Hilarious Budweiser Commercial Parodies John Carpenter’s Halloween II Writing Process

For decades, Halloween filmmaker John Carpenter has explained that a major motivating factor of his script for Halloween II was drinking Budweiser, with the company finally embracing those anecdotes to deliver the above hilarious commercial which chronicles his attempts to write the script, thanks to the beer of his choice. While some fans might be perplexed as to why the commercial was created as part of a Brazilian promotional campaign, the ad was crafted to celebrate an event which encouraged fans to celebrate Halloween at one of Sao Paulo’s last video stores, honoring both the holiday itself and Carpenter’s famous writing process.

“On that particular script, I wrote most of that by myself,” Carpenter shared with Vulture in 2014 about writing Halloween II. “That was a painful script because I didn’t feel like I had any story. And the only thing I could think to do was to start immediately after Halloween ended, and just carry on. And it was a script I wrote with a six-pack of beer every night, trying to get some inspiration.”

As far as what beer it was, the filmmaker pointed out, “I would think Budweiser because it would give me a buzz, but wouldn’t get me drunk.”

The filmmaker has also pointed out in various interviews that the only reason he signed on to be involved with Halloween II is because he knew the studio would develop a sequel regardless of his involvement, and he felt that he might as well attempt to craft the direction of the story. The biggest revelation in that film was that Michael Myers was the brother of Laurie Strode, with that sibling connection being the motivation for his murders.

Carpenter previously pointed out that the decision to include this narrative reveal was rooted in having to shoot additional scenes for the original Halloween to fill the appropriate time slot for the film’s TV broadcasts.

“Well, the brother reveal was caused by NBC,” Carpenter detailed to ComicBook.com. “NBC purchased the rights to show Halloween on network television. But our movie was too short for them. So we needed to add some time. I think we had to add, what was it, eight minutes or something like that, I don’t remember. And there was nothing to add. The first movie was just what I wanted to make. I don’t have anything to add. So I came up with this brother thing. It was awful, just awful. But, I did it.”

One extra scene that was shot involved a glimpse at Michael Myers’ cell, in which he had carved the word “sister.” From there, the mythology was established that Michael and Laurie were related. This mythology was honored in most Halloween sequels, with last year’s Halloween, which serves as a direct sequel to the 1978 original, deviating from that mythology.

Carpenter currently serves as a producer on Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends, which land in theaters on October 16, 2020 and October 15, 2021, respectively.

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