Halloween (2018)

Halloween (2018) is a direct sequel to the 1978 film that ignores every sequel in between, including the idea that Laurie Strode is Michael Myers’s sister. David Gordon Green directed, and wrote the script with Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley. Universal and Blumhouse released it in the United States on October 19, 2018. Jamie Lee Curtis returns as Laurie, with Judy Greer and Andi Matichak as her daughter and granddaughter. James Jude Courtney plays Michael, with Nick Castle in a few shots. It became the highest-grossing film in the series.

At a glance

Release date	October 19, 2018 (United States)
Director	David Gordon Green
Writers	David Gordon Green, Danny McBride, and Jeff Fradley
Starring	Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, Will Patton, James Jude Courtney
Runtime	106 minutes
Rating	R
Genre	Slasher
Budget	About $10 million
Box office	About $159 million domestic; about $255 million worldwide

Plot summary

Forty years after the 1978 murders, Michael Myers is a patient at a state facility, and Laurie Strode has spent the decades waiting for him. She lives in a fortified house outside Haddonfield, twice divorced, estranged from her daughter Karen, and closer to her granddaughter Allyson than Karen wants. Two British podcasters visit Michael before a prison transfer and hold the original mask up to the glass. He does not speak. He never has, in this timeline.

The bus crashes on the way to the new facility. Michael is loose on Halloween night, and Haddonfield is already full of parties. Laurie arms the house. Deputy Frank Hawkins, who was on duty in 1978 and stopped Dr. Loomis from killing Michael at the scene, tries to get ahead of the walk. The film treats Michael as a man who kills what is in front of him, not as a cursed brother hunting one girl. Laurie’s preparation is the argument the movie is having with her family.

Spoiler section: the ending

Allyson reaches Laurie’s house. Karen, who has spent the film calling her mother paranoid, shoots Michael and helps trap him in a safe room. Laurie, wounded, seals the bunker and sets the house on fire. The three women leave in the back of a truck. A last shot of the burning basement does not show a body.

Production and behind the scenes

John Carpenter had been approached for years about another Halloween. Green and McBride, better known for comedy, pitched a sequel that discarded the brother-sister twist and every film after 1978. Carpenter signed on as an executive producer and composed a new score with his son Cody and Daniel Davies, built on the original theme. Curtis agreed once the script made Laurie a woman who had organized her whole life around the night, not a victim passing through. Blumhouse financed it at about $10 million, cheap by studio standards and large by the series’ old budgets.

Courtney, a stunt performer, did most of Michael’s physical work. Castle, the original Shape, shot a few moments, including a reflection. The mask was a new build from the 1978 design, weathered on purpose. Production ran in South Carolina, with Charleston standing in for Haddonfield. Green shot the long opening prison-yard walk in one take so Michael would look like a fact, not a jump scare. The babysitting sequence is a deliberate rhyme with the 1978 opening, played from the other side of the door.

Release and reception

Universal opened the film on October 19, 2018. It made about $76.2 million in its first weekend and finished near $159 million in the United States and Canada, with a worldwide total around $255 million. Reviews were the best for a Halloween film in years. Two sequels, Halloween Kills (2021) and Halloween Ends (2022), continued this timeline and split the audience that this one had gathered.

Cast

Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode
Judy Greer as Karen Nelson
Andi Matichak as Allyson Nelson
Will Patton as Deputy Frank Hawkins
Haluk Bilginer as Dr. Sartain
James Jude Courtney and Nick Castle as Michael Myers
Toby Huss as Ray Nelson

Trivia

The opening credits redo the pumpkin-and-theme sequence from 1978, with a smashed pumpkin that inflates back into shape.
Carpenter’s new score was recorded with live players rather than the synthesizer-only palette of the later sequels.
The film’s Michael does not know Laurie. The podcasters are the ones who try to make the night personal.
A deleted sibling line was shot and cut, so the break with Halloween II would be clean.
Virginia Gardner’s Vicky babysits in a direct echo of Laurie’s 1978 job.
The domestic opening weekend was larger than the entire run of several earlier sequels.