Everything You Need To Know About “Halloween Kills” — Including Why There’s A Change.org Petition To Remove A Scene

“I think a lot of people went in expecting to see Laurie Strode versus Michael Myers in a steel cage.”

On today's episode of BuzzFeed Daily, we broke down the top pop culture headlines AND discussed Halloween Kills. You can listen below or scroll down to read more about the interview!

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So let's dive right into it! Recently we talked to BuzzFeed’s Allie Hayes about Halloween Kills and the future of Michael Myers. Here's some of what we learned:

BuzzFeed Daily: Can you give us a little background about this movie, like where it picks up and how it fits into the overall series?

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Allie Hayes: Totally. So really, all you need to know is the 1978 one and the 2018 one. The basic throughline of all the movies is that it's about Michael Myers, who is essentially a serial killer, and Laurie Strode, who is the final girl who survived his attacks in the 1978 one. The 2018 one picks up decades later after those stories left off, and it follows Laurie Strode still trying to live with what happened to her as Michael Myers breaks out and begins his reign of terror yet again.

BuzzFeed Daily: It's already made over $50 million, which is a good $10-$15 million more than they thought they were going to make. It also had the biggest opening since COVID began. And this is despite being released both in theaters and on Peacock on the same day. So does this surprise you, or is there something very unique about a Michael Meyers movie being released in October that just gets people?

@halloweenmovie / GIPHY / Via giphy.com

AH: Yeah, I was going to say, there's just something really magical about a movie called Halloween being released in October. It reminds me of how back in the day we used to be able to count on there being a new Saw movie. For like 10 years, there was a new Saw movie every October. I used to joke that it was my Fifty Shades of Gray in February.

BuzzFeed Daily: Box office aside, the reactions to it so far seem to be extremely on one end of the spectrum or the other. Can you explain what people are saying about it, and why you think there's been such a polarized reaction?

Matt Bledsoe @mattbled87

I know the Halloween Kills discourse is heated right now, but no matter where you landed on the movie, can we all just agree that Little John & Big John were great?

06:34 PM - 17 Oct 2021

Twitter: @mattbled87

AH: It does appear that people fall in two buckets, as far as expectations for the film. I think if you're going to this wanting to see Michael Myers brutally murder a lot of people in increasingly creative and ridiculous ways, you're going to love it. You're going to be like, "This is the best movie I've seen all year." The people who really enjoyed it kind of fell in that camp, where they went into it being like, "Oh yeah, I can't wait to see this."

And then the other camp is people who did not want that, people who wanted more story. I will also say without spoiling too much, I definitely thought they were going to utilize Laurie Strode a lot more. Jamie Lee Curtis is definitely present — you feel her presence in the film, but she's not as active as you expect her to be, given all of the marketing.

BuzzFeed Daily: She's probably exhausted.

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AH: Yeah, that's the thing — she's like, "I set this man aflame. I burned down my own house, and now I'm in the hospital and have to pay American healthcare prices. And you're telling me this asshole is walking around again." And that's the movie. No, but I imagine they're saving her for the big finale, which makes sense. But still, I think a lot of people went in expecting to kind of see Laurie Strode versus Michael Myers in a steel cage.

BuzzFeed Daily: Speaking of extreme reactions there, there's one that was really surprising. So in the movie, there's a scene where Michael goes to town on a group of firefighters. I don't know if you saw, but there's a Change.org petition to have the scene actually removed. Now, considering Michael's been around for over 40 years and his whole thing is that he kills pretty indiscriminately, this feels like a big, extreme reaction. I mean, it's a small petition — there are barely 400 signatures on it — but have you ever seen anything like that before?

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AH: I think babysitters across America have a better case against Michael Myers than the firefighters do. He kills a preteen boy in the 2018 one, and I don't remember anyone being like, "But the children!" which is usually the reaction.

To answer the question of whether I've seen anything like this before? Of course. Every big horror movie ever since the dawn of time has a group of people who are offended by it. There was a movie that came out in the '80s, called Silent Night, Deadly Night. The poster had Santa holding an ax. The movie didn't even come out and people were like, "Absolutely not. You cannot do that," which I just find hilarious, because this man's already breaking into your house technically.

BuzzFeed Daily: OK, so let's talk about the next Halloween movie a little. It's called Halloween Ends, and it was originally going to pick up where Halloween Kills left off and take place on Halloween of 2018. But producer and director David Gordon Green recently revealed that the next movie will jump ahead and take place in October 2022, which is when it's set to be released. He also said the movie will address the "worldwide pandemic and peculiar politics and another million things that turned their world upside down." So what do you think of that decision? Do you think the franchise's core fan base will be onboard with that?

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AH: I'll start it with the optimistic sentence of: I as a person am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. And now I will move onto the mean sentence of: I kind of hate that, I'm not going to lie. I really loved the idea of having it all take place on one Halloween night. I thought that was extremely interesting, especially when it's spread out. I mean, I guess the pandemic did throw a wrench in their original release schedule, but three or four years is not enough to make you notice, watching back in 10 years, that it's not all in one night. Someone's not going to have an iPhone 11 and then an iPhone 14 or something.

I don't think that it's enough of a time jump, but a lot of people want to explore what the pandemic did for things, and I just kind of find that funny because Michael is already wearing a mask.

BuzzFeed Daily: Horror movie franchises are kind of notorious for including titles that make it seem like the movies are ending when they're really not. Nightmare on Elm Street did it with Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, only to have Wes Craven's New Nightmare a few years later, and Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter came out less than a year before its follow-up, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning. Do you think Halloween Ends might actually be the last Halloween movie, or will it, like Michael Myers, just never die?

@halloweenmovie / Via giphy.com

AH: I don't think it's the end of it. I think as long as there's an audience for it, there will always be Michael Myers. Do I think this may be the last one that we see Jamie Lee Curtis in? Absolutely. It reminds me a little bit of the new Star Wars movies where, if you asked me, "Does this mean there's going to be no more Star Wars?" I would be like, "No, of course not. But do I think it's the last three Star Wars movies that will star the original people? Yes."

So I think this will probably be the end of Laurie Strode's arc, at least in the world of Jamie Lee Curtis. It's a horror movie — in 30 years, they can do Laurie Strode: The Prequel, and then that'll be something else. But no. Horror movies will always give themselves an out to be able to make more if the audience is there, and I don't think that this is any exception.

Jessica Chastain had a super reasonable condition for appearing nude in Scenes From a Marriage: that her costar Oscar Isaac also had to.

Stefania D'alessandro / Getty Images

She said on The View: "I said to Hagai [Levi], who wrote and directed in the series, I said in the very beginning, ‘I’m comfortable with all the nudity, but any part of my body that you show, you’re going to have to show the same with Oscar. There’s a shower scene we have in Episode 2, and you see my body, so you see his body. For me, I wanted it to be balanced.”

Moving on, comedian Hannah Gadsby had some choice words for Netflix’s CEO Ted Sarandos this past weekend.

Don Arnold / WireImage

Amidst the Dave Chappelle controversy, Sarandos sent an internal memo to employees defending Netflix’s choice to air Chappelle’s special, in which he pointed to multiple “marginalized communities” represented on Netflix, including Hannah Gadsby. 

After the memo leaked, Hannah took to Instagram to pen a scathing critique of Sarandos’ memo.

She wrote, “Now I have to deal with even more of the hate and anger that Dave Chappelle's fans like to unleash on me every time Dave gets 20 million dollars to process his emotionally stunted partial world view. You didn't pay me nearly enough to deal with the real world consequences of the hate speech dog whistling you refuse to acknowledge, Ted. Fuck you and your amoral algorithm cult. I do shits with more back bone than you. That's just a joke! I definitely didn't cross a line because you just told the world there isn't one.”

As always, thanks for listening! And if you ever want to suggest stories or just want to say hi, you can reach us at [e-mail].