Halloween 2018…the sequel that ignores all other sequels.

I am a huge horror fan. Really? A horror novelist is a fan of horror? Well, it’s true. I am.

And when I was younger, I was drawn to the slasher-type films with the unstoppable killer stalking miscreant youths in the woods. The Friday the 13th films were (and still are) great fun and when I was a kid, Jason absolutely terrified me. I mean, like couldn’t-get-to-sleep-until-the-horizon-lightened type of scared. This irrational fear of a fictional character killing me bothered me the most when I was near any type of woods area. Stay away from the woods, stay away from any campground or lake (especially any named Crystal Lake) and I’d be fine. I had it covered. I could better sleep at night with this realization. And then Micheal Myers showed up and destroyed any illusion of safety. Great.

Micheal Myers of Halloween was terrifying. This guy killed people in the suburbs! I grew up in a townhouse complex but still, the suburbs were pretty damn close. Was I safe nowhere? My imagination said no, I wasn’t safe. Always check the closet, always check under my bed and don’t let my oldest sister Kim get in a position to jump out and scare me so bad a little urine might have escaped me.

And what a great character Micheal Myers was. I mean, a child who inexplicably murders his sister (in an awesome Point of View sequence I should add) on Halloween night and is then incarcerated in a mental institution to be studied by Dr. Loomis. A child who doesn’t speak, who doesn’t interact with anyone and remains a mystery to anyone trying to understand the why of what he did. A brick wall was more expressive than this killer. And he waits and waits there, quietly, a murderous enigma, until he is all grown up.

Then, he escapes on Halloween night, returns to Haddonfield and stalks Laurie Strode for absolutely no known reason. Awesome. I really like the no reason stuff. It allows for speculation and the development of cool theories that some movies lose because they spell it all out for you. I don’t want to be spoon fed. I want to ponder. Besides, isn’t that scarier? When things happen you can’t rationalize or talk your way out of? I think so. Because to me, it means there is no controlling what’s happening and you are at the mercy of fate. And that can really suck if you’re the victim of it.

In Halloween II, a plot reveal suggests that Laurie Strode was Micheal Myers’ sister but as the title of this blog post suggests, there was no Halloween II. Not in this new timeline. This movie is a direct sequel to the first Halloween only. So we really don’t know why Micheal is so intent on killing Laurie Strode. Perfect. From what I’ve read about this new timeline after Micheal Myers was shot by Loomis, (you know that awesome scene when he gets shot, stands, shot again and again and then falls off the balcony to hit the ground with a thump?) he gets re-committed to the mental institution. And this new movie is about him escaping and going after Laurie Strode…again.

Between the original and this new film, there were nine Halloween movies. That’s right. Nine. But according to the new film, they never happened. Well, Rob Zombie’s versions were reboots so I won’t actually count them but still, that means there were seven movies that didn’t happen. And you know what? I’m okay with that. Because you know why? Blumhouse Productions is heading this one up. The company responsible for Paranormal Activity, Insidious, The Purge, Sinister, Get Out and many, many more films of horror awesomeness and so for me? I am very excited about this film and cannot wait to see it. October 19th, 2018 can’t arrive fast enough! Go Blumhouse Go!