The Halloween Franchise

[thecolorsblend]

This channel isn't just superficial clickbait trash. They offer real and meaningful insights. This is worth watching.

If you just didn't enjoy the film, I don't think anything here will change your mind. But I found my appreciation got deepened a bit after watching this.

[Gotham Knight]

I've only just recently joined (this year) the H franchise and here are some brief thoughts:

Halloween is a masterpiece I'm so enamored with because I just don't see a lot of movies like that anymore. I'm actually glad I saw it. It is a great feeling.

The Halloween sequels are an easy breakdown. The entries that attempt to end the franchise (2, H20, the new trilogy) are the good ones as 'ending it' assigns a goal, and that purpose gives the films focus and less room to slide off the rails. The stories are taut and driven.

The bad ones are the opposite, they (the Thorn trilogy, Resurrection) attempt to propagate the franchise and too easily slip into slasher schlock. They too closely resemble the knock off films. The only goal is to continue and quality suffers instantly.  Maybe I'll do some blurb reviews one by one later, but I just wanted to put my thoughts out there.

Also, Donald Pleasence was a treasure.

[The Joker]

This channel isn't just superficial clickbait trash. They offer real and meaningful insights. This is worth watching.

Agreed. I think I discovered the channel a year or two ago when they were posting numerous deep dive videos on characters from IT (from the book, 1990 mini series, and the recent theatrical duology).

Also, Donald Pleasence was a treasure.

Couldn't agree more.

[thecolorsblend]

The current trend with media seems to be streaming shows.

It makes me wonder how Halloween could fit in with that milieu. Shooting from the hip, I'm not sure it can. But then again, Halloween movies fit comfortably into the Seventies, Eighties, Nineties, 2000's, 2010's, etc. So, why couldn't a streaming Myers show work?

I'm not aware of any movement on a new Halloween project post-HE. I'm not commenting on news items here. I'm just spitballing. The idea of a Halloween show interests me. Mostly because I can see where it could go badly wrong.

But if it's done well, it could breathe a whole new life into the franchise. And since there's no obvious creative direction to go in right now, a Halloween streaming series might be just what the doctor ordered.

[The Joker]

Danielle Harris on the recent passing of George P. Wilbur.

[thecolorsblend]

RIP George Wilbur.

Fun fact. Halloween 04 was her first movie. So, early on, Wilbur refused to wear the mask around her unless they were shooting a scene. And before shooting their first scene together, he introduced himself to her, told her it was all make believe, she should call CUT if she gets actually scared, nobody actually wants to hurt her, etc. He did a lot to set her at ease on this set full of grownups and scary stuff going on.

I always thought that was a classy thing to do for a child.

[The Joker]

That's a very cool story about George Wilbur.

I've seen a few clips of George attending Halloween conventions here and there. Always came across like a soft spoken gentleman.

[The Joker]

[thecolorsblend]

A reboot in some form is coming. In other news, water is wet.

Still, the prospect of a Season Of The Witch TV show does intrigue me. I said on some previous page that I finally rewatched SOTW. And forget the Michael Myers bit for a minute. SOTW is a highly enjoyable horror movie. So, revisiting that in some capacity is music to my ears.

I personally find the speculation that Paramount is ready, willing and able to outbid all comers for the Halloween movie rights. I seem to be the only one in the room who never expected Akkad to reup with Blumhouse. So, the news that the Halloween rights are being shopped around (to parties other than Blumhouse) came as no surprise.

The real question at this point is what exactly Halloween (in the Myers sense) has left in the tank anymore. The nostalgia angle is probably off the table following the Blumhouse series. It may never be possible to go back to that well again. But it's certainly not possible right now.

A hard reboot had mixed (at best) results when Rob Zombie did it. But that doesn't mean the idea has no merit to it.

So, it's hard to say what the best course of action might be. But I'm not thrilled with the idea of Michael Myers possibly appearing in a TV format. I'll need a LOT of convincing when it comes to that.

[The Joker]

the prospect of a Season Of The Witch TV show does intrigue me. I said on some previous page that I finally rewatched SOTW. And forget the Michael Myers bit for a minute. SOTW is a highly enjoyable horror movie. So, revisiting that in some capacity is music to my ears.

I don't mind "H3: Season of the Witch", and personally have come around to it as a enjoyable film in the past 15 or so years since I really sat down and gave it a honest watch, but I also distinctly remember when much of the fan base absolutely abhorred H3 due to the film's choices to exclude Myers, and even make H1 (at least) a fictional film that's played on television (something of precursor to Wes Craven's New Nightmare).

Personally, I have a really difficult time believing that headlining a tv series with the "Halloween" brand, and going the anthology route, and/or possibly extending the H3 "Season of the Witch" storyline would be all that fulfilling with the masses for very long. Yes, it does have it's fans, and I like the film too, but at the same time, I have to be honest with myself and know that going with the H3/Anthology route is going to be incredibly more niche than somehow incorporating Myers as per usual.

If they just want to go with "Season of the Witch" as the series main title, I would be more inclined to that notion. Differentiate the two, to where there's no confusion, disappointment, or possible fracturing of the fan base. The problem, is that I don't know how amendable a lisenser would be to producing a tv series based on the outlier of a franchise, and also not being able to use the "Halloween" name on it?

The real question at this point is what exactly Halloween (in the Myers sense) has left in the tank anymore. The nostalgia angle is probably off the table following the Blumhouse series. It may never be possible to go back to that well again. But it's certainly not possible right now.

A hard reboot had mixed (at best) results when Rob Zombie did it. But that doesn't mean the idea has no merit to it.

So, it's hard to say what the best course of action might be. But I'm not thrilled with the idea of Michael Myers possibly appearing in a TV format. I'll need a LOT of convincing when it comes to that.

I think the problem with possibly running a "Halloween" tv show co-currently with a "Halloween" film series, is that the franchise will undoubtedly diminish sooner rather than later due to overexposure. I'd rather the Halloween franchise remain as films just as they always have been, but one way I could envision a "Halloween" tv series with Michael Myers being possibly worthwhile, is by taking something of a "American Horror Story" approach where each season is disconnected from the previous. Where you could adapt/modify unproduced scripts and such, and tell finite Myers stories without being continually conscious of the how's and why's this or that might affect continuity going forward. Under this plan, returning to the Thorn storyline for a season, or re-incorporating Jaimie Lloyd with Danielle back as followup to H4, or even adapting the Dennis Etchison script, might be more feasible for a tv show, rather than it would be for a actual film....