Michael Myers Social Distancing And Wearing A Mask In Public Since 1978, Zombie’s two Halloween films are also part of an entirely different Halloween continuity featuring a new Laurie (Scout Taylor-Compton) and a new Loomis (Malcolm McDowell). It produced a similarly eccentric sequel, Halloween II, then drew to a close. Zombie stepped away and a planned Halloween 3D never got off the ground, presumably shuttering this corner of the Halloween-o-verse for good
Picking up mere moments after Halloween’s final scene, II makes two major additions to Halloween lore: 1) Laurie learns she’s Michael’s sister, adopted by another family after Michael’s institutionalization. 2) Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance), Michael’s doctor-turned-relentless-pursuer uncovers a vague connection between Michael and the Gaelic festival of Samhain, suggesting he might have some kind of supernatural powers.
Carpenter thought he was done with Myers after Halloween II. His plan: turn Halloween into a kind of anthology series in which each new film told a different story. Halloween III: Season of the Witch became the first and only entry in this reinvention. Working from a plot by British science fiction great Nigel Kneale (who had his name removed from the film) it tells the story of the sinister Silver Shamrock Novelties company whose president (Dan O’Herlihy), in an attempt to create a Celtic-inspired pagan sacrifice on a massive scale, uses computer technology to create Halloween masks designed to kill children. Roundly dismissed at the time, Halloween III has since rightly picked up a cult following. It’s unconnected, however, Michael Myers to Rob Zombie to the other Halloween films. How unconnected? A television can be seen advertising the original Halloween.
Here’s where it starts to get confusing. Take out Halloween III: Season of the Witch and you can follow a straight line from Halloween through Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. Halloween H20 changes that by choosing to pretend anything made after Halloween II didn’t count. Here Laurie, played by a returning Jamie Lee Curtis, is still alive, living under an assumed name, and working as headmistress at a boarding school. This does not thwart Michael from tracking down his sister (yeah, that detail counts again) and killing anyone who gets in his way.
The popularity of Scream and the late-’90s slasher revival it heralded all but assured that Halloween would make a comeback. Scream writer Kevin Williamson made some uncredited contributions to Halloween Costumes Of 2021, which helps explain the film’s knowing tone. (Its meta touches extend to casting Curtis’s mom, Psycho star Janet Leigh, in a small role.) After a while, however, it just becomes a pretty standard ’90s slasher movie, though Curtis’s presence helps. That’s briefly true of the mostly dreadful Halloween: Resurrection, too, at least until Michael finally kills Laurie early in the film. R.I.P. Laurie Strode. (Don’t worry. She’ll be back.)