Monsterpalooza, the world’s longest running celebration of the art of monsters and movie magic, hosted this past Saturday in Pasadena, CA a panel on 2018’s Halloween, and we were there to live stream it.
Moderated by Fangoria’s editor emeritus Tony Timpone, panelists included Halloween 2018’s makeup effects designer Christopher Nelson, actress Rhian Rees (the film’s “Dana Haines”) and The Shape himself, actor and stuntman James Jude Courtney, who during the Q&A volunteered his – excitement – in performing cinematic acts of murder, both as Myers, and as the antagonist in 1989’s The Freeway Maniac.
Said Courtney when asked how he felt when he did the murder scenes in Halloween, “Killing is so much fun. It’s the most fun in the world. It’s a very, very deep place, to be honest. As an actor, if you are really in touch with murder, it’s very sexual. I learned that in the very first film I did.”
“(In preparation for it),” Courtney recalled, “I went and stayed in a psyche ward in central California for a weekend, and I had a psychiatrist with me and several orderlies. And I actually spent nights there, sleeping in a ward with paranoid schizophrenics. It was a criminal ward. But these guys were all doing the ‘Thorazine Shuffle.’ They couldn’t catch a fly if they wanted to, they were so drugged up. But I got to interview some of the guys who had murdered (people) twenty years (before), and who had had time to process it and (who) had gone through therapy. And they taught me how I’d create dominance in the ward, and what the pathos was.”
“So, when I started killing in this movie,” offered Courtney, “I called the psychiatrist up and I said, ‘Doc, there’s something going on here, and I have to talk to you about it. When I’m killing these people I’m getting a fricking erection.’ And he goes, ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you. I’m so sorry! During Vietnam, guys in firefights would have multiple orgasms.’ And I was like, ‘Dude, you could have helped me out with that.’ So the point is, if you are going to kill people, you need to be prepared for that. Maybe bring a little protection.”
You can watch a video of the full panel (and to see Nelson’s humorously stunned reaction) below.
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