Though 2018's Halloween recaptures the stripped-down aesthetics of Carpenter's original vision,
there's still a handful of treats scattered among its tricks, waiting to be found by sharp-eyed
fans.
Come along with us as we give you a brief rundown of the secrets hiding in Halloween's
shadows.
Just watch out for the boogeyman… and spoilers.
And spoilers...
Understandably, the focus of much of Halloween's hype has been on Jamie Lee Curtis and the
return of the role that made her famous, Laurie Strode.
Curtis' 1978 performance remains iconic in the annals of horror history, earning her
the lingering title of "Scream Queen."
She played Laurie again across three other decades, starring in 1981's Halloween II,
1998's Halloween H20, and 2002's Halloween: Resurrection.
She even lent her voice to Halloween III: Season of the Witch, the unrelated stand-alone
entry in which she can be heard as an announcer.
"Curfew, curfew, all residents of Santa Mira please clear the streets."
However, while those previous sequels tended to leave Laurie sidelined in a hospital bed
or killed off after a glorified cameo, the 2018 film is fully dedicated to her story,
exploring the trauma that has affected her life and her family.
Less obvious are some other returning performers joining Curtis.
Michael Myers was played by two different actors in Carpenter's film - Nick Castle was
the man behind the mask, while Tony Moran portrayed the killer for the single scene
in which his face can be glimpsed.
Castle is back this time around, sharing the role of Michael with newcomer James Jude Courtney.
The new Halloween takes us back to the fictional town of Haddonfield, Illinois, the small community
once rocked by Michael Myers' original murders.
While the story keeps a tight focus on Laurie, her daughter Karen, and her granddaughter
Allyson, the filmmakers nonetheless made sure to include a few nods to the continuing history
of the town around them.
The original Halloween was shot during the summer in California.
Grappling with a very modest budget, Carpenter's crew had to simulate a Midwestern autumn by
spreading dead leaves on the ground, despite the trees visibly blooming in several shots.
The new movie, shot in South Carolina in the winter, recreates this unsettling juxtaposition
during an early scene in which Allyson and her friends stroll down Haddonfield's leaf-strewn
sidewalks under green foliage.
Beyond the visuals, citizens are name-checked too, with Allyson's boyfriend Cameron Elam
established as the son of Lonnie Elam, a trouble-making classmate of young Tommy Doyle in 1978.
In addition to set dressing and name-drops, David Gordon Green and Danny McBride peppered
their new Halloween with a number of cinematic allusions to its predecessor.
From in-jokes and references to inversions and reversals, it will be impossible for longtime
Halloween fans to watch this new take without feeling a certain sense of déjà vu.
This is obvious right from the opening titles, which revive the jack-o-lantern that kicked
off the first movie.
Michael's 2018 hospital escape mirrors his first, with white-gowned mental patients wandering
eerily by the glow of car headlights.
Later, a familiar playground rhyme echoes during the trick-or-treat sequence.
The real fun begins, though, when Laurie herself takes the place of Michael in a number of
familiar moments, particularly the climactic balcony fall and subsequent disappearance.
Her face also looms in the darkness behind him at one point, just as he had loomed behind
her.
"Happy Halloween Michael.”
In the end, the fire that at last consumes the Shape also burns a dollhouse, which bears
a passing resemblance to the original Myers home.
While the new movie ignores all the sequels that preceded it, McBride and Green still
set out with an intention to pay tribute to every Halloween movie.
Their film states that Michael has been in custody ever since that fateful night in 1978,
making it clear that none of his later shenanigans ever happened in its world.
However, winks and nods abound to console fans who might be miffed about this new timeline.
1981's Halloween II revealed that Laurie and Michael were siblings, suggesting that his
killing spree was somehow motivated by his own bloodline.
Further sequels took this concept further, sending the Shape after more relatives and
proposing an ancient curse as his motivation.
The new movie has Allyson quickly dispel the notion of Laurie and Michael being sister
and brother.
"Wasn't it her brother who murdered all those babysitters?”
“No, it was not her brother.
That's something that people made up."
More subtle sequel references include a glimpse at Halloween III's sinister masks, a gas station
bearing a strong resemblance to a set from The Return of Michael Myers, and a public
restroom setting similar to a scene in H20.
Donald Pleasence was one of the few consistent mainstays of the Halloween sequels, playing
Dr. Sam Loomis in five films before his death.
Acting as something of a Van Helsing to Michael's Dracula, Loomis dedicated his entire life
to stopping his famous patient, even when no one believed him about the danger they
were in.
In the first movie, he sums up the Shape's unknowable motivations as succinctly as possible:
"I realized that what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply evil."
The new movie pays rather subtle but brilliant homage to this idea.
Though the 2018 Halloween takes place in a timeline where Michael never escaped again
during the late Loomis' lifetime, his dedication still plays a major role, and the character
even makes a cassette tape cameo via a Pleasence soundalike.
We are introduced to a man dubbed "the new Loomis" by Laurie, Dr. Sartain, whose unhealthy
obsession with understanding Michael's motivations leads him to betray the heroes towards the
film's climax.
In the end, the bad doctor learns that what Laurie and Loomis have always said is true:
there's no reasoning with pure evil.
"It was the boogeyman.”
“As a matter of fact, it was."