In October 2022 we will finally know the outcome of the new trilogy of the white mask maniac Michael Myers, with Halloween Ends – which premieres on October 13 here in Brazil. Produced by Universal Pictures and Blumhouse, the director David Gordon Green had carte blanche to create its own story about the iconic characters of the horror franchise 40 years after the classic Halloween – The Night of Terror. The new trilogy, which started in 2018 and continued in 2021, was between hits and misses, failing to please everyone. Either way, fans won’t be able to remain indifferent to this ending, which could define Laurie’s fate (Jamie Lee Curtis) and one of cinema’s greatest villains.
Although very popular and vaunted, this was not the veteran’s first comeback. Jamie Lee Curtis for the slasher franchise that shaped his career. The original film (from 78) was responsible for putting the actress’ name on the map, and she would still return in 1981 for the sequel – written and produced by John Carpenter – the father of everything. In the 1980s, however, the actress’ career took new heights and she stayed away from three of the films in the franchise (parts four, five and six). However, in 1998, things changed. It was the 20th anniversary of the original film, and Jamie Lee Curtis was well established, already considered an industry veteran, entering her second decade of acting in Hollywood. She herself saw fit to commemorate the film that had given her a career and became the pillar of this celebratory sequel. was born Halloween H20.
Read too: Halloween H20 (1998) | Remember Jamie Lee Curtis’s First Return to the Horror Franchise
‘Resurrection’ was an idea that was already dead. After all, how to continue the perfect outcome of H20?
Surely you know the saying “we can’t lend a hand, because they want the arm”. In Hollywood it works exactly like this. the success of Halloween H20which should have been the end of the franchise, made studio execs grow their eyes and demand more. Jamie Lee Curtisin turn, had orchestrated an opera-worthy closing, at least in its conception, and said goodbye to halloween with a golden key. Read mistake. And four years later, a direct sequel to Halloween H20 reached the movie screens, performed by the owners of the franchise, Mustapha Akkad and your son malekand the producers of Miramax (which financed the project) the brothers Weinstein.
Before the film that we actually received came to fruition, some other versions were considered. The most curious of them was the proposal of a new anthology, with a new horror story without any connection with Michael Myers and Laurie Strode – an idea that had already failed back in 1982, when proposed by John Carpenter in halloween 3 (the point outside the curve in the series). This would make things easier when developing the script, since Halloween H20 had left little room for a sequel. In the 1998 film, Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) ends the film by decapitating Michael Myers with an axe. Right after your head rolls across the floor, mask and all, the credits roll. Where do you go after that? The premise of an upcoming film without Myers would soon be dropped after public polls revealed to the studio what fans really wanted was the return of the white-masked maniac. What a surprise!
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Read too: Halloween 3 (1982) | Meet the “Cursed Son” of the Success Franchise – Available on Amazon
“It was easier to have glued the head”. Michael Myers isn’t happy with the sequel they’ve come up with.
Here is where another impasse of how things might actually have happened occurs. How we know, Jamie Lee Curtis appears in Halloween: Resurrection, in a cameo that opens the film. Some reports, however, claim that the actress had no idea that the sequel was being produced and that at first she did not want to know about another film, because she thought that H20 he had more than satisfactorily ended his arc in this universe. On the other hand, there was a contract that Curtis had signed at the time of H20 that guaranteed his presence in an eventual sequel. The truth is that the actress probably thought that the producers would not be able to continue the narrative after their villain (literally) loses his mind – and that an eventual sequel with new characters, including a new antagonist, would not need her participation. This idea of a new assassin had been flirting with since Halloween H20, which almost introduced “the son of Michael Myers”. Believe it!
Thus, contractually bound, Jamie Lee Curtis returned to a new halloween (his room, until that moment). But, according to her, she only did it to make sure that her character received a definitive destination, so that she doesn’t have to go back to such films anymore. Little did she know. four years after H20, we find Laurie Strode (Curtis) in a psychiatric hospital, traumatized by the events of the denouement in the previous film. The heroine, however, is not seeking treatment for having killed her psychopathic brother, quite the opposite. She’s there because she let him live, accidentally killing some unfortunate. Yes, believe me, that was the most lame excuse that the filmmakers came up with to say that Myers was still alive and with his head on straight. He would have disguised himself as a paramedic and put the mask on the guy who stole the clothes, crushing his windpipe so he wouldn’t be discovered. With a twist like this, it might have been better for Michael to glue his head with the superbonder back to his neck…
Read too: Halloween H20 | 90s horror would have ANOTHER Killer besides Michael Myers: Know who!
The Kiss of Death! Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) says goodbye to the franchise for the second time. But it wouldn’t be the last.
So, in the mental hospital and disillusioned, we find an almost catatonic Laurie, very different from the warrior who fought to the end in the previous film. Michael Myers, the real one, obviously shows up at the scene looking to finish the job and put an end to his sister. But she’s not such a helpless target. In reality, Laurie even orchestrated a new plan to eliminate Myers once and for all, in the hospital itself, already predicting that the psychopath would hunt her there. So, she escapes to the terrace of the building, and with a trap captures Michael by the foot, which is turned upside down outside the terrace. All Laurie had to do was bring him down from that height. But first she needs to make sure that this time it’s him – after all, many other “innocents” could go after her there trying to kill her (only not). And then the worst happens… . This justification for eliminating the protagonist is another lame moment in the feature. In fact, even participating only in the introduction of the film, Curtis wins the top of the credits, as if she were the protagonist.
What most fans are really complaining about, about what is the least appreciated episode of the entire franchise, is what serves as the central plot of this sequel to Halloween H20. To better understand the insight of “Jênio” from the script written by Larry Brand, it is necessary to contextualize that this was the time when reality shows were booming in the USA. This phase is still in full force here in Brazil, with extreme popularity, re-established by the program Big Brother. In Hollywood, some productions had already approached the topic in a precise and critical way – especially The Truman Show (1998), a quintessential film on the topic. on the trail would come Ed TV (1999). In the early 2000s, the concept of surveillance cameras was served by productions such as 15 minutes (2001), showtime (2002) and by terror The eye that sees everything (2002). This is how the eighth movie in the Halloween franchise was born.
Read too: Halloween | Understand the COMPLICATED chronology of the famous horror franchise!
Show owners. The “geniuses” behind the reality show at the psychopath’s house, played by a rapper and a model.
By the way, Halloween: Resurrection bears many similarities with the aforementioned horror The eye that sees everythingby Universal Pictures, released in the same year and which featured one of the first works of Bradley Cooper. In this dark film, a group of young people agree to spend time in an isolated house in a rural area, being watched by cameras in a reality show. The balcony was in the nefarious plans of the producers, whose broadcast of the program took place on the deep web, a concept more understood today than at the time – in a way making the feature a visionary. In the plot of the eighth Halloween (or fourth, as you wish), a swashbuckling producer played by the rapper Busta Rhymes decides to embark on the wave of “reality” TV shows and comes up with the “brilliant” idea of gathering a group of unfortunate young people to spend a few nights in the house that belonged to the maniac Michael Myers. The producer even had plans to scare these brave people on his own, but it wasn’t even necessary, since he himself decides to show up there, with the right to the new mask, and promotes a massacre in front of the cameras.
A reality show emulating “found footage” doesn’t quite match the style of the franchise halloweenand the filmmakers learned that the hard way. Resurrection still has bad dialogues, scenes of great embarrassment and painful moments to watch, like when Busta Rhymes characterized as Myers “puts a tantrum” on the real, believing himself to be an actor; or when the rapper decides to fight karate with the psychopath, making noises worthy of slapstick comedy. Oh yes, the characters are all disposable, including the protagonist played by the cutie Bianca Kajlich (revealed in the film) and the producer personified by the model Tyra Banks.
Read too: Halloween II – The Nightmare Continues (1981) – John Carpenter classic, with Jamie Lee Curtis, turns 40!
‘Resurrection’ has an ending that would never be continued. Although plans were made, the option was for the remake.
all this did Halloween: Resurrection be considered the worst film in the Michael Myers franchise by critics and fans alike. Even more if we think that it was the direct continuation of the dear and efficient Halloween H20. Even producers trying to disguise the forced participation of Jamie Lee Curtis, saying that the actress had loved the script and agreed to increase her scenes, she herself doesn’t speak her tongue when speaking about the feature, considering it “a joke”. And making it clear that she only returned for the obligation of the contract. Another who “twitched” when faced with the feature was the creator of everything John Carpenter – referring to the unpleasant experience of watching it.
Halloween: Resurrection had its premiere on July 1st in the USA, debuting on a big circuit there on July 12th. In Brazil, the feature would hit movie theaters on July 18. With a budget of US$13 million, the film was not as bad at the box office as you can imagine, taking in US$30 million for the studio and another US$7 million around the world. While not a disastrous failure, it fell far short of its potential, even more so compared to its predecessor. H20 (1998), which exceeded $55 million in the US alone. what really killed Resurrection (pardon the ironic pun) were the, shall we say, devastating reviews that the film collected. The fact put a shovel in the plans for a direct sequel – which was already being developed. In the last scene, after being burned in a fire, Michael Myers opens his eyes in the morgue, giving the final scare of the film. And an upcoming film would bring into the game Laurie Strode’s son, John, to be played again by Josh Hartnett. He would set out on a journey of revenge for the murder of his mother, and would have the company of Sheriff Brackett (Charles Cyphers) of the original film. That narrative would be completely abandoned and the movie we would get next would be the remake of Rob Zombie, five years later.
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