HALLOWEEN KILLS ETA I 15 OCTOBER 2021

Your worst fears take Shape again...

DIRECTOR David Gordon Green

STARRING Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Anthony Michael Hall, Nick Castle

“The second you start lighting things on fire, everything gets trickier!” laughs David Gordon Green, resurrecting Michael Myers for the second time with Halloween Kills. “Sometimes when I look at franchises that get bigger and badder I think they lose some of the heart. I have to keep in mind that the origin of this movie is only a few steps away from grindhouse.”

Keeping John Carpenter close to watch over every decision (“I think he trusts me a bit more now…”), Green wanted Kills to pick up right where his 2018 Halloween sequel left off – with Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) struggling to deal with a whole new trauma in the wake of Michael Myer’s new disappearance.

“When we made the last one we wanted to find a way for someone who’s never seen the original to get up to speed with the story,” says Green. “But this one gets right to the action. It’s very aggressive. It’s more efficient. We wanted it to be an explosive middle chapter before things get streamlined and personal again.”

Reaching back deeper into the mythology to bring back key characters from the 1978 original, Halloween Kills sees Myers hunted by a mob – with Laurie leading a group of survivors that feed off a flood of mass hysteria and panic.

“It’s about the creation of fear,” explains Green. “It’s one thing to be afraid of the Bogey Man, to have someone who might be in the closet, under the bed, creeping around in your house… But what we wanted to explore next was confusion, misinformation

and paranoia. What happens when fear goes viral? You can’t just stick your head under the covers any more.”

Expecting to start his delayed third chapter, Halloween Ends, next year, Green has had plenty of time to think about the legacy he wants to leave, and for him it’s all about respecting the mask. “We looked at Jaws a lot,” he says. “You don’t need a backstory on the shark. I think a lot of Halloween fans want to know more about Michael, but I don’t ever want to know that some childhood trauma defined him. Michael Myers in my mind has achieved the same mythology as Dracula and The Wolfman. These are not just fun experiences we have in the movie theatre eating popcorn and jumping out of our seats – it’s an anxiety that crosses over into fear in the real world. That’s where I get scared.”PB