The horror genre has been on a serious roll for the past few years, as new and challenging properties have hit theaters, and become both critical and box offices successes. Many of these hits come from Blumhouse Productions, including Get Out, Split, and The Conjuring franchise. Now, Blumhouse is turning its focus to the classics, with a new Halloween movie arriving in theaters in a matter of weeks. The upcoming slasher will be a canon-defying new sequel, with Jamie Lee Curtis and John Carpenter both returning in various capacities. One question fans seem especially curious about is how violent the R-rated project will be. While the original had almost no gore, the Rob Zombie movies relied heavily on it. Producer Jason Blum recently spoke to the violence in Halloween, and how carefully it was crafted, saying:
I always think, that kinda less violence you show the scarier it is. But you can't get away with not showing violence in Halloween in my opinion. So it is there, and when it's there it's very violent. Also, if it's violent all the way through you kinda become numb to it, so we kinda pick and chose our moments. And we went for it on those moments and I think it's pretty effective. Hopefully other people will too. But we finesse all of it, we screen it for audience and futz, and go back and forth. We work on them, I'm sure like everybody else, but I feel like we're always finessing. Violence is one scare that I think we probably finesse the most, the thing we tangle with the most probably.
It looks like everyone involved in Halloween approached its violence very methodically, so Michael Myers could therefore be more terrifying when he finally strikes. It's quality over quantity, which will hopefully speak to the final film's success.
Jason Blum's comments to Collider will only help anticipation for Halloween remain at a fever pitch, and make the final weeks of waiting all the more excruciating. The hardcore Halloween fandom seemed to jump on board as soon as Jamie Lee Curtis announced her return to Laurie Strode, which was only increased once OG Michael Myers Nick Castle was brought on, and John Carpenter agreed to write the music. It looks like Halloween is made by fans for fans-- and it's going back to basics and using violence selectively.
That being said, the first footage released from Halloween is absolutely horrifying. Michael Myers is shown as an agent of chaos, randomly killing and sparing people throughout Haddonfield as he wonders his way to Laurie Strode. But the violence may be going both ways, as Laurie has been waiting decades for Michael to come for her, and has made her home into a safe house.
Halloween will arrive in theaters on October 19th. In the meantime, check out our 2018 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.
