The trailer that horror fans have been waiting for is finally here. Ever since the announcement came of a new Halloween film purporting to be a true sequel to John Carpenter’s original groundbreaking 1978 film, we’ve been champing at the bit to get a glimpse at what’s to come. And the Carpenter-backed film looks set to both please fans, and CURDLE BLOOD. Jamie Lee Curtis returns in the role of Laurie Strode for the mother of all confrontations with the serial killer she fought off 40 years previous. Here are five of the most diabolically scary moments from the trailer. Get behind the sofa NOW.
Michael Myers in Prison
First off, that penitentiary he’s being held in. It’s like Gotham’s Arkham Asylum, only far from cartoonish and way more chilling. It’s 40 years after the events of the first film. Myers was taken into custody the night he killed three teens on Halloween 1978 and has been held in captivity ever since. We see the red and white checkerboard floor of a prison yard. Prisoners, dressed in white, are chained to the ground. A documentarian investigating Myers addresses Michael, whose face we don’t see, and tells him he has something he might like to see. Other prisoners start to get animated. One in a wheelchair starts laughing maniacally. The investigator holds Michael’s infamous white mask aloft. And Michael starts to get very excited.
The Extracted Teeth
If you thought you wouldn’t see any truly horrific scenes in the trailer, you were wrong. And this is the moneymaker. As a girl cowers in a grubby bathroom cubicle, the tension builds. A shot of a man, apparently dead, lying on the floor of a shop lets you know who’s there and what’s about to happen. But nothing can prepare you for Michael’s bloodied hand appearing at the top of the cubicle door and dropping a handful of bloody teeth next to the screaming girl. John Carpenter’s iconic Halloween theme music kicks in.
The imagery is horrific, but more so are the potential answers to the questions you ask yourself. Whose teeth are they, and why and how did Michael remove them? Eesh.
Laurie’s Survivalist Mode
When we first met Jamie Lee Curtis’s Laurie in the 1978 film, she was a bookish and demure virgin but proved her resourcefulness when it came to facing off against a psychotic serial killer. An experience like that has got to change you.
But the Laurie that we see here is perhaps not the Laurie we were expecting. Although she’s clearly found the time, energy and focus to produce a daughter – she’s lived something of a life and even has a granddaughter — Laurie’s still hell-bent on revenge. And has spent the past 40 years building up to it.
“Do you know that I pray every night that he will escape?” she says.
“What the hell did you do that for?” she’s asked.
“So I can kill him,” Laurie replies.
She’s turned herself into a hardened, self-trained assassin who is more than ready to rain vengeance down on the killer who destroyed her life.
“He’s waited for this night. He’s waited for me. I’ve waited for him,” she says.
Laurie’s scars are far more than simply physical – a close-up of Laurie’s arm shows the wounds have long since healed, but her mind is clearly far from ‘back to normal’.
Michael in the Window
The moment when Laurie looks up and sees that familiar stance and that grubby, terrifying mask peering down from the top window in the old Myers house is chilling. Made even more so coming after the moment we see him reclaim his mask. But where once Laurie might have run away, now she takes aim and fires a shot through the window. We don’t know if Laurie hits him but it’s probably safe to say he survives.
Classic Closet Moment
There’s a boy in bed. He asks: “Can you close the closet door?” which is slightly ajar. Monsters in the closet is a well-known fear of children, and one that’s utilised plenty on the big screen. Here, even though you know it’s going to happen, you don’t know it’s going to happen. They wouldn’t do that, would they?
The girl tries a couple of times to close the door but something’s jamming it. The third time, she opens the door… to reveal Michael Myers standing there. And even though you said it wouldn’t get you, it does. Right in the gut.
Halloween hits screens in the UK and US on October 19 and Australia on October 18.