Halloween director explains why film ignores previous sequels

The new Halloween film (out Oct. 19) does not entirely ignore the mythology established in the sequels which followed John Carpenter’s original 1978 slasher classic. That is evidenced in the movie’s just-released trailer which finds characters discussing the rumor that Laurie Strode is the sister of masked killer Michael Myers, a familial relationship which was only revealed in 1981’s Halloween II.

“Wasn’t it her brother that murdered all those babysitters?”

“No, it was not her brother. That’s something that people made up.”

For the most part, however, director David Gordon Green’s new entry in the iconic horror franchise will pretend the events of the many previous sequels never happened.

“We watched all of them and I can actually enjoy all of them,” Green said, when EW visited the set of Halloween earlier this year. “But there just felt like such a simple truth to the original. I think by the time you add Michael and Laurie’s relationship, being family, or he’s only hunting his family, it takes that ‘Boogeyman’ out of it. I want everyone to be afraid of him. The first one really had that anonymity to who he was. [We are] stripping down the backstory, and philosophy, and motivation, and, you know, themes of cults, and things like that. In this one, we’re trying to go bare bones and tell a horrifying story of questions that have no answers. It’s just bad s— that happens.”

Watch the new trailer for Halloween, above.