The upcoming sequel in the Halloween franchise has brought another iconic performer into the mix, with Bloody Disgusting confirming that Nick Castle, the man who played the masked Michael Myers, will become the masked stalker once again. Castle joins the previously announced Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer and Andi Matichak.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Throughout the original film, the full performance of Michael Myers was completed by multiple actors, taking into account the young character, the stalking presence referred to as “The Shape” and the unmasked Michael Myers. Given that we never saw Castle’s face in Halloween, we can assume Michael will wear some version of the iconic mask in the upcoming film.
After ten films, which included various narrative timelines and a reboot, the Halloween franchise grew stale, making it in need of major changes. Those changes were announced back in 2016 when Blumhouse announced it was moving forward with a sequel and bringing John Carpenter back to the franchise to serve as a producer.
Many horror fans looked to the top names in the genre to helm the slasher, yet we were all surprised to learn that Danny McBride and David Gordon Green would co-write the film with Green directing. Audiences are much more familiar with their comedic projects like Pineapple Express and Your Highness, with the new Halloween sequel being their first full-blown foray into the genre.
“The original is all about tension. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) doesn’t even know that Michael Myers exists until the last minutes of the movie,” McBride shared with the Charleston City Paper about his outlook on the sequel. “So much of it you’re in anticipation of what’s going to happen and the dread that [director John] Carpenter spins so effortlessly in that film, I think we were really trying to get it back to that. We’re trying to mine that dread. Mine that tension and not just go for gore and ultra-violence that you see some horror movies lean on.”
Compared to many other slashers that attempted to recreate Halloween‘s success, the series has never leaned too heavily into graphic depictions of violence, but with films like the Saw series gaining prominence in recent years, audiences have grown accustomed to buckets of blood.
“To us, it was all about bringing back the creep factor and trying to find the horror in your own backyard, in our own homes,” McBride pointed out.
The filmmakers have also expressed that the film will ignore all of the films in the franchise other than the original.
The Halloween sequel is slated to hit theaters on October 19, 2018.
[H/T Bloody Disgusting]
