rooms for this exciting event, you can currently visit: reservations.arestravel.com/hotel/list/1637/m1240.

To inquire about vendor opportunities, please email weekend@horrorhound.com for details.

ABOUT TRANCAS INTERNATIONAL FILMS:

Trancas International Films is a motion picture production and distribution company based primarily in Los Angeles but operating worldwide. In addition to numerous other films in its library, Trancas, along with its subsidiary, Compass International Pictures, has been involved with each film in the iconic Halloween franchise, including this fall’s upcoming Universal Pictures release “Halloween” starring Jamie Lee Curtis. Trancas has production and distribution deals with companies including Miramax, Dimension Films, Blumhouse, Lionsgate and Anchor Bay Entertainment.

ABOUT HORRORHOUND LTD.

HorrorHound is a magazine publishing house and convention organizer based out of Cincinnati, Ohio. Since 2005 HorrorHound Magazine has established itself as the best-selling genre magazine in America. Launching their own convention in 2007, HorrorHound Weekend (with annual events in Indiana and Ohio) have grown into the largest horror convention in country, drawing over 20,000 attendees annually to their mid-west events. For more information on HorrorHound, please visit www.horrorhound.com

Actresses Judy Greer & Andi Matichak Talk Halloween from the Set

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Image Courtesy of Universal Pictures

“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).”

Image Courtesy of Universal Pictures

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.”

Image Courtesy of Universal Pictures

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.”

Image Courtesy of Universal Pictures

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

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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.

Image Courtesy of Universal Pictures

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.”

Image Courtesy of Universal Pictures

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.”

Image Courtesy of Universal Pictures

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.”