How to 'Halloween & # 39; Rose of Death

The boogeyman lives again.

The latest Halloween movie, due out in October, is technically the 11th movie to be in the 40-year-old horror franchise, which gave birth to Michael Myers and popularized the slasher's breakaways. But the ever-growing folklore around Haddonfield, Illinois, and his infamous masked murderer are irrelevant this time around. David Gordon Green, who directed the script-based film he wrote with long-time friends Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley, stripped away the mythology of the sequel, making his "Halloween" directly associated with the 1978 classic of John Carpenter.

This means that, according to Green's interpretations, Michael never sued Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) in the hospital halls nor did she kill her on the roof of the asylum where she was waiting for her return . If you have not already done so, you can officially reject Dickensian's damn gore-fest that Rob Zombie unleashed in his tedious remake of 2007 and his hyper-violent sequel of 2009.

Instead, it's the story of Laurie – a role that Curtis agreed to take back because Jake Gyllenhaal, of all people, convinced her to do it – claiming a life of victim. "I think I 've quietly made a very feminist horror film," Green said.

For Green, who has a visceral connection with the original "Halloween", the arrival at that time was very risky. After a failed attempt to reorganize the fantasy of Italian horror "Suspiria", which his friend Luca Guadagnino ("Call me your name") continued to do, Green had wanted to get his hands on a thriller that pleases. And then, with a simple email from superstar producer Jason Blum, "Halloween" has come into his life.

About a month before the premiere of the September 8th film at the Toronto International Film Festival, the 43-year-old director stopped by HuffPost's office to discuss everything about Halloween. "Snow Angels"), vehicles of stylistic actors ("Joe", "Stronger") and flashy studio comedies ("Pineapple Express," Your Highness "), so at this point, almost everything he does is a departure.I have a hard time thinking about a live director whose career has played an important role – precisely the upgrade Michael Myers needed.

What is your first memory of "Halloween"?

There were two films that were forbidden fruits in my youth. My parents were very strict and I was a movie junkie. But I did not have the right to see R-rated movies. They started to relax at the age of 13 or 14, but I really wanted to see "Revenge of the Nerds" and "Halloween" . They both circulated in my world around 1985, so in fifth or sixth year. There was a couple of friends whose parents were not so strict about things, and I remember watching her against my parents' wishes during a slumber party. I was so scared that I got sick, I vomited, I called my mother for her to pick me up and confessed.

So, there is a complete circle now that I will not allow my mother to watch this movie.

As you watch "Halloween" in 1985, we got "Friday the 13th", "Nightmare on Elm Street", "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "Prom Night" and some of their many suites. Was "Halloween" your slasher choice?

I liked "Halloween" and "Nightmare on Elm Street" – those were not so scary because they were fun. Freddy Krueger was such a charismatic, strange and naughty character that he ended the tension. What scares me about Michael Myers is that he gives you nothing. He has no personality, he has no ambition, he has no motivation or very little. It is only this primordial essence of evil, and it does not give you fear of everything because that is all. A guy in my dreams with burnt face and Edward Scissorhands gloves is scary because shocking, but Michael Myers has entered my subconscious in a way that I did not appreciate as a child.

There are many ways to go with a horror movie, and they did "Scream" as a result of the success of these films. But I tried to take the DNA created by Carpenter in 1978. When we presented him this concept, he was really excited and we have been working together for a year and a half.

After being haunted by Michael as a preteen, wwhat are you after?

I like them all as a fan who likes to watch Michael Myers and loves this music. They do not scare me. Some of them are rude, others very creative. They become really complicated in terms of mythology, which is why, in our version, we rejected this idea as a legend and myth and the evolution of a city's conversation about Michael Myers. We stick to the simplicity of "Halloween 1." We are a very easy film to process and digest. It's just: "A bad thing happened 40 years ago; ready for more?

How did you enter the photo for this movie?

I was in Los Angeles to show the producers a part of the movie "Stronger". I knew [horror producer] Jason Blum socially, and I woke up with an email in my Jason hotel saying, "Interested in the" Halloween "franchise? Call me. And my reaction was very similar to my reaction in the high places where my legs seem odd to me. Do you know when you look from the edge of a building or a bridge and that your legs become a little shaky? I was sitting staring out the window of my hotel room and my legs were getting rickety. I had a very physical reaction to this email.

Because you're thinking of getting your hands on this film that matters a lot to you.

Absolutely, and I wanted to make a horror movie for a long time.

Yeah, me and Luca Guadagnino have developed "Suspiria". I wrote one of the drafts. I was going to lead it at one point, just after "Pineapple Express". I met him at a film festival and we became fast friends. I wrote it with my production mixer, Chris Gebert, who is the only one who has worked on all my films. We are a big fan of horror, so we wrote a remake. But it was a big-budget horror movie at a time when "Paranormal Activity" movies and other micro-footage footage found horror. Nobody wanted to make my elegant opera a $ 20 million horror movie. So it happened, then Luca decided to do it himself. It's so funny that we were leaving at about the same time. I told him last week.

It's a great connection, especially since Carpenter's "Halloween" score is inspired by Goblin's "Suspiria" music.

And we have an index inspired by the goblins we put in our movie.

Unbelievable. So what did you say when Luca decided to do it without you?

"Awesome." It was before "Call me by your name", because he was doing them back to back. I was actually at the Venice festival with "Joe" and he lives outside of Milan. I stayed at his place and we had good dinners and talked about "Suspiria".

Who was in your casting "Suspiria"?

We had Isabelle Huppert, Isabelle Fuhrman and Janet McTeer. We had a cool casting. Many good actresses, but we could not find the money. That's what's so strange in this case. You can think, "Oh man, I made this movie a hit [‘Pineapple Express’]But it's not a horror movie, so people do not care. It's easier for me to make "Your Highness" at $ 50 million.

It seems we are turning the page on it. Part of the mystique of "Get Out" was created by Jordan Peele, a sketch artist.

Yes, but I also think that many filmmakers who would have at one point looked up at horror movies see it as a way to engage that audience. And if this conversation between a director and his audience is important, what it is for me is a fun way to say, "People go to the theater for that".

It's also the only genre other than super-heroes that performs well at the box office.

Yes, but with one twentieth of the price. I think that's one of the beauties: you can risk clever intentions. There is so much freedom in a horror movie that the agenda is just to scare people, and you can do it in many ways, intellectually or biologically. But you do not have to follow the same narrative rules and you can get a little summary. I have some random scenes that make almost no sense, but they feel right. It's a great way for makeup artists and effects that elevate their work, and for writers who can inject subversive material. "Get Out" is the perfect example.

It's also interesting with this one, because there is an established fan base, but there are all kinds of different camps in the fan base of the "Halloween" franchise. I've already heard a number of my friends who can not imagine how or why I would not want to include "Halloween 4" in our mythology.

So you receive this email and your legs are shaking. There were already written scripts, yes?

There was, but I did not read any. When you finish a movie, the Writers Guild sends you a letter and there were eight people. I thought, "I have never heard of these people." It's technically "Halloween 11", so when I submit it to the Writers Guild, I submit the "Halloween 11" scenario. And eight or nine other people have already written "Halloween 11", among which Danny and Jeff are part of. I never read them. I'm sure they are nice. They had a catch, and that's our catch. So I have to plead my case, so I do not share the credit with all these people.

How do you start writing a "Halloween" movie? What is the first thing you do?

I had a conversation with Jason and he turned everything upside down and made my brain crazy with excitement. I go to my office where I have a business with Danny. He was living in Los Angeles at the time and I just told him about my call with Jason. We just started making bananas with ideas. Danny was like, "You know I have to write this with you." Danny and I went to college together, and we lived within a few doors of each other in the dormitories, so we watched some movies. Horror together. We wrote a lot together, so we went to talk to Jason and we defined a concept.

The unique thing about [Jason Blum’s production company] Blumhouse is that all the executives and staff I met are really smart and kind and have great ideas. You enter the room and it evolves enthusiastically, instead of "you can not do that" and "you should not do that". He evolves in a very charismatic, productive and empowering way. They are all very educated and passionate about making good movies and not commercial movies.

Have you met John Carpenter before?

So we sculpts our ideas, Danny and I – and we have a co-writer who is a big fan of the kind we went to university, Jeff Fradley, who works on "Eastbound & Down" and "Vice Principals" with us. We all came with this pitch, we went with Jason to John Carpenter and told him the concept. The concept of our first meeting included it, for example: "You are part of this team, you are part of this conversation, you are part of the collaboration. We do not do it without you, so join us and make a Halloween movie.

He gave his original baby to a number of directors, so I guess it's not very unlikely for him to trust you.

Yes, and I do not know how much he really controls, but for me it was important that he control it. It's a property and a franchise that has exceeded it. He claims not to have seen them all, but for me he is the author and the godfather. It seemed strange to me not to kiss him during the trip.

How much have you officially decided not to consider the suites?

It's hard to say because for a moment we entertained the second. We wrote it down and we were going to kiss "Halloween 1" and "2," and then we bailed out. I do not remember what told us about it, except that we did not know if [Michael was chasing] a brother or sister. If it was a brother or sister, then he had to have some kind of diagnostic connection with a person. We were looking for a free horror festival. Everyone is a victim. This is any city in America. He does not have an agenda.

So Laurie is not her sister?

She is not her sister. So we just save and we said, "We are Halloween 1, the end." And now, we are the second part of "Halloween 1". It seems more complicated than that. It's just a simple question, and then it's transmitted at the beginning, so you only tick that box and go.

Here we have this conversation about all the mythology you have dropped, and the only thing I do not count as mythology is that Laurie is Michael's sister. I just internalized this as essential to the franchise, even if it's not in the first movie. It may be because I have a weakness for the ridiculous "Halloween: Resurrection".

Where did you want to go with Michael's pathology? The first "Halloween" can be read as a critique of the industrial complex of madness. In a sense, this is the story of a young boy who was locked up at any impressionable age and treated medically rather than rehabilitated.

We do not intentionally enter into any real discussion about him or the exploration of his character. There is no backstage. He's right there and he's doing bad things. So, this is not an answer, but we chose to go in the direction of "there is no justification, there is no childhood abuse, there is no bow" .

In a sense, he is a strange character for whom to write because he gives you nothing. The mask, in different lighting scenarios, or waiting for another frame or two in the editing room, is a different character. A little inclination to the head says as much as ever. He says, "I'm interested in what's going on right now." It's like a cat – just small observations. As for his life in the establishment, he says nothing and he is there. He observes things. But he was not in a fight at the lunch table. We always had fun imagining Michael Myers staring at the buffet, watching what he wanted to eat at lunch while he was carrying his tray.

You wonder, he takes his mask to eat? At the first "Halloween", there is a long time between Michael escaping from the institution and almost killing Laurie at the end. You have to ask, "Does he eat something? How is he alive?

Right. He drives a car.

That too. How did he learn to drive?

But as soon as we start to distinguish psychology, I remember that "Texas Chain Saw" is better for not explaining about the distant rural cannibal family.

I like the mystery. What I liked to look at was the "unsolved mysteries" – reenactments and not knowing what's going on and your imagination wondering if there was a disappearance or a kidnapping or an unanswered crime . I've always been fascinated by books like In cold blood. I do not know why people do what they do, really criminal things where you do not understand the state of mind. I think that once you start to explain the psychopaths, it's a David Fincher trip. I think "Zodiac" is probably the scariest, and we do not know anything.

It's a little what we are: Do not know anything. Maybe there is a theory of a curious journalist, but that's all we have. My theory is that the public gathers mythology in its own head. We all talk about what is real and how did it happen in the car. I think it's fun and they cause you problems as a writer: OK, he must be in a mechanic's outfit, so we have to meet him in an institution and put him in a mechanic's outfit. There are so many ways to do it. And he has to recover the mask, and then we can have a movie "Halloween". You do not have a Halloween movie unless you have a mechanic costume and a mask.

For a brief second of the original, we see the face of Michael Myers. Did this scene inform something about her appearance?

Not really. We have Nick Castle [who played Michael in 1978] back for a few key moments, and a few breaths. And we have stuntmen. We had this guy James Courtney who did a lot of work, then some specialized players who can take falls and sit at 90-degree angles. Things like that.

Is it a special talent?

Try it! Try to fall down the stairs and then sit upright.

You can not use your arms!

But the camera is trying not to see much of Michael, because the second where you linger on someone's face, you see his emotions, his reactions, you see them listening. There are just too many things in the eyes, so our camera is always hidden from Michael's eyes. In the original film, Carpenter talks about "darker eyes" and things like that. We do not want to see the humanity that every human being could possess. We want to dehumanize it, put the camera in the back of its head, put it in the shade or make it blurry. There are scenes where we will see Jim Courtney as The Shape, but never. This is not the time when the camera is waiting for it.

Did you always know that Laurie would go back to history?

Yes, but we never thought that Jamie Lee Curtis would want to do it. Maybe it was simply because Laurie was dead, and she did not want to go back – or at least that was my misconception at the time.

We thought maybe it would look like "Batman Begins", where we would carve it with new actors. Then, the more we started writing it, the more we wrote it in Laurie's voice 40 years later, and we unconsciously recognized things that that character had said. "Do what I tell you," she told Tommy at the end of the movie. We started having all these Laurie-isms throughout the movie, and I remember it was a Blumhouse call: "I just thought about it. We should not reject the idea of ​​going to Jamie with this. We should not expect her to say no. Let's wait until she says yes and call her.

It was cool because I was finishing "Stronger", and Jake Gyllenhaal, the actor of this film, was very close to her because he had grown up knowing her. He made an appeal to her to describe the work with me, for the good, the bad and the ugliness that it is. And then she called me. I sent her the script and the next day she said, "Let's do it."

Was the alternative to launch someone else, rather than writing the character?

Yes, that's what I mean with the "Batman Begins" version. Do you think of it as a mythology, as we have evolved with the Wolf Man stories and the Frankenstein stories, and added new people, like Rob Zombie? He went in his direction and we went into ours. But it was not written like that. It was write like Jamie Lee. I'm not sure we would have done it if she had not accepted the party because it would have baffled us. If she had not been enthusiastic, we would have simply said, "We will play a less important role" or "We will kill you from the first act". But she was the game.

You can recreate the opening "Halloween: Resurrection".

Exactly, throw it from a building. But she was great and liked the idea. She was amazing on the set: 45 minutes to work early every day and ready to work.

Did you beat the names of those who could play Laurie if Jamie Lee said no?

Yes, but they were all imposters.

It is a delicate exercise because there are great actresses of this age, but you keep coming back. There is an obvious list, but no one would have rang your bell.

Is it true that you planned to shoot a sequel immediately after this one?

Yes, I wonder how it happened. We thought, "Would not it be embarrassing if we did two at the same time and we went there?" I think it's me who put the kibosh on it, thinking: the terrible and I have to wait another year for the second kind?

It would have made economic sense because you have your locations, you have your actors. This is a low budget movie. It's a neighborhood, a house, a knife and a guy with a $ 5 mask.

How much did you recreate the Haddonfield set as we used to know it?

It's Haddonfield, and there are specific recreations, like Laurie's classroom, which is now her granddaughter's class. There are identical things, but for the most part, it is a deteriorated version. Haddonfield, Ill., In "Halloween 1" was shot in Pasadena, California; now we are in Charleston, South Carolina. There are many more cracks on the sidewalk, a lot more deterioration. These are all practical places, apart from a basement, we built in a garage.

If you were ready to go through a sequel, I guess that means you have a solid idea for a sequel?

Yeah, and to be honest, we put them all in one movie.

And you decide if you want to do another when the time comes?

Yeah, people already like, "Hey, you could not do that and do that and shoot there?"

Blumhouse people say that?

My crew. Many of my teammates are people I went to film school with. We have a very cheery group of friends. Many of us now live in Charleston, South Carolina. We went to school in North Carolina, so the fusion of these voices is strong. We socialize with the people we work with a lot. My life is a tax deduction, basically. If you pull the breeze with your friend on the beach, this is the type with which you worked on "Halloween". If you play with your kids and jump into the pool, it's with the guy you work with "Halloween".

Did you see the documentary "78/52" last year?

You would like it. It's good. It focuses entirely on the shower scene in "Psycho", explored from different critical and technical contexts. Fascinating, it shows how Hitchcock got the perfect sound effect for the knife that stabbed Janet Leigh's body, which is similar to what Carpenter did for "Halloween" by recording a knife dipping into a watermelon. It seems very analog. Are your sound effects as mediocre as hitting dozens of different ways?

It's always weird like that. I only get into these sounds until next week for stabbing. But Jamie Lee Curtis makes the sound of a crying baby, which is super weird. She has this strange way that she is crying like a baby.

So, did you put her in a recording studio and then dub in her crying baby?

Yes, there is a baby crying in a scene. She looks like a crying baby.

But I see what you're going to do with the watermelon. What I have not understood yet. I know that there are strange ones. We have a stock [sound effect] for that, we will do something exceptional on the stage of the game.

So, it's not created numerically?

No. For a children's hallway, we have a room on stage and we have 30 people running in the hall and we are recording their feet. Everything is unique, unless there are sound effects to which I am attached from time to time. These will be watermelons and steaks.

It's good to know that we did not finish our studies at Hitchcock School too drastically.

We have a shot in the neck. It's a silver shot in the movie. It's going to be a very specific sound; I do not know how we are doing it yet. It will be a good one. It must be.

Did you pick up Carpenter's famous shots, where the camera acts like Michael's eyes?

We actually use one. Well, I should not say that. But yes, we do a number of POVs and floating camera shots. And we do some things that play games in this area. We have long, flowing images that are Michael's subjective perspective, and he gets into it. We take note and add our turn.

What is the vanity or subplot that you had the most trouble letting pass while developing the film?

None, we used them all. All good ideas, we just do it. Well, for example, we had certain ambitions that we could not do. We could not pay them. It was a 25-day production; it is not much. "Joe" was 31 days. I've had 25 days to make a movie, so inevitably, you do not realize all your ideas. The things you want to access and the ability to do it, you can not necessarily afford. So there are things, but you're doing it.

Have you thought of a bigger finale?

I did it at one point, and then we were able to fix it. So we have the grand finale.

What do you expect from the reception of the film?

Is it because it is so expensive property?

Well, I'm confident that the movie works. I show it all the time to groups of five to fifty or three hundred people. I'm going to catch people and put them in a room. I know the movie works technically to make me happy.

There are many very vocal people who have strong opinions about this particular mythology. I can not control their likes or interests for this character, nor their opinions on my job. That's where I'm nervous. I am very confident in the movie right now. With each film, I show it a lot to understand how it works with an audience. Do I need some comic relief? Do I need surprise or do I need suspense? This conversation is really important. The film evolves and I adjust the editing, or I show the producers: "We need a little money because I learned that from an audience, so let's try to do it." organism in motion.

Now, I'm about to launch this film in Toronto, which will be made up of people who have never seen the original film. Do they understand it? Do they care? Have I created a world where they do not need the original movie for it to exist independently? It is difficult. Have I created something where Carpenter fans and the original film have received my respect and my attempts to honor his film, and do they feel like they have done this justice? It is very important for me. And then, are there any fans who want to see Michael Myers do a bunch of shit he does not do in this movie because these are not the choices I made.

It's so out of your control. I am not a social media person myself, but we are in a world where speech moves quickly. Vous obtenez toutes ces différentes opinions qui vont se répandre après cette expérience, soit un mois avant la sortie du film. [on Oct. 19]. C'est effrayant comme de la merde. Mais en même temps, je suis ravi de le faire. Je suis allé à Toronto avec les quatre derniers films consécutifs, peut-être plus. C'est un grand public. J'aime le festival. Je suis vraiment fier du film. C’est pourquoi nous faisons cela, car nous avons des balles pour le faire. Il parlera de lui-même.

Est-il juste de dire que vous n’avez jamais vécu une telle expérience dans votre carrière, où vous avez fait quelque chose de si anticipé et examiné?

Et une expérience dans laquelle vous devrez répondre, je suppose.

Peut être. Est ce que je? Je pense que le film est la réponse. Je suis vraiment content du fait que ce film sort à un moment où je pense que Jamie Lee a une voix très forte dans la culture, et beaucoup de bonnes choses à dire sur la raison pour laquelle ce film est pertinent maintenant plutôt que trois ans il y a trois ou trois ans.

Elle a parlé de Laurie reprenant son récit en tant que victime.

Ouais! It's good. Ce sont des choses qui n’ont pas été intégrées à notre intention avec le film consciemment, mais en termes de timing, elles ont atterri à un bon moment. Je pense que j'ai discrètement fait un film d'horreur très féministe. Je veux dire, c’est trois femmes [including Judy Greer and Andi Matichak], alors peut-être que le timing fonctionne en ma faveur sur celui-ci.

Cette interview a été modifiée et condensée pour plus de clarté.