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.
Soon after the New Hollywood generation took over the entertainment industry, they started having children. And more than any filmmakers that came before—they were terrified. Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973), The Omen (1976), Eraserhead (1977), The Brood (1979), The Shining (1980), Possession (1981), and many others all deal, at least in part, with the fears of becoming or being a parent. What if my child turns out to be a monster? is corrupted by some evil force? or turns out to be the fucking Antichrist? What if I screw them up somehow, or can’t help them, or even go insane and try to kill them? Horror has always been at its best when exploring relatable fears through extreme circumstances. A prime example of this is Larry Cohen’s 1974 monster-baby movie It’s Alive, which explores the not only the rollercoaster of emotions that any parent experiences when confronted with the difficulties of raising a child, but long-standing questions of who or what is at fault when something goes horribly wrong.
Cohen begins making his underlying points early in the film as Frank Davis (John P. Ryan) discusses the state of the world with a group of expectant fathers in a hospital waiting room. They discuss the “overabundance of lead” in foods and the environment, smog, and pesticides that only serve to produce roaches that are “bigger, stronger, and harder to kill.” Frank comments that this is “quite a world to bring a kid into.” This has long been a discussion point among people when trying to decide whether to have kids or not. I’ve had many conversations with friends who have said they feel it’s irresponsible to bring children into such a violent, broken, and dangerous world, and I certainly don’t begrudge them this. My wife and I did decide to have children but that doesn’t mean that it’s been easy.
Immediately following this scene comes It’s Alive’s most famous sequence in which Frank’s wife Lenore (Sharon Farrell) is the only person left alive in her delivery room, the doctors clawed and bitten to death by her mutant baby, which has escaped. “What does my baby look like!? What’s wrong with my baby!?” she screams as nurses wheel her frantically into a recovery room. The evening that had begun with such joy and excitement at the birth of their second child turned into a nightmare. This is tough for me to write, but on some level, I can relate to this whiplash of emotion. When my second child was born, they came about five weeks early. I’ll use the pronouns “they/them” for privacy reasons when referring to my kids. Our oldest was still very young and went to stay with my parents and we sped off to the hospital where my wife was taken into an operating room for an emergency c-section. I was able to carry our newborn into the NICU (natal intensive care unit) where I was assured that this was routine for all premature births. The nurses assured me there was nothing to worry about and the baby looked big and healthy. I headed to where my wife was taken to recover to grab a few winks assuming that everything was fine. Well, when I awoke, I headed back over to the NICU to find that my child was not where I left them. The nurse found me and told me that the baby’s lungs were underdeveloped, and they had to put them in a special room connected to oxygen tubes and wires to monitor their vitals.
It’s difficult to express the fear that overwhelmed me in those moments. Everything turned out okay, but it took a while and I’m convinced to this day that their anxiety struggles spring from these first weeks of life. As our children grew, we learned that two of the three were on the spectrum and that anxiety, depression, ADHD, and OCD were also playing a part in their lives. Parents, at least speaking for myself, can’t help but blame themselves for the struggles their children face. The “if only” questions creep in and easily overcome the voices that assure us that it really has nothing to do with us. In the film, Lenore says, “maybe it’s all the pills I’ve been taking that brought this on.” Frank muses aloud about how he used to think that Frankenstein was the monster, but when he got older realized he was the one that made the monster. The aptly named Frank is wondering if his baby’s mutation is his fault, if he created the monster that is terrorizing Los Angeles. I have made plenty of “if only” statements about myself over the years. “If only I hadn’t had to work so much, if only I had been around more when they were little.” Mothers may ask themselves, “did I have a drink, too much coffee, or a cigarette before I knew I was pregnant? Was I too stressed out during the pregnancy?” In other words, most parents can’t help but wonder if it’s all their fault.
At one point in the film, Frank goes to the elementary school where his baby has been sighted and is escorted through the halls by police. He overhears someone comment about “screwed up genes,” which brings about age-old questions of nature vs. nurture. Despite the voices around him from doctors and detectives that say, “we know this isn’t your fault,” Frank can’t help but think it is, and that the people who try to tell him it isn’t really think it’s his fault too. There is no doubt that there is a hereditary element to the kinds of mental illness struggles that my children and I deal with. But, and it’s a bit but, good parenting goes a long way in helping children deal with these struggles. Kids need to know they’re not alone, a good parent can provide that, perhaps especially parents that can relate to the same kinds of struggles. The question of nature vs. nurture will likely never be entirely answered but I think there’s more than a good chance that “both/and” is the case. Around the midpoint of the film, Frank agrees to disown the child and sign it over for medical experimentation if caught or killed. Lenore and the older son Chris (Daniel Holzman) seek to nurture and teach the baby, feeling that it is not a monster, but a member of the family.
It’s Alive takes these ideas to an even greater degree in the fact that the Davis Baby really is a monster, a mutant with claws and fangs that murders and eats people. The late ’60s and early ’70s also saw the rise in mass murderers and serial killers which heightened the nature vs. nurture debate. Obviously, these people were not literal monsters but human beings that came from human parents, but something had gone horribly wrong. Often the upbringing of these killers clearly led in part to their antisocial behavior, but this isn’t always the case. It’s Alive asks “what if a ‘monster’ comes from a good home?” In this case is it society, environmental factors, or is it the lead, smog, and pesticides? It is almost impossible to know, but the ending of the film underscores an uncomfortable truth—even monsters have parents.
As the film enters its third act, Frank joins the hunt for his child through the Los Angeles sewers and into the L.A. River. He is armed with a rifle and ready to kill on sight, having divorced himself from any relationship to the child. Then Frank finds his baby crying in the sewers and his fatherly instincts take over. With tears in his eyes, he speaks words of comfort and wraps his son in his coat. He holds him close, pats and rocks him, and whispers that everything is going to be okay. People often wonder how the parents of those who perform heinous acts can sit in court, shed tears, and defend them. I think it’s a complex issue. I’m sure that these parents know that their child has done something evil, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are still their baby. Your child is a piece of yourself formed into a whole new human being. Disowning them would be like cutting off a limb, no matter what they may have done. It doesn’t erase an evil act, far from it, but I can understand the pain of a parent in that situation. I think It’s Alive does an exceptional job placing its audience in that situation.
Despite the serious issues and ideas being examined in the film, It’s Alive is far from a dour affair. At heart, it is still a monster movie and filled with a sense of fun and a great deal of pitch-black humor. In one of its more memorable moments, a milkman is sucked into the rear compartment of his truck as red blood mingles with the white milk from smashed bottles leaking out the back of the truck and streaming down the street. Just after Frank agrees to join the hunt for his baby, the film cuts to the back of an ice cream truck with the words “STOP CHILDREN” emblazoned on it. It’s a movie filled with great kills, a mutant baby—created by make-up effects master Rick Baker early in his career, and plenty of action—and all in a PG rated movie! I’m telling you, the ’70s were wild. It just also happens to have some thoughtful ideas behind it as well.
Which was Larry Cohen’s specialty. Cohen made all kinds of movies, but his most enduring have been his horror films and all of them tackle the social issues and fears of the time they were made. God Told Me To (1976), Q: The Winged Serpent (1982), and The Stuff (1985) are all great examples of his socially aware, low-budget, exploitation filmmaking with a brain and It’s Alive certainly fits right in with that group. Cohen would go on to write and direct two sequels, It Lives Again (aka It’s Alive 2) in 1978 and It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive in 1987 and is credited as a co-writer on the 2008 remake. All these films explore the ideas of parental responsibility in light of the various concerns of the times they were made including abortion rights and AIDS.
Fifty years after It’s Alive was initially released, it has only become more relevant in the ensuing years. Fears surrounding parenthood have been with us since the beginning of time but as the years pass the reasons for these fears only seem to become more and more profound. In today’s world the conversation of the fathers in the waiting room could be expanded to hormones and genetic modifications in food, terrorism, climate change, school and other mass shootings, and other threats that were unknown or at least less of a concern fifty years ago. Perhaps the fearmongering conspiracy theories about chemtrails and vaccines would be mentioned as well, though in a more satirical fashion, as fears some expectant parents encounter while endlessly doomscrolling Facebook or Twitter. Speaking for myself, despite the struggles, the fears, and the sadness that sometimes comes with having children, it’s been worth it. The joys ultimately outweigh all of that, but I understand the terror too. Becoming a parent is no easy choice, nor should it be. But as I look back, I can say that I’m glad we made the choice we did.
I wonder if Frank and Lenore can say the same thing.
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