In the filmmaking world, it’s typical to hear the phrase “Less is more.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some films gave too much to the audience, watering down their ideas or concepts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\u00a0Halloween<\/em>\u00a0film series had fallen victim to overexposure with multiple entries.\u00a0Halloween II<\/em>\u00a0took Michael Myers from an inexplicable force of evil to an established character with history and mythology. Many people, along with John Carpenter, believe the films removed the mystique and, by and large, removed what made Myers memorable. The later entries with the character go deeper, to diminishing returns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Halloween III<\/em>, for example, is much more like the original, even with the complex machinery, and without the titular serial killer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The original film operates entirely on tension and atmosphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even when the villain is not on screen, you feel his presence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shadows of dimly lit rooms feel full.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jack-O’-Lanterns line front porches of Haddonfield’s suburbia, and every hedge looks like a place for Myers to hide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your heart rate rises every time Carpenter’s score shows up, as it has become synonymous with the character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His aura seeps into each sequence, and when he finally shows up, that unease is paid off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Michael Myers is a force of nature, impossible to stop and unexplained. That is what made Halloween<\/em> a standout film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So how can\u00a0Halloween III<\/em>, a film about a psychotic toymaker’s plan to kill millions of children, understand the original?<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s simple: it’s the ambiguity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the plot is much more elaborate than the original, the film is a self-contained horror film with a knockout, open-ended conclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That conclusion is exactly what I’m looking to highlight here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After defeating the evil Conal Cochran and his android minions, our exhausted hero Dan Challis flees to a nearby gas station.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cochran’s master plan to play a commercial that will kill all the masked children watching is still in motion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dan watches the commercial play on a television in front of him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He desperately calls the broadcast station, urging them to stop playing the advertisement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first channel takes it down, then the next one, but one remains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dan pleads, but the commercial continues, blinking rapidly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He screams into the phone, repeating the same phrase: “Stop it…stop it…STOP IT!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then the film ends, and the credits roll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The fate of millions of American children is left up in the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can’t help but stay silent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The quiet overwhelmed my senses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I sat there, engulfed in the film’s worldwide consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Halloween<\/em>, Michael Myers, like Cochran, is defeated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How could he be alive? He was shot multiple times before falling from a second-story house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, when they look for his body, there’s nothing there. Just an empty plot of grass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While his fate is unclear, Myers’s character is defined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He’s something bigger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Cochran’s plan goes through, even when he’s gone, it evokes the same idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Evil can transcend reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It doesn’t play by the rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It won’t offer you any answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Halloween<\/em>\u00a0is a straightforward slasher, with simple characters and a villainous powerhouse.\u00a0Halloween III<\/em>\u00a0is an elaborate, bizarre, and high-stakes sci-fi horror film. While on the surface their only similarity is the title, underneath, they are mirrors, with unclear outcomes. The sequels explain Myers, but Halloween III <\/em>refuses. The nature of evil is unexplained, and the less you know, the better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the filmmaking world, it’s typical to hear the phrase “Less is more.” Some films gave too much to the audience, watering down their ideas or concepts. The\u00a0Halloween\u00a0film series had fallen victim to overexposure with multiple entries.\u00a0Halloween II\u00a0took Michael Myers from an inexplicable force of evil to an established character with history and mythology. Many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/evanehrenberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/evanehrenberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/evanehrenberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evanehrenberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evanehrenberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=340"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/evanehrenberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":342,"href":"https:\/\/evanehrenberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions\/342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/evanehrenberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evanehrenberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evanehrenberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}