The Shape Of Slaughter

John Carpenter and Jamie Lee Curtis are re-teaming for another stab at the Halloween franchise. But how is this approach different from the last 10 times, in a series that seemed to have gasped its last breath?

- Jane Crowther

It’s a cloudless June day in LA and Total Film is standing in Hill Valley square, craning up at the famous clock tower that Doc Brown dangled off during the events of 12 November 1955, as Universal Studios’ backlot tour trolleys rumble past at regular five-minute intervals. “This,” intones each guide to rows of awestruck tourist faces, “is the famous set from Back To The Future!” It’s an apt setting for TF’s meeting today with the team behind the 11th bite of the Halloween cherry, given that this go-around – 40 years on from the original – messes with timelines and questions whether time truly heals all wounds. Can they, Marty McFly-style, re-set a franchise of diminishing returns, mending past mistakes and creating a stronger future?

After ogling through the windows of Lou’s Cafe and the Essex Theater, TF wanders around the corner to the new-build sound stages, sitting at the foot of the hill crested by the infamous, looming home of Norman Bates. It’s an iconic reminder of Universal Studios’ long and profitable horror legacy. Part of that history includes the distribution of John Carpenter’s Halloween series (they took on the baton from Compass for Halloween II and Halloween III: Season Of The Witch before further incarnations moved to Fox, Galaxy, Dimension and, most recently, The Weinstein Company). It snapped up the property after the original film – shot for $300,000 over 20 days in 1978 – became a huge hit, netting $70 million and creating an archetype.