Before I start, I just want to state that I am not a fan of any of the sequels to Carpenter’s classic film. It’s perfect as it is and has been diminished by sequels that have failed to justify their existence outside of the Akkads wanting to make more and more money. That’s just my opinion, of course, though it is objectively true that none of the sequels were made with the same skill and craft in front of and behind the camera that was seen with HalloweeN.
All of that said, I was looking forward to H18 when it was first announced. Carpenter being involved with the story, JLC returning, and that mask, which is my favorite thing about the movie. I left the the theater extremely disappointed because what Gordon Green and everyone else said about the movie was a lie: it wasn’t made in “the spirit of the original” but was instead a hodgepodge of elements of past sequels filled with underdeveloped and unlikable characters.
I started this thread not to pick apart the new film as much as to gauge how Laurie and The Shape’s story could have gone with all the other sequels wiped away. I’d like to hear your ideas for how such a sequel could have worked. The only two “rules” are that we’re talking about a sequel set forty years later and one in which Myers has been captured after disappearing following his fall. I personally think the ideal sequel to Halloween (if there had to be one at all) would have been set a few years after “The Night He Came Home,” with Laurie in college in a story similar to Scream 2 or out of college in a story like Carpenter’s “Someone’s Watching Me.”
On to my idea. Myers is found and re-incarcerated despite Loomis’ protests. Loomis focuses on getting Myers sent to prison while also counseling Laurie, Tommy, and Lindsay. Laurie and Loomis have a special bond and when she graduates from high school, she decides to pursue a career in psychology to work with victims of violent crime. Meanwhile, Tommy and Lindsay remain close and begin dating in high school. They eventually marry and leave Haddonfield, though they are close to Laurie and always keep in touch. She never marries, instead dedicating her life to her work and then, when Loomis dies, to his mission: to see Michael Myers either sentenced to death or moved to a maximum security prison where his chances of escape are next to zero. We learn most of this in exposition in the present, forty years later.
Tommy and Lindsay testify with Laurie over the years to build a case that Myers should be moved out of Smith’s Grove. Part of their case is research done by Laurie that confirms something the original film only hints at: Michael Myers was a normal six-year old boy before Halloween Night, 1978. She backs this up with her own research and work with victims of violent crime. Finally, Myers is ordered to be moved from Smith’s Grove to a maximum security prison. Myers has been in the state he was in between 1963 and 1978. Once he learns he’s being transferred, he kills his way out of the truck transporting him to prison and eventually returns to Haddonfield. Laurie and the Doyles find out and call the Haddonfield PD. Laurie knows where Michael is going: home. The Myers house was eventually purchased and demolished, but a new house was built on the property. Michael arrives late on the afternoon of October 31st and kills the residents. Laurie, the Doyles, and the police find the family murdered but Michael gone. They’re unable to find him, though he’s in Haddonfield, stalking a group of teenagers he saw pass in front of the house as trick or treating begins. The body count rises before Michael and the Doyles find and confront The Shape in a final confrontation forty years in the making.
If you read all of this, thank you! I look forward to reading other ideas.