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‘The Legend of Halloween’: David Gordon Green Wrote a Children’s Book Adaptation of ‘Halloween’!

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While we’re not getting Halloween Kills as originally planned this Halloween season, Further Front Publishing is tiding us over today by announcing the illustrated story The Legend of Halloween, based on the original motion picture screenplay of Halloween (1978) from John Carpenter and Debra Hill. The new illustrated story is co-written by filmmaker David Gordon Green, who directed the 2018 Halloween sequel as well as the upcoming films Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends, and Author/Director Onur Tukel (Applesauce, Richard’s Wedding) who also illustrated the book, while Malek Akkad and Ryan Freimann, producer and executive producer of the 2018 Halloween film and forthcoming sequels, are overseeing the production. 

Originally premiered in the fall of 1978, Halloween inspired a generation of innovative horror films and a slew of franchise sequels and reboots. The Legend of Halloween follows the iconic villain Michael Myers as he wreaks havoc on his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois, on Halloween night. Laurie Strode, originally portrayed by actress Jamie Lee Curtis, falls victim to the escaped killer, but manages to fight for her life and confront her new foe along the way. 

Through eerie rhymes and quirky illustrations emulating the unsettling nature of the classic horror journey, Green and Tukel craft a reimagined telling of the beloved source material for longtime fans and newcomers to the franchise. 

“Joining this iconic franchise has been one of the most fulfilling artistic endeavours of my career,” says David Gordon Green. “With this new chapter, we hope to share our own love for Halloween with a new generation of horror fanatics.” 

“I saw the original Halloween when I was about nine years old and it scared the wits out of me. I’ve seen it about fifty times since then and it continues to be my favorite horror film. The mask, the music, the indelible characters, the monologues of pure evil – to me it’s cinematic perfection,” said Onur Tukel. “Collaborating with David on a children’s book adaptation of Halloween has been demented and surreal, kind of like being simultaneously possessed by Dr. Seuss, Shel Silverstein and the demon Pazuza.” 

The Legend of Halloween is a fun take on what has now become one of the most iconic films in cinematic history, John Carpenter’s Halloween,” says Malek Akkad, President of Trancas International Films which has produced Halloween (2018) and the upcoming Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends. “The fans of these films have always been the driving force of the franchise, and I hope that they will appreciate this new book as much I do. It is fun for all generations of Halloween fans, young and old.” 

You can pre-order The Legend of Halloween at LegendofHalloween.com. The book is set for release in mid-November, and we’re told it should be expected to ship by December 1st.

Writer in the horror community since 2008. Editor in Chief of Bloody Disgusting. Owns Eli Roth's prop corpse from Piranha 3D. Has four awesome cats. Still plays with toys.

Books

‘The Angel of Indian Lake’ Book Review – Stephen Graham Jones Wraps Horror Lit’s Greatest Slasher Trilogy

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Angel of Indian Lake Slasher novel

With The Angel of Indian Lake, author Stephen Graham Jones tackles one of the most daunting tasks in horror: bringing a trilogy to a satisfying close. Making it even more challenging is that the final entry in Jones’ slasher trilogy endcaps two perfect entries in horror lit, with 2021’s My Heart is a Chainsaw recontextualizing the slasher formula and last year’s Don’t Fear the Reaper appropriately escalating the lore and carnage in a way that only an uber-slasher fan like Jones could.

It’s been four years since Jade Daniels stepped foot in Proofrock, Idaho. After saving the town once again and thwarting another deranged killer, Jade took the fall for her best friend and final girl, Letha. She already has a track record, after all, and Letha’s a family woman. Through Letha, Jade winds up in a place she least expected: teaching high school under the judging eyes of Proofrockers, who still blame Jade for not one but two waves of catastrophic slaughter. It doesn’t help that Jade’s return to town heralds a new reign of terror that threatens to destroy Proofrock for good. Between long-running grudges, serial killer cultists, mysterious disappearances, another wave of bizarre deaths, and that pesky Lake Witch, Jade’s return to Proofrock becomes a final stand for the town’s soul.

When the trilogy began, Jade was a troubled, lonely teen who clung to slashers like a life raft. She wore her encyclopedic knowledge of them like armor. But surviving two slashers herself, followed by two separate stints in prison and the stigma that followed, Jade returns to town a woman still navigating past traumas while trying to outgrow her adolescent defense mechanisms. But this is Proofrock, and that horror knowledge quickly proves to be necessary when one of her students goes missing, and the bodies start piling up from there. It helps that Jade’s best friend Letha won’t let her forget her horror roots or that she’s given Jade something to live for, especially where Letha’s daughter and final-girl-in-the-making Adie is concerned. While Jones’ extensive love of horror infuses every page, his heroine takes a bit to reacclimate, especially thanks to the horror she’s missed while serving time. 

The previous two novels have packed in quite a bit of supernatural and reality-based slasher terror and presented a robust suspect list from the outset. Moreover, two novels deep into Proofrock’s history and present means a lot of loose ends to tie up when it comes to its characters. Jones finds ways to deepen character arcs and flesh out Proofrock’s denizens further through nonstop horror action. Here, the red herrings can be as deadly and unhinged as the actual killer. Rampaging bears, forest fires, and supernatural happenings intercut the slasher carnage, and Jones finds creative ways to carve up an even bigger body count than before, complete with narrative twists and breezy, dialectical prose. It’s nonstop horror. Fans of the previous entries will know that’s saying a lot. Taboos get broken straightaway, and Jones continues his streak of killing his darlings; many of the deaths in this novel are devastating.

It’s impressive how Jones wields the horror as connective tissue, juggling so much Proofrock history and horror at once. But it pales in comparison to his final girl, Jade. Letha remains a force of nature, even more so considering her personal stakes here, but it’s Jade’s story. Now three novels deep, Jade has always struggled to see herself as a final girl. It’s a title she’s eager to bestow on women she deems worthy or more fitting of the archetypical role. As savvy and resilient as she is, Proofrock always had a way of blinding Jade to her own potential. The selfless way she’s saved the town over and over while taking all of the bodily damage and blowback with none of the credit is of course inherent to the final girls Jade loves so much. 

The Angel of Indian Lake’s greatest triumph isn’t its satisfying slasher mayhem but the way it proves that Jade was right all along. She’s a scrappy survivor, which by definition puts her in that coveted category of final girls. But she’s so much more than that. Jones closes the loop on so many facets of Proofrock and its characters, evolving Jade’s penchant to crown those she deems worthy of final girl status, reshaping the concept of a final girl in the process. Jade is more than just a final girl. She’s a symbolic mother of final girls, putting her life and body on the line to support others, arming them with the strength and knowledge to unleash their inner final girls. Proofrock has seen a copious amount of bloodshed over three novels, but thanks to Jade, an unprecedented number of final girls have risen to fight back in various ways. The way that The Angel of Indian Lake closes that loop is masterful, solidifying Jade Daniels’ poignant, profound legacy in the slasher realm.

Through Jade, Stephen Graham Jones delivers horror lit’s greatest slasher trilogy of all time.

The Angel of Indian Lake publishes on March 26, 2024.

4.5 out of 5 skulls

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