Warning: this article contains spoilers for the original Halloween and plot details from the upcoming sequel. Don't read any further if you want to remain entirely in the dark.
The Shape will return to Haddonfield, Illinois later this year when David Gordon Green's Halloween finally premieres on October 19, and all eyes are on the Stronger director to do some phenomenal work with John Carpenter's horror universe. That said, there's one significant change that the Halloween reboot is making to the source material, and it has us concerned about where this film could take the Michael Myers world: Michael is in custody when the reboot begins. It might not seem like a big deal, but allow me to explain.
As many fans already know, the ending of the original Halloween is as mysterious as it is terrifying. Michael Myers corners Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) in the upstairs bedroom of a quiet Haddonfield home and begins to strangle her to death. Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence) then appears out of nowhere (having seen the terrified children that Laurie saved running from the house) and empties his gun into Michael. The escaped psychopath falls from the upstairs window to the ground, below, and Loomis breathes a sigh of relief as he has finally killed his patient of 15 years. Check out the shot of Michael lying on the ground below.
However, the victory is relatively short-lived, as Loomis looks down once more after comforting Laurie to find that Michael has (once again) disappeared.
What follows is a montage of every location that Michael stalked throughout the run of the original Halloween as John Carpenter's now-iconic music swells and the sound of his breathing gets louder and louder. Finally, the camera rests on the Myers house, and the screen cuts to black as the movie ends with no indication of where Michael has gone. Utterly creepy, and instantly iconic.
The issue with this ending is that the new Halloween, based off of the information that we learned about it at CinemaCon, is going to slightly alter that finale by revealing that Michael was actually taken into custody shortly after Loomis shot him. From there, the reboot will see him escape on the 40th anniversary of his initial rampage to see him venture back to Haddonfield for a showdown with Laurie.
Setting this film up in such a way undoubtedly makes exposition and table setting easier for the folks at Blumhouse, but it also arguably cheapens one of the best moments from the original movie. If we're to accept the new film's take on the story as canon, then that creepy breathing led directly to Sheriff Brackett and his deputies actually finding the masked killer. There will be no more mystery over where he went or how safe Laurie and Loomis are, and (because the reboot is ignoring the sequels) we know that he won't slaughter several more people at a nearby hospital. He just went back to Smith's Grove.
Am I saying that Halloween cannot tell a great story with this framework? Absolutely not. In fact, it's still entirely possible that this change will make the John Carpenter original work even better in retrospect. Having said that, Halloween will most certainly need to earn this change to the existing narrative, because as it stands now, the idea of Michael getting away and disappearing into the night remains one of the most iconic endings in movie history.
Of course, that's our take on the matter. What's yours? Do you like that Michael Myers will be in custody at the beginning of the Halloween reboot? Do you think he should still be at large when the film opens? Let us know what you think in the poll, below, and check out David Gordon Green's Halloween when it debuts in theaters later this year on October 19.
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