It would be putting it lightly to say that horror fans went wild for the first full-length trailer for Halloween Kills, which teased that the ante has been upped significantly for the second chapter in David Gordon Green’s slasher trilogy.
The first installment was something of a slow-burner as Michael Myers stalked his way through Haddonfield while the narrative built towards a climactic showdown between Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode and her arch-nemesis 40 years after they first threw down in John Carpenter’s classic. Now, though, Halloween Kills has made it clear that things are going to escalate in a very bloody fashion.
In the space of a single promo it was made abundantly clear those estimates that the series’ body count was set to increase by tenfold may have undersold it a little, with all sorts of stabbings and neck-snappings spotted in the footage. The hook this time around is that Laurie is tired of being the hunter, with the veteran scream queen set to flip the script and turn Michael into her prey for a change.
In a new social media post to hype the trailer, Curtis was full of praise for the creative team and the movie itself, outlining that the coincidentally prescient horror film is going to be as mad as both its stars and audience, as you can read below.
“David Gordon Green and Danny McBride have crafted an intense and brutal second wave of their masterpiece Halloween 2018. They were prescient in the 2018 film about the amount of trauma that was being recognized, primarily by the #metoo movement which collided with Laurie’s 40 year trauma and now they were again ahead of the curve of the amount of rage that we have all seen and felt in 2020. WE ARE ALL MAD AS HELL AND WE ARE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE! Another brilliant chapter in the ultimate story of good vs evil, Laurie vs Michael. Happy Halloween. See you ALL in THEATERS in October!”
The most important thing for Halloween Kills to accomplish is telling a complete story within its running time, because fans already know that Halloween Ends is coming a year later. Based on nothing but the strength of the footage, it’s looking as though Green and his team have managed to pull it off with consummate ease.