Halloween (2018) star Jamie Lee Curtis has stated her previous high profile reunion with Michael Myers in 1998’s Halloween H20 ultimately became a “money gig.” Following the breakout success of the original Halloween, Curtis went on to become something of a horror star, appearing in back to back genre movies like The Fog and Prom Night. She decided to call it a day with horror after Halloween II, feeling she would become forever typecast in the genre if she continued.

It was her idea to return for Halloween H20, which marked the 20th anniversary of the original. Curtis wanted to reunite with Halloween creator John Carpenter and producer Debra Hill for the project, but both dropped out before production began. Curtis also signed on thinking her character Laurie Strode would finally slay her serial killer brother Michael Myers and end the franchise, but found out shortly before filming this wasn’t the case. When she tried to back out, a compromise was reached: The movie would end with her seemingly killing him, only to learn in the next movie she killed an innocent man by mistake.

Halloween H20 is often considered one of the best latter-day sequels in the series, but Curtis has said she was disappointed with how parts of the movie were handled. In a new interview with Variety, she states the movie started out with good intentions, and while she thinks parts of it work, it ultimately became about the check she earned.

Curtis also says Halloween (2018) will return to basics, and that working on the Blumhouse project reminded her of the original, stating, “We just went back to story and character. It felt like being on the original one, where no one was getting paid and we were just hungry to do the work.”

H20 started out with best intentions, but it ended up being a money gig. The film had some good things about it. It talked about alcoholism and trauma, but I ended up really doing it for the paycheck.

Halloween H20 has a lot of plus points, including a solid cast, a great central performance by Curtis and a genuinely tense final showdown with Michael. It also deals with Laurie Strode’s trauma following the events of the original, and how she’s coped with it over 20 years. That said, it hasn’t aged terribly well and is very much from the self-aware Scream era of slasher movies, and the ending is completely undermined by Halloween: Resurrection later revealing that Michael is still alive.

Halloween (2018) will be something of a fresh start for the series and will ignore every other Halloween sequel. It will also retcon the twist that Laurie and Michael are siblings, which became a major plot point in the various other entries, including Rob Zombie’s remake. This has proven somewhat controversial among some fans, but the majority seem to be excited about the direction the movie will take the story.

More: Why Halloween 2018 Ignores The Original’s Sequels

Source: Variety

  • Halloween Release Date: 2018-10-19