‘Halloween’: 40 years of the Boogeyman

Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later (1998)

With the 20th anniversary of the landmark 1978 John Carpenter classic looming, Jamie Lee Curtis saw a potential return to the franchise as an opportunity not to be missed. Not only was it a rarity for an original heroine to come back to reprise her role so many years later, but it carried with it a tremendous personal investment. “There’s an opportunity on a personal level to say thank you to a group of people who truly gave me everything I have,” she once said. “I look at everything I have in my career, and it’s all attributable to my performance. Everything points back to horror movies, because they gave me everything I have.”

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers had left the story of Michael Myers in a muddled state. Before Curtis had expressed interest in returning to the series, the seventh entry was set to be a direct-to-video release. Meetings were had, and script ideas and names were tossed about, including an early concept from Robert Zappia, which involved an all-girls school and, generally, was a complete departure from previous installments.

One call from Curtis was all it took for director Steve Miner (Friday the 13th Part 2, Dawson’s Creek) to become involved in the project. Miner and Curtis met up, and it was immediately evident that an anniversary film was what the franchise needed. Miner then called up Kevin Williamson, widely known as the creator of Dawson’s Creek and script writer for Scream, to draft an early treatment centered on Laurie Strode’s new-found life in Summer Glen, California.

The creative team hit reset on the idea Strode was killed in a car crash, as explained in the beginning of Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, as her faking her own death and taking on an assumed name, Keri Tate. The story of the previous three sequels, including 1995’s Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, remained canon at this point. In a classroom scene, a Hillcrest student gives a grisly and detailed recap of Jamie Lloyd’s story arc, and upon hearing of her death, Laurie rushes to the bathroom and throws up.

Script writers Robert Zappia and Matt Greenberg continued to develop the entire narrative around this idea, but as pre-production continued, Miner decided to retcon all previous installments except the original film and the 1981 follow-up, Halloween II ,in what was then seen as a controversial move. In wiping the slate clean, Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later benefits from a far more streamlined story, unchained to the Curse of Thorn and the cult.

“Like any franchise, there are sequels in the series that are stronger than others. There are so many factors, of course, that go into whether a particular film is a success or not. Certainly, it all starts with the script,” says Zappia, who watched his father Marco Zappia, an Emmy award-winning editor at his craft and instilled his own work with tight, driving story constructs. “No matter how great the script, ultimately the film can turn out poorly. But if the script is bad, you’re never going to have a great film. The original ‘Halloween’ was so pure in its conceit. So terrifying in the thought that this could happen anywhere at anytime. Michael Myers was the perfect embodiment of our fears. We could impose on that expressionless, emotionless mask our own fears. It is a blank screen where we project our worst nightmares.”

“I think where the films have gone astray is when they mistook ‘gore’ (and torture porn) as the main ingredient that makes the ‘Halloween’ franchise so scary. The gore is the icing on the cake, but it’s not the cake,” he continues. “I’m proud of ‘Halloween H20’ because I think it reflected where horror films were in the 1990s while still maintaining at its core what makes the ‘Halloween’ franchise unique.”

The legacy of Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) is treated with affection in the opening sequence, which sees the return of Nurse Marion Whittington (Nancy Stephens), Loomis’ nurse from the first two films. Voiceover actor Tom Kane supplies an admirable Loomis impression over the opening credits and sets the tone for a return to form for the franchise. For the role of Michael Myers, producers sought after stuntman Chris Durand (Demolition Man, Armageddon, Captain America: The Winter Soldier).

The cast is rounded out by Michelle Williams (as Molly Cartwell), Josh Hartnett (John Tate, Keri’s son), Jodi Lyn O’Keefe (Sarah Wainthrope), Adam Hann-Byrd (Charlie Devereaux), LL Cool J (Ronnie Jones, a security guard) and Adam Arkin (Will Brennan). Making cameos are Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Jimmy Howell) and Janet Leigh (Norma Watson).

“It wasn’t trying to make the story bigger and to introduce external things that were unnecessary and wacky. It was taking a simple story and exploring and really looking at the characters of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode,” recalls cinematographer Daryn Okada (Lake Placid, Mean Girls). “We tried not to play it as a gimmick but as an exploration of where those characters’ mindsets would be and how the new characters, who had not experienced this or thought about it at all, would react to it. Because it was 20 years later, we really felt we needed to pick up where John left off as much as we could. It was a lot to try to live up to, and if we could just get a bit of that, that would be great.”

Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later filmed over a couple months in early 1998 in such locations as Los Angeles; and La Puente and Chatsworth, California; among a few others. Reshoots took place inside a reconstructed set on a soundstage. Through production, various snafus and creative miscommunications resulted in four drastically different Michael Myers masks being used, including a KNB Stan Winston mask, a Hero mask and a CGI mask (used for one scene during reshoots). The mask from Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers also makes an appearance in the opening scene.

“I was a huge fan of the franchise before. So, it felt really special to me. It was such a big deal. That genre and the type of horror. It’s the old-fashion scare because you get scared of the curtain blowing in the breeze, and there’s nothing behind it,” says O’Keefe. “It really did feel special while we were filming. Granted, I was very young, and it was my very first movie role. It felt 15 times more special than anything else I had done.”

“The audience seemed to feel this one was echoing the original and got them back into it. We weren’t interested in just making a sequel. We were interested in caring as best as we could and bringing John’s spirit and vibe into it. That was the intent going forward with making it,” adds Okada. “It was sort of like: what would John do? [laughs] I really studied how the original was shot and what Dean Cundey did. We knew we had to advance where it came from, though, but kept pulling back to being as pure as we could.”

John Ottman (The Usual Suspects, Fantastic Four) composed much of the score, and his biggest, most enduring contribution is a reimagining of the classic Halloween theme. “I hardly think I shattered any sort of mold in the lexicon of horror films,” he says, “but if there is any lasting contribution, it would be my ‘Halloween’ theme overture in the front of the film. It’s even been performed in some concerts during October over the years. I’ve never heard these performances and always wonder how they must sound, especially without a boy’s choir.”

Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later opened August 7, 1998 to $16 million in ticket sales. The film eventually grossed over $55 million, domestically. It has a 52 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Below, cinematographer Daryn Okada, composer John Ottman and script writer Robert Zappia retrace their footsteps in making one of the best praised sequels of the series. Jodi Lyn O’Keefe reflects upon her role of Sarah Wainthrope, her iconic death scene and place in horror history. Also, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers script writer Daniel Farrands gives his thoughts on the retcon business.

Signing On

Zappia: It was in the summer of 1996. I was working in television at the time writing for sitcoms. I had written for ‘Home Improvement’ and had finished work on a short-lived sitcom starring David Chappelle called ‘Buddies.’ During that hiatus, I wrote a spec sci-fi feature called ‘Population Zero.’ Writing feature films was always my ultimate goal, so every hiatus I would write a new spec with hopes of selling it. While ‘Population Zero’ didn’t sell much, to my disappointment, it did catch the attention of an executive at Dimension Films named Richard Potter.

My agent arranged for a general interview with Richard. I remember sitting in the Miramax/Dimension lobby waiting for the meeting to start. I was sitting there for nearly 45 minutes and seriously thought about leaving. I had been on so many of these general meetings that never amounted to much more than a handful of compliments about my writing. Don’t get me wrong ⏤ compliments are nice and all, but they don’t pay the mortgage. Boy, am I glad I didn’t just get up and walk out.

Richard came out and apologized for being behind, and we talked about the spec script and such. I clicked with Richard from the minute we started chatting ⏤ just a really good, down-to- earth exec (a rarity in Hollywood). Richard said they’d really like to work with me, but the only writing assignment they had open was a direct-to-home video release of ‘Halloween 7,’ and would I be interested? Would I be interested?! Uh, where do I sign?!

I was a huge fan of the original ‘Halloween’ and any chance to be a part of that franchise was such an exciting thought (whether it was released theatrically or not). Also, it was an opportunity I had hoped would lead to more work with Dimension in the future and the possibility of more feature work.

If I had a reservation, it was only that I felt the franchise had taken a turn toward the absurd, and I wasn’t sure I could right the ship. At this point, I had no idea what anyone at Dimension of Trancas International thought of the past couple films. For all I knew, they felt those films finally lived up to the franchise’s potential. Still I was willing to take the risk.

Okada: Steve Miner and I had worked on a lot of movies since 1989. We did a couple pilots. He had done television. I came from doing small movies. I did ‘Phantasm 2’ and hung out with [director] Don Coscarelli and the cast. We’re still really good friends. It was all from that world of “let’s try to make something, even if the rest of the world says you can’t.” The whole genre of ‘Halloween’ I was really familiar with.

Steve and I were about to do a movie called ‘Lake Placid.’ We went up and scouted it. When we figured out how we can do all this and where it was going to be (up north in Vancouver because of the lakes), it was November, and there was no way we could start. So, at that point, the studio decided to delay ‘Lake Placid’ until the summer.

Steve got a call from Jamie Lee Curtis, who he had worked with on ‘Forever Young’ with Mel Gibson. Steve then went and talked with Jamie. The sensibility with her wasn’t just to make a sequel for sequel’s sake and introduce a bunch of external characters. It was to stay within the world John had established. Steve asked me, “What do you think?” I said, “I’m not interested in doing the 100th sequel, but if it’s the 20th anniversary…”

We jumped into it. We talked to a friend of ours who had done the pilot of ‘Dawson’s Creek’ with us. Kevin Williamson, of course, created and wrote it, and he also wrote ‘Scream.’ We said, “We did that pilot for you. Can you do us a favor and do some re-writes on this film?” That’s how he got involved.

Ottman: I worked with director, Steve Miner, on ‘Lake Placid.’ He and the studio liked what I had done and how I veered from the temp score, approaching the story and the film’s needs with my score. I came to a meeting on the ‘Halloween’ set while they were shooting to see Steve. He told me that he really wanted a sort of Bernard Herrmann approach, not the usual clunks and bangs. I told him that it would be cool to fuse together that approach with a nod to John Carpenter’s famous motifs. Soon thereafter, I was hired. I don’t remember when I actually started writing, but obviously how to tackle my idea with Carpenter’s main theme was on my mind.

First Story Ideas

Zappia: That original script was called ‘Halloween: Two Faces of Evil.’ My original pitch was to set the movie in an all-girl boarding school. The movie starts when Michael is found dead in a maximum-security penitentiary. He’s transported to the local morgue. As you can imagine, things didn’t go well for the mortician. And soon Michael is out and about wreaking havoc on the students at the boarding school.

I believe it was producer Paul Freeman who had the idea of adding a copycat killer to the fray who was captured and served the same purpose as Hannibal Lecter in ‘Silence of the Lambs.’ The draft ‘Two Faces of Evil’ ⏤ the two faces being Michael Myers and the copycat killer ⏤ evolved from there.

Before it became ‘Halloween H20’ with Jamie Lee Curtis reprising her role, I really wanted to make a film that I would enjoy as a fan of the original. I wanted to try and recapture as best I could what John Carpenter had in the first ‘Halloween.’ It had the lowest budget of any of them and yet, in my mind, it was the scariest of them all. Carpenter couldn’t rely on big budget effects, and he didn’t have unlimited set-ups and shoot days. He had to boil down the story and characters to their most primal level.

Ultimately, the boarding school afforded me a “micro-Haddonfield” where I could let Michael Myers loose and focus on the inventiveness rather than the goriness of the murders. The copycat element added a distinct story device that added a layer of complexity to the script.

That opening scene with Nurse Whittington with the Donald Pleasence sound-alike voice over was the one scene that survived from my very first draft to the big screen.

The Revenge of Laurie Strode

Zappia: I completed the first draft of ‘Two Faces of Evil’ and turned it in. The next thing I knew my agent called and said Bob Weinstein was thrilled with the script and wanted to meet with me. It was in that meeting that he told me he had personally spoken to Jamie Lee Curtis, and she agreed to the do the film for its twentieth anniversary. He said they loved the boarding school idea and asked my thoughts regarding working her into the current story. I suggested she be a teacher or headmistress at the school.

The first draft I turned in with Jamie Lee was called ‘Halloween: Blood Ties.’ The proceeding drafts were called ‘Halloween: The Revenge of Laurie Strode.’ I am a big Star Wars fan, and I remember when ‘Return of the Jedi’ was originally called ‘Revenge of the Jedi.’ I always preferred that title, so I had fun with the idea of ‘Halloween 7’ being called ‘The Revenge of Laurie Strode.’

I think there were a number of additional factors that lured Jamie Lee back ⏤ Steve Miner’s involvement (who she had worked with previously); Kevin Williamson being brought aboard to produce, and I’m sure, not the least of which, was a sizable payday.

I believe it was Jamie Lee herself who had strong ideas about where the character would be emotionally after 20 years of dealing with her tormented past. The functioning alcoholic angle, while not wholly original, certainly was believable. Before it was determined that there would no reference to ‘Halloween 4’ thru ‘Halloween 6,’ I attributed much of her pain to the fact she thought by staging her death, she was protecting her daughter, Jamie. Of course, Michael found his niece, and the rest was history. But even without this backstory, having gone through the terror of Halloween night twenty years prior was certainly enough to drive her to drink.

The strange thing is I had no idea Kevin had even written a treatment until months after turning in my revised draft. I don’t even know what Dimension told Kevin ⏤ in regards to my involvement or the existence of the draft I wrote. They could have suggested the prep school idea to him.

The original pitch and subsequent versions were crafted by myself ⏤ along with input from Moustapha, Paul Freeman and Malek Akkad. Later, Kevin Williamson was brought aboard as a producer. I had one notes call with him on a first or second draft of the film. Moustapha was heavily involved with the concept. He really had an affinity for the franchise and Michael.

I left the project weeks before principal photography on the film began. I had been writing on the film for nearly a year and half. I had done dozens of drafts and rewrites during that time. Bits and pieces from each draft made their way to the screen, so at least no rewrite was in vain.

That’s when they brought in Matt Greenberg ⏤ a very talented writer they had worked with before on other Dimension films ⏤ to do the production polish. Matt came up with one of my favorite scenes in the film: the rest stop scene where the mother takes her daughter into the bathroom and Michael steals her purse. Scary as all hell ⏤ and, yet, nothing ultimately happens. To me, that scene captured the brilliance of what John Carpenter was able to achieve in the original film. I believe Kevin Williamson also did a dialogue pass, but since I had moved onto another project, I don’t know for sure.

There was some dispute regarding credit. I know Dimension wanted Kevin to be credited with story by. The credits went to WGA arbitration where an independent panel reviewed all the material (outlines, drafts, etc.). All material is labeled anonymously (e.g. Writer A, Writer B, Writer C). After the panel reviews, they determine final credit. Everyone who has a stake in the game has their own opinion of who deserves what credit. That is why it’s so important to have a non-biased independent panel review and determine credit.

The Retcon

Farrands: I remember the Akkads always had an open door. They never made me feel that I wasn’t part of the ‘Halloween’ family. They’ve asked me questions and sought my advice on certain things about the series, even. It’s really sweet. But at the same time, there was no point in going on from babies in fish tanks. The Akkads even walked off the ‘Halloween 6’ set, and it resulted in some pretty nasty legal action, if I’m not mistaken. The studio commandeered the production. It was an ugly situation for a while.

Why would you not invite Jamie Lee Curtis back? It made perfect sense. Of course, it stings in that I wanted ours to be the good one. [laughs] I remember thinking, “Why didn’t I wait to do Halloween 7?” I could have written for Jamie Lee Curtis! All things are what they are. I was meant to do what I did then. I was meant to start my career then. I was meant to write for Donald Pleasence.

Zappia: My recommendation was that we treat ‘Halloween H20’ like a trilogy. In other words, ‘Halloween,’ ‘Halloween II,’ and ‘Halloween H20’ should play as a standalone set. In the end, Dimension and Trancas International agreed. But we had toyed with the idea that we address the previous films. I wrote a draft where one of Jamie Lee’s students gave an oral report on Michael Myers and much of the lore was addressed there.

We even explained her alcoholism was due to the fact that she found out her daughter Jamie had been killed (when she thought she’d guaranteed her safety by putting her up for adoption). But it just felt like we were “pulling over” to connect all the dots, and it slowed down the story.

Even before Jamie Lee came aboard, the intention was always to drop the druid cult and curse of Thorn story. I personally felt that story detour strayed too far from what made Michael so terrifying. You can’t explain the unexplainable…and when you try, it becomes somewhat hokey or campy to me.

Struck by Quirk

The character of Sarah, a quirky, offbeat teen with a love affair with food, was vividly written on the page. That kind of sparkle immediately drew O’Keefe into the story. Not to mention, she desperately wanted a slice of the Halloween pie, so to speak.

O’Keefe: I took the part because, well, my love of horror, number one. Number two, my love of the franchise. I thought, “If I get to do this, I’d be the luckiest girl in the world.” [laughs] Then, just the fact that she was so quirky. It felt right for me. They said, “We might die your hair blue, and you’re going to be a little off kilter and grungy.” That really appealed to me. If it’s anything outside of my comfort zone, I can’t wait to sink my teeth into it.

I can remember the initial character breakdown for Sarah being a little bit different than it was in the final version. There were a few different scenes that I had that didn’t show up in the movie, and they developed her quirky side after I had already been cast. One of the scenes cut from the script was a run when all the kids go into town, and we go to a liquor store and try to get booze for the party.

The Opening Scene

Nurse Marion Whittington only played a minor role in the first two Halloween films, but her involvement in Halloween H20’s opening sequence served to connect the past with the present in a way that was grounded in reality.

Okada: That was part of saying to the audience, “We want to continue where John left off.” Bringing back back the nurse and the whole visual tone, that’s how we were going to be judged as to what this movie was going to be. Is this going to be something that’s trying to be faithful in how ‘Halloween’ emerged to the world with John?

Or is this going to be an exploitive sequel just trying to make money? The whole design of that and the structure and the placement of the camera was intentionally to bring you back into that world but do it in a way that the old and new audiences would relate to it and feel a growth to it at the same time.

As a result, the audience has an emotional connection to Nurse Marion and her history, even if we don’t learn much about her. So, when her death comes, it strikes quite a blow. And she doesn’t go down without one fight either.The camera cuts between the eerie quiet outside her front steps, and her battle with Michael Myers.

Okada: We thought about making it as if we were the audience. What would be the movie we’d want to be unexpected to us? The police usually show up at the very end of the movie or they’re knuckleheads somewhere in the middle. [laughs] They might as well not be there. But we wanted to set that tone that we’re on this page of being smart about it. You can do things that surprise, and that’s the ride of it. It’s not knowing where you’re going, but when you get to that point in a scene, in a shot, it’s an ah-ha moment.

Moving to California

One of the biggest criticisms often lobbed at the film is the drastic shift from the Midwest to the slickness of California. It was a tough creative decision, but according to Okada, one that made complete sense for the next chapter of Laurie Strode.

Okada: We thought about trying to keep it in Illinois. Our initial instincts were that it should not move, geographically. But as we explored it more, it would be in Laurie’s nature to get the hell away and start a new life. That’s a valid reality to what humans do. It’s a double-edged sword. If we just left her in the same place, has her character not grown? What compels her to stay there?

We felt that was harder to make truthful to her character than going to Northern California, which feels creepy to me anyway, being a Californian myself. [laughs] That’s where the Winchester Castle is. It’s atmospheric, and it’s very different than Southern California. There is a lot of creepy shit that happens up in Northern California. It was also isolated.

We all know that any town has grown in 20 years. If questionable things had happened, they’re going to be investigated quite a bit. So, we felt that running away made sense. That gives Michael more depth because he had to follow. We showed the effort. In his effort, things happened to other people. It was not respecting her character to not let her grow and go somewhere else. It’s never going to be a win-win, but as far as the story and character, it would be repeating everything if we had stayed put. We needed somewhere where we could re-isolate the characters and make it new. Is it a school or is it going to be a prison torture chamber you can’t get out of?

Honoring Dr. Loomis

Okada: We always wanted to do that. We looked at every element of John’s ‘Halloween,’ character-wise. We wanted to either answer or let the audience know that we knew they existed. That was also part of setting the tone of where the story was picking up from. Doing one thing is way too easy. You’re putting the audience back into that world that they knew from the previous films. We had to do it with a number of elements. Then, you get a sense that, yes, this is the world of ‘Halloween.’

Just a Little Bit Psycho

Janet Leigh, Jamie Lee Curtis’ mother and star of 1960’s Psycho, makes a cameo as Keri Tate’s secretary. It’s a small nod to the legacy of horror. Her character of Norma not only brings even more gravatas to the film but supplies ample, yet straight-laced, comic effect.

Okada: That was one of those things were we thought, “Are we doing this too much? No, let’s do it.” Janet had a spunk attitude to her, so that’s what made it. We had to do it. Yes, it’s Janet Leigh, but she brought this character that added to the film. Anytime we had a callback or a reference, we made sure there was a reason for it. There was a reason for her character. Even if it wasn’t her, that character would be there. But because it’s her, it makes it even more fun. Also, Steve and I just wanted to see the two of them together. [laughs]

In one of her standout scenes, which also includes the same make and model as the Psycho car, Norma wishes Keri a, “Happy Halloween.” It’s moment that teeters between the comedic and the dramatic.

Okada: There’s only one person there that’s going take that differently. That was one of those chances we took, and let’s call it what it is. I get asked a lot about how to approach comedy in a suspense movie. What’s the hardest thing to do? I say that doing something that’s horror-based is the same as doing something that’s a good comedy. You’re trying to get this instantaneous reaction from the audience that is truly a quick emotion to their gut sense. It’s either a laugh or it’s a scare and a jump. But it can’t be a setup just for a jump.

It has to contribute, story-wise, and that’s what makes the belly laugh happen. You’re telling the story, and that’s the element. It’s letting the audience know that, yes, we’re taking you on this ride, also. The audience is getting more of this than Jamie is with her character at that point. You can either laugh or go “ohhhhh.” Mostly, it’s laugh, which is OK, because that’s where Janet’s character was. It’s the acknowledgement of little things like that that get everybody back on the same page.

The Endearing Foursome

What is most compelling about the new slate of teenage characters is they are authentic and fleshed out characters. The audience comes to truly care about them in the end, and they don’t feel that they’re necessarily set up for slaughter in a traditional slasher sense.

O’Keefe: Adam and I had a very easy relationship. It was just two people very happy to be where they were and having a really good time. There was an ease right off the bat. That was the way for all four of us. We were so young and excited. It became this little foursome, and we were instant friends when we started working on the movie.

Okada: That was important to us. They had to be individuals and real. They were there not just to be set up to be killed. If not, any kind of death means nothing, and you’re just trying to out-gross, visually. That doesn’t get you anywhere. The power of both sides (the victims and Michael) lies in the story, and it’s inevitable what happens. If it’s just one sided, it’s like a basketball game where you’ve got the Lakers playing against a team of five-year-olds. There’s no challenge or drama in that. The slaughter means nothing. That’s why any struggle really feels like a struggle. It’s one character using everything they’ve got in them. That was a big goal.

We also knew that these were new characters. We didn’t want the audience to think we’re just throwing in these new characters because they’re younger, and they’re going to get killed. They had an important part to play in the story. Them being fully fleshed out characters and different in their own rights and having personalities are what we felt we needed to have.

Michael Breaks In

Throughout the film, Michael Myers makes his way across the country, first in a stolen 1971 Buick Skylark. He makes it Northern California to a rest stop, at which he upgrades to a similarly vintage ‘70s-style car. On Halloween, he stalks Keri and her son John to the gates of Hillcrest, and when it comes times to pounce, Myers simply drives right up to the gate. A bit unnerved, Ronnie opens the gate to inspect the car, which idles, and Michael is nowhere to be seen. Of course, he quickly slips in just behind Ronnie.

Okada: That scene was twofold. Again, it was letting the characters and story speak. Knuckleheads would have said, “Eh, he cut the fence and jumped over.” There’s a lot of different thoughts to it, but it’s about showing more of what’s in Michael. You learn a lot about both Michael and Ronnie at that point and how this movie isn’t exactly what you may see at first.

That was conscious. We liked the creepiness of the car, too. That was always a threatening thing. Any other way in would be “Oh! He’s there!” We put it right out there. He doesn’t know where he’s going or the layout of the whole place. We put ourselves into Michael’s head. So, his first instinct would be to just drive up and see if somebody’s there. If so, he’s dead, and Michael would keep going. He’s a bulldozer. He’s numb to those actions.

Taunting Ronnie

Moments later, Myers plays a little game of cat-and-mouse with Ronnie in his security outpost. The writers flip expectations that Ronnie will be the first one killed. Instead, they bring back the playful spirit of the original Myers from the first film.

Okada: Cat and mouse is a little meek for that description. We were respecting the audience’s intelligence. In a lot of these other movies, it’s like, “How did he disappear and nobody knows?” So, we felt this was also a scene where we were showing his character. If you think about it, you can probably guess where someone is going to turn to look at something, and you can go the opposite to be hidden.

It sort of answers that question of how Michael can exist in there and no one can detect him until it’s too late. It was all about respecting the first movie but also the audience. We didn’t want them to say, “Ok, yeah, yeah, yeah…” We wanted it to be as if we were sitting there and asking these questions ⏤ not necessarily analyzing it but it was about the elements that set up the movie.

“Two Tumultuous, Round, Melon Breasts”

LL Cool J’s character Ronnie offers up the film’s brazenly comedic element, but his material is so rooted in truth that it never comes across as silly or over-the-top. He’s a security guard by trade, but has big ambitions of being an author. In many of his early scenes, he is seen on the phone with his wife and reading excerpts from his erotic novel.

Okada: We figured LL Cool J might be writing that romance novel in real life. [laughs] It has that ego of writing it. You don’t have to play it that big. He’s a sound writer. LL Cool J put a lot of trust in Steve. That was one of his first features, and we didn’t know if he was going to do it. We didn’t know what his abilities were going to be. He turned out to be one of the most incredibly nice, instinctive actors. He was enthusiastic and was there for the other actors.

He was into the part and asked questions about backstory and everything. It was that sensitivity and his talent in not overplaying the comedy. Steve directed him really well, too, in a way that gave him that freedom to just do it. That’s the magic of Steve as a director.

The Dumbwaiter

Sarah has arguably the best death scene of the movie and a standout in the entire series. Upon discovering Charlie’s limp body in the school’s dumbwaiter, Michael Myers pops out of nowhere, and Sarah gives it her all to stay alive. She climbs into the dumbwaiter, but gets stabbed by Myers in the leg. Once on the second floor, she climbs out but gets her leg stuck underneath Charlie’s body. Myers cuts the dumbwaiter rope; the dumbwaiter falls on Sarah’s leg but she manages to get it free. Myers then proceeds to move upstairs and to stalk her, places his foot on her head and hacks her to pieces.

O’Keefe: It takes a lot to be horrified for that long onscreen. [laughs] You gotta have some chops, I think.

Part of it is a prosthetic leg when it breaks off. The other part when the knife goes into my leg, it was a retractable knife. I had a pad on my leg, so the tip of the knife retracts into the handle. So, it looks like it’s in my leg, and then, it’s not.

I feel like filming that scene was endless. We filmed it there on location, and then, we filmed it again when they rebuilt the location inside of a studio. We shot it again so we could get some different angles. We had a little bit more control over the situation. I felt like I was dying more often than I wasn’t. [laughs]

I left set one night, and I was really exhausted. I was staying in a hotel at that point in LA, because I didn’t live here. I went back to my hotel and walked into the reception area. The woman behind the desk gasped. She was like, “Oh my god, are you OK?!” I had forgotten I had all of this fake blood all on my hands and my face and all in my hair. She said, “You’re bleeding!” I said, “Oh, no, I’m not. I’m so sorry. We just wrapped filming, and I just pulled my hair back in a bun. Everything’s fine!” She was more terrorized than anyone. [laughs]

So, I actually don’t have a good relationship to blood. You can even pour candy blood on me, and that slightly terrifies me. The fact that Charlie’s throat was cut and I had all this blood all over me and that I had still not seen Chris’ face under the mask ⏤ all of it, it really helped me be in a terrified place for the entire time that we were shooting.

Okada: That definitely was one of those moments of questioning if she was going to get away or is she not. The pain of what we’d call a stunt death is very short-lived. If it’s short-lived, you don’t feel like the death was significant and meant something. You don’t feel like that person meant anything. So, we structured it so you’d get that struggle. It was saying things about her character in every phase of that scene. We consciously made sure it was written that way.

It wasn’t like you could interchange any other character into that and have that feeling and impact that it did. That’s one of the things we’re most proud of. There are also storytelling and character elements into how the situation happened. If you interchange it, it would mean that character existed as a piece of paper that was just going to get torn up. That’s not what we were after. We knew it was going to be painful. Her spunk was going to enable her to struggle and made it feel significant.

That scene reverberates more to me today than it ever did then. I know it’s ‘Halloween H20,’ a horror movie, but just because you put a label on a movie doesn’t mean it’s good or bad or attracts a big audience. It’s what you put into the movie that makes a difference. Those were the storytelling values that we had in all of us, and we were going to fight to make sure it wasn’t going to be just a sequel. Whether it was a death scene or just a scene with Michael, there’s a respect for life in that also. That’s what makes for a powerful scene.

Later, John and Molly go to investigate what has taken Sarah and Charlie so long. They come across a trail of blood that leads to Sarah’s body hanging from a light fixture in the pantry. It’s a gruesome image, to say the least.

O’Keefe: I was able watch them do it, which was great. It’s really amazing when you’re so new to the business, and you can really see the entire process, watch other people work and see your own death scene that you’re not in. It was such a cool experience. I can remember the day we finished filming, and I didn’t want to go home.

Okada: That scene had to be a surprise. I remember the talk about it. Michael was making a statement. The discovery of her body that way was telling the audience that we’re not dealing with a dumb killer.

Living for the Chase

John and Molly then encounter Michael Myers for the first time, leading into one of the greatest chase sequences of the franchise. The two stop in a forested clearing to catch their breath, but Myers pops out of thin air and grabs Molly by the head. John gets a few quick punches on Myers, but Molly picks up a rock and drives it into Myers’ face.

Okada: In moments like that, it’s real human nature at that point. You’re not going to make all the right moves. You’re going to be over reactive, because your fight or flight senses are just going nuts. When we get a laugh out of something like that, it’s another step of having the audience be with you in that story.

Oh, the Keys!

John and Molly run up the hill to the school where they are met with an iron gate into the building. It’s a heart-pound moment as Molly tries to find the right key. Ultimately, she unlocks the door but drops her keys outside the metal bars.

Okada: That scene was one where we know what happens. Oh ok, it’s a gate. He’s trying to reach, and it’s an almost kind of thing. So, we really thought about how to do it. It’s a challenge in any kind of movie. You’re going to run across a scene where the audience is going to know the outcome. A ‘Halloween’ audience is more visually informed than any other audience out there ⏤ by composition, lighting, tonality and color palette. I’ve always felt that that audience is really in tune to high art in that sense. If you just say this is going to be a cookie-cutter thing and use this formula, it’s not interesting.

But we can visually say things and construct tension without words because we know this audience gets it. I don’t remember every exact shot, but the shots for that scene were done in a way that would have the drama to it without many words. The shots weren’t going to be enormously stylized, but it was the orchestration of it. It was the thought of having the tension to get the audience to sit up a little bit, even knowing they’ve seen scenes written the same way before. We wanted them to have an experience through these characters and hopefully experience it in a way that wasn’t trivial.

Will’s Death

Adam Arkin’s character Will meets an unfortunate end in the final half of the film, setting up for the third act. As a callback to 1981’s Halloween II, Will is killed in much the same fashion as Nurse Jill, with a knife (or scalpel) to the backbone and lifted into the air.

Okada: We looked at how death played out in scenes like that. We tried to say, “This is the same Michael you knew back then. This is not a Michael that has morphed and evolved into a different being.” Maybe, there was more to him than was in those stories. It just didn’t have time to develop. That’s how we approached it ⏤ that he was a living human being. People might call him a monster, but there’s a parallel person somewhere in there buried.

It’s like in any movie where a character reveals more about themselves. Echoing that scene was also echoing how it is the Michael you know and love. But there are other deeper parts of his emotion and being that didn’t get a chance to be explored. To us, that was what was intriguing. A lot of it was developing Michael’s character and how to show that in his actions. We also were exploring the old-fashion simplistic movie idea of what his eyes and body language were saying.

If your mouth was taped over, the first struggle to communicate is through the eyes. We always felt Michael was internally struggling one way or another, maybe to communicate any kind of affection. He’s totally blinded to his actions. To him, it’s like taking another step and kicking a stone out of the way.

Zappia: I tried to keep the tone of the killings the same, while trying to keep them as fresh and original as possible. I really didn’t want the exploding heads of previous Halloween films ⏤ to me, simpler was better. John Carpenter understood this so well, and I thought it was important to get back to a more realistic (and thereby more frightening) approach.

I also wanted to pay homage to those first two films for die-hard fans like me with some subtle nods and parallels. Some of which were there from my very first draft, and others that were added during production.

Face-to-Face

Michael Myers picks up the set of keys, turning each one in an attempt to unlock the gate and kill Molly and John. In the nick of time, Laurie/Keri and Will show up to let them inside. There’s a haunting moment when Myers and Laurie/Keri see each other through the door’s portal window for the very first time.

Okada: We tried to figure out which way to go with that. We really talked a lot about that moment before we got into it. It was the actions and how everything was in motion. Then, it all stopped at a decisive point. You learned about things. You couldn’t say anything. It all had to be through the characters and how we placed the cameras and how we edited. At that point, we were trying to be powerful silent-movie makers.

The Showdown

Laurie/Keri has a moment when she realizes she has to finally stop running and confront her monster. In the final act of the film, she has a Sigourney Weaver moment, as she shatters the glass containing an ax and heads into the school. She screams her predator’s name; the Halloween theme kicks in; and all bets are off. Laurie/Keri and Michael Myers go head-to-head in one of the greatest battles of all time.

Okada: We fought hard to be able to do that. We always felt that you had to have that escalation and to have those two characters faceoff on their own. It was saying a lot about where they both were, mentally and emotionally. When we finally get to the end, it had to be this relentless charge. In every phase of that, you learned more about each character, so when you get to the end when it all stops and it’s just the two of them, it’s even more emotional.

We may have had some producers who just wanted a massive killing. [laughs] It wasn’t about any big killing at the end. It was about what these two characters now, eye-to-eye, were feeling strong inside of them. There’s a drive that makes them that extraordinary and why we have an audience that wants to see it. The characters challenge the audience, as far as not taking for granted that the audience is right there with them.

That knife scene was from our own experiences. It’s like which one do I pick? Ah, shit. [laughs] In a miniature way, it cuts into your own chase. It enters survival mode.

The Flying Van

After Laurie/Keri stabs Michael Myers over a balcony, the police and coroner arrive to take his body away. Laurie/Keri knows better. She grabs the axe and a pistol from one of the cops and steals the coroner’s van. Swerving on the starkly lit backroads, Laurie/Keri makes sure Myers is dead for good.

Okada: It was a real van rolling down the hill. Our budget was really tight, and we had no business doing that whole scene. We knew we didn’t want the van just to blow up. That would be laughable. But we also want it to be survivable. Things just like that don’t happen. So, we carefully planned that whole sequence. I had shot on that road before. It’s up above Chatsworth. I knew there were places where we could light it. That action in the van was back to good ole rear projection film, so we could have this camera movement in there. We didn’t the camera locked down.

We wanted it to be reactive with them. What you see outside the back window were plates. I had it shot day-for-night weeks before. When the van did go over the hill, it was the last of our nights. There was not going to be a take two. On that night, we had to shoot all the drive-bys, including the scene when Jamie is taunting him. We had cameras strategically set so we could get the van flying over the hill. It was one take. The aftermath we shot at a lower spot where we were able to place things.

That was the last thing we had on a Friday night, and it was soon Saturday morning. The sun was rising. There was one angle where the camera was looking up, and it was one of the main shots. The sky was already starting to turn blue. There was not sun up yet, but the sky was lit. We saw it in dailies, and I said, “You know, that’s the best blue screen I’ve ever done. We can turn that to night sky!” [laughs] That’s what we did. There was no going back. We thought it was responsible filmmaking, too, and didn’t want to waste anything.

Decapitation of “Michael”

Michael Myers is then pinned to a tree, and the van catches on fire. Laurie/Keri and Myers share a “tender” moment as brother and sister. But Laurie/Keri knows better and lobs off his head with the axe. For many, it’s a proper goodbye to one of the most iconic horror franchises. Of course, executive producer Moustapha Akkad wouldn’t let the creative team kill off his favorite Boogeyman. In fact, it was written into the contract of the film that way.

Okada: We could have gone any way with that. You could feel Jamie’s agony and emotion. It had some of us in tears, I have to say. It was…is she going to kill him or not? Or are we going to make it a big cliffhanger? At that point, we didn’t know what would happen and what the reception of the movie would be. We just thought it would be cheap if her last instinct wasn’t “I gotta end this.” In the back of our minds, we thought, “It could be somebody else back there…” That’s the advantage of having a mask. [laughs] We could have ended it without the decapitation, but we knew we had to deliver that. At our first test screening, when we heard the audience just cheering, that confirmed that that was the right decision.

Zappia: Besides typical minor creative differences, the biggest issue between the two camps was to kill or not to kill Michael Myers. Myers was not only Akkad’s bread and butter, but I think he truly had a fondness for the character. Whereas, the other camp (Jamie/Dimension) wanted to put a proper end to the “trilogy.”

Personally, I preferred the idea of Laurie Strode killing Myers. In terms of story, it was the ideal conclusion to the franchise. And I knew, as a fan, that’s what I would love to see. What convinced Moustapha to go along with the decapitation scene was the explanation that Michael had done the ol’ switcheroo with a paramedic and maybe more importantly, that Jamie Lee agreed to do a cameo in the sequel to ‘Halloween H20.’

It was also important to me to show that fear must be faced and dealt with ⏤ you can avoid it for some time, but ultimately you have to confront it or it will consume you. In ‘Halloween H20,’ Laurie confronts her fear and ultimately triumphs over it. It sounds cliché, but in the end, good wins over evil. Laurie slays her Goliath.

On a side note, when I saw the film on opening night with a sold out crowd, that moment where Laurie Strode takes an axe to Meyers got an enormous cheer that gave me chills. In my mind, that was and forever will have been Michael Myers.

Alternate Endings

Zappia: Along the way, there were scenes in previous drafts that never made it into the production draft I would’ve loved to have seen on the big screen ⏤ specifically, I had written a number of different endings but they all got the “axe” (pun intended).

In one draft, the film’s climax takes place at a big dance in the gymnasium. The floor of the gymnasium opens up to reveal a pool underneath (ever see ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’?). Michael crashes the dance, and Laurie impales him with a javelin. He falls into the pool as the floor closes above him. Sounds crazy, right? But in the context of the draft, it was a lot of fun!

Another ending involved Laurie driving a bus from the school full of students trying to escape Michael Myers. He makes his way onto the bus, and it crashes and teeters on the edge of cliff. Laurie manages to get all the students off the bus and leaps to safety as the bus falls hundreds of feet with Michael dangling from the bumper to his death. Another fun one!

And I know we had one ending that involved a helicopter decapitating Michael Meyers (a version of the teetering bus scene). That was our ‘Mission Impossible’-style ending (way too pricey for the folks at Dimension!).

Working with Steve Miner

O’Keefe: Oh, he was wonderful and kind all the time. He had a great sense of humor, too. I’d wager to say he was having just as good a time as we were.

Okada: In shooting at the school, we all felt like a family making this film. Steve and I are going on 30 years now that we’ve known each other. He used to just give me shit that I was this young kid that probably didn’t know anything. We also heckled each other. Jamie has been incredibly generous and just a wonderful person through all these years.

I ran into her last year scouting on a different picture, and she was working on ‘Scream Queens,’ I think it was, and it was out in the middle of some forest. I hear this, “Daryn! What the fuck are you doing out here?!” And she wasn’t in makeup or anything. She was being made up, and she doesn’t give a shit.

It was that kind of experience making the movie. We cared about it a lot. Hopefully, that’s why it turned out to be what it is.

The Score

John Ottman discusses his approach to crafting a fresh new sonic landscape for the Halloween franchise.

Ottman: Although I used some synth sounds in the score, the aim was to accomplish scares with orchestral instruments, like having people blow into their reed instruments with purpose of getting that squeal usually associated with a mistake. Along with piano clusters, percussion bangs and even scratching a washboard with a stick, this was the general aim.

As far as the characters, I’m a big believer that things will be far scarier if we can first relate to them – those who will be the victims. So, I wanted to add introspection and emotion to Laurie, as she’s been through a lot in her life. I wanted her theme to somehow reflect this painful and haunting history but also have a tinge of hope for her. Therefore, I wrote a theme specifically for her, which was supposed to be a thread in the story. It is this theme in its bombastic form that is the “part b” in the main titles. In other words, it provided the ‘Halloween’ theme a secondary part for a classic A-B-A structure.

Since the Hitchcock approach was what we set out to do, that meant an orchestra. But, frankly, for protracted emotional and reflective moments, it would be very difficult to effectively tackle them without an orchestra. I remember there being a very long conversation between Laurie and her love interest where she tells her story to him. This can be the most delicate and tricky type of scoring to do – to tell a musical story, suck the audience in, under a conversation.

Many of these moments [of suspense or action] contained small nods to Carpenter’s motifs, like the high “flute” 4-note motif and such. But moreover, my action sequences always tried to tell a story and propel the stakes.

The “clock counting” motif of Carpenter’s (in the cue “Face to Face”) was one of my favorite parts of the score to adapt into a Herrman-esque orchestral version. I composed the cue to be relentless and incessant – that bomp, bomp-bomp, bomp, bomp-bomp – building to the face-to-face moment much in the way Carpenter did in ‘Halloween.’ The simplicity of it is what is nail-biting. Unfortunately, the first half of the cue got edited out in favor of the frenetic temp score; so, this relentless effect was lost in favor of a typical approach.

Updated Halloween Theme

Ottman: I immediately thought of the cellos playing the iconic drive of the theme and build it from there, adding orchestral flairs and integrating my theme for Laurie. For the longer chords, I arranged it pretty classically, using the violins and brass for the iconic chords. I also integrated a boy’s choir (synth because of budget) for some haunting textures.

Film: Re-Scored

Ottman explains what led to the revamped version of the score found in the theatrical release, a score that borrows quite significantly from the film, Scream. In the process, Marco Beltrami (Scream, Mimic) was brought in to polish the score.

Ottman: My score was embraced and fully dubbed into the film. But a few things happened after that point. Firstly, it was initially mixed very low, buried by effects. So, the music didn’t have the punch and drama as intended. But the main issue was that the Weinstein brothers were completely unaware that Steve Miner wanted a Hitchcockian approach. We went through the entire scoring process and dubbed it into the film without them ever being privy to this idea.

They just assumed the score was going to be a rip-off of the temp music. When it was something completely different, they were surprised. They said the score was “too thoughtful” – which I see as a compliment. They even said nice things about the music, but stated that because they tested high with an audience using the temp score, they didn’t want anything left to chance and preferred the obvious cliché horror music approach. So, from there began an amalgam of my score and the temp music.

I was up there at Skywalker Ranch during the dub working with my music editor, and her with a few others, trying to sew things together the best as possible. The aim was to salvage as much as the character stuff of my score and parts of mine from the action music that particularly turned them on.

Scream-ing Parallels

From the use of the Scream score to the generally glossy nature of the finished film, many parallels have been drawn between Halloween H20 and the Scream franchise.

Zappia: ‘Scream’ was such an influential film and definitely redefined the horror genre. I can speak for Matt, but the fine edge I tried to walk was honoring the tone of the original ‘Halloween’ while bringing some of the fresh approach of the ‘Scream’ films to it. Unlike ‘Scream,’ I didn’t want it to be a wink-wink to the audience the way that series so artfully did. Although, even watching the original ‘Halloween,’ Carpenter had a pretty effortless and breezy dialogue style of his own.

Ottman: The ‘Scream’ films were supposed to be almost farcical, so, to me, some of these choices made the film less scary and feel a little silly in places. It definitely lost a bit of the Carpenter seriousness and tension. In the end of the day, the frenetic cliché approach they temped with pushed buttons for people, so who knows.

First Reaction to the Movie

O’Keefe: It scared me. It was incredible. There was a lot I wasn’t involved in, so there were parts I hadn’t seen. As a horror fan, I was just happy. Having grown up with those kinds of movies and hiding behind a couch, it was an amazing feeling for me.

Ottman: I think my score comprises over 50% of the music in the film; otherwise, Marco would have been given full credit. But whatever the percentage, I cringe when I watch the film. It seems like a hodge-podge of music that doesn’t tell a story very well. It’s as if two scores were put into a blender and poured out on the movie in many parts. Also ,some parts of my score were placed in areas I didn’t intend.

Zappia: I first saw the complete film at the premiere in Westwood. My wife and I sat behind Jamie Lee, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. Watching the film was (and still is) one of the highlights of my career. I was extremely proud of the end result. Everyone in that theater contributed to the final product.

Mementos from Set

O’Keefe: I always try to keep a little something. I always ask. Normally, I try get my hands on some piece of jewelry that I’ve worn the entire time because it’s been on my body. I have a couple of the rings from the film.

Zappia: I was an idiot, okay? I didn’t even think about keeping some memento from the set. But I do have great memories of visiting the set. It was quite surreal. I remember at one point standing on the set between takes and having Chris Durand dressed in full Michael Myers attire (mask on) approach me. He leaned in and said something to the effect that he was a writer too and asked if I’d read a script he’d written. I was being pitched a movie by Michael Myers. It doesn’t get any more surreal than that! And who would say no?!

Jamie Lee was also so gracious. She asked if I’d seen any of the dailies. When I said I hadn’t, she invited me to watch some of them in her bungalow. Another surreal and very memorable moment.

Zappia shares a couple of candids with Jamie Lee Curtis below: