HALLOWEEN: David Gordon Green Explains How They Arrived At That Confusing Title

Read Time:2 Minute, 13 Second

Man, 2018 has flown right by! I’m still struggling to comprehend that it’s already October. How many times over the past four months have I written about the upcoming Halloween sequel? As I’ve written multiple times now, this year has been unusually awesome for horror fanatics. First we had films like Alex Garland’s Annihilation, John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place, Ari Aster’s Hereditary, while other potential hits like Halloween, Gareth Evans’ Apostle and Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria remake are waiting just around the bend.

Speaking of Halloween, let’s consider the film’s title for a moment. Obviously it’s the same title as the original 1978 classic from John Carpenter, as well as the title of Rob Zombie’s 2007 remake. It reminds me a bit of that brief trend in 2013 where long time progressive metal veteran bands Queensryche and Dream Theater released new albums that were simply just self-titled, despite having been around for decades now.

Calling it Halloween is kind of confusing, though, when you think about it. Because it’s not a reboot or remake, but rather a sequel to a film called…Halloween. But that’s not all. It’s now the third film to be titled Halloween, while in actuality being the third Halloween II!

Unsurprisingly, director David Gordon Green considered other title ideas for the film to help avoid confusion. When asked about the title by EW, Green explained, “That was a weird discussion. You know, do we call it The Shape? Do we call it Halloween Returns? What do you call it? Technically, it’s the third Halloween II. It kind of got to the point where we were like, ‘Well, we don’t want to not invite anybody. We don’t want someone who is unfamiliar with the previous films to think, well, I need to catch up.’ So then we just thought, for simplicity, let’s just call it Halloween.”

So yes, the title is perhaps a bit confusing. But at the same time, Green is right in that the title is also simple and effective. How many people would get the reference if they’d gone with The Shape, for instance? Would Halloween Returns have been mocked as a title, had they gone with that? It’s a thought worth keeping in mind.

[Editor’s Note from MFR: “I always thought they should consider calling it, simply, Michael or Michael Myers. But I guess this works, too.]

What do you think? Should they have gone with a different title for the film? Be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments section below!

SOURCE: Entertainment Weekly