The Halloween Film Franchise
Along with Jason Voorhies and Freddy Krueger, the name Michael Myers is associated with carnage and terror. Myers first appeared on-screen in the original 1978 film, Halloween. There have since been a total of ten Halloween films, each with varying levels of success at the box office. The franchise is based around Myers – a homicidal masked maniac who, as a child, murders his older sister and then continues to hunt and kill teenagers. Slow-moving and yet never far behind his sprinting victims, Michael Myers and his mask have come to symbolize terror in the hearts of many. In this video, WatchMojo.com looks back at the Halloween film franchise.
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The Halloween Film Franchise
It was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and defined the slasher genre. Welcome to Watchmojo.com, and today we’ll be taking a look at the Halloween film Franchise.
Originally titled “The babysitter Murders”, 1978’s “Halloween” was written and directed by the master of horror, John Carpenter. The movie told the tale of Michael Myers, a disturbed six-year-old boy who murdered his older sister on Halloween in 1963. After a fifteen-year hospitalization, Michael escaped and ventured back to his hometown where he began stalking a girl named Laurie, played by newcomer actress Jamie lee Curtis, and her friends while they babysat.
The 1981 sequel, “Halloween 2”, began the involvement of other less known directors while Carpenter continued to stay involved as the co-writer and producer. In this popular entry in the franchise, Myers continued to stalk Laurie, and audiences discovered that Myers had been adopted and Laurie was his real sister.
At the insistence of John Carpenter, the third installment “Season of the Witch”, kept none of the elements from previous films, aside from the name. Carpenter felt that the series had the potential to branch into a holiday themed anthology series. As a result, it did not feature Michael Myers or have any connection to the established storyline. It even went so far as to abandon the slasher genre, which the franchise had pioneered.
Amidst public confusion over the state of the franchise, the studio acted quickly in order to restore the popular elements once found in the series. Halloween 4 was then appropriately titled, “The Return of Michael Myers”. Carpenter’s involvement in the franchise was then further reduced to a supportive writing credit. The film followed the premise that Myers had been in a coma since his last screen appearance. Awaking 10 years after the events of 2nd movie, Myers discovered that Laurie had died in a car accident. However, she had given birth to daughter named Jamie, who then become his next target.
Only one year after its release, the studio felt that the slasher film craze was starting to fade. So they pushed Halloween 5 into production without a solid script. In the screenplay Myers is shown to share a metaphysical connection with Jamie, which allows him to track her. This was the last film in the series that Carpenter had any involvement.
In 1995, the franchise rights were sold from to Miramax/Dimension Films, who were quick to exploit the franchise. They advertised Halloween 6 as, “Six times the terror, six times the fear, six times the thrills of the original Halloween”. The film continued where the previous installment ended, this time with Myers murdering Jamie and hunting for her infant. The film was a commercial failure, but did ad an interesting twist to the character with the revelation that he is driven by a curse, which forces him to kill his entire bloodline.
It’s failure at the box office resulted in the creation of 1998’s “Halloween H20”, a semi-sequel that began an alternate timeline that continued 20 years following the 2nd film, and ignored all the entries that came in between. To add credibility to the series, and re-connect with fans of the original John Carpenter versions; the role of Laurie was reprised by Jamie Lee Curtis. Rapper LL Cool J. was also cast in the film to help generate public interest.
H20’s sequel “Halloween Resurrection” was the final film within the original franchise. The film received terrible word of mouth, and the studio’s inclusion of Tyra Banks did not do much to win over audiences. The film ended the series with Myers finally killing Laurie and travelling back to his hometown to hunt college students.
In 2007 and 2009, the Series saw a complete reboot when Rob Zombie was brought onboard to re-tell the events of the first two original films with more gritty cinematic realism and violence. Zombie chose to explore the Myers Character’s back-story in greater depth. Interestingly, he added a new layer to the franchise by having Laurie’s character share similar psychological problems with her brother.
Despite the 2007 film performing admirably at the box office, the 2009 sequel tanked. Analysts believe that the late August release date hurt the performance of both films, along with scathing reviews which called Halloween 2, “A vile sequel to a lazy remake” (Alonso Duralde). As a result of the reboot’s failure, Rob Zombie has refused to come onboard for a third film, while Dimension Films went ahead and announced the next entry will be presented in 3D. The project, appropriately entitled “Halloween 3D” will seek to capitalize on the tremendous financial success of other recent 3D horror films.
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