This is usually the part, when talking about a film in early production, where one writes: “While there isn’t that much information to go by just yet… “. However, that really isn’t the case with Danny McBride’s upcoming Halloween reboot. McBride has offered a wealth of information on the project since its announcement. So far, we’ve been given a release date, casting news, photos and plenty of details on the film itself. He’s definitely not staying quiet for this one.
Adding to this ever-growing list are some details on the film’s tone. Talking to the Charleston City Paper, the actor expressed his desire for the Halloween franchise to return to its dread-inducing roots:
“We’re trying to. The original is all about tension. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) doesn’t even know that Michael Myers exists until the last minutes of the movie. So much of it you’re in anticipation of what’s going to happen and the dread that Carpenter spins so effortlessly in that film, I think we were really trying to get it back to that. We’re trying to mine that dread. Mine that tension and not just go for gore and ultra-violence that you see some horror movies lean on. To us, it was all about bringing back the creep factor and trying to find the horror in your own backyard, in our own homes.”
McBride also revealed a few of his favorite horror titles growing up:
“The Shining and Halloween were always my favorites growing up. We didn’t have HBO or Cinemax when I was a kid, but I would record movies still. They were just like scrambled signals. I remember one night somehow I had recorded this horror movie called Chopping Mall. All of like six years of me growing up we had this film and it was all scrambled. In some areas the scrambling wasn’t too bad, so I would just watch that over and over again. I just loved it. It was just fun.”
While it seems a given that Chopping Mall probably won’t factor too heavily in McBride and Co.’s vision for the Halloween reboot, it’s still interesting to hear what kind of horror he prefers. It seems his tastes run the gamut; from deeply psychological, all the way to campy-as-it-gets. At least we know that he is a fan of the genre. Honestly, anyone who is even aware of Chopping Mall had to have spent quite a bit of time staring at spooky VHS box-art in the ’80s.
The Halloween reboot is set for an October 19th, 2018 release.
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Originally published December 4, 2017. Updated December 2, 2022.
