We tend to think of reboots, remakes, and so on as a recent phenomenon. Rewatching the Halloween series of movies around Halloween time is a good reminder that reboots did not originate in the 21st Century.
The original Halloween came out in 1978 and was an instant hit that launched the careers of Jamie Lee Curtis and John Carpenter. And the theme song became a staple for Halloween parties.
The sequel Halloween II followed a couple of years later though the events in the movie take place in the same night with most of the same main characters--the ones who survived the first movie anyway.
It starts to get more interesting with Halloween III: Season of the Witch. It's the only one of 11 movies (to date) not to feature Michael Myers. It's a standalone movie and because they actually show Halloween on the TV, it's a separate universe from the other movies.
Since that movie wasn't a big hit, in the late 80s they brought Michael Myers back in Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers. This could be considered a soft reboot as since Jamie Lee Curtis wasn't going to come back, it focuses on her 8-year-old daughter Jamie. In the movie they say that Jamie's parents died almost a year earlier, which is the first (but not the last) time Jamie Lee Curtis's character was killed off.
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers followed a year or so later as a direct continuation. After some monetary problems, Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers eventually came along in 1995 as the conclusion of that story arc. And it was the last movie in the franchise to feature Donald Pleasance as he died by the time it was released.
For the 20th anniversary of the original movie, Jamie Lee Curtis came back for Halloween 20 Years Later or H20. This is another soft reboot that ignores movies 4-6 and maybe even 2 to be a direct sequel to the original.
A few years later Halloween Resurrection begins as a direct continuation of H20 with Michael Myers finally killing Jamie Lee Curtis after she hesitates to kill him. The rest of the movie then is about Michael returning home to terrorize some college kids on a reality TV show.
In 2007 then Rob Zombie helmed a full remake of the original Halloween that was longer and not really any better than the original. A crappy sequel followed in 2009 that didn't perform nearly as well.
Nothing much happened then until 2018, the 40th anniversary of the original, when Jamie Lee Curtis returned for another soft reboot that ignored the remake and the previous soft reboot of H20 to be a direct sequel of the original. And while I thought it was boring as hell, there will probably be a sequel out in the next year or so.
Then maybe in 2028 for the 50th anniversary they can have another reboot that ignores the previous reboots. Or maybe they'll do another remake.
Happy Halloween! As you celebrate, try to remember there's a virus out there that's killed many times more than all the movie serial killers put together.
1 comment:
Indeed. You apparently didn’t hear about Halloween Kills. Haven’t seen any of them.
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