Editorials
You Can’t Kill the Boogeyman: What’s Next for the ‘Halloween’ Franchise After ‘Halloween Ends’?
It’s hard to keep a good Slasher down. With the cyclical nature of these movies being part of their appeal, it’s rare for studios to greenlight a definitive end to their popular franchises. For every Final Chapter and Final Nightmare, there’s a Jason Lives and New Nightmare to undo the conclusions of the past. Now that David Gordon Green’s Halloween Kills is bringing us one step closer to Halloween Ends, I’d like to take this opportunity to talk about what could be next for the Halloween franchise once this new trilogy is complete next year.
While I’ll always prefer original ideas and characters when it comes to horror (and I also appreciate it when long-running franchises recognize that it may be time to stop), it’s naïve to assume that Halloween Ends will really be the last time that we Michael Myers on the big screen. Even if the character does end up meeting his demise in that film, we’re always a simple reboot/remake/retcon away from a new entry in this 43-year-old series, and it wouldn’t be the first time that the William-Shatner-faced killer evaded death.
The real question here isn’t if we’ll be seeing more Halloween films in the future, but how these films might continue a story that seems headed towards a decisive finale. Personally, I think the answer lies in the franchise’s origins at the hands of John Carpenter. Nowadays, the original film’s ambiguous ending is often interpreted as an iconic case of sequel-bait, but the director never really intended to continue the story of Michael Myers. The killer’s unexplained disappearance was actually meant to imply that the boogeyman will live on forever in people’s minds, not that Michael would continue to stalk Laurie, though it was clear that audiences wanted more.
When approached by the sequel-hungry studio, Carpenter and producer Debra Hill originally pitched the idea of turning Halloween into an anthology franchise. With the 1978 film being modeled after the classic urban legend about a lunatic escaping from an insane asylum and proceeding to murder unsuspecting babysitters, it’s not that much of a stretch to imagine the franchise moving on to other horrific legends that might happen on All Hallows’ Eve.
Halloween is more than just Michael Myers!
Unfortunately, the studio would only try the anthology approach with Tommy Lee Wallace’s controversial Halloween III: Season of the Witch. The film has been re-evaluated over the years, but its off-beat story of pagan rituals and pumpkin-spice automatons was a bit too much for general audiences who just wanted more Michael Myers. This unconventional approach didn’t work back in 1982, especially when compared to the eerie simplicity of Carpenter’s original, but I think that that contemporary audiences are much more accepting of aging franchises experimenting with new formulas.
A completely unrelated story might still be a hard sell, but keeping a few familiar faces and locations could help to win over audiences. To me, a Trick ‘r Treat styled anthology flick with interconnected segments taking place in Haddonfield on Halloween Night seems like the most entertaining route that a future installment could take. Michael Myers wouldn’t even have to be completely removed from the picture, as the producers could have one of the stories still focus on the iconic killer or the aftermath of his murderous rampage. This would allow for a series of original Halloween yarns without completely alienating die-hard fans, and I wouldn’t mind watching several more sequels if they all presented us with new and exciting stories.
There is a small chance that Halloween Ends will kill off Michael for good, but there’s another option for potential sequels that might not want to veer too far from the traditional path. In the 2018 film, it’s revealed that the villainous Dr. Ranbir Sartain had become pathologically obsessed with Michael after attempting to analyze him, going so far as to commit murder in order to further his own studies. This twist may have been a little controversial, but it seemed to suggest that the killer’s madness is somehow contagious, kind of like that Friedrich Nietzsche quote about gazing into the abyss and having the abyss gaze back at you.
One of the best moments in the entire franchise!
Not only is this a fascinating concept in and of itself, but it also means that the franchise has opened the door for copycats and a possible next generation of boogeymen and women. There’s already a precedent for this in Halloween 4, with Danielle Harris’ Jamie Lloyd ultimately suffering from the same psychotic impulses as her murderous uncle and being set up as the family’s next killer. While that film’s sequels failed to deliver on this undeniably interesting premise, a replacement for Michael Myers is still on the table in David Gordon Green’s new mythology.
Of course, the most obvious (and arguably the easiest) approach for future sequels would be to simply refuse to explain Michael’s inevitable resurgence, ditching most of the established lore and fully embracing the killer’s status as the legendary boogeyman. Filmmakers could just assume that he’s a cyclical evil that has to be defeated again and again by different sets of unsuspecting characters, staying true to Carpenter’s original urban legend inspirations.
Michael’s questionable mortality has always been one of the most compelling aspects of the franchise, and focusing on his ambiguous nature would make it easier for him to once again become an unstoppable killing machine with no discernable motives. It would also eliminate the need for plot contrivances to explain how he’s still alive or why he’s hunting the new protagonists, allowing for more streamlined stories in a series that already has way too much baggage.
At the end of the day, there’s no real way of knowing which direction the franchise will take once this incarnation of the Myers story is over, but it’s fun to speculate about what might happen to Haddonfield and its unlucky denizens as we wait for Halloween Kills and its eventual sequel. After all, no matter how the story ultimately ends, we all know that there’s no stopping the boogeyman, and The Shape will keep getting up no matter how many times you shoot him.
Halloween Lives
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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