Last night, some pretty huge news broke about one of the most iconic horror franchises of all time. Blumhouse announced that it was teaming up with Miramax to make a new Halloween film. But not only that—John Carpenter is returning to the franchise to executive produce the picture and ensure that it’s more in line with his original horror classic than recent entries in the franchise.
Specifically, Carpenter had this to say about the new venture:
“We’re probably going to go back to the original traditions that we started with early on. It’s kind of gone astray a little bit. I thought maybe the remakes went off somewhere that I didn’t want ‘em to go. Michael Myers is not a character. He is a force of nature. He is not a person. He is part supernatural, part human. He’s like the wind. He’s an evil wind. When you start straying away from that and you get into explaining, you’re lost. So hopefully we can guide it back in that direction.”
Collider’s own Perri Nemiroff was at last night’s event, and Blumhouse head Jason Blum added that it was early days yet on the film, but now it appears that the project might have been further along than they let on.
Speculation began this morning about who might be coming on to helm this new franchise installment, especially in the wake of Blum teasing that they’d likely go with a more established filmmaker rather than an up-and-comer, but Bloody Disgusting is reporting that Mike Flanagan is currently in talks to take the helm.
This pick actually makes quite a bit of sense. Flanagan does have a few films under his belt, including 2013’s incredibly effective ghost thriller Oculus and two 2016 films, the home invasion pic Hush and the psychological thriller Before I Wake. Flanagan knows his way around a smaller budget horror film and is adept at crafting scares on a smaller scale, which is what Carpenter and Blumhouse want for this new Halloween. Moreover, he’s already established a relationship with Blumhouse via Oculus and Hush.
Carpenter apparently wasn’t a huge fan of Rob Zombie’s two recent Halloween entires, which I actually thought were refreshingly original spins on Carpenter’s original idea—look, if you’re gonna remake a horror classic, making it your own is essential, and Zombie did just that by fleshing out the character of Michael Myers. But don’t look for much mythologizing in this new Halloween, as Carpenter is more keen on the masked menace as a force of nature and not an actual character.
What do you think about this choice, folks? Any other filmmakers you’d like to see tackle Halloween now that the franchise appears to be revived once more? Sound off in the comments below.
