The horror genre has offered countless now-iconic performers their breakout roles, with it arguably being too difficult to name the most significant instance. Even just looking at the Halloween franchise, actors like Jamie Lee Curtis, Paul Rudd, Josh Hartnett, Michelle Williams, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt can all credit the slasher series with giving them their start.
Any actor who gets their start in a horror movie will often speak fondly of the experience, even if that breakout role came in a flop. However, not everyone who attempted to kickstart their career with a horror movie remembers the experience so fondly, as is the case with Tyra Banks and Halloween: Resurrection.
During a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Banks was asked if she had any fondness for the experience more than two decades later, to which she bluntly replied, “No … Not even a little bit. Like, not even a tiny bit.”
It’s hard to fault her, to be fair. Anyone reflecting on the accomplishments of the John Carpenter and Debra Hill-created franchise typically ranks Resurrection as the series’ lowpoint, which is impressive considering we’ve gotten 13 installments since 1978.
Even at the time of filming, Banks was doubtful that it was a worthwhile pursuit, though she claims her agent highlighted how a Halloween movie helped jumpstart that career of one of her peers.
“I was like, ‘I’m not going to do that.’ What is it going to do for my career? I’m a model, and I need to do things that are kind of different to get this acting career that I want,” Banks remembered telling her agent. “He was like, ‘No, Josh Hartnett did Halloween, and look what he’s doing now!’”
Of all of the horror franchises out there, Halloween‘s legacy and its on-screen continuity is one of the most confusing.
After Halloween II, the series tried to move on from Michael Myers with Halloween III: Season of the Witch, but when that movie disappointed, the franchise attempted to course-correct with Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. After earning another two sequels, the series tried to similarly course-correct and retcon everything after Halloween II by bringing Laurie Strode back into the mix. Halloween H20: 20 Years Later was a modest success, but even Curtis wanted out of the franchise after that, with Resurrection opening with Michael finally killing Laurie.
Resurrection then pivoted away from Laurie entirely and introduced an online reality show in which Dangertainment brought participants to Michael’s old house. As you can imagine, he returned on Halloween night, killing off the intruders.
Banks played a producer on the show, with her character killed off-screen.
“Not only did it not do anything for me, they cut the damn death scene,” Banks point out. She joked that she was “promised the career of Josh Hartnett, of an actor, and promised an iconic death scene that will last forever, and neither of them happened.”
There are currently multiple reports about the future of the Halloween franchise, both on the big-screen and as a TV series, though there are no solid updates on what could come next.
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