Halloween Ends director David Gordon Green has defended the controversial decision to limit Michael Myers’s screen time in the latest horror sequel.
Halloween Ends is the third film in a recent trilogy of sequels to John Carpenter’s 1978 classic Halloween.
As with the previous two entries, 2018’s Halloween and 2021’s Halloween Kills, Halloween Ends brings back the franchise’s iconic villain, Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney), pitting him against the resiliant Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis).
However, some fans of the franchise have complained that Myers and Laurie are sidelined for much of Halloween Ends, with the focus instead shifting to Laurie’s granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) and her love interest, Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell).
One widely circulated social media post claims that Myers is on screen for just 10 minutes and 55 seconds, less than 10 per cent of the film’s total 1 hour and 51 minute runtime.
Speaking to Collider, Green was asked about the decision to “hide” Michael Myers for much of the film. “It’s still a controversy today,” he replied. “I just watched the movie outside of a technical format, meaning in a sound mix or a colour correction, for the first time two days ago. We really just finished this movie.
“So two days ago, and I’m watching it and I’m like, ‘We’re asking a lot.’ But then when we were in the editing room and we would do [it] differently, it felt wrong. And so if you don’t have an intuition, if you don’t have a vision, you shouldn’t be making this movie.”
The filmmaker continued: “And I think there’s obvious challenges and things that you would bring to discussion with editors, with producers and say, ‘This is what feels right,’ and at a point we all just looked at each other and said, ‘We’re taking a big risk here, but it does feel right and we know we’re getting into. Let’s go for it.’”
Halloween Ends is out in cinemas now.
