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.
College kids, strippers and vampires—those were Donald P. Borchers’ only requirements when he approached Richard Wenk about writing and directing a movie for New World Pictures. As requested, Wenk cooked up Vamp (1986), a tailor-made blend of the decade’s teen movie craze as well as its horror boom.
Grim and earnest stories were still very much a part of the ’80s horror landscape, yet Vamp is something of a comedy. One difference between it and, say, Saturday the 14th, though, is the former avoids using schtick. Wenk’s movie proves that horror comedies also don’t have to subtract thrills from their recipes. Of course, it takes a minute before reaching that point; college antics and culture shocks preface this one macabre misadventure.
Vamp‘s initial setup is apt for a typical college-set, sex-driven comedy; to bribe their way into a fraternity house, two pledges (Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler) go looking for some adult entertainment. Without wasting time on any further exposition, the characters embark on an all-in-one-night trip that quickly detours into terror.
To procure their elusive MacGuffin—a stripper willing to gyrate for some frat boys—Keith (Makepeace) and AJ (Rusler), plus a third wheel named Duncan (Gedee Watanabe), trade the safety of their remote college campus for the seediness of some unnamed city. The setting is recognizably L.A. by day, but as soon as night falls, downtown, along with the characters, slips into a kind of surreal universe. Director of photography Elliot Davis gave this early entry on his prolific résumé an unusual yet distinctive look; that Mario Bava-esque, magenta-green lighting is omnipresent, so much so that it’s almost its own character.
Chris Makepeace and Robert Rusler in Vamp
The faint comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours are merited, although not just because of Vamp’s distinguishing nighttime aesthetic. Save for the primary characters, the supporting roles in Wenk’s movie are also quite colorful and transactional in their behavior. The difference here, though, is the additional urge to ruin Keith and his friends at every turn. Some of that harm is humorous and tolerable enough, whereas the moment Vamp dishes out its first fatality, it’s abundantly clear how this movie qualifies as horror.
Vamp falls into that category of horror movie that reveals its genre with a scream rather than a series of whispers. The opening scene can function as a hint of what lies ahead—things are not at all what they appear to be—but otherwise, Wenk is more than happy to hold off on the horror. When that time does come, though, it catches the viewer off guard. In addition to the pure shock value is that sudden decision to upend the movie’s foremost feature. Or so it would seem.
If afraid of major spoilage, those new to Vamp would be wise to stop reading here. There’s just no skirting around the fact that the central fellowship in this buddy movie hits a serious snag when AJ is killed. That development causes the story to become more of a “long, bad night” journey for Keith and his romantic interest. So while Wenk scores points for subverting expectations, there is also a touch of sadness in his decision. Because if Vamp does anything well, it’s making the characters likable.
Something that comes easily to Vamp—and other teen horror movies from this same era—is its ability to invent young characters worth caring about, or at the very least, are interesting and not so immediately off-putting. More impressive is how Wenk did all this without actually fleshing out those characters. Still and all, Keith and his kind are a grade above cookie-cutter, and in some cases, aren’t completely devoid of growth.
Grace Jones in Vamp
Vamp appeals with an assorted cast of characters. No two are the same, nor are they operating on the same wavelength. The cinematically extroverted AJ, whose actor conveyed charm and vulnerability in near equal amounts, comes alive when he’s at his most undead. Makepeace then makes the chronically cautious Keith a sympathetic fellow, even as he’s more and more affected by the night’s bizarre events. Meanwhile, Duncan is indeed the designated loser of the whole bunch, but Watanabe still manages to humanize him. As a bonus, the role didn’t require him to pull a Long Duk Dong.
As for Dedee Pfeiffer, she is plain adorable as the mysterious After Dark server nicknamed “Amaretto”. She spends all night fixing her dress strap while at the same time trying to get Keith to remember how he knows her. As their offbeat romance grows, it becomes another highlight of this movie. Whether or not Pfeiffer’s character is really a vampire also creates some welcome tension in the story.
Like a lot of its contemporaries, Vamp went on to become a bit of a cult classic. That current status is determined by several factors, but without a doubt, the casting of Grace Jones is the most considerable. The image of her writhing on that unique-looking chair, a Keith Haring original, springs to mind whenever this movie is brought up.
Chris Makepeace, Billy Drago and Paunita Nichols in Vamp
Prior to that first display of unequivocal horror, local vampire queen Katrina (Jones) took to the stage and delivered a strip show like no other. One would expect nothing less from that renowned model and performance artist. By now reports of Jones’ tardiness on set are no secret, yet it’s also hard to deny her commitment to the part of Katrina. It was, in fact, Jones who took charge of her character’s appearance—on top of Haring painting her body and that now-iconic chair, she had Andy Warhol handle her costuming. And not too many actors could seize a room’s attention without saying a single line of dialogue.
In 2022, Vamp received a retrospective novelization from Encyclopocalypse. This literary union of preexisting source material—Wenk’s original screenplay—and new ideas from author Christian Francis amounts to a more comprehensive visit to the After Dark Club. The basic story there is no different than what’s shown on screen; however, Francis gets creative with the characters’ origins and designs, and he enhances a number of key scenes.
The novelization expands on the urban and social decay of the main setting, and supplies a background for the After Dark Club. Sandy Baron’s character, Katrina’s emcee and familiar, is given ample motivation for sticking around; up until the fiery end, he is loyal to his friend and former business partner “Squeak”, who looks like he was “fed through a combine harvester, and left as nothing more than a heap of mangled remains”. Then there is Billy Drago’s character Snow, the leader of a street gang called The Dragons. His reason for menacing Keith and AJ is more altruistic than in the movie; he and his peers act tough to scare off any potential food for the vampires.
Lisa Lyon in Vamp
If not for all the backstories, Francis’ Vamp would be a hell of a lot shorter. Instead, this tie-in read dives into how AJ met Keith—the orphaned Anthony Joseph hailed from a broken home back in Brooklyn—and how their friendship flourished over the years. Keith’s archership is no longer just an assumed part of his entire being; it’s a confidence-building extracurricular for a boy who got picked on before coming into the protection of the new kid in town. These supplemental, in-depth looks at the protagonists, plus their close connection, are maybe unnecessary. The movie already did a fair and concise job of addressing their platonic intimacy without the need for flashbacks and insights, specifically in that scene where AJ lays it all out as he sacrifices himself.
Where the novelization gets off course is its approach to the minor characters. Intermittently backstorying the likes of Katrina’s indentured servants, Seko (Leila Hee Olsen) and Vlad (Brad Logan), ends up disturbing the flow of the writing. Was it absolutely essential that readers know Vlad was the Grand Duke of the House of Romanov, or how Snow’s accomplice Maven (Paunita Nichols) became so dentally challenged? No, not really. However, one’s mileage with these random biographies may vary.
The novelization is a more substantial experience, but for a movie like Vamp, less is more. And as plentiful as they are, it never simply coasts on its campy charms, either. The character work sits comfortably in that realm between cursory and meticulous, the script is sharper than first realized, and Greg Cannom’s vampire makeup is straightforward yet effective. Most of all, the movie didn’t squander its out-of-the-box concept. Richard Wenk made his vision of a “comic nightmare in which just about anything that can go wrong does” come true, and it is very enjoyable.
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