With all the hype for the newest installment in the Halloween film series here is a little bit of a break down for the numerous timelines that have been part o the series. Which is your favorite?
Halloween is a 40-years-later direct sequel to the 1978 John
Carpenter-directed original — also titled Halloween — that starred
Jamie Lee Curtis as a terrorized babysitter who narrowly survived a near-fatal
encounter with escaped masked murderer Michael Myers.
Universal Pictures and Blumhouse’s upcoming revival of the long-running
slasher franchise marks the series’ 11th installment, but de-canonizes
everything except for John Carpenter’s Halloween — doing away with an
unrelated anthology installment (Halloween III: Season of the Witch),
six direct sequels, and both installments of writer-director Rob Zombie’s
now-defunct reboot series.
Timeline 1 (1978 — 1995)
The first timeline launched with Halloween in
1978 and was followed by Halloween II, taking place immediately
after the events of the first film as Michael Myers continues to hunt sister
Laurie Strode after she’s taken to Haddonfield Memorial
Hospital.Michael appears to be killed when he’s immolated by his determined
psychiatrist, Dr. Samuel Loomis, who also seemingly perishes in the blaze. 1988’s Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers retcons both Loomis and
Michael’s deaths, revealing the mute murderer has spent the past ten years in a
comatose state at Smith’s Grove Sanitarium.Curtis declined to appear, resulting in Laurie Strode’s offscreen death
by way of car accident. leaving behind her eight-year-old daughter, Jamie Lloyd
— Michael’s niece. A newly awakened Michael then pursued Laurie’s eight-year-old daughter,
Jamie Lloyd — Michael’s niece — in sequels Halloween 5: The Revenge of
Michael Myers and Halloween: The Curse of Michael
Myers, which revealed Michael to have long been under the control of
the shadowy Cult of Thorn, who manipulated the serial killer by way of an
ancient curse.
Timeline 2 (1978 — 2002)
That timeline would be abandoned after Curse following
the death of actor Donald Pleasance and Curtis’ desire to return to
the franchise ahead of its 20th anniversary. In 1998’s Halloween H20:
20 Years Later, Laurie Strode is alive — having faked her death in a car
accident — and living under the name Keri Tate in California, where she serves
as the headmistress of a private boarding school attended by her 17-year-old
son John.H20 tells us Michael has been believed dead for the past 20
years — having been burned to death at the end of Halloween II —
subsequently disregarding Return, Revenge,
and Curse, all which featured a very active and conspicuous
Michael Myers. Michael returns to stalk and attempt to kill Laurie in both H20 and
2002’s Halloween: Resurrection, where he finally succeeded in his
years-long mission to kill his sister by stabbing Laurie and dropping her off
the roof of a sanitarium.
Timeline 3 (2007 — 2009)
The second timeline was abandoned when Dimension Films opted to
reboot the franchise entirely with 2007’s Halloween from
writer-director Rob Zombie. That film delved into the trashy past of a young Michael Myers before
jumping to the present, where a hulking Michael (Tyler Mane) pursued beloved
little sister Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton). A 2009 sequel followed, with this Halloween II ending
with the apparent deaths of both Dr. Loomis and Michael, who was
brutally stabbed to death by Laurie — an experience that left the teen in a
psychiatric ward. Despite a planned sequel — originally dubbed Halloween 3D —
the Zombie reboot ended
up defunct and Dimension readied what was described as a
“recalibration” under Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan. That project, later known as Halloween Returns, was cancelled
in late 2015 when Dimension lost the franchise rights.
Timeline 4 (1978 — 2018)
Universal Pictures and Blumhouse — producers of the Insidious and Purge franchises
— will resurrect Michael Myers this October in Halloween, erasing
everything beyond Halloween 1978. “There just felt like such a simple truth to the original. I think by the
time you add Michael and Laurie’s relationship, being family, or he’s only
hunting his family, it takes that ‘boogeyman’ out of it. I want everyone to be
afraid of him,” director and co-writer David Gordon Green told EW of
the decision to axe the Michael-Laurie familial bond established in 1981’s Halloween
II. “I just felt like that was an area where he wasn’t quite as scary anymore.
It seemed too personalized,” co-writer Danny McBride said of the decision
to return Halloween to its roots with Michael Myers as a
crazed and elusive killer who inexplicably and relentlessly haunts Laurie
Strode. “I wasn’t as afraid of Michael Myers anymore, because I’m not
his f—ing brother so he’s not coming after me,” McBride said. “So it
just seemed like new territory to bite off.”
Timeline 5 of 7 The Return of Laurie Strode and Michael Myers
Four decades later, Laurie Strode — played again by Curtis — is a reclusive
social leper with a militaristic mindset whose last 40 years of life
have been defined by her Michael Myers obsession. “We have so much respect for the entire franchise, and that went into what
we’re trying to engineer; literally a love of horror movies and a love of every
Halloween movie across the board,” Green told Halloween
Movies. “We were trying to come up with what our take would be and really just found
an original path that more or less takes the first one as our reality, how we
meet our characters in a different phase of their life under the reality of
this traumatic event, and [how they] have to come to terms with some of these
issues. Horrifically, in many circumstances, and that’s kind of the fun of how
we launch off. There’s a lot of things that we haven’t revealed. Obviously a lot
of the fun is [in] those reveals, and seeing how these things unfold, how these
characters interact with one another and who they have become, and hopefully to
honor the franchise in what we’ve painted in our very unique portrait.”
Timeline 6 of 7The Return of John CarpenterHalloween 1978 director and horror master John Carpenter is on
board as executive producer, marking his first involvement with the franchise
since his EP role on Halloween III: Season of the Witch in 1982. “His advice was brilliant: ‘Make it relentless,’” Green said. “He had notes, which is something I was extremely nervous about. We worked
very hard on the script, and we were all very excited. It’s one thing for three
movie nerds, me, Danny and [co-writer Jeff Fradley], to geek out over the
opportunity of maneuvering within this property, another to basically go kiss
the ring of the godfather and see how that goes. I was sweating bullets.”
Timeline 7 of 7Halloweens Past
While Halloween 2018 will erase everything beyond the
original, Green said the sequel will pay tribute to other Halloween movies
before it. “Anyone who’s a fan of any of these films will find nice little Easter eggs
acknowledging our salute to the filmmakers that have preceded us,” Green said. “For us, it was a ‘clean slate’ type
of opportunity, where if there was a little inspiration or mirror image of
something, it’s very subtle in the movie because we want to start fresh for a
new generation, but with great appreciation for the previous.” Halloween opens October 19.
