Editorials
‘Halloween: The Missing Years’ Would’ve Explored Where Michael Was During ‘Halloween III’ [Phantom Limbs]
phantom limb /ˈfan(t)əm’lim/ n. an often painful sensation of the presence of a limb that has been amputated.
Welcome to Phantom Limbs, a recurring feature which will take a look at intended yet unproduced horror sequels and remakes – extensions to genre films we love, appendages to horror franchises that we adore – that were sadly lopped off before making it beyond the planning stages. Here, we will be chatting with the creators of these unmade extremities to gain their unique insight into these follow-ups that never were, with the discussions standing as hopefully illuminating but undoubtedly painful reminders of what might have been.
For this entry, we’ll be looking at Halloween: The Missing Years, an unproduced entry in the Halloween franchise that was meant to follow up 2002’s Halloween: Resurrection before Rob Zombie ultimately rebooted the series with his 2007 remake. Returning to Phantom Limbs is Jake Wade Wall, the screenwriter who previously discussed his unproduced sequel When a Stranger Returns, who was kind enough to chat about his involvement with The Missing Years for us. During this talk, Mr. Wall outlines the origins of this project, details its story, and discusses why this outing for The Shape ultimately never happened.
So where exactly did this particular project begin? “I had been hired to do a draft of Resurrection. I was working with an exec over there, Nick Phillips. We were both incredibly enthusiastic about the franchise, and really excited by it. We were just nerds about it, and would talk about Halloween constantly. We knew every character, every death. It’s one of my favorite franchises. After turning in Resurrection, I was told that there was kind of an internal, ‘Let’s press pause on where the franchise goes next’ [approach]. So I had come up with the idea for The Missing Years, and basically said, ‘Hey, it’s a completely different direction, but maybe this is the shot in the arm it needs to keep the franchise going, but in a different direction.’ They responded to my take, they hired me, and I wrote it. I was really excited about the prospect of that one. A year or two after finishing that script, it was decided internally, ‘No, let’s hire Rob and just do a remake.’ The Missing Years would have been the last of that franchise before it was remade.”
‘Halloween III: Season of the Witch’ (1982)
Mr. Wall continues, noting that this is the most he’s ever discussed this project and its story. “Halloween III was my inspiration. We have Halloween and Halloween II, and it’s Mike Myers, and it’s Laurie. Halloween III comes out in the theatres, and it has nothing to do with any of them. So then the franchise picks back up [with Halloween 4]. For years, I thought ‘Where was [Michael] that year? When we saw Season of the Witch, where did he go?’ So the whole concept of Halloween: The Missing Years, was to fill in where he was during Season of the Witch. That was the concept of, ‘How can we, for the diehard fans, tie Season of the Witch into the franchise?’
“The concept was this: If Halloween is ‘The Night He Came Home’, I started to think – ‘Wait a minute. Yeah, okay, that’s the night he came home. But his real home was the asylum. That’s where he really grew up.’ So the concept of The Missing Years was to begin the film by exploring a bit of his childhood in the asylum, and kind of fill in some of the pieces we didn’t know about him. Like, ‘Why specifically that mask?’, and just kind of fill in some of the fun lore that came specifically from that institution. So then the concept would be – cut to the present (back then, of course) when Season of the Witch is unfolding. I never did address it specifically, that film, but I filled in that there was a missing year that he didn’t come home, so where did he go? He went to Smith’s Grove. He went to his real home. He was returning back to what was essentially the place he grew up during his formative years. It was basically going to be him wreaking havoc on this asylum. It was a lot of fun. I thought it was an interesting, fun way for the Halloween nerds like me, the crazy fans to tie it all in and still establish a new home for Mike, a new place for him to wreak havoc.”
Had The Missing Years been made and proved to be a success, would there have a plan for more direct follow-ups? More “Missing Years” to explore? “That was precisely what we continuously racked our brains over. One school of thought was, ‘Oh, okay, we can now get four movies out of Mike Myers wreaking havoc in Smith’s Grove.’ There was also talk of specifically ending Missing Years where it completely lays the way for Halloween 4. There was talk to do it both ways. Since the script never got made, there’s no way of knowing what would’ve been agreed upon.” Would there have been an explanation as to what happened to him after the fiery conclusion of Halloween II? Would he have gotten another Shatner mask, or would he have been walking around maskless and burnt to a crisp? While Mr. Wall doesn’t go into great detail as to the story specifics, he does note that Michael would have been The Shape that we all know and love. “He did get the same mask back. It was too iconic not to. [But Halloween II’s ending and its fallout] was addressed.
The fiery conclusion of ‘Halloween II’ (1981)
“I took pieces – little sub-characters, little beats, moments that never got addressed for those of us that are avid fans – and thought, ‘Here are the breadcrumbs.’ So for me, the breadcrumbs that we were going to explore in the asylum years were the loose ends in all of the Halloweens that had been made up until that point. I wanted it to be a thread. It wasn’t arbitrary – ‘Oh, now we’re going to do some some asylum kills.’ I wanted to have a compelling reason for Smith’s Grove to also be a home for him. At the end of II, when he’s burnt and in need of real care, that’s what switches the psyche off. He knows where he can actually get care, and that’s his real home.”
Would the Thorn mythology from Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, and the idea from that film that the doctors of Smith’s Grove were part of a cult that protected Michael, have played any role in The Missing Years? “I left that alone. Look, I’ve enjoyed every single one of the Halloween films, but I know that some of them can be polarizing for fans. So I wanted to stick with the mythology and the backstory that I found that the general audience wouldn’t find polarizing. The concept of ‘He’s pure evil’, for me, was enough. That’s what I always thought was so frightening about those films in the beginning. That, ‘Could someone literally just be born bad?’ I think that’s why people love those movies. He’s literally the Boogeyman. So I didn’t want to address [the Halloween 6 mythology]. But I will say this – in the script, we did play around with still going back to Haddonfield, where everyone is like ‘Oh god, it’s going to happen again.’ And I also wanted to trick the audience into thinking ‘Oh yes, it is.’ But oh no, they actually get a Halloween off. Everyone is pleasantly surprised while hell is happening in Smith’s Grove.”
A bandaged Myers in the opening moments of ‘Halloween 4’ (1988)
So without benefit of a Thorn cult awaiting him at the asylum, why was it that an injured Michael felt compelled to return to Smith’s Grove? “There was a nurse there, an RN, that he was very, very fond of. In the script, she was the one person that, for whatever reason, didn’t treat him like a monster. She treated him like a human. I thought that would be interesting to play with, that there is something within him that can remember kindness. Like I said before, ‘Can someone be purely evil?’ That’s the whole debate of a good horror film, and of Myers. And I just thought, if we were going to take the opportunity to fill in the missing year, and fill in the other half of his psyche, I thought it would be very interesting to play with ‘Could there be a bit of compassion in [him]?’ Now, as a fan? No. But in the movie, I wanted to play with that for a moment, at least.”
Given the timeline, would Sam Loomis have figured into the story? Or perhaps any other familiar characters from the earlier films? Were there any planned Easter eggs for fans of the franchise? “Oh, absolutely. Like I was saying before about the breadcrumbs. Loomis was in there. The EMT [Jimmy] from Halloween II. I took any one of the films up until this point where there had been a survivor, where they played some part in these missing years. That maybe or maybe not led to how they survived or why they survived. Or it could have been arbitrary. But I wanted to play with that concept.”
Would the film have been more of an exercise in suspense like the Carpenter original, or more of a bloodier slasher film like some of the later sequels? “I love that first film, and the suspense of it. My thought was, if we’re taking Michael Myers into a realm that we haven’t seen before – we’re gonna see him in the asylum, we’re gonna fill in these missing years, we’re gonna fill in what else was important to him, what else shaped him – I thought that would give us the opportunity to make it more suspenseful. Sometimes in slasher films, they can get redundant and it just becomes about the new clever death. Although I love those, and I wanted a couple of those in here, I thought it would give us an opportunity to lean into that approach and make it more suspenseful.”
The Shape in Rob Zombie’s ‘Halloween’ (2007)
Ultimately, why did Dimension go forward with remaking the original Carpenter movie, as opposed to doing the prequel? “I do remember, with the execs that I was working with, there was some talk that they were going to go out to Rob Zombie to direct. I don’t know if that’s accurate or not. But from there it became, from the higher ups, ‘Let’s do a remake.’”
In finishing up our chat, Mr. Wall gave his final thoughts on this sadly unproduced film. “I just had a blast with it. I loved being able to have the freedom to say ‘I’m going to honor everyone else’, but I want to tell a different version of this man’s psyche. It was such an interesting exploration. No one experience makes or breaks us. It’s a multitude of experiences. So I thought very firmly that there was more that made Michael Myers who he was, and I really wanted to get into that.”
Very special thanks to Jake Wade Wall for his time and insights.
Additional thanks to BD reader DaikaijuX for the heads up on this story.
It’s been 75 years since The Thing From Another World first warned us to “watch the skies”, and filmgoers have done just that by showing up to multiple instances of extraterrestrial contact on the big screen. This makes sense, as a recent CBS news poll estimated that 63% of Americans believe in intelligent life on other planets, and the ongoing disclosure movement aims to raise that number with each passing day.
With Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day leaving many genre fans hungry for more alien footage (preferably of the spooky variety), today I’d like to share a list recommending six underrated alien invasion thrillers for your viewing pleasure. After all, regardless of whether or not you believe that we’re alone in the universe, it can be fun to dream about the worst-case scenario if our cosmic neighbors ever decide to visit.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be focusing on lesser-known invasion stories rather than the popular extraterrestrials of franchises like Alien and Close Encounters of the Third (or even Fourth) Kind. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own alien favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling movie.
While it won’t be featured in this article, I’d highly recommend checking out Dean Alioto’s UFO Abduction/The McPherson Tape if you’re up for some ufology-inspired found footage thrills.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. The Arrival (1996)
Not to be confused with Denis Villeneuve’s Academy Award-winning Amy Adams vehicle about learning to communicate peacefully with extraterrestrial life, David Twohy’s The Arrival is a much more straightforward (but no less entertaining) genre romp where Charlie Sheen faces a global conspiracy involving hostile alien invaders.
It’s not exactly up there with Close Encounters or even Independence Day, but Twohy’s conspiratorial thriller plays out like an exceptionally fun episode of The X-Files that I’d recommend to sci-fi/horror fans who don’t mind a little bit of wonky CGI and 90s excess alongside their alien thrills.
5. Extraterrestrial (2014)
The Vicious Brothers made a name for themselves with the success of 2011’s Grave Encounters, but that was far from the Canadian duo’s only collaboration. And while it’s not exactly a fan favorite, I always point out 2014’s Extraterrestrial as one of their most underrated projects simply because I agree with the filmmakers’ opinion that there aren’t enough ‘cool alien abduction movies’ out there.
Admittedly, the majority of the picture functions like a run-of-the-mill creature feature with paper-thin characters and familiar horror tropes, but I’d argue that the cosmically-terrifying final act elevates the experience to new and memorable heights. The movie also boasts great performances by both Michael Ironside and Emily Perkins – a combination that more than makes up for the occasionally janky CGI.
4. Alien Raiders (2008)
Director Ben Rock has gone on record lamenting how his John-Carpenter-inspired creature feature was forcefully renamed from Supermarket to the painfully obvious Alien Raiders (a change which likely resulted in many potential viewers skipping out on the experience), but the new title doesn’t change the fact that this single-location thriller is something of a hidden gem.
Taking place entirely within a supermarket, Alien Raiders tells the story of an ensemble of customers and employees who are taken hostage by a group of armed men looking for something far more dangerous than an easy payout. I won’t get into details in order to avoid spoiling the experience, but I’d highly recommend this criminally underseen flick to fans of John Carpenter and the Resident Evil games.
3. Phoenix Forgotten (2017)
You’d think that a Ridley-Scott-produced retelling of one of the most infamous real-life UFO sightings of all time would have a bigger following, but I rarely see Justin Barber’s Found Footage period piece brought up during discussions about extraterrestrial-focused horror movies.
This is a huge shame, as Phoenix Forgotten is just as spooky as it is convincing, with this well-researched dive into the Phoenix Lights incident benefiting from surprisingly believable special effects as well as an appropriately horrific finale.
2. Communion (1989)
I wouldn’t blame you for disregarding Whitley Strieber’s controversial book about his alleged close encounter as sensationalist slop, but I’d argue that Phillipe Mora’s 1989 adaptation of these events is much better than the source material. After all, the movie works as a standalone piece of speculative fiction while also benefiting from an incredible performance by the one and only Christopher Walken!
Mora’s take on Communion may not be particularly scary, but the film is still an unforgettable character study regardless of whether or not the abduction really happened. Not only that, but the flick also paved the way for plenty of future sci-fi stories where the extraterrestrial invaders aren’t as evil as they initially appear.
1. Altered (2006)
Originally envisioned as a Sam Raimi-style horror-comedy titled Probed, Eduardo Sánchez (of The Blair Witch Project fame) eventually realized that it would be much more interesting to turn the film into a serious exploration of the emotional aftermath of a traumatic abduction incident.
That’s how we got Altered, a clever inversion of the standard abduction narrative that follows a group of troubled friends as they capture and experiment on an alien in order to enact revenge for their own abduction years prior.
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