In October and November, I embarked on a journey through every film in the Halloween series. Although initiated just for fun, this fruits of this slo-mo movie marathon are evident now: exclusive to the $5/month tier, a massive essay focused on two of the more fraught and compelling entries in the franchise, while touching on many of the other films as well. Rob Zombie's late zeroes reboots offered provocative and polarizing perspectives on the slasher classic: the first film is half prequel and half straight-up remake with some twists, the second film is a wild departure into new narrative territory. Moreover there are several versions of each, although I only get into the differences between the director's and theatrical cuts of the second. There are also many connections between that sequel and Twin Peaks (Fire Walk With Me in particular), a comparison many critics have drawn before and part of what led me to seek out Zombie's "unrated edition" of Halloween II in the first place. The emphasis of this essay is on what fascinates me most about these films: their reinforcement and reinvention of the cinematic traditions surrounding Michael Myers and Laurie Strode.
I'm sure this won't be the last work I do on Halloween (nor is it the first; see my podcast on the John Carpenter original). While thoughts on the eleven other Halloween movies are sprinkled throughout this piece, I'd love to do a more official rundown of the whole series in order, with capsules on each film; I'm also humoring the idea of a video essay series after checking out what already exists in that format. That project would be saved until at least next Halloween and/or maybe after Journey Through Twin Peaks (as noted with my remaining Mirrors of Kane chapters and the Watership Revisited mashup, the only ambiguous part of my path to new Journey is whether I'll use other video essays as runways or follow-ups to the big one). For now, this is my most ambitious and in-depth coverage of a horror touchstone. Like my public/patron essay on the "Barbenheimer" phenomenon from a few months ago, it represents a turn toward writing just for patrons - and is much longer than what will usually be offered month-to-month.
The Halloween essay can be read as one big post or divided into several parts: an intro about Michael and Laurie in the whole series, followed by a review of each Zombie film (you can see the initial round-up, with a note on presentation, here). Given its scope as well as other distractions, the work was not presented until early December. The monthly TWIN PEAKS Character Series preview made it up just in time for November; this is the first entry I needed to compose entirely from scratch - including screenshot selection - since 2018. And as a coda to the recently concluded public podcast feeds, which mostly consisted of re-presented Patreon audio, I've also offered teasers of all the films which remain behind a paywall for both Lost in the Movies and Twin Peaks Cinema. As noted in a recent adjustment to my welcome video, which I'll save for the December round-up, my nearly six-year archive is another big perk of becoming a patron.
What are the November rewards?
