Just as David Gordon Green’s 2018 Halloween reboot received the enthusiastic blessing of franchise co-creator John Carpenter, his upcoming sequel Halloween Kills has gotten Carpenter’s blessing, too. Continuing from the end of the previous Halloween movie, Halloween Kills will see the people of Haddonfield uniting with the three generations of Strode women to vanquish Michael Myers from their town once and for all.
When Entertainment Weekly asked Carpenter about Green’s new movie, the director gave it a glowing review: “It’s brilliant. It’s the ultimate slasher. I mean, there’s nothing more than this one. Wow! Man.” Carpenter and Debra Hill’s script for the original 1978 Halloween movie became the template for the modern slasher. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is believed to have originated the popular horror subgenre (and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Black Christmas both predated Halloween), but Halloween is credited with establishing all the tropes and paving the way for such low-budget gems as Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. So, when Carpenter refers to a movie as the “ultimate slasher,” he’s something of an authority on the subject.
Although it was supposed to hit theaters in October 2020, Halloween Kills was pushed back to October 2021 due to the spread of coronavirus (fingers crossed it’ll actually be able to make that date, or it’ll have to be pushed back to October 2022). So, the cast and crew have had to continue to roll out their promotion of the movie for another twelve months. Green recently spoke about the broader themes of the sequel, saying that it will deal with timely issues like misinformation and paranoia.
Carpenter hasn’t been directly involved in the writing of the rebooted Halloween series, though he did compose the score (as he did with the original movie) with the collaboration of his son Cody Carpenter and his godson Daniel Davies. The two Carpenters and Davies' are returning to score the sequels, too. The elder Carpenter confirmed that the score for Halloween Kills is complete, but added that he hasn’t been able to start work on the score for the next Halloween movie because of the COVID-19 shutdown.
Halloween Kills is the first of two back-to-back sequels directly following the 2018 reboot. The second will be Halloween Ends, which will conclude the new trilogy, although co-writer Danny McBride has acknowledged that there will probably be more Halloween movies after it. Carpenter hasn’t directed a feature film since The Ward in 2010, but he recently released the album Lost Themes III: Alive After Death.
Halloween Kills is scheduled to be released in theaters on October 15, 2021.
Source: Entertainment Weekly