Though Halloween surpassed expectations, made money and became the best reviewed movie in the franchise since the original, it almost went insane. Specifically, many reports have noted the original script called for a recreation of the 1978 film’s ending.
Producer Ryan Turek recently revealed that the new effort was going to radically change things and what they had planned would have been a huge departure from the established canon. Not in the realm of an “it was all a dream” cliche or something like that, but rather a shift in established lore that was just a little less kooky than the Rob Zombie films in the series.
“The first scripted opening was a re-envisioning of the finale of Halloween,” producer Ryan Turek shared on the Shock Waves podcast. “David wanted to f-ck things up, man. He wanted to just mix things up a little bit. So, initially, he had a scene in which we came in at the end of Halloween, and Loomis sees the screaming kids, comes inside, sees the struggle between Laurie and Michael. Michael puts his mask back on, Loomis shoots him, pushes Michael back through the doorway into the bedroom. Laurie is cowering on the ground, Loomis charges into the bedroom, where Michael gets the upper hand and jumps him. Loomis drops the gun and then Laurie is holding onto the gun, but she’s shaking so much she can’t actually pull the trigger.”
He went onto say that Loomis then killed Michael and Laurie pulled the trigger and knocked him back. Thankfully, this was vetoed by John Carpenter and the finished product is all the better for it.
Halloween is a messy and befuddling series. Druids, evil masks, Laurie dying multiple times, that one would seek to change the original so dramatically is nothing short of ludicrous. It’s a bit like making a film where a character dies unexpectedly or an actor’s cast as a minority despite clearly not being one. In other words, totally insane.
But hey, that’s just my opinion. What do you think? Would you have preferred this different opening to Halloween? Let us know in the comments section down below.