The latest trailer for Halloween Kills just landed, and there is a lot of new plot details divulged by the nearly three-minute clip. Released in 1978, John Carpenter’s legendary horror Halloween essentially invented the slasher movie. The basic elements of slashers were set out as early as 1960’s Psycho and Peeping Tom, and Bob Clark’s Black Christmas created a blueprint for the sub-genre for years earlier.
However, while it was 1980’s Friday the 13th (and its many sequels) that made studios realize slashers were cheap, profitable money machines, Halloween was the first film to bring together every element of the archetypical slasher in one story. With the indestructible, slow-moving, mute masked killer, the sweet-but-strong final girl, her more licentious (and, as such, inevitably doomed) friends who indulged in drugs and premarital sex, Halloween had all the hallmarks of a classic slasher. The low-budget movie’s massive sleeper hit success soon gave rise to a sub-genre that would come to define horror cinema throughout the ‘80s.
However, while Halloween was a huge success, the franchise did not always fare so well with viewers. The later sequels earned woeful reviews while Halloween’s 2007 remake and its sequel Halloween 2 were equally derided for relying on gore and an increased body count over the original movie’s suspense and slow-burn thrills. That said, 2018’s franchise reboot Halloween was well-liked by both critics and fans as it harkened back to the stripped-back simplicity of the brutal efficient original while updating the story for the twenty-first century. Now, the sequel Halloween Kills promises to keep this gory story going, so what does the movie’s long-awaited new trailer reveal about the next franchise installment?
The action of Halloween Kills clearly picks up immediately after the end of Halloween, with Michael trapped in the burning house. And rather than going for a "the killer disappeared" trope to explain how Michael got out, the trailer reveals the unfortunate tragedy that he was helped out by well-meaning firefighters.
Between being set in a hospital and picking up the action of the sequel exactly where the last movie left off, Halloween Kills owes an obvious creative debt to Halloween II. As the best-reviewed of Halloween’s many sequels, it makes sense for Halloween Kills to ape the approach of the underrated (if less scary) Halloween II. However, the amount of footage set throughout Haddonfield does mean the movie will also likely have a slightly larger scope than the earlier sequel.
The sight of Michael emerging from the burning house gives the sequel a chance to reference a pair of horror remakes. Michael embeds a pickaxe through the mask (and head) of a firefighter, offering a nod to two ‘00s horror reimagining at once. The same shot appears early on in the action of Alexandre Aja’s The Hills Have Eyes remake from 2006, and is used again in 2009’s Jensen Ackles vehicle My Bloody Valentine 3D.
While Myers is most associated with a large carving knife as his weapon of choice, the Halloween Kills trailer reveals new additions to his arsenal. He takes a crowbar from one of his firefighter victims, uses a buzzsaw on another and is later seen killing a victim with a strip light bulb. This is the kind of kill creativity that was missing from Halloween and is a welcome return for the sequel.
Even though the ‘00s remake boasted a far nastier tone than earlier Halloween outings thanks to the style of director Rob Zombie, even the most mean-spirited Halloween franchise outings have largely avoided depicting Michael killing kids. But countless children were killed off in the unfairly-maligned Halloween 3: Season of the Witch, but that anthology horror outing had no connection to the Michael Myers mythos of the rest of the series and as a nod to that sequel's nastier edge, the trailer includes victims in the same masks from Season of the Witch in a playground (right down to the same shamrock sticker on the back of the pumpkin). All bets are off. The victims appear to be the couple glimpsed in hospital-themed costumes in Halloween, with some suspicion that they may be Julian's parents.
While there are two victims shown in the playground, there are actually two more hinted at, because the Season of the Witch-homaging masks were actually glimpsed on a pair of trick or treating kids in Halloween 2018.
Despite her injuries from Halloween, Halloween Kills sees Laurie joining the fight back against Michael Myers, as she defiantly breaks out of hospital (against her daughter's wishes), stabs what appears to be an adrenaline shot into her hip and plans to take Michael down. Seeing her turn his hunt against him will be a great new swerve for the series.
The trailer has the first look at returning character Lonnie Elam, who debuted in the original Halloween as one of Tommy Doyle's bullies. He's also the father of Allyson's boyfriend Cameron and by the look of the shot of Cameron finding blood dripping on his hands from the floor above in a darkened house, Lonnie's story may not end well. Cameron's likely to also get his comeuppance, given he's walking into what looks like a Michael Myers trap and a shot shows him being choked out.
No doubt because of Michael's renewed killing spree, the trailer depicts the town of Haddonfield finally coming together to take on Michael in a way that seems to resurrect the mob justice idea from Halloween 4. There are scenes of what appear to be rioting locals amassing in the streets and a gang of local toughs led by returning character Tommy Doyle (no longer played by Paul Rudd, of course) arming themselves for a fight, but it is impossible to be certain of the context these scenes occur in. That said, the trailer’s decision to pair them with a resilient Laurie saying that this will be Michael’s last night on earth certainly implies that the besieged town is beside her.
The body count of the Halloween movies varies wildly, with some outings of the franchise killing only a handful of victims and some sending Michael’s career kill count skyrocketing. However, even this trailer alone can tell fans that Halloween Kills will fall in the latter category. The trailer features the killing of an older couple, a handful of corpses strewn throughout a playground, and a shocking sequence wherein Michael slays a slew of firefighters attempting to salvage the house burning behind him. Thanks to these glimpses, the Halloween Kills body count already amounts to nine victims (at least), and that is judging only by the two and half minutes viewers have seen so far.
Laurie’s line, “Michael Myers is flesh and blood, but a man couldn’t survive that fire… The more he kills, the more he transcends” hints at a supernatural element to the version of the killer seen in Halloween Kills. Ever since Halloween II revealed the familial connection between Laurie and Michael and began getting into all manner of Celtic magic, this part of Michael’s characterization has long been contentious among fans. Some find Michael's supernatural status scary while others feel it detracts from his effectiveness, but it is still not entirely clear which route Halloween Kills will take.
This is a pretty spoiler-heavy trailer, and one of the most surprising reveals shows Michael about to kill Allyson - who defiantly shouts at him to "do it" - only for him to be stabbed in the back in the doorway. Given the earlier reveals of Laurie taking a knife to hunt him, it would seem her revenge is shown already. Whether it's anywhere near enough to take him down is another matter entirely.
Like fellow slasher cinema icon Jason Voorhees, a trademark mask makes up part of Michael Myers’ immediately recognizable iconic appearance. However, the trailer for Halloween Kills makes it clear that the monster will be unmasked in this sequel, although it remains to be seen whether viewers will get a glimpse of his mysterious face. The trailer obscures Michael’s face by shooting him from behind as he is taunted with the promise of his mask’s return, but the action of Halloween Kills could still fulfill the promise of fans finally seeing the man behind the mask.
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June 26, 2021 at 12:32AM
