Movies
Here’s Why You Should Be Excited About the New ‘Halloween’ Film
As soon as Blumhouse and John Carpenter announced that they were working together on a brand new reboot of the Halloween franchise, horror fans began speculating on who would direct the hotly-anticipated return of Michael Myers. A handful of different names were thrown around as suggestions, and every single name I heard was one that was inextricably linked to horror. We’re talking guys with a proven track record in the horror space; guys who primarily play around in the genre we love. Guys like Adam Wingard. Mike Flanagan. Adam Green.
All great choices, might I add. But as it turns out, Carpenter and Blumhouse were keen on going the complete opposite direction from whatever any of us could’ve expected. As announced this week, Carpenter will executive produce (and possibly provide the score for) a new Halloween film, set for release in October 2018, that’s being co-written by David Gordon Green and Danny McBride, and directed by Gordon Green. Yes, the same David Gordon Green who directed Pineapple Express. And yes, the same Danny McBride who has mostly starred in laugh-out-loud comedies.
My first thought? SAY WHAT?!
About 30 seconds later? Pure, unbridled excitement.
Now if you’re opposed to the very idea of two comedy guys, or two guys we perceive and have typecast as comedy guys (check out David Gordon Green’s Joe, which is brilliant and very much not a comedy), I totally understand where you’re coming from. The idea of Danny McBride writing a Halloween film is undeniably a bit of a strange one, at the very least a completely unexpected one, and you may be wishing right about now that the creative forces behind this were a little bit more, let’s say, connected to the horror genre. You’d probably feel safer with a guy like Mike Flanagan attached to direct, because let’s face it, a guy like Flanagan has proven that he’s probably up for the task.
But it’s precisely because of how outside-the-box (and maybe even a little uncomfortable) this all is that I personally am excited about this project; way more excited, to be completely honest, than I would be if a “horror guy” was announced this week instead of two “comedy guys.” Why, you ask? Because talented filmmakers (and both Gordon Green and McBride definitely fit that bill) who don’t live and work in the horror space (they also fit that bill, to say the very least) are maybe actually the best people to inject new life into the dead, tired franchises that we adore. And what Halloween needs right now is just that: Fresh. New. Life.
We horror fans have a tendency to forget that it’s not necessarily “horror people” who make great horror movies, it’s great filmmakers who make great horror movies – it’s worth noting that this year’s Get Out, the most widely-hyped horror movie of the year so far, was directed by comedian Jordan Peele. In fact, some of the very best horror movies, some of the ones that wrote the genre’s rules, were made by filmmakers who are very much not identified as “horror guys.” Steven Spielberg directed Jaws. William Friedkin directed The Exorcist. Stanley Kubrick directed The Shining. Richard Donner directed The Omen. Hell, John Landis followed up Animal House and The Blues Brothers with An American Werewolf in London.
My point? Great filmmakers who aren’t deeply involved in the horror genre have a proven track record of making damn good horror movies that we all agree are some of the best we’ve ever seen, and also of bringing fresh and innovative ideas to the table. And with David Gordon Green and Danny McBride at the helm, we can at the very least be pretty damn sure that their take on the legend of Michael Myers is going to be as fresh as the franchise could ever dream of being in the year 2018 – we already know that Carpenter himself fell in love with and vouched for their pitch, which should be enough to sway anyone who might be on the fence about “comedy dudes” resurrecting one of the most beloved horror properties of all time.
And here’s another thing that’s important to keep in mind.
Though Pineapple Express may have turned David Gordon Green into a (perceived) comedy filmmaker, he actually cut his teeth with serious dramas like George Washington, All the Real Girls, and Undertow; he’s nothing if not one of the most versatile filmmakers working in Hollywood today. Furthermore, Gordon Green is a HUGE horror fan with a deep love for the genre. You may remember that he was at one point attached to direct a true passion project: a remake of Dario Argento’s Suspiria. Why didn’t it work out? Because Gordon Green and the studio butted heads. He left the project because he didn’t feel he was being afforded the opportunity to properly do Argento’s film justice.
He explained to Indiewire back in 2015:
I wanted it to be a horror film. And a horror movie, at the time when we were modeling that movie, meant you’re making ‘Saw’ and ‘Paranormal [Activity]. You were making these down and dirty, very gory, very economical movies. So the economic model for a horror movie was not where I wanted it to be to make a $20 million elegant movie from a guy who was an unproven horror director, you know?
I don’t know about you, but those are the words of a man who I want to be creatively involved in a franchise that I love. Because clearly, he loves and cares about this stuff as much as we do.
I’m not cautiously optimistic. I’m not even optimistic. I am just plain EXCITED.
And you should be too. Because we are lucky to have these dudes in charge.
Producers Jason Blum, Malek Akkad, Director/Co-writer David Gordon Green, Co-writer Danny McBride
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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