Halloween 2018 has been a big hit with audiences and critics alike, however, the movie almost
had a completely different ending and opening scenes.
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers, it's Jan here, and in this video I'm revealing Halloween's
alternate ending and how the movie almost changed the original film's finale!
Make sure you watch to the end to also find out all the other deleted scenes you never
got to see!
If you're new here, I do regular deep dives into your favourite flicks, so make sure you
subscribe and also leave a comment about the movie for a chance to win one of these cool
merch packs.
Spoilers ahead for Halloween, so take care if you haven't seen the movie yet.
The end of Halloween 2018 saw Laurie and the Strode women trap Michael Myers in the basement
and burn the house down, leaving us with the question of whether Michael survived.
Originally though, the final confrontation went down very differently but after it seems
test audiences reacted negatively, it was completely reshot.
In the alternate ending, Laurie ends up facing off against Michael outside her house, rather
than inside the house as happens in the final film.
The deleted ending has Laurie trying to shoot her tormentor but missing and then she finds
she's run out of bullets.
Michael has a kitchen knife, so Laurie pulls out her hunting knife and charges at him.
She slices him in the arm in a reverse of what he did to her in the 1978 movie, but
Michael plunges his own knife into Laurie's chest.
But just as he's about to kill Laurie off with a final blow, her daughter Karen emerges
from the house and shoots Michael in the shoulder with a crossbow.
Michael drops his knife which Allyson picks up and the three women stagger away from the
house.
Michael meanwhile is injured from the crossbow arrow which has penetrated all the way through
his shoulder and he stumbles off into the nearby wood.
Laurie pleads with Karen and Allyson to kill him, but her voice is too weak for them to
hear.
After the women drive off in the truck, the movie ends with Michael wandering into a clearing
filled with the creepy-looking mannequins that Laurie uses for target practice.
The script for this discarded ending then states that Michael sits down by a tree and,
exhausted, "his breathing deepens [… it's] possibly his last".
Much of this ending was actually filmed as you can see various scenes in the trailers
and promo footage which never made it into the final movie.
And I can certainly see why it didn't test so well with audiences as, in a number of
ways, it's not as satisfying as the ending we did get.
Firstly, by placing the ending outside, we would have missed out on Michael pushing Laurie
off the balcony in a nice reverse of how he fell off in the original movie.
Secondly, Laurie's achievement of finally trapping Michael in the safe room would never
have happened, making her character arc not as fulfilling.
And thirdly, in the final film, burning down the house also gives her an additional sense
of resolution and closure.
And on top of that, the deleted ending makes it more obvious that Michael is very likely
still alive, whereas in the final film, it's left open in a more interesting way.
A few fans have said that even the ending we did get felt a little abrupt, however,
this alternate ending sounds like it would have been much shorter again and perhaps rather
anticlimactic.
A major change that the Halloween 2018 filmmakers almost made to the franchise's mythos is that
they very nearly altered the ending of the first movie.
Most shockingly, if the new filmmakers' had gone ahead with their alternate ending to
the original 1978 movie, we would have seen Dr Loomis killed on screen!
Fortunately, John Carpenter advised director David Gordon Green not to do that as, in his
opinion, it would have really annoyed the film's fans.
Green had thought he needed to go back 40 years in his new film to remind people about
the ending to the first movie in case they'd not seen it in a long time or were new to
the franchise.
And he planned to use his art director as a body double for Donald Pleasence's Dr Loomis
because apparently, for the kind of shot they were planning, he would have looked exactly
like the long deceased actor.
As for young Laurie, she would have been recreated using a blend of Jamie Lee Curtis and a young
actress with a similar build to a 19-year old Curtis.
They also looked into digitally altering existing footage from the original movie and I wonder
if they were thinking of doing something similar to what Rogue One did with both Peter Cushing's
character and a young Princess Leia?
They were even going to cast one of the movie's production assistants as a young Sheriff Hawkins
because he looked like a young Will Patton who plays the present-day Hawkins!
And that would have been filmed as part of a scene showing Michael being captured by
the police.
In the end, John Carpenter told them they were making things way too complicated and
that the audience didn't need this extra scene to get up to speed; so, instead there was
just a single line of exposition from Dr Sartain to Laurie when he explains that Hawkins was
"the first responding deputy [to arrive] when Michael was arrested in 1978".
Interestingly, there's a little remnant of this discarded reshoot idea in the final film.
Look carefully at the room where Laurie and Michael face off in the finale, and you'll
notice that it's a replica of the bedroom from the end of the 1978 movie.
The filmmakers had that set built to use for their initial idea to reshoot the original
film's climax; but when they decided against that, they used the set anyway to keep down
the budget.
And there's several additional deleted scenes that ended up cut for pacing purposes.
The first one comes just after Michael has escaped from the prison bus.
We cut to a shot of Dana, the British podcaster, taking a shower.
The bathroom door opens slowly and a masked man pulls back the shower curtain.
This scene was deliberately designed as an homage to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, which
starred Jamie Lee Curtis's real-life mother Janet Leigh in the iconic scene.
The little twist though is that the masked man isn’t actually Michael Myers, it's the
other podcaster Aaron playing a prank on Dana.
Aaron then takes the mask off, gives a line about how wearing the mask or the legacy of
it inspires a certain tendency and then makes out with Dana.
Little fun fact now: Green's scrapped tribute to Psycho would have been doubly fitting as
not only did Hitchcock's style influence John Carpenter's original Halloween, but also Dr
Samuel Loomis was named after a character from Psycho.
Curiously, Jamie Lee Curtis's mother [and star of Psycho] Janet Leigh has previously
appeared in the Halloween franchise, playing a secretary to her real-life daughter's character
in H20.
In fact, that movie included a little easter egg to Hitchcock's movie, with a shot of the
same car driven by Janet Leigh's character in the 1960s classic.
Another kill that was cut for pacing issues is where Allyson was jogging and saw a dead
dog strung upside down in a tree.
It's not clear whether Michael killing the dog was actually filmed, however, I suspect
it would have probably happened off screen.
This moment would likely have been a little hat-tip to the two dogs that Michael killed
in the 1978 film – the first of which was never shown on screen; though we did partially
see the death of the second dog Lester which belonged to the little girl Laurie's friend
Annie was babysitting.
By the way, if you'd like to find out how Halloween's filmmakers created the incredibly
creepy kill shots we did see in the movie, tap the card to watch The Secret Truth About
Halloween 2018 or click the link in the description below or on the card at the end of this video.
Another deleted scene revealed in behind-the-scenes footage shows Laurie coming to speak with
her daughter Karen at Haddonfield Harmony Community Center.
It looks like this was probably an additional scene to illuminate a little more about Karen's
character and maybe where she works.
So, would you have liked to have seen any of these deleted scenes in the movie?
And did you like the ending we got in the final film?
Let me know what you think in the comments below and remember to subscribe for a chance
to win one of these cool Halloween merch packs.
If you'd like to learn more about my theory on the movie's finale plus what I think the
crazy twist with Dr Sartain really means, tap left for my ending explained video or
tap right for 10 freaky facts about the making of Halloween 2018.
And if you enjoyed this, I really appreciate a thumbs-up and a share.
Thanks for watching and see ya next time.
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers!