Kevin Burwick from MovieWeb has been pretty vocal lately about a lot of upcoming movies, but this is one that seems to split some fans’ opinions since Halloween Kills is going to be making use of old characters and bringing in Anthony Michael Hall as Tommy Doyle, a character that a lot of fans likely remember throughout the history of the Halloween movies. Hall is of course known as one of the infamous Brat Pack from back in the day when he was still joining the cast for movies such as Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and of course, Weird Science. It would seem that he left his goofy, awkward roles behind him quite a while ago however since in recent years he’s been seen in the TV version of The Dead Zone, a series based on the chilling Stephen King novel, and Christopher Nolan’s movie The Dark Knight. Of all the people that grew up in the Brat Pack it does seem that his appearance has changed the most since those days. While a lot of his peers have aged they’re at least easy to recognize. With Anthony you really need to look at him and then look at past pictures to make the connection.
But in terms of the movie it would seem that he’s been seen as the perfect stand-in for Doyle, the kid that Laurie Strode saved in the early days of the franchise. It’s even been established that Jamie Lee Curtis will be making her way back to the movie as well. As Dirk Libbey from CinemaBlend explains it the movie that’s coming out will be a sequel to the reboot that kicked off the Halloween franchise again, and already has at least one more sequel being planned for a 2021 release, as Halloween Kills will be coming out in 2020. So far it would seem that the original cast members are being looked at for this movie as well, though one has to wonder how much longer a few of them are going to be willing to keep going with this particular story line. After all Halloween has been going for a while now and has been ripped up and redone and rebooted at least a couple if not a few times by now. The continuity of this story seems to have suffered more than most throughout the years and yet it’s still been highly revered by a lot of horror fans, largely because Michael is simply brutal when it comes to being a psychotic killer, and his nemesis, Laurie, has been seen as one of the classic heroines.
But when is it going to be enough? Other horror franchises have been trying this same approach now and it’s been kind of a moan and groan episode for a lot of people since while the old stories are still great and considered to be classic, the feeling is that they’re growing a bit stale. Some folks might tell me to shut up and look at the numbers, and they’d be right in saying that Halloween has been doing pretty well in the box office recently, but it’s still enough to say that it’s a stroke of luck instead of a brilliant bit of directing and acting. People are becoming too complacent these days when being spoon fed one movie after another that’s been done in so many different ways. It’s as though the studios are wising up to the idea that all they need to do is put the same story in a different package while rearranging the moving parts just enough to fool those watching into the belief that they’re doing something innovative. From Friday the 13th to Nightmare on Elm Street to even Child’s Play, the same story lines have been rolling out again and again, pretending that they’re moving forward as all that’s really happening is that they’re stacking more and more of the same material on the old stuff and giving it a new look by buffing and shining it up thanks to the writers and the effects teams that are admittedly great at what they do.
Am I being cynical? Oh definitely, and for a pretty good reason. I happen to agree with Graham Winfrey of Inc. that the industry needs a serious reboot altogether. There’s nothing that’s going to stop this constant barrage of titles that we’ve seen dozens of times before, and in truth the acting and the stories aren’t horrible enough to say ‘get rid of them all’. But there is a feeling that things need to change in a way that will allow innovation to truly take place. The story of Michael Meyers and Laurie Strode needs to be altered in some fundamental way so as to show the audience that things have truly progressed and that they won’t be getting a new version of the same old thing. Perhaps I’ll be proven wrong and this movie will be great, but we’ll have to wait and see.
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