Can 'Halloween' Reboot Live Up to Its Heritage?
by EG
Filmmakers have tried to recapture the macabre magic of the original Halloween for 40 years, and all have failed. Now a reboot is trying one more time. Does it stand a chance? Read on for some thoughts.
The horror film Halloween, whose 10th sequel is also named Halloween and has its world premiere Saturday in Toronto, was the Blair Witch Project of its day.
On a production budget of $325,000 ($1.2 million today), 1978’s Halloween brought in $70 million worldwide ($270 million today). While 1999’s Blair Witch was more profitable, both films illustrate the financial power of horror done right.
When Halloween was released, The Hollywood Reporter called it “an effective entry for its intended market.” This was much more positive than most of the reviews, which director John Carpenter described as “horrible.”
Asked what he was most proud of about the movie, the director tells THR, “I had final cut and my name above the title, and I put my best effort into it.” Asked what on the artistic side of making the film he got right, Carpenter, 70, says, “The artistic side? I’m a movie director. That’s my first love. My job is to tell that story and scare the shit out of the audience. And that’s what I did.”
Though Carpenter has credits as a composer, exec producer and creative consultant on the reboot, he didn’t want to say much about the original. “I’ve answered questions about Halloween so many times,” he says. “It’s been 40 years of this.”
More enthusiastic was exec producer Irwin Yablans, who said the financial success of the film “allowed me to live the life of a gentleman.” Yablans, 84, says that when first imagining the movie, he instructed Carpenter to “think of The Exorcist and Psycho. I want this to be theater of the mind. And I want a staircase. Both of those films used staircases.”
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.
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