Halloween (2007 film)

On Halloween in Haddonfield, Illinois, having already exhibited signs of psychopathic tendencies, ten-year-old Michael Myers murders school bully Wesley Rhoades, his older sister Judith, her boyfriend Steve Haley, and his mother's abusive boyfriend Ronnie White out of revenge. He only spares his infant sister, Angel. After one of the longest trials in the state's history, Michael is found guilty of first-degree murder and sent to Smith's Grove Sanitarium under the care of child psychologist Dr. Samuel Loomis.

Michael initially cooperates with Loomis, and his mother Deborah, who he dearly loves the most, visits him regularly. Over the following year, Michael becomes dissociative, fixating on papier-mâché masks and withdrawing from the people around him, even his mother. When Michael kills a nurse as Deborah is leaving from one of her visits, she is unable to handle the situation and commits suicide.

For the next 15 years, Michael continues making his masks and not speaking to people. Loomis, having continued to treat Michael over the years, attempts to move forward with his life and closes Michael's case. Later, Michael escapes from Smith's Grove, killing the guards and hospital staff in the process. He then kills a truck driver for his clothes and makes his way back to Haddonfield. On Halloween, Michael arrives at his now-abandoned childhood home, where he recovers the kitchen knife and Halloween mask he stored under the floorboards the night he killed his sister.

Laurie Strode and her acquaintances Annie Brackett and Lynda Van Der Klok prepare for Halloween. Throughout the day, Laurie witnesses Michael watching her from a distance. Later that night, Lynda meets up with her boyfriend Bob Simms at Michael's abandoned home. Michael appears, murders them, and then heads to the Strode home. There, while Laurie is babysitting Tommy Doyle, he murders her parents, Mason and Cynthia. Dr. Loomis, having been alerted of Michael's escape, arrives in Haddonfield looking for Michael. After obtaining a handgun, Loomis attempts to warn Sheriff Leigh Brackett that Michael has returned to Haddonfield. Loomis and Brackett head to the Strode home, with Brackett explaining along the way that Laurie is really Michael's baby sister, having been adopted by the Strodes following their mother's suicide.

After convincing Laurie to babysit Lindsey Wallace while spending time with her boyfriend Paul, Annie is attacked by Michael after he kills Paul at the Wallace residence. Bringing Lindsey home, Laurie finds Annie badly injured on the floor but still alive and calls for help. Michael attacks Laurie and chases her back to the Doyle residence. Loomis and Brackett hear the call over the radio and head toward the Wallace residence. Michael kidnaps Laurie and takes her back to their old home. He tries to show Laurie that she is his sister, presenting a picture of them with their mother. Unable to understand, Laurie stabs Michael before escaping the house. Michael chases after her, but Loomis arrives and shoots him three times.

Recovering, Michael recaptures Laurie and heads back to the house. Loomis intervenes, but Michael subdues him by gouging at his eyes. Laurie takes the gun and runs upstairs, but Michael corners her on a balcony and charges her head-on, knocking both of them over the railing. Laurie awakens on top of an unconscious Michael. Laurie aims the gun at Michael, with Michael's hand grabbing her wrist just as the gun is fired.

After the release of Halloween: Resurrection (2002), there were various ideas on how to proceed with a ninth installment. After the release of Freddy vs. Jason in 2003, Dimension Films attempted to produce a crossover with the Hellraiser franchise featuring Pinhead and the Cenobites. One of the pitches involved a young Michael Myers opening the Lament Configuration and being possessed with Samhain fleeing from Hell, providing the source of his murderousness and invincibility; the remainder of the film would have involved the Cenobites pursuing him.[6] An earlier pitch from the late 90s from Dave Parker was rejected by Dimension, as they believed Freddy vs. Jason would bomb at the box office.[7][8] According to Doug Bradley, Clive Barker agreed to write a script while John Carpenter was being considered to direct.[9] Bradley said that Barker "wasn't interested in a mano-a-mano confrontation. He was interested in finding the places where the Hellraiser and Halloween landscapes might have crossed over" and that he envisioned Michael Myers as "a sadomasochistic sexual pervert and serial killer which would be enough to pique Pinhead's interest."[10] The project was ultimately cancelled after 52 percent of respondents to an online poll disapproved of the project and Moustapha Akkad was not interested.[6]

Akkad continued to try to develop a sequel. Josh Stolberg, who also unsuccessfully proposed a Hellraiser crossover with Bobby Florsheim, pitched Halloween: Bad Blood, which would have brought back Jamie Lloyd.[11] A 2004 script from screenwriting duo Jim Keeble and Dudi Appleton, titled Halloween: Retribution, would have begun with Michael killing Busta Rhymes's character Freddie Harris and involved Laurie Strode's son John Tate and Sheriff Leigh Brackett plotting to kill Michael Myers in revenge for her death in the previous film; the film would have ended with Tate drowning Michael in a frozen lake but implying that he would take his place as a murderous killer.[12][13] Also in 2004, a script from Matt Veene, entitled Halloween: Asylum, had Michael Myers breaking free from death row.[7][11] Another prospective screenplay written by Jake Wade Wall was Halloween: The Missing Years, which would have been a prequel centered around Michael Myers returning to Smith's Grove Sanitarium in the early 1980s during the events of Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), with flashbacks revealing details about his childhood at the asylum after murdering his sister in the 1960s.[14][15] At the same time Moustapha Akkad and his son Malek were working on a story revolving around Dr. Wynn from Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995). Development on a direct sequel suddenly halted when Moustapha Akkad was killed in the 2005 Amman hotel bombings while attending a wedding in Jordan, and his son Malek decided to take the series in a different direction.[16][17]

On June 4, 2006, Dimension Films announced that Rob Zombie would be creating the next installment in the Halloween film series.[18] The plan was for Zombie to hold many positions in the production; he would write, direct, produce, and serve as music supervisor.[18] Bob Weinstein approached him about making the film. Zombie, who was a fan of the original Halloween, jumped at the chance to make a Halloween film for Dimension Studios.[18] Before Dimension went public with the news, Zombie felt obligated to inform Carpenter, out of respect, of the plans to remake his film.[19] Carpenter's request was for Zombie to "make it his own".[5] During a June 16, 2006, interview, Zombie announced that his film would combine the elements of prequel and remake with the original concept, and insisted that there would be considerable original content in the new film as opposed to mere rehashed material.[20] The BBC reported that the new film would disregard the numerous sequels that followed Halloween.[21]

The Myers house film location early March 2007 on Glendon Way in South Pasadena, California.

Zombie's intention was to reinvent Michael Myers because he felt the character, along with Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, and Pinhead, had become more familiar to audiences, and as a result, less scary.[21][22] The idea behind the new film was to delve deeper into Michael's backstory and add "new life" to the character.[20] Michael's mask would be given its own story to provide an explanation as to why he wears it, instead of having the character simply steal a random mask from a hardware store as in the original film.[23] Zombie explained that he wanted Michael to be true to what a psychopath really is, and wanted the mask to be a way for Michael to hide. He also wanted the young Michael to have charisma, which would be projected onto the adult Michael. In addition, he decided that Michael's motives for returning to Haddonfield would be more ambiguous, explaining, "[W]as he trying to kill Laurie, or just find her because he loves her?"[19] Michael speaks as a child during the beginning of the film, but while in Smith's Grove he stops talking completely. Zombie originally planned to have the adult Michael speak to Laurie in the film's finale, simply saying his childhood nickname for her, "Boo". Zombie explained that this version was not used because he was afraid having the character talk at that point would demystify him too much, and because the act of Michael handing Laurie the photograph of them together was enough.[24]

Moreover, Michael would not be able to drive in the new film, unlike his 1978 counterpart who stole Loomis' car so that he could drive back to Haddonfield.[23] The Dr. Loomis character was also to be more intertwined with that of Michael; Zombie reasoned that the character's role in the original was "showing up merely to say something dramatic".[22] Although Zombie added more history to the Michael Myers character, hence creating more original content for the film, he chose to keep the character's trademark mask and Carpenter's theme song intact for his version (despite an apparent misinterpretation in an interview suggesting the theme would be ditched).[20] Production officially began on January 29, 2007.[25] Shortly before production began, Zombie reported that he had seen the first production of Michael's signature mask and commented, "It looks perfect, exactly like the original. Not since 1978 has The Shape looked so good".[26] Filming occurred in the same neighborhood that Carpenter used for the original Halloween.[23]

On December 19, 2006, Zombie announced to Bloody Disgusting that Daeg Faerch would play the part of ten-year-old Michael Myers.[27] On December 22, 2006, Malcolm McDowell was officially announced to be playing Dr. Loomis.[28] McDowell stated that he wanted a tremendous ego in Loomis, who is out to get a new book from the ordeal.[23] On December 24, 2006, Zombie announced that Tyler Mane, who had previously worked with Zombie on The Devil's Rejects (2005), would portray the adult Michael Myers.[29] Mane stated that it was very difficult to act only with his eyes.[30] After winning the role, he noted that he consecutively watched seven of the eight Halloween films (excluding the third because Michael Myers does not appear) to better understand his character.[31] Scout Taylor-Compton endured a long audition process, but as director Zombie explains, "Scout was my first choice. There was just something about her; she had a genuine quality. She didn't seem actor-y."[32] She was one of the final people to be cast for a lead role after Faerch, Mane, McDowell, Forsythe, and Harris. Heather Bowen, a fan who won a contest for a walk-on cameo appearance in 2005 when it was still intended to be a sequel, played a news reporter who covered Michael's arrest, but her scene was cut from the film and does not appear in the deleted scenes.[33][34] In the film's original ending, Loomis is successful in convincing Michael to let go of Laurie as he is surrounded by police officers, telling Michael he "did the right thing". Despite Loomis' protests, however, Michael is killed shortly afterwards in a hail of gunfire, and the film ends with Loomis looking down sadly at his former patient's corpse.

Approximately four days before the theatrical release of the film, a workprint version of Halloween appeared online and was circulated around various BitTorrent sites. Upon hearing of the leaked copy, Zombie stated that whatever version had been leaked was an older version of the film, unlike what was about to be released in theaters.[35] The leak of Zombie's workprint led to speculation that the film's box office success could be damaged, as director Eli Roth attributed the financial failure of his film that released earlier the same year, Hostel: Part II, to the leaking of a workprint version.[36] Dark Horizons webmaster Garth Franklin noted that watching the workprint allows a viewer to see what was changed after test screenings of the film in June 2007. For example, one particular scene—the rape of one of the Smith's Grove female inmates—was replaced in the final version.[37] Halloween was officially released on August 31, 2007, to 3,472 theaters in North America,[2] giving it the widest release of any of the previous Halloween films.[38]

The film's soundtrack was released on August 21, 2007; it includes 24 tracks, consisting of 12 dialogue tracks and 12 instrumentals. The album contained both new tracks, as well as ones recycled from the original Halloween and its sequel. Tyler Bates' interpretation of John Carpenter's original Halloween theme is the first musical track, with "(Don't Fear) The Reaper," which appeared in the original Halloween, and "Mr. Sandman", which appeared in Halloween II and Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, performed by Nan Vernon.[82] Writing about its selection from the 1981 film, one reviewer for the BBC commented that it worked well to "mimic Laurie’s situation (sleeping a lot)", making "the once innocent sounding lyrics seem threatening in a horror film".[83] The album also includes Kiss's "God of Thunder", Rush's "Tom Sawyer", Alice Cooper's "Only Women Bleed", Peter Frampton's "Baby, I Love Your Way", Nazareth's "Love Hurts", Bachman–Turner Overdrive's "Let It Ride", Misfits' "Halloween II", and an Iggy Pop live version of The Stooges' "1969" among others.[84]

On December 18, 2007, the film was released on DVD in the United States; both the theatrical (110 minutes) and an unrated director's cut (121 minutes) were released as two-disc special editions containing identical bonus features.[85] The film was released on DVD in the UK on April 28, 2008, known as the "Uncut" edition.[86] On October 7, 2008, a three-disc set was released.[87] This Collector's Edition of Halloween features the same bonus features as the previous unrated edition, but includes Zombie's four-and-a-half-hour "making-of" documentary similar to the "30 Days in Hell" documentary for Zombie's The Devil's Rejects.[87]

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