Halloween Kills Features an Unexpected Cameo From Bob Odenkirk

The David Gordon Green-directed Halloween films have featured cameos, callbacks, and Easter eggs to various entries from across the franchise, but the director recently revealed that one of the most unexpected cameos in Halloween Kills comes in the form of Better Call Saul star Bob Odenkirk. Green recently recalled then, when attempting to find a yearbook photo of one of Michael Myers’ victims from the 1978 film, he came across a yearbook photo of Odenkirk that he thought resembled original actor John Michael Graham, with rights issues seeing Green use Odenkirk’s photo instead of the actual actor. Halloween Kills is in theaters and streaming on Peacock now.

“In the original [John] Carpenter film, the Bob character, I wanted to have acknowledgment of all the deaths from the previous film, but we couldn’t track [the actor] down or get the rights, Green recalled to CinemaBlend. “Somehow we couldn’t clear an image of Bob for our television news broadcast. And so I was frustrated by that because I wanted to acknowledge Bob’s death, but we couldn’t get footage of Bob. So I Googled ‘Bob 1970s High School,’ and a photo of Bob Odenkirk popped up that looked just like Bob! So I thought, ‘He’s probably easier to find; let’s go get him!’”

The broadcast also includes a photo of P.J. Soles’ Lynda Van der Klok, with another interesting note about this film being that it features footage of Nancy Kyes’ Annie Brackett which was lifted from Halloween II. What makes this fascinating is that both 2018’s Halloween and this film negate the events of Halloween II, which will surely cause some confused reactions from fans regarding the inclusion of such footage.

Another interesting way this new film pays respects to the franchise’s history is that Nick Castle, who provided a majority of the physical presence of Michael Myers in the original Halloween, was brought in for Halloween Kills to provide the sounds of the murderer’s breathing from underneath his iconic mask. For 2018’s Halloween, Castle also returned to sport the mask for one specific shot, and teased last year that he had another on-screen cameo in Halloween Kills. He did note, however, that when recording the sounds of breathing as Myers, he didn’t recognize his own appearance in the film, leading fans to wonder if the scene did make it into the final cut or if it was cut by the filmmakers.

Halloween Kills is in theaters and streaming on Peacock now.

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