James Jude Courtney reveals what his favorite kills are in 2018’s Halloween. Courtney took over the role of Michael Myers for the current Halloween trilogy, replacing Tyler Mane as the newest actor to play the Boogeyman. Halloween sequels got gorier and gorier over the years, but John Carpenter’s original film didn’t rely on gore to scare audiences. David Gordon Green’s Halloween took plenty of inspiration from Carpenter’s film and was able to successfully update Michael Myers for today’s audiences.
Rob Zombie’s two Halloween movies were often criticized for their gratuitous violence. However, Green had just enough kills to make it clear that Michael is still a lethal killer even after 40 years in a sanitarium. Like a typical slasher, Michael kills his victims in a variety of ways throughout the movie. In the two days following his escape from Smith's Grove Psychiatric Hospital, Michael manages to kill 16 people, pinning Dave to a wall with a kitchen knife, stomping Dr. Sartain’s head in, and turning Officer Francis into a human Jack-o-Lantern. There were plenty of gruesome kills in Halloween, but two specific kills stand out to Courtney.
Courtney recently attended Flashback Weekend in Chicago to talk about becoming Michael Myers and his past work as an actor. Halloween Kills was of course asked about, but the actor also revealed what his favorite kills are from the 2018 sequel. The two kills that really stood out to Courtney are the deaths of Andrea Wagner, who is stabbed through the back of her neck, and the true-crime podcasters Aaron Korey and Dana Haines, who are beaten to death in a gas station bathroom. Courtney’s full quote from the convention can be read below:
"Well it’s kind of two. One of them is the window scene, because if I was a going to take somebody out that’s the way I would do it. I’d come in really stealth, really quickly, kill ‘em, and leave. This mafia hitman that I knew back in the day, I met him when he got out of prison and he was my housemate for a while. He stayed with me, I wrote his life story, I got to know him. I knew him for several years until he disappeared. He went and saw me do a movie called ‘The Hitlist’ and I was just playing a little Australian hitman. I did a high fall into a pool. So I brought him to the premiere and we’re walking out and he says, ‘You know Jimmy, nice movie, but that’s not the way you kill people. And I was like ‘in the mafia how do you kill people?’ And he’s like ‘a sword.’ And the guy was amazing with a knife, amazing with a sword. And this guy was just clinical. So that would be the way I would kill somebody, but I love the bathroom scene because it’s so fricking brutal. There’s nothing like a good fight, especially when you’re winning. So it’s kind of between those two.”
While 2018's Halloween had its fair share of gore, Halloween Kills is said to be even more brutal. The first Halloween Kills trailer showed plenty of gruesome murders, notably the scene where Michael Myers massacres a group of firefighters. The violence in Halloween Kills really shouldn't come as much of a surprise since the cast and crew have repeatedly said how brutal the sequel will be. Halloween Kills writer Scott Teems once said, "It's like the first one on steroids," and Carpenter has even called it "the ultimate slasher." Courtney himself commented on Halloween Kills during the convention in Chicago, saying the trailer only showed the tip of the iceberg.
Fans can anticipate Halloween Kills being even more graphic than Halloween. However, that raises the question of how intense Halloween Ends will be. Halloween Ends will undoubtedly try to end the trilogy on a high note, but upping the body count in each film may not be the way to go. Green's Halloween was able to mix kills with an intriguing story, so more gore doesn't necessarily mean a better movie. It's unknown if Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends will be able to match that perfect mixture, but at least the actors and crew involved in the sequels are confident in the franchise's future.
Source: Flashback Weekend
