‘Halloween Kills’ Director David Gordon Green Confirms ‘Halloween I, II’ and ‘III’ Callbacks in Horror Sequel
2018’s Halloween was a direct sequel to 1978’s Halloween. The horror sequels became so convoluted with multiple timelines, screenwriters David Gordon Green, Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley threw out everything but the original. Green also directed and returns to direct Halloween Kills, with McBride still collaborating on the script. This time, they acknowledge not only 1981’s Halloween II, but Halloween III: Season of the Witch which doesn’t even have Michael Myers in it.
Green and producer Malek Akkad spoke to press in a Zoom roundtable on Oct. 6. They explained how Halloween Kills revisited not only the 1978 classic, but its first two sequels. Halloween Kills opens Oct. 15 in theaters and streaming on Peacock.
‘Halloween Kills’ revisits October 31, 1978
Halloween Kills literally goes back to the Halloween night of the original film. Hawkins (Will Patton) is just a young officer (Thomas Mann) back then, but he interacts with the Michael Myers of 1978. To pull that off, Green said the art department recreated the house from the 1978 film in exacting details.
They just did a spectacular job making sure every peeling piece of paint and every cobweb and every broken element of the gutter was there again. Even the tree out front was recreated in the front yard. Wonderfully, we had this incredible team of passionate Halloween lovers that were meticulously going through every detail. I would also say Chris Nelson who recreated the 1978 mask. So just a team of passionate people and we’re always there to encourage each other to do our best and to honor the legacy, not only in the recreation of the structural elements of the film, but also the techniques and camerawork and editing of the sequences. We tried to emulate what Carpenter was doing in his ’70s work.
David Gordon Green, Halloween Kills press junket, 10/6/21
Look for some ‘Halloween II’ and ‘III’ Easter eggs in ‘Halloween Kills’ too
Green confirmed that Halloween Kills acknowledges the existence of Halloween II. The first sequel picked up the morning of Nov. 1 as police are still pursuing Michael Myers and Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) goes to the hospital. Even stranger, Halloween III: Season of the Witch was the franchise’s attempt at a non Michael Myers story. Green decided to show it some love too.
“There’s some moments from Halloween II and a few from Season of the Witch,” Green said. “I have great respect for elements in all of them, but those are two I thought would be fun to play with and add little Easter eggs for the fans, iconography. I thought what they did in the original Halloween II in the continuation of Michael and Laurie Strode that night was a conversation I had with John Carpenter, asking him why they got where they got and some of the obstacles along the way. Where they made choices, we made sometimes similar choices and sometimes very different.”
The producer of the franchise approved these inclusions
Malek Akkad’s father, Moustapha Akkad, produced the original movie with Carpenter and Debra Hill. He kept the series going after Carpenter and Hill, and passed it on to his son. Malek wasn’t too hung up on the franchise timeline for Halloween Kills.
“I would say over the course of the franchise, the timeline has varied a lot,” Akkad said. “I was less concerned or precious about that as opposed to working with this great filmmaker on a level equal or greater than we had before. And really trusting what he wanted to do so that was the first. In terms of Halloween II, well, we reference so many nice little moments in the franchise I would say. That’s really down to David and the writers just being huge fans. I know the fans love it, the die hard fans go crazy when they see one of these references.”
