Credit: Universal Pictures / Miramax / Blumhouse ProductionsThere’s another Halloween reboot in development, which, this time, will arrive in the form of a TV series that will pave the way for a new movie and a wider cinematic universe. But as it currently stands, David Gordon Green’s trilogy remains the latest reboot in the franchise.
Halloween (2018), Halloween Kills (2021), and Halloween Ends (2022) ignore every sequel since John Carpenter’s original 1978 film, bringing the focus back to Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney), this time without them being related.
Was this a smart move? Opinions vary. Some fans happen to prefer the sibling plot device, while others feel that Green’s films didn’t do anything differently with the characters — after all, they still constantly gravitate towards one another, so they might as well still be siblings.
Nevertheless, canonically, the latest Halloween trilogy only acknowledges that original 1978 film — nothing else exists. Halloween II, the Thorn trilogy, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, and Halloween: Resurrection never happened. At least not in this Halloween timeline.
But this isn’t the first time Halloween has done this — the 1998 legacy sequel Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, which saw the return of Laurie Strode, was the first to drop a whole bunch of sequels from continuity (the Thorn trilogy‘s Halloween 4, 5, and 6).
However, in the same way you could “fit” the Thorn trilogy into H20‘s timeline (the 1998 sequel reveals that Laurie faked her own death, which could explain why she’s “dead” in the Thorn trilogy), Green’s Halloween trilogy could easily include 1981’s Halloween II as canon.
In fact, it kind of already does.
Halloween II (1981), which takes place the same night as its predecessor, was the first film to introduce the Laurie Strode/Michael Myers sibling storyline.
During the third act, Nurse Marion Chambers (Nancy Stephens) tells Dr. Samuel Loomis (Donald Pleasence) that Laurie Strode and Michael Myers are siblings, and that Laurie was raised by an adopted family to safeguard her identity after Michael was incarcerated for famously killing their older sister, Judith Myers.
Halloween (2018) wastes no time retconning this story element.
During a scene early in the film, in which Laurie Strode’s granddaughter Allyson Nelson (Andi Matichak) and her two friends, Vicky (Virginia Gardner) and Dave (Miles Robbins) are discussing Michael Myers’ 1978 killing spree, Allyson is asked whether Laurie and Michael are related, to which she replies, “That’s something that people made up to make themselves feel better.”
But why does the film even include this line? After all, the whole sibling thing wasn’t even mentioned in the original film. While it’s obvious the filmmakers are trying to let the audience know that anything after the 1978 film is no longer canon, what this scene actually winds up doing is acknowledging the 1981 sequel rather than ignoring it altogether.
Related: Does Michael Myers Actually Talk In ‘Halloween Kills’?!
We already know from the off-set that Halloween (2018) is forgetting everything since Carpenter’s classic, simply from the fact that Michael Myers has been incarcerated for 40 years as opposed to being blown to smithereens as seen at the end of Halloween II.
Thinking about it, it might have been a lot easier for David Gordon Green’s films to include Halloween II as canon from the get-go. With the exception of a dream sequence of Laurie and Michael as children, there’s zero evidence in the 1981 film that suggests they’re related.
In Halloween Kills, we also get a flashback of Annie Brackett’s body on a stretcher from Halloween II. The reason for this is lazy: the film reintroduces Sheriff Brackett (the late Charles Cyphers), who may as well look directly into the camera when he reminds the police that Michael Myers killed his daughter, Annie, 40 years ago.
But the filmmakers could have just shown footage of Annie being killed by Michael Myers (Nick Castle) in the 1978 film instead. Why confuse us even more by showing footage from a film you’ve told us to ignore?
This isn’t the only time Halloween Kills revisits that night in 1978 — it creates new flashback sequences that detail the events that follow the end of the original film, in which Michael Myers (Airon Armstrong) continues to terrorize Haddonfield even after being shot from a balcony by Loomis.
These scenes reinforce the fact that Halloween II is not canon — in that film, Michael also continues with his killing spree well into the early hours of the morning of November 1, but in the Kills‘ flashbacks, he’s swiftly arrested by the Haddonfield police.
Do you wish the think Halloween trilogy should have included Halloween II as canon? Let Inside the Magic know in the comments down below!