In recent years, Ben Stiller has notably executed a transition in his career. While he was once recognized as one of the industry's biggest comedic stars, his last leading role in a feature was all the way back in 2017 playing the titular character in Mike White's dramedy Brad's Status. His focus instead lately has been more behind the scenes, honing his skills as a director and producer making shows like Showtime's Escape At Dannemora and AppleTV+'s Severance – but after nearly a decade away, Stiller is now back playing the lead in director David Gordon Green's Nutcrackers, which premiered this week at the Toronto International Film Festival.

It's a welcomed return. The actor has a special knack for playing high-strung characters who regularly reach comedic levels of frustration, and the movie most definitely uses opportunities to exercise that particular skill of his. While that particular bit of the familiar is fun, however, it's part of a film that is otherwise overly familiar, as it plays out a story that audiences have seen many, many times, and you can predict the vast majority of what's going to happen before the end of the first 10 minutes.

Written by Leland Douglas, Nutcrackers stars Ben Stiller as Michael, a business-focused, Chicago-based real estate developer who travels out to rural Ohio following the death of his estranged sister and brother-in-law. He is under the impression that he is simply going to sign some papers that transition his four nephews (Homer Janson, Ulysses Janson, Atlas Janson, and Arlo Janson) into a foster home, but he instead ends up being their guardian due to a failed background check.

Michael is horrified to find that the four Kicklighter boys live practically feral lifestyles – as they constantly stir up chaos and their house is a mess that is overrun by animals. The protagonist becomes determined to find them a new home so that he can return to important business deals that are transpiring without him in Chicago, but the more time he spends with the kids, the more he grows to love them.

That is a purposefully vague description of the plot in Nutcrackers, but I nonetheless expect that you already have a pretty clear idea of where the story goes in the movie, and I'll tell you upfront that there aren't any twists that will throw you for a loop. The film has eccentricities, mostly involving the very strange Kicklighter lifestyle and their menagerie of in-home critters (cats, dogs, chickens, peacocks, pigs, snakes and more), but they end up being hints of flavor in what is otherwise a mostly lackluster meal.

There is some setup for special fun to be had, with Michael and the boys attending a the Christmas party of a wealthy neighbor (Toby Huss) hoping to get him and his wife to consider adoption, and an odd foster mom (Edi Patterson) who wants the boys to become a part of her home, but both sequences end up petering out without surprises.

To its detriment, Nutcrackers never attempts any big swings or executes any particularly notable creativity, but it can be said that there is an honest earnestness, and without injecting any kind of real cynicism, it never feels cloying or saccharine. The film finds a sweet spot in its sweetness when Michael and the boys visit Michael's sister's ballet studio and ultimately find inspiration to put on a performance of an updated version of The Nutcracker – hence, the name of the movie. You're not going to end up with stomach cramps from laughing too hard, but you also won't be finding yourself rolling your eyes. (Needless to say, it's a pretty big tonal pivot from David Gordon Green, whose feature work in the last six years has consisted of the recent Halloween trilogy and Exorcist: Believer.)

Nutcrackers is a "nice" movie, but it's also pretty forgettable. While it doesn't have distribution set up yet, it feels like a film that families may give a shot as something new while looking for entertainment during the holiday season between rewatches of Christmas classics like It's A Wonderful Life and A Christmas Story. It will be enjoyed, but probably won't end up as part of anyone's regular traditions.

Stay tuned here on CinemaBlend in the coming days for more of our on the ground coverage of the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, and you can preview all of the features that are on the way between now and the end of the year with our 2024 Movie Release Calendar.

During the late ‘90s and throughout the 2000s, Ben Stiller dominated the big screen with his comedy flair. While his best movies like Zoolander and Dodgeball show the American actor completely transforming himself into outlandish characters, the self-deprecating humor shown in Meet the Parents and There’s Something About Mary can make Stiller relatable to audiences. After seven years since his last starring role, the Emmy Award winner is returning to acting for his new movie Nutcrackers with an interesting explanation for the hiatus.

It’s been a long time since Ben Stiller has made us laugh or given us an emotional performance on the big screen. His last starring role was brawling with Adam Sandler in Netflix’s The Meyerowitz Stories as two adult siblings reuniting to celebrate their father’s work in New York City. After that were cameo self roles in films like the black comedy film Greed, the documentary Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics, and the rom-com Bros. In his first starring role in seven years, Stiller tells Variety why he took so much time away from acting:

Ben Stiller is referring to his transition from great actor to great director. While he made his directorial debut in the ‘90s rom-com drama Reality Bites, Stiller made more of a focus on working behind the camera for the 2018 miniseries Escape at Dannemora and then one of the best Apple TV+ shows, Severance. The workplace sci-fi series led to the Cable Guy actor receiving nominations for his directing at the Emmys, the Directors Guild of America, and the Hollywood Critics Association.

But production for season two of Severance was stalled because of the 2023 WGA Writers Strike. This unexpected turn of events led to Ben Stiller’s schedule being wide open to take on a new starring role:

It’s almost like it was meant to be. Set to premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, Nutcrackers has Ben Stiller play a narcissistic workaholic real estate developer left in charge of raising his four nephews after their parents die. Directed by The Exorcist: Believer’s David Gordon Green, the indie comedy-drama will take place on location of an Ohio farm where the Night at the Museum actor will have a wide variety of farm animals to share the screen with.

The most important thing Ben Stiller prioritized when making Nutcrackers was to ensure the young Janson Brothers, who’ve never been on a film set, were kept in check as his character has to be a “jerk” to them in the movie. Emphasizing having a good relationship with the four young actors is incredibly endearing and shows the director in the Tropic Thunder actor still hasn’t escaped him.

After the past seven years working as a director, Ben Stiller decided to return to the big screen starring in Nutcrackers after production for Severance’s second season was on hold. While he had no idea it was that long ago that he starred in a movie, hopefully that means the Greenberg actor will have more acting projects lined up in the future. While Nutcrackers will have its TIFF premiere on September 5th, keep looking at our 2024 movie releases so you’ll know when it eventually hits theaters.

In July 2021, Universal Pictures and Blumhouse Productions announced some ambitious franchise plans. Following a successful collaboration with the recent trilogy of Halloween movies, the studios announced that they were making three new features in the canon of The Exorcist. David Gordon Green was hired to helm the first feature, with the idea that he would then execute a macro vision… but things didn’t go exactly as planned. The Exorcist: Believer was panned by critics prior to its arrival in theaters, and the film underperformed at the box office.

Despite that disappointment, Universal and Blumhouse are charging forward with more Exorcist movies, the former having spent $400 million for the rights to the iconic horror franchise. Following The Exorcist: Believer, The Exorcist: Deceiver is now in the works, and I’ve put together this feature to collect all of the information that we know about the project so far.

What Is The Exorcist: Deceiver Release Date

In January 2024, it was reported by Entertainment Weekly that while The Exorcist: Deceiver is still in development, the project is no longer targeting a spring 2025 release date and is not on the release calendar. 

Going into the release of The Exorcist: Believer in October 2023, Universal and Blumhouse had an optimistic schedule in mind. The hope was that the film’s ending would leave audiences desperately begging for another chapter, and the studios were anticipating a quick 18 month turnaround for a sequel. The Hollywood Reporter noted that an April 18, 2025 release date was carved out for Deceiver on the release calendar … but that’s no longer happening.

We’ll update this space when distribution plans for the feature become clearer.

David Gordon Green Is No Longer Directing The Exorcist: Deceiver

There is a key reason why The Exorcist: Deceiver won’t be made in time to hit its originally targeted release date: the film no longer has a director attached. Just as David Gordon Green directed 2018’s Halloween, Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends, there was an early expectation that the filmmaker would direct a full trilogy of Exorcist titles, but that plan fell apart in early 2024.

It was in the same report about shifting release date plans that it was announced David Gordon Green would no longer be directing Deceiver. It is not clear if he will still have creative input into the future direction of the series or if he will even still be a producer. The Hollywood Reporter says that he is shifting his focus to the upcoming comedy, Nutcrackers, starring Ben Stiller and Linda Cardellini. He is also a key creative on the HBO series, The Righteous Gemstones – credited as a producer and directing nine episodes thus far in the show’s three season run.

The Search Is On For A New Director

It doesn’t look great when a franchise sequel has neither a director attached nor a set sequel, but Universal and Blumhouse aren’t giving up on their massive investment in the franchise. The Exorcist: Deceiver is without a captain steering the ship right now, but the search is on to find a replacement for David Gordon Green.

Given that we are presently living in a golden period for the horror genre, there are a lot of exciting options to choose from – and it would be wonderful to see the sequel be put in the hands of an up-and-coming talent (a la the last two Scream movies being made by the filmmaking team Radio Silence, and David Bruckner making the most recent installment of Hellraiser). That being said, it would be understandable for filmmakers to be a bit reticent about making The Exorcist: Deceiver after the reception of Believer. The big choice made here could save or sink the franchise.

It’s Unclear How The Exorcist: Deceiver Will Connect To The Story From The Exorcist: Believer

Amid all of the shakeups behind the scenes with The Exorcist: Deceiver, the franchise has one particularly good thing working in its favor: despite the fact that The Exorcist: Believer was made with the intention of it launching a new trilogy, it’s not a film that is riddled with loose ends and arcs that need to be further satisfied. It centers on a specific case of demonic possession, and while the ending is far from happy, the demon is banished in the third act. There is even closure for the complicated relationship between Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) and her daughter, Regan (Linda Blair).

There remains the possibility that The Exorcist: Deceiver will continue the story of one of the established characters, but there exists the option for the sequel to operate with a clean slate and tell its own story within the franchise canon. We’ll have to wait and see which direction is ultimately chosen.

The Exorcist: Deceiver Doesn’t Presently Have Any Actors Attached To Star

Because we don’t yet know about how Believer and Deceiver will be related (let alone how the sequel will connect back to William Friedkin’s original film from 1973), information about the cast is presently non-existent. As far as we know, none of the actors from the 2023 movie have specific deals to return in a follow-up, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens.

In addition to the aforementioned Ellen Burstyn, the talented cast of The Exorcist: Believer also includes Leslie Odom Jr., Lidya Jewett, Olivia O’Neill, Jennifer Nettles, Norbert Leo Butz, and Ann Dowd.

While We Wait For The Sequel, The Exorcist: Believer Is Available To Stream On Peacock

If you either A) haven’t yet seen The Exorcist: Believer and want to formulate your own opinion about it in advance of The Exorcist: Deceiver, or B) have an interest in reevaluating the 2023 film via a repeat viewing, there is good news: the movie is very accessible. Physical media fans can pick up a copy of The Exorcist: Believer on 4K UHD or Blu-ray, and it’s also currently available to stream if you have a Peacock subscription.

I’ll continue to update this feature as we get closer and closer to the release of The Exorcist: Deceiver, and stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for our news and feature coverage of major developments. To learn about all of the scary films that are on the horizon, check out our upcoming horror movies guide.

The Exorcist was one of the best horror films of the ‘70s that caused audiences to flock out of theaters in bone-chilling fear. It’s a shame that the movies that followed didn’t have the same effect considering what critical flops they all were. This is all the more reason why The Exorcist: Believer director David Gordon Green chose to ignore the franchise’s past sequels.

When you look at all five of The Exorcist movies, none of the sequels hold a candle to one of the best horror films William Friedkin scared audiences with. So you can understand David Gordon Green’s reasoning why he decided for The Exorcist: Believer to pretend the franchise’s sequels didn’t exist. He spoke more elaborately to NME about why he thought that was the best decision for his new Exorcist trilogy.

It’s a good way of looking at it. If you want to revitalize the horror franchise with a new trilogy, it helps to start off fresh on a clean slate. Plus, no one will have to subject themselves to watching the critically panned sequels to prepare themselves for what’s to come with Exorcist: Believer. The original Exorcist sequels have Rotten scores that have gone as high as 58% to as low as 9% from Exorcist II: The Heretic. This particular sequel is considered one of the worst movies ever made where reports said audiences were actually laughing at the movie during the premiere! Even The Exorcist’s William Friedkin’s reaction to the second movie had him calling it “ridiculous and stupid” as well as the worst movie he's ever seen. So, you can understand why Green decided to scrap this movie and the others that followed for his trilogy.

Sadly for David Gordon Green, his Exorcist: Believer sequel fell into a line of negatively received sequels to include in the franchise. While it achieved number one at the weekend box office, it didn’t hit box office expectations of $30 million. Critics also had mixed opinions on the new Exorcist sequel. Many felt disappointed that those feelings of terror the 1973 film brought to audiences were not achieved with the first of the horror trilogy. They would have liked to have seen more risks being taken with the scary narrative of dual possessions compared to the downplayed decisions that were chosen. It’s a real shame that Green’s newest film got a negative reception because his reasoning for making sequels to classic horror films had good intentions of wanting them to be done with respect towards the originals.

Despite The Exorcist: Believer getting slammed by the critics and experiencing not-so-impressive box office numbers, the trilogy is still going forward as the $400 million rights to the trilogy have already been bought. But, the sequels might make a major change in terms of direction. David Gordon Green said he’s not flat-out refusing to be in the director’s chair for The Exorcist: Deceiver, but he’s not centering his career around it. If any projects were to come his way before its 2025 release date, he’d prioritize those first. THR also reported that even though there’s been a completed script for Deceiver, “a creative rethink for the next two films” will have to be in place. Hopefully, that means the opinions of critics and audiences will be considered for the rest of the trilogy. 

The Exorcist: Believer may have suffered a rough start for the ongoing trilogy, but David Gordon made the right decision to ignore the past sequels. There’s still a chance for the trilogy to rectify itself with new creative decisions before the April 2025 release date of Deceiver. For now, you can see The Exorcist: Believer in theaters and will eventually head to your Peacock subscription. Feel free to explore our 2023 movie releases to be in the know of upcoming horror films. 

In the realm of the best horror movies, few films have had as profound an impact as The Exorcist. William Friedkin’s 1973 classic sent shivers down the spines of audiences worldwide with its chilling tale of a young girl's possession by a malevolent demon, and it altered cinema forever. Over four decades later, director David Gordon Green has revisited the horror genre's landmark with his 2023 requel/legacyquel The Exorcist: Believer. In an interview with Chris Nelson, the Special Make-up FX designer for the film, we delved into the highly complicated way the haunting demon voices were brought to life in the film. 

Speaking with CinemaBlend’s Eric Eisenberg, which you can watch above, the FX professional opened up about the unconventional process David Gordon Green implemented for the possession film. Nelson revealed: 

This revelation adds a unique layer of complexity to creating the demon's voice. The voices are not only found in seasoned actors but also members of the crew, making the demonic presence more authentic and visceral. When asked if he could recognize his voice in the movie, Nelson enthusiastically continued:

But it wasn't just Nelson who lent his voice to the sinister entity. Director David Gordon Green further elaborated on the process in a separate interview. He explained,

What becomes evident through these quotes is the meticulous nature of crafting the demon's voice in The Exorcist: Believer. The team delved into various avenues to find the perfect blend of eerie and horrifying. The director continued,

This behind-the-scenes insight highlights the dedication and creativity that went into making The Exorcist: Believer. It's clear that the demon's voice wasn't just a product of digital manipulation but rather a combination of unique voices and talented actors, delivering a spine-chilling performance that will haunt audiences for years to come.

First announced in 2021, The Exorcist: Believer is reviving the franchise and claimed the top spot at the box office in its opening weekend, but it has faced predominantly negative reviews. While this stumble might suggest the end of future plans, that's not entirely the case – but there could be significant changes that happen with the sequels.

The highly awaited legacyquel of one of the greatest demonic possession movies is currently in theaters. Don't miss it, and decide for yourself. Additionally, explore our 2023 movie release schedule to stay updated on upcoming horror movies near you.

David Gordon Green struck gold when he directed the Halloween legacy sequel, which eventually became its own trilogy of films. There was clearly an expectation that lightning would strike twice when he and co-writing partner Danny McBride took on another horror mainstay The Exorcist. One might think that The Exorcist: Believer’s rough box office might spell the end to any franchise plans, but it seems that’s not quite the case. Although some changes involving the director might impact the sequels.

The Exorcist: Believer ending certainly leaves the door open for more, and it was supposed to be the first part of a new Exorcist trilogy, similar to what David Gordon Green did with Halloween.The next movie, The Exorcist: Deceiver, reportedly has a completed script. While the lackluster box office and poor reception from critics is the sort of thing that would kill other franchise plans, THR reports that Universal is still bullish on making the other two movies. At the same time, the studio isn’t blind to how the first movie turned out, so changes to the sequels would seem likely. 

Among those changes could be a change in the director’s chair. While it was expected that David Gordon Green would return and direct both sequels, recent comments from him make such a thing less than certain. While Green certainly says he’d love to direct Deceiver, it seems that’s not quite set in stone. He explained…

Green makes it clear that directing the next Exorcist is a thing that he does want to do, but he’s clearly not planning his career around it Rather, he’s going to direct whatever happens to be “next” for him, and not plan too far in advance. So if Universal wants Green to direct Deceiver it will have to make sure its production lines up with his schedule, not the other way around.

But considering that Universal may want to make changes, it may not bend over backward to bring Green back. It will all come down to a question of what exactly went wrong with Believer and what the studio decides needs to be done to fix it. 

Green does have other projects on the horizon both in the horror world and outside it. He’s producing another horror reboot in the form of a Hellraiser TV series. He’s also attached to a movie about the creation of Disneyland. Green recently revealed that the Disneyland movie is “on hold” but it does still appear to be active.  

SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains massive spoilers for The Exorcist: Believer. If you have not yet seen the film, proceed at your own risk!

When watching a legacyquel, there is a sense that classic characters are relatively safe from harm (given that they provide the important link between past and present), but The Exorcist: Believer doesn’t play by that rule. Though Ellen Burstyn’s Chris MacNeil is still alive at the end of the film, she is taken out of the action before the big finale and left forever scarred – having been blinded during her personal encounter with the demon Lamashtu. The scene where Katherine stabs her eyes out with a cross is one of the most shocking in the film, and I spoke about it with David Gordon Green during an interview with the writer/director earlier this month.

What happens to Chris MacNeil in The Exorcist: Believer is particularly surprising in contrast to what happens with Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode in the recent Halloween trilogy – as Laurie gets seriously injured during her final battles with Michael Myers, but she walks away whole. I brought up this comparison to Gordon Green when I spoke with the filmmaker earlier this month, and he explained his appreciation for Chris MacNeil as a character:

In The Exorcist: Believer, Leslie Odom Jr.’s Victor Fielding learns about Chris MacNeil when he is struggling to figure out what’s going on with his daughter, Angela (Lidya Jewett) and he is given a copy of Chris’ book about demonic possession and exorcism. When Victor goes to see Chris, he learns that what she has written about her past has driven a wedge between her and her child – and this action/consequence is ultimately mirrored in Chris’ fate: she wants to do good and help, but her efforts are met with horrible results.

Continuing, David Gordon Green said that there is a parallel meant to be observed in what happens during Chris’ encounter with the Lamashtu-possessed Katherine:

In the writing of the screenplay with co-writer Peter Sattler, David Gordon Green says that he knew they were going to create a “happy” ending with the story of Victor and Angela, and what happens to Chris MacNeil was his way of making sure things didn’t feel too clean and shiny. The filmmaker added,

It’s not entirely clear at the end of The Exorcist: Believer where things are heading with the planned trilogy, but David Gordon Green has said that there is a “roadmap,” and it won’t be long before we get some answers. The Exorcist: Deceiver will be coming out in April 2025, and that means that production will likely begin in the first half of next year.

SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for The Exorcist: Believer. If you have not yet seen the film, proceed at your own risk!

The Exorcist: Believer is not your typical legacyquel. While many franchises are resurrected by studios with “We’ll see what happens” mentalities, a full trilogy of movies has been a part of Universal Pictures’ plans for The Exorcist since July 2021 when the canon revival was announced. In support of this long-term plan, writer/director David Gordon Green has evidently created a “roadmap” of a larger story to be told with the movies… but it’s something that he hasn’t kept a tight grip on. For example, it turns out that the return of Linda Blair as Regan MacNeil at the end of the new movie was not something that was ever planned by the production.

I spoke with the filmmaker virtually earlier this month during the press day for The Exorcist: Believer, and he talked a bit about what’s coming in the future at the end of our interview. I noted that his movie doesn’t function like a “Part 1” despite the promise of future chapters (unlike Fast X, Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning), and Gordon Green explained that while there is a plan for the franchise, he hasn’t actually paid much attention to it since before the start of production on his latest feature. He told me,

David Gordon Green held up the involvement of both Ellen Burstyn and Linda Blair in the making of The Exorcist: Believer as examples of his loose approach toward the future of The Exorcist continuity. He explained that the script for the film was written with “hope” that the production could bring back the former as actress-turned-author Chris MacNeil, and he explained that the latter wasn’t part of any plan at all:

In the movie, a part of Chris MacNeil’s story is that she has lost contact with her only child. While speaking with Leslie Odom Jr.’s Victor Fielding, Chris explains that Regan was upset when she wrote her book about her experience with demonic possession, and they lost contact as a result. At the end of The Exorcist: Believer, they are reunited when Regan goes to visit her mother in the hospital.

David Gordon Green told me that Linda Blair was originally involved with the film to support the work of young actors Lidya Jewett and Olivia O’Neill, who play possessed girls Angela and Katherine, but he was struck by a special idea when they were on set:

Continuing, he explained that while there is a larger franchise plan, it’s not something to which he is married because he knows that big things like a Linda Blair cameo may arise organically from the filmmaking process. Added Gordon Green,

The upcoming sequel is titled The Exorcist: Deceiver, and it is presently scheduled for release in April 2025 – meaning that production is likely to start up next year. As part of getting to work on it, David Gordon Green is excited to look back at the trilogy roadmap he created with Peter Sattler and dig into the future:

Starring Leslie Odom Jr., Lidya Jewett, Olivia O’Neill, Jennifer Nettles, Norbert Leo Butz, and Ellen Burstyn, The Exorcist: Believer is now playing in theaters everywhere, and you can learn about all of the big scary films on the way in the coming months with our Upcoming Horror Movies guide.

SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains massive spoilers for The Exorcist: Believer. If you have not yet seen the film, proceed at your own risk!

It was back in July 2021 that Universal Pictures first announced plans to revive the Exorcist franchise, with writer/director David Gordon Green set to helm a full new trilogy of films to follow up the filmmaker’s continuation of John Carpenter’s Halloween. Over two years later, The Exorcist: Believer is now playing in theaters everywhere, and it has quite an unexpected ending to go along with its story of demon possession.

What happens at the end of The Exorcist: Believer, what is the fate of the two possessed girls at the center of the plot, and where does the trilogy go from here? All of that and more is spelled out in this ending explained feature. To start, let’s do a recap of what it is that happens at the conclusion of the new film…

What Happens At The End Of The Exorcist: Believer

At the beginning of the end of The Exorcist: Believer, things go from bad to worse as Father Maddox (E.J. Bonilla), late to joining the exorcism due to fear of excommunication, is killed by having his head turned 180 degrees on his neck. Victor (Leslie Odom Jr.) and Tony and Miranda (Norbert Leo Butz and Jennifer Nettles) struggle to reconcile with the continued demonic possession of their daughters, Angela (Lidya Jewett) and Katherine (Olivia O’Neill), and they quickly start to get desperate when it doesn’t seem that any of the religious rituals are working.

Victor’s move is to find the scarf that Angela wanted to bring to school (the one that belonged to her deceased mother) and give it to her – despite the fact that he was told not to make physical contact with his child. This seems to have an effect, as the girls’ heartbeats start to get out of sync… but things go to hell when Katherine starts crying and begging, not wanting to die. Frantically, Tony goes to the girls and accepts the demon Lamashtu’s deal offering that one of them will live, and one will be killed. He calls out, “I choose Katherine” – willing to sacrifice Angela for the safety of his own daughter.

Angela screams and Victor goes flying across the room as the lights in the room flicker. The young girl levitates and vomits black liquid before flat-lining, and while she seems to be dying, Katherine seems to get back to normal. This is only temporary, however, as the monitors flash and suddenly Katherine is the one who doesn’t have a heartbeat. As she dies, Angela wakes up in Victor’s arms. CPR and a defibrillator are used on Katherine, but they are no use. She is dead.

In the aftermath, the cops arrive. We see shots of the characters’ lives after their experience with demonic possession: Tony and Miranda meet at a restaurant alone, Victor visits the grave of his wife, and Angela goes to school and can’t help but see that Katherine’s chair is empty.

At the hospital where Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) is recuperating from being blinded by Katherine, her daughter Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) arrives, and they cry and embrace.

Why The Demon Lamashtu Kills Katherine

I could perhaps sum up this section with “Demons are assholes,” but let’s dig a bit deeper.

By itself, Lamashtu killing Katherine after her father “chooses” for her to live is a classic evil move. Tony gives into the seduction of the bargain, and he does a horrible thing by doing so: he is willing to sacrifice Angela’s life so that he can save the life of his own daughter. The reward for making this terrible agreement is the worst punishment imaginable.

At the same time, one can also see the parallel that is constructed between what happens in the first act versus the third act. At the start of The Exorcist: Believer, Victor is given the choice to either save his wife or their unborn baby when she is injured during an earthquake, and while he chooses his spouse, medical complications see his wife die and Angela survive. Lamashtu taunts Victor with this knowledge, and it turns out to be foreshadowing for what Tony does.

How Does This Set Up Things Up For The Exorcist: Deceiver?

One of the standout trends this year is the heavy lean into cinematic serialization. The summer was a season of “Part Ones,” with Fast X, Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning each only executing half of a larger planned narrative. Given the announcement that The Exorcist: Believer was kicking off a full trilogy, there existed a possibility that the film would have an open-ended conclusion that would only be satisfied through two more movies… but that’s definitely not the case.

Unlike, for example, the ending of 2018’s Halloween, which provides a cliffhanger regarding the fate of Michael Myers, The Exorcist: Believer doesn’t have any obvious loose plot threads as far as the possession is concerned. There isn’t any specific indication that Lamashtu has stuck around, and while Victor, Angela, Tony and Miranda will have to deal with the trauma they endured, there’s nothing in the movie to suggest that they will have more demon-related issues in the future.

The story of Chris MacNeil also appears to be wrapped up now that she has been reunited with Regan. There’s obviously the possibility that the characters will return in The Exorcist: Deceiver, but the movie answers all raised questions (namely “Is Regan still alive?” and “Will she be able to forgive her mother for writing her book?”).

It’s entirely possible that the second chapter in the new Exorcist trilogy will be an independent narrative that isn’t built to be a continuation of what plays out in The Exorcist: Believer, and perhaps the third movie will be the one that ties everything together. It won’t be long before we find out more, as The Exorcist: Deceiver is scheduled to be released on April 18, 2025 – meaning that production will likely start in the first half of next year.

Starring Leslie Odom Jr., Lidya Jewett, Olivia O’Neill, Jennifer Nettles, Norbert Leo Butz, and Ellen Burstyn, The Exorcist: Believer is now playing in theaters. Stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for all of the latest updates and news about the development of The Exorcist: Deceiver, and check out our Upcoming Horror Movies guide to learn about all of the scary features on their way to the big screen and streaming in the coming months.

The Exorcist is considered one of the best horror movies of all time, and while the franchise has provided a handful of sequels and prequels in the 50 years since its release, The Exorcist: Believer is set to introduce a new demon upon two young girls when it hits theaters on October 6. For the first time, Ellen Burstyn reprises her role as Chris MacNeil, who is trying to save two girls from suffering the same fate as her daughter. Critics have screened the new film from director David Gordon Green, and it sounds like some people are more excited about this upcoming horror flick than others.

This film is the first of a new Exorcist trilogy and stars Leslie Odom Jr. and Jennifer Nettles as the parents of the demon Lamashtu’s victims, Angela (Lidya Jewett) and Katherine (Olivia Marcum). Linda Blair won’t appear on screen in this sequel, but the actress did serve as an advisor on set for the young actresses, in order “to take them to dangerous places safely,” per to the director. Just how dangerous are we talking? Let’s see what the critics have to say. In CinemaBlend’s review of The Exorcist: Believer, Eric Eisenberg rates it 4 stars out of 5, saying its strengths outweigh its faults: 

Sabina Graves of Gizmodo isn’t quite as enthused about the sequel, remarking that it’s lacking some of what made the original so captivating. However, the critic calls it a solid first entry to the legacy trilogy and says Leslie Odom Jr. is a tour de force. In Graves words:  

Brian Truitt of USA TODAY rates it 3 out of 4 stars, writing that while it’s nowhere near as scary as William Friedkin’s 1973 classic, Believer does a decent job of exploring every parent’s deepest fears. The critic continues: 

Jake Kleinman of Inverse calls The Exorcist: Believer a “soulless reboot” whose scares seem restrained and effects too reliant on CGI. Ellen Burstyn’s performance is the lone bright spot of this legacyquel, according to Kleinman, who writes: 

Nick Schager of the Daily Beast says no amount of prayers can save this hellish-for-all-the-wrong-reasons sequel. Ellen Burstyn is trotted out for credibility and then treated with “stunning disrespect,” the critic says, in an unnecessary and uninspired horror movie. Schager recommends audiences “Skip It,” writing: 

If you think this horror offering should be part of your October movie-going plans, you can catch The Exorcist: Believer in theaters starting Friday, October 6. Be sure to take a look at all of the other upcoming horror movies, as well as our 2023 movie calendar to see films of all genres that are coming soon to the big screen. 

It’s not a challenge to see the parallels between The Exorcist: Believer and 2018’s Halloween. To start, both are directed and co-written by David Gordon Green, but more significantly, the two films are respectively high profile sequels in franchises where bad chapters outnumber good ones, and they build on existing canon instead of being remakes (which includes bringing back iconic characters portrayed by the actors who originally played them). It’s the legacyquel/requel formula that is spelled out in wonderfully meta fashion in 2022’s Scream – and like Halloween and Scream, it’s another cinematic success… albeit an overcooked one.

The catch with legacyquels is that there is a tendency for filmmakers to lean on remake-esque narratives (seen in not only Halloween and Scream, but also Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Creed, and more), and to the credit of David Gordon Green and co-writer Peter Sattler, The Exorcist: Believer makes notable efforts to avoid that. Beyond there being two possessed girls instead of one, the film explores the idea of demon possession through more than just Catholic faith and brings other religions and belief systems into play. It’s a smart direction, but it gets mixed results. It doesn’t undercut the unholy terror that the movie produces, but it does create messiness in what is otherwise a strong, character-based story, particularly in the climax.

Leslie Odom Jr. stars as Victor Fielding, a photographer and single father who has forged a close relationship with his 13-year-old daughter Angela (Lidya Jewett) following the death of his wife (Tracey Graves). When Angela asks him if she can go to a friend’s house after school one day, his overprotective instincts make him reticent, but he agrees to let her go… and that’s when the nightmare starts.

At the end of the school day, Angela and her friend Katherine (Olivia O’Neill) are seen going off into the woods together, but they disappear after that, and the only trace they leave behind is their shoes and a pendant. Search parties are put together and the worst is feared – but after three days, the girls are found huddled together in a barn 30 miles away.

Victor and Katherine’s parents, Miranda (Jennifer Nettles) and Tony (Norbert Leo Butz), are beyond relieved to have their children returned to them, but the horror show is far from over. The girls think that they’ve only been missing for a few hours, and mild strange behavior (like freezing and staring) eventually devolves into violent and disturbing outbursts. It becomes painfully clear that something is very wrong with Angela and Katherine, and while Victor is a skeptic by nature, he begins to question if something supernatural is plaguing his daughter and her friend.

The Exorcist: Believer has a great core group of characters, but it tries to do too much.

The foundation of The Exorcist: Believer is its characters – the film opening with a dramatic prologue set in Port-au-Prince, Haiti where the emotional stakes are established for Victor and his relationship with Angela. The first act operates as a non-genre drama about two families in crisis when their children go missing, and it’s effective and poignant storytelling all by itself before the horror truly kicks in.

The connection that this opening forges between the audience and the characters keeps you invested in their plight as things go from bad to much, much worse, and that slide into hell is well-paced and properly escalates. It’s in the families desperately searching for help or remedy where the movie gets a bit lost. The return of Ellen Burstyn’s Chris MacNeil is wonderful because her experience and insight has a meaningful impact on Victor, and Ann Dowd’s Ann is a nurse and former aspiring nun, which smartly bridges a gap between science and faith for the film. These are two key resources that are used well in the story… but also in the mix are a Catholic priest (E.J. Bonilla), Baptist and Pentecostal preachers (Raphael Sbarge and Danny McCarthy), and a root doctor (Okwui Okpokwasili). The commentary about demon possession being part of diverse faiths is loud and clear, but there isn’t enough time to provide each of them with the focus they need, and they mostly register as one-note supporting players.

Particularly during the third act, the film misses the intimacy of the original – with the simple triumvirate of Max von Sydow’s Father Merrin, Jason Miller's Father Karras and the demon Pazuzu battling in Regan MacNeil’s bedroom – but it does still deliver significant twists and shocks.

Even seasoned horror fans will find The Exorcist: Believer putting ice in their veins. 

Long past desensitized to just about all matters of cinematic chaos, I’m not a movie-goer who scares easily. When the horror starts really ramping up, I’m the person in the audience who wears a cartoonish grin of delight while everyone else in my row is shrieking and averting their eyes. Because of this, I marvel when any film is able to crawl its way under my skin, and The Exorcist: Believer is the latest release to get that job done.

The original is so effective because of how wretched it is to see Linda Blair’s Regan MacNeil manically twisted by the monster dwelling inside her, driving her to perverse and aberrant action, and David Gordon Green understands and delivers that energy. This is best exemplified in a scene with Katherine’s parents taking their deteriorating teenager to church (a sequence that made me feel like my blood was chilling and my organs were casually floating around inside my abdomen), but the truth is that the movie is freaky throughout. It’s a wholly different kind of horror than what the writer/director orchestrated with his Halloween movies, with seeping terror the priority over extreme brutality, and it has the disturbing energy that’s required – delivered through intensifying special effects makeup; staggering performances by Lidya Jewett and Olivia Marcum;  intimate cinematography, and unsettling editing that puts you off kilter with disturbing, flashing imagery.

Also like Halloween, The Exorcist: Believer is set up to launch a full trilogy of new films – but after a summer of “Part Ones” including Fast X, Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse, and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, horror fans need not worry about an open-ended, incomplete narrative. It’s a surprisingly self-contained and satisfying scare fest, and while its reach exceeds its grasp in some regards, the movie’s strengths outweigh its faults, and genre fans will be excited to see an impressive big screen return for the possession-centric franchise.

The Exorcist: Believer is a film with deep ties to the larger Exorcist continuity, most notably with Ellen Burstyn making her return to the role of Chris MacNeil for the first time since 1973, but there are some significant fresh additions in play for the franchise, and that includes a brand new demon. Instead of bringing back Pazuzu, the monster that memorably possessed Linda Blair’s Regan MacNeil, the 2023 film will be introducing audiences to Lamashtu – a different evil operating in its own special way in the movie who, according to writer/director David Gordon Green, does have a connection to the series’ original protagonist.

With The Exorcist: Believer set to be unleashed in theaters next Friday, I spoke with the filmmaker during the movie’s virtual press day this week, and one of the subjects we discussed was his film’s principal villain. I asked about the decision not to have the return of Pazuzu, and Gordon Green explained the approach of both finding Lamashtu and still utilizing existing canon:

Like Pazuzu, Lamashtu is a demon with origins in Mesopotamian mythology, and according to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, she is a sadistic being that particularly enjoys preying on pregnant women and eating the flesh of babies. It’s exactly not hard to see how she might inspire the imaginations of David Gordon Green and his The Exorcist: Believer co-writer Peter Sattler.

In the new film, Lamashtu’s victims are Angela (Lidya Jewett) and Katherine (Olivia Marcum) – a pair of friends who disappear one day after school after they are seen walking into the woods. Their parents (Leslie Odom Jr., Jennifer Nettles, Norbert Leo Butz) panic when the girls are gone, but things get far worse when the children mysteriously turn up three days later. The guardians slowly realize that there is something seriously wrong with them, and they begin to question if the source is something supernatural in nature.

Danny McBride and Scott Teems are given screen story credits for The Exorcist: Believer alongside David Gordon Green, but the writer/director also gives credit for the creation of Lamashtu to Christopher Nelson, the film’s special make-up FX designer. In addition to previously collaborating with Gordon Green on the recent Halloween trilogy, Nelson also worked on the productions of both 2004’s Exorcist: The Beginning and 2005’s Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist, and he had a key hand in bringing the movie’s new villain to life. The filmmaker continued,

“Not so subtle” should definitely be read as a scary tease for what’s coming, and audiences will be able to see the horrific results very soon. First announced in July 2021, The Exorcist: Believer arrives in theaters this Friday, and it’s the first of a planned trilogy. Start bracing yourself for the terror now, and stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for more from my interview with David Gordon Green.

To learn about all of the other spooky season treats that are on the way in the coming weeks and months, check out our Upcoming Horror Movies guide.

Though we’re still not quite officially in the Halloween season just yet, genre fanatics can spend close to three minutes wading around in those familiar feelings thanks to the newest trailer for The Exorcist: Believer. This movie looks like an exercise in spine-tingling dread, with the modern day Halloween trilogy director David Gordon Green using William Friedkin’s seminal classic The Exorcist as the launching point for his latest re-quel. While I should be frustrated that this second promo makes the exact same horror-trailer mistake as the first preview, I don’t actually feel the urge to complain about it here. 

The Exorcist: Believer Trailer's Big Sin

As seen above, Universal Pictures delivered another super-lengthy look at The Exorcist: Believer, and by nearly every applicable metric, entirely too much footage is on display. Which didn’t initially seem like it’d be the case, considering the first chunk of the vid is taken from a single scene. But once that opening gives way to explaining the story, it seems like the entire film's structure gets laid out accordingly and sequentially, with so-o-o-o much being shown in short bursts.

I get that the studio wants to show audiences exactly what Green is bringing to the table, and that this won't be anything like his Halloween films. And by all means, I can only applaud the idea of drilling down on proving that the child actors utilized in Believer appear to be godsends. But considering the mothership film is one of horror's most effective slow-burns, it's kind of wild that these first two trailers have gone THIS hard on showing audiences the possessed Angela (Lidya Jewett) and Kathering (Olivia O'Neill) in so many different contexts.

By the time The Exorcist arrived at Linda Blair's iconic demonic performance, the movie had earned the right to take things in such over-the-top directions, and it was a shift in tone and cinematic energy. The Exorcist: Believer, meanwhile, seemingly spends more trailer time focused on its villainous threats than anything else, which is usually the wrong way to go with legacy horror. 

Why I'm Not Really Complaining About It

So, the reason why showing too much footage in a trailer is generally considered a bad thing is wholly tied to the most disappointing examples, such as times when all the big scares are teased in the previews, or when the films themselves are so boring and slow that they pale in comparison to their rapidly paced trailers. And let's face it, there have definitely been examples of trailers showing off too much footage, and none of it looked great in the first place. 

But great Pazuzu in heaven, I find it hard to authentically bitch about The Exorcist: Believer's previews given how fucking awesome they look. Like, would it have been cool to not know that the plot of the movie revolved around two possessed girls, allowing for that story element to be discovered through watching the finished product? Yeah, probably, but hot damn, it's hard to argue against promoting that as such a huge draw, given how often possession films adhere to just one character being used as a cypher for evil.

Had The Exorcist: Believer held back on all the freaky-deakiness, I might have been more hesitant about making sure to see it in theaters, as someone who wasn't all that thrilled with where David Gordon Green took Halloween Kills. But just that stomach-churning moment of Katherine crying about not wanting to go to Hell was enough to wipe the slate clean and make this movie a guaranteed big-screen experience. 

But just because it works here doesn't mean it'll work for everything else, Hollywood, so don't start making this the continued normal. 

The Exorcist: Believer is hitting theaters on October 6, 2023, after having shifted its release date to avoid all things Taylor Swift. While waiting, check out all the other upcoming horror movies heading to theaters in 2023 and beyond.

It’s a great time to be a horror fan. The genre’s renaissance shows no signs of slowing, with some of the best horror movies returning to theaters with sequels or reboots. Director David Gordon Green recently wrapped up a trilogy of new Halloween movies, which were super successful at the box office. He’s turning his focus on another iconic franchise with The Exorcist: Believer, which will see the return of Ellen Burstyn as Chris MacNeil. And Green recently explained the “different approach” to the Exorcist reboot compared to his Halloween movies.

David Gordon Green has proven himself capable of modernizing a classic horror franchise, so he seems like the perfect filmmaker to tackle The Exorcist: Believer (see the trailer here). But we shouldn’t expect that upcoming horror movie to feel like his Halloween trilogy. Green recently spoke to Empire about the key differences between the properties, saying:

Touche. Slashers operate with their own set of rules, as the Scream franchise is often reminding us. They also leave the opportunity for comedic beats, and leaning into camp elements. But exorcism movies have to be deadly serious, including Exorcist: Believer. And I can’t wait to see how it all shakes out this October.

David Gordon Green’s comments to Empire come as the marketing campaign for his Exorcist movie is heating up. While movies like Dune: Part Two were delayed as a result of the strikes, it sounds like Believer is going to arrive in theaters for spooky season as planned. And it’s going to be a dramatic departure from what we saw in the last few Halloween films. 

Green is clearly a big horror fan himself, which is no doubt why he’s been tackling beloved franchises like Halloween and The Exorcist. Both of his recent reboots have been deeply connected to the original movies, and brought back iconic returning actors as legacy characters. And I’m curious to see how the scares of Believer will play out on the big screen.

The pressure is on for the new Exorcist movie to deliver. The 1973 original is still the thing of nightmares for an entire generation of moviegoers, even if younger folks don’t find it quite as scary. But smart money says David Gordon Green knows the way to bring together generations of fans for his sequel.

The Exorcist: Believer will hit theaters on October 13th. In the meantime, check out the 2023 movie release dates to plan your next movie experience. 

When it comes to horror, I consider myself a fan of the genre, and while I may not be the person who sees any and everything released, I'm 100% there when it comes to the major buzz-worthy movies like Terrifier, Insidious, Hereditary, etc. There's nothing quite like spending a night a little creeped out by something truly gruesome and disturbing. Having said all of that, I fired up the first harrowing trailer for David Gordon Green's The Exorcist: Believer, and had some serious doubts about wanting to see the movie because of how much those three minutes freaked me out. 

Even now, revisiting the topic, I struggle to pinpoint one exact reason why I'm feeling so rattled by the trailer. The best I can do is talk about a variety of possible reasons why I'm questioning ever watching this movie, despite my love of horror movies. I only do this because I never thought I'd see a day where I'm actually scared to see a movie, and yet, here we are. 

It Could Be Tied To My Deep-Seated Fear Of The Exorcist Franchise

As a young kid who attended Catholic school, demonic possession was one of the few things continually asserted as "real" when it comes to fearful situations. As such I always had a fear as a child of The Exorcist well before I ever actually saw it, but was brave enough to put on a television showing one October in seventh grade. Mind you, this was the edited-for-TV version and wasn't as extreme as the actual movie. Which I can only say without pure confirmation, since I never ended up watching the original theatrical cut due to how messed up I was from the television version. 

Since then, I thought I'd conquered my fear of demonic possession movies. Insidious and Hereditary deal in possession, and there's no shortage of demonic entities in The Conjuring movies. And yet, when watching even just the promo for The Exorcist: Believer, my hair stood on end, and I even felt a strong urge to just close out the trailer and shut off my Internet without watching the whole thing. Returning star Ellen Burstyn, as magnificent as she always is, just makes that connection even stronger. 

I beleive the sporadic callbacks to the iconic piano theme triggered something deep in my subconscious. Maybe it was my body reminding me of the terror tied to sleepless nights I encountered as a result of watching AMC's edited version of The Exorcist. Give how powerful music can be, I wouldn't be surprised if those notes were enough to shake my core initially, though that's not where my freaking out ended. 

I Struggle With Seeing Children In Pain

Another reason The Exorcist: Believer trailer threw me for a loop is that I often struggle with horror movies that show children in pain. I'm sure I'm not alone in this, and that's probably why movies like The Witch and others that delve in such topics only hinted at those moments with quick hits of children suffering before moving the action elsewhere. 

The Exorcist: Believer did not do that even in just its trailer, and seemed more than happy to linger on such awfulness. Not only that, there are TWO possessed girls this time around, and they both look to be in a good deal of pain, suffering under the influence of the demons inhabiting their bodies. Even if they're not suffering physical trauma, the exorcism process itself is painful and provokes all manner of screaming and groaning. You have to be ok with the idea of seeing kids suffer to get through this movie, and that will definitely be a struggle for me. 

So much so that I can't guarantee I'd sit through an entire screening of the movie to see if I can handle it. At the same time, I know that if I wait for streaming and digital release, I'll be more compelled and encouraged to stop watching, knowing I have the power to pause whenever I want. I'm torn between buying a ticket and being afraid I'll waste my money walking out or staying and willfully torturing myself to watch a movie that will mess me up. Is that the point of horror, or is it more about being entertained? 

The Possesed Girls Are So Frightening To Me

I don't know if this is just because I'm so worked up about it already, but I feel like Lidya Jewett and Olivia Marcum, who respectively play Angela and Katherine, are about to put on a clinic for acting like demons. Seeing their transition, even in this trailer, from mildly disturbed girls to blistered, yellow-eyed demons spewing at anyone who comes near them is insane. I can feel the energy through this trailer, and as I've said, it's gotten me truly questioning buying a ticket.

If anything, that's a tremendous compliment to these two young actresses. I will say I think it's really cool that The Exorcist: Believer went the route of watching two families deal with possession at the same time rather than just one. That should create a new dynamic that I'd love to see if I wasn't already trying to get my heart rate under control after the latest viewing.

Speaking of which, how wild is that scene where the possessed pair are tied up and synching their heartbeats? I can't even explain exactly why it's so weird and so chilling. But why did no one turn the lights on anywhere else except directly on them? I swear, if I ever have to deal with ademonic possession, I'm bringing so much ample lighting with independent power sources, so that demon has to work to keep me in the dark.  

Maybe I'm Just Too In My Head About It

I've rewatched the trailer several times since I started writing this, and while I'm not any less frightened, I do now wonder if I'm just too caught up in my own head about it all. Is it possible the hype and quality of The Exorcist: Believer has led me to feel like it's scarier than it is? I'll admit, there's a part of me worried that the trailer was crafted this way to maximize fear for a movie that isn't actually all that freaky, and that I'll look silly for going so hard on the record about how much it scared me.

After all, a scary trailer doesn't guarantee an effective movie. For all I know, all of the frightening bits were shoved into this generously long three-minute trailer, and the rest is a lot of calm conversations and religious diagrams and school activities, mixed with a li'l bit of Pazuzu & Friends. I'm exaggerating, of course, but obviously, we don't know how this movie is going to turn out yet, or how it will be received despite all we know about it so far. Maybe the right move is for me to just wait and see how the movie is received, so I can better assess if it's worth potentially re-opening the emotional scar I received watching the original Exorcist, assuming it ends up being just as iconic as the original film. 

The Exorcist: Believer is set to release in theaters on October 13th, 2023. Perhaps revisiting the list of the best horror movies will strengthen my courage to purchase a ticket by then, or it won't, and I'll never truly know how terrifying this movie is. 

One of the most anticipated upcoming horror movies has to be co-writer/director David Gordon Green’s The Exorcist: Believer. A direct sequel to William Friedkin’s 1973 classic, Green is taking the same strategy he applied to his Halloween trilogy, crafting a new vision of terror that continues a legacy franchise. Judging by what’s been shown in this trailer, and the nods it contains to the original picture, I’m totally sold on what I’ve seen. 

Naturally, the first look at the next Universal horror saga is pretty vague in what it’s showing. October’s still far enough that more teases could, and probably will, be on the way. It should also be noted that this footage matches the description our own Eric Eisenberg provided from The Exorcist sequel's CinemaCon panel earlier this year. The basics are enough to still be considered chilling, as this time two young girls (Lidya Jewett and Olivia Marcum) under possession, making for a double front of terror. 

With their parents (Leslie Odom, Jr., Jennifer Nettles, and Norbert Leo Butz) desperate for answers, that's where The Exorcist:  Believer plays its most powerful card. One of the only people that can help turn the tide is Chris McNeill (Ellen Burstyn), the mother who was there to see it happen the first time in The Exorcist. Based on the dialogue Burstyn's character delivers in this first look, it's going to take an Avengers-level exorcism to banish Pazuzu yet again.

Seeing as this new film ignores the two sequels and dueling prequels that populate the canon’s previous state, this is a pretty huge move. Especially because as we see in The Exorcist: Believer’s first trailer above, this evil spirit remembers the mother it tangled with 50 years ago. Apologies for those of you whose Exorcist movie rankings agree that The Exorcist III is the only good one in the bunch.

That’s not the only reference this marketing campaign is using to tie a close knot between Regan MacNeil’s possession and the ones we’ve just observed. As you’ll see in the trailer for the original Exorcist, that frightening phenomenon of seemingly burning an image of fright into the screen has been used yet again: 

Originally, The Exorcist: Believer was meant to be a streaming exclusive, along with the rest of the intended trilogy planned. Somewhere along the line, the powers that be pulled an Evil Dead Rise and reversed course, sending this new terrifying triptych to theaters. That decision looks to be a chilling victory, as the next chapter in Exorcist history just might frighten crowds as much as that first encounter with Pazuzu did in 1973.

The Exorcist: Believer haunts theaters on October 13th. To catch a glimpse of what else is on the menu, whether you're a horror fan or not, the 2023 movie release schedule is a handy resource to scare up your next trip to the movies.

Five years after it was launched, the Halloween legacyquel trilogy has come to an end. Director David Gordon Green successfully revived the slasher franchise in 2018 with his fantastic albeit simply named Halloween, and in the years that followed he delivered some extreme brutality and scares with both Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends. Now, Gordon Green is moving on to another legendary title within the horror genre, planning out a brand new legacyquel trilogy for The Exorcist, and the first ever look at the movie kicking off the exciting new run was debuted today at CinemaCon.

Universal Pictures held its big slate presentation this afternoon at the annual Las Vegas convention for theater owners, and not only was the official title of The Exorcist reboot revealed – The Exorcist: Believer – but those in attendance also got to see footage from the feature. The film stars Leslie Odom Jr. and Ellen Burstyn, who is reprising her role as Chris MacNeil from the terrifying original (for an awesome and surprising reason), and it appears that it is going to be a seriously scary fright fest.

The Exorcist: Believer CinemaCon footage began with an introduction to the franchise’s new protagonist, played by Leslie Odom Jr., who we meet as he drops his daughter Katherine (Lidya Jewett) off at school with her best friend Megan (Olivia Marcum). Sadly, it’s right after this that tragedy strikes, as it turns out that this is the last time that the girls are seen before they mysteriously go missing. A search begins trying to find them, and thankfully it’s a successful endeavor, but it’s really only the start of the main character’s problems.

At a hospital, Katherine and Megan are asked about where they’ve been, and the parents are troubled to learn that they think they’ve only been gone for a few hours when it’s actually been three days. They seem to have some kind of strange link between them – evidenced by how they stare at each other through the windows in their respective rooms, but they are deemed healthy enough to return home. As you could probably predict, however, this doesn’t instantly fix their behavior.

Examples of them acting odd escalates quickly, with Katherine staring at her father while he brushes his teeth, and Megan walks down the middle aisle of a church seemingly covered in blood and repeating, “The body and the blood.” Sufficiently freaked out, Leslie Odom Jr.’s character reaches out for help, and it’s with the assistance of a friend (Ann Dowd) that he is put in contact with Chris MacNeil, who has written a book about her experience with her own possessed daughter titled “A Mother’s Explanation.” He tells Chris that Katherine has been scratching the name “Regan” on to herself, and that they will need to use the exorcism rituals from many different cultures to fight what’s going on with the girls.

When Chris confronts Megan, she says that they’ve met before, to which the possessed young girl hisses, “Mother.” The girls progressively look more and more evil, and things get freaky with shots of dogs fighting, the whispered repeated words, “Drip, drop,” and the two girls getting hooked up to monitors that show that their hearts are beating in sync. And, as one would expect, the incredible theme music kicks in to only heighten all of the terror.

All in all, The Exorcist: Believer footage was impressive and scary, suggesting that horror fans should be in for a real treat when the demon Pazuzu returns to theaters this fall. It looks as though the movie is making good use of the franchise’s most memorable iconography while setting up a story that is unique and different from the original classic. Our fingers are crossed that it will end up being the same kind of treat that 2018’s Halloween is.

Based on a script by David Gordon Green and Peter Sattler, The Exorcist: Believer completed production earlier this year, and it is now just a few months away from release – set to hit theaters everywhere on October 13. You can keep track of all of the scary films that are on the way with our Upcoming Horror Movies guide, and learn about everything coming to the big screen and streaming in what remains of the year with our 2023 Movie Release Calendar. And stay tuned for more of CinemaBlend's coverage from on the ground at CinemaCon.

It’s a good time to be a horror fan, as the genre has been experiencing a thrilling renaissance for a number of years now. Some of the best horror movies returned to theaters with new sequels including Scream and Halloween. The latter property produced a bonafide trilogy from director David Gordon Green and writer Danny McBride. And McBride recently reacted to fans hoping for more Michael Myers movies from that dynamic duo.

Halloween fans were thrilled when it was revealed that Jamie Lee Curtis was once again playing Laurie Strode for Blumhouse’s 2018 sequel. That blockbuster broke records for the franchise, leading to two more movies from David Gordon Green and Danny McBride. The latter actor/writer recently spoke to Us Magazine, where he was asked about fans hoping that they return to the franchise sooner rather than later. He offered his perspective, saying:

There you have it. While he’s not totally ruling out a return, it sounds like Danny McBride is ready to have some space from the Halloween franchise. And that might serve as an opportunity for another filmmaker to put their own spin on Michael Myers. Bring on the next bloody adventure!

Danny McBride’s comments make a great deal of sense, as he, David Gordon Green and the cast/crew were focused on their Halloween trilogy for a number of years. They brought Jamie Lee Curtis back as Laurie Strode, and started a new timeline by ignoring all of the Halloween sequels. From there we got to see three generations of Strode women as they grappled with their interpersonal relationships and fought off Michael Myers.

While Blumhouse’s Halloween trilogy was a big success, the movies aren’t without their criticism. Particularly Halloween Ends, which didn’t have much of Michael Myers, and focused the story on a new character Corey Cunningham. In that same interview Danny McBride addressed this, saying:

That's a fair point. The 2018 Halloween and its first sequel Kills both took place on the same night, when Michael Myers returned to Haddonfield and went on a grisly massacre. Director David Gordon Green wanted to switch things up in Ends to make sure the trilogy wasn’t repetitive, resulting in a threequel that felt and looked quite different from its predecessors. 

The horror genre was built on long-running franchise, so it seems like only a matter of time before Michael Myers returns to the big screen. We’ll just have to see if the same filmmakers behind Blumhouse’s trilogy return, or if we see another take on John Carpenter’s beloved original movie. 

2023 has already been a good year thanks to the release of Knock at the Cabin, M3GAN, and Scream VI. The latter project is still in theaters now and making money at the box office. Be sure to check out the 2023 movie release dates to plan your next movie experience. 

There are some truly iconic horror movies that everyone should know about – especially if they’re just starting to get into horror. You could check out all the Halloween movies, or maybe even get into the Friday the 13th films, but there’s one classic horror movie that stands above the rest, and that isThe Exorcist. 

There are actually four other Exorcist films that were released after the first legendary 1970s horror movie, but none have ever quite reached the heights of the original. However, a new The Exorcist movie is coming to screens in 2023, titled The Exorcist: Believer, and there’s plenty that we know about it. Here is what we know so far.

What Is The Exorcist: Believer’s Release Date?

2023 is looking to be quite the year for horror movies. According to Deadline, it's been confirmed The Exorcist: Believer will release in theaters on October 6, 2023. Originally, it would release a week later, but it was announced by AMC that Taylor Swift: The ERAS Tour concert film would release on the 13th. Because Blumhouse didn't want to compete, the film was pushed up a week.

This year has already released some great horror films, from the very much loved M3GAN (even if some people couldn’t really get behind it), to the latest M. Night Shyamalan film, Knock at the Cabin. In July 2023, we even had a new A24 horror movie release, Talk to Me, which has been getting amazing reviews. Our 2023 movie schedule is packed to the brim with excellent horror movies, and now The Exorcist: Believer will join that. 

Check Out The Trailer For The Exorcist: Believer

If you’re curious about what scares The Exorcist: Believer has for viewers, the first trailer for the film was released. It’s so scary that some people are frightened to even go see the film in theaters. But to me, that sounds like a fun time. Be sure to check out the trailer down below for a peek at the cast and some truly horrifying scenes: 

Ellen Burstyn, Leslie Odom Jr. And More Will Star

When it comes to horror movie sequels, it’s usually pretty rare that the cast from the original film comes back to reprise their roles. It’s only happened a handful of times, with examples such as Jamie Lee Curtis in the Halloween franchise, or the stars of Scream. However, it seems like this addition to The Exorcist franchise is traveling in that direction. 

According to that article from The Hollywood Reporter regarding the announcement of the film, it was reported in July 2021 that Ellen Burstyn was returning to the franchise to reprise her character,  Chris MacNeil, the mother of the girl who was possessed by a demon in the original. Despite there being four other movies in the franchise, this will be Burstyn’s first time coming back to the role, which is major – and already makes me wonder what kind of story it will have to make the original star return. 

Also reported in that THR article was that Leslie Odom Jr. took on a starring role too, and in August 2022, it was also confirmed from The Hollywood Reporter that Ann Dowd had signed onto the movie. Ann Dowd has been in a variety of movies, including Ari Aster’s film, Hereditary, as well as titles such as Marley & Me, Side Effects, and more. She also starred in the show The Leftovers and the popular Hulu TV series, The Handmaid’s Tale. 

Leslie Odom Jr. is primarily known for his starring role as Aaron Burr in the original Hamilton cast, but has since moved into movies, such as Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, One Night In Miami…, The Many Saints of Newark, and more. 

Several other people have been confirmed to appear in The Exorcist: Believer. These include Jennifer Nettles, Norbert Leo Butz, Lidya Jewett and Olivia Marcum. 

Universal has also revealed the character names – . Leslie Odom Jr. will play Victor Fielding, Lidya Jewett will play Angela, Olivia Marcum will play Katherine, Ann Dowd will be portraying Victor and Angela’s neighbor, Jennifer Nettles and Norbert Leo Butz will play the parents of Katherine, and of course, Ellen Burstyn will play Chris MacNeil.

The Exorcist: Believer Follows A Father Seeking Help From Chris MacNeil Following Supernatural Events

While plot details were kept under wraps for some time, with the release of the new trailer, a slew of information was delivered to the public, and now we have an idea of what happens. 

According to Universal’s description of the film, The Exorcist: Believer follows a single father named Victor, whose life is turned upside down when his daughter, Angela, and her friend, Katherine, suddenly vanish into the woods for three days straight. 

When the two girls return, they have no memory, and if that wasn’t strange enough, a series of supernatural and terrifying events starts to affect them. Victor has no choice but to seek help outside of his home, so he decides to find the one person who has experienced this before and speak with her: Chris MacNeil. 

Talk about an enticing premise. That sounds like something I’m down for. Leslie Odom Jr. even talked about the upcoming film when he was talking on the red carpet for the Netflix movie, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery in December 2022. 

Deadline asked Odom Jr. about how the filming process for the new Exorcist movie was going, since they were filming at the time, and he said he believes what they are making is “really scary” and fun for audiences: 

With that description and Odom Jr. confirming it, I have a feeling we’ll be scared out of our seats. Just from the trailer that we see, there are plenty of moments that are already pretty terrifying, from children staring up ominously at the ceiling with upside-down crosses carved on their foreheads to terrifying black and white imagery. I'm already freaked out.

David Gordon Green Directed The Film

For those who don’t know, David Gordon Green directed The Exorcist: Believer, according to Variety. To me, this makes me both nervous and excited, for many reasons. Green has become very well-known in the horror world. While he was successful in the film industry due to his popular comedies and dramas like Pineapple Express, All the Real Girls, and Stronger, he started to get into the horror world with the Halloween trilogy, beginning in 2018. 

The first Halloween film in 2018 was great. Then both Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends were less successful in terms of quality – and that’s coming from both me as a horror fan and from critics as well. However, I do think that he is excellent at world-building and I think that he’s a good choice for this franchise. Only time will tell, though 

Filming Wrapped In March 2023

According to the Variety article about Green helming the film, it was confirmed that filming for The Exorcist: Believer  was going to begin after Halloween 2022, as the director confirmed on the red carpet for Halloween Ends that they would be starting after the holiday. 

In the interview that Leslie Odom Jr. gave to Deadline during the premiere for Glass Onion, he said they were on week four of filming, and that was during the second week of November 2022 – so perhaps they started earlier than Green had initially thought. 

Then, in December 2022, Deadline confirmed that filming on the new Exorcist film had stopped temporarily, as Odom Jr. was going through an unspecified health crisis. 

However, it seemed filming did start back up again at some point, because Deadline confirmed in March 2023 that filming on The Exorcist: Believer had wrapped.   

The Exorcist Reboot Is The First In A New Trilogy

The last thing we should go over is that this isn’t going to be the last Exorcist movie. In fact, according to Deadline, this is the first of a planned trilogy that Universal and Peacock agreed on in a $400 million-plus deal. 

So, that means there’s going to be a heck of a lot more movies coming out soon, and The Exorcist: Believer is going to be the first movie in that trilogy. The second film, titled, The Exorcist: Deceiver, is set to release on April 18, 2025, according to a late July 2023 report from The Hollywood Reporter.

What are you the most excited for when it comes to the new Exorcist film? The new cast? The director? Everything else? Regardless, it’ll surely be a thrilling  experience.  

David Gordon Green has wrapped his Blumhouse-produced Halloween trilogy with the release of Halloween Ends. Though Ends was divisive, one thing is for sure; the film is a loving nod to the series' original creator, John Carpenter's entire filmography. Green will next tackle another classic horror franchise -- The Exorcist.  Considering how involved Carpenter has been in Green's Michael Meyers trilogy (he composed all of the music for the trilogy), many have been wondering if the franchise's OG director William Friedkin would be involved in the new trilogy. Green has now shed some light on that matter.

In a recent interview with Moviemaker Magazine, David Gordon Green spoke about everything from fan backlash to his new Halloween series to his desire to tell a love story within the confines of a long-running horror franchise. It didn't take long for the conversation to turn to Green's upcoming Exorcist films (the first of which has already filmed a bit) and whether or not Friedkin was involved. According to the director, he and his team decided to focus on character connections with the '73 original rather than the team behind the lens. He said:

William Friedkin has said on multiple occasions he never set out to make a horror film, yet The Exorcist is considered one of the scariest and best horror movies of all time. The film was also a bit of a critical darling upon release, garnering ten Oscar nominations, with Ellen Burstyn even getting a Best Actress nod for her portrayal of Chris MacNeil. It may shock some to hear that Friedkin isn't involved in any capacity with the new movies.  

David Gordon Green, however, did joke about how they could potentially bring the veteran filmmaker back into the fold for his soft reboot of the long-dormant franchise. He continued:

I doubt any director can create horror music like John Carpenter, so I guess this means no William Friedkin. Though the OG director won't be involved, it'll be great to see Ellen Burstyn back in a role she has declined to reprise for five decades in the series' five Exorcist sequels and prequels (which we've ranked). And the reason Burstyn finally agreed to return is even more awesome than her involvement. 

The upcoming follow-up is rumored to focus on a father, played by Hamilton's Leslie Odom Jr., of a possessed child, who searches for help from someone who has lived a similar experience. Presumably, Odom Jr.'s character will find his help in Ellen Burstyn's Chris MacNeil. Hopefully, David Gordon Green crafts something that's fresh but still honors what his legendary predecessor did decades ago.

The as-of-yet-untitled The Exorcist hits theaters on October 13, 2023 and the upcoming horror sequel, and its successors will eventually be available to stream with a Peacock subscription.

The horror genre is built on long-running franchise, and many of the best horror movies have recently returned to theaters via new sequels. Chief among them is Halloween, with filmmaker David Gordon Green taked with creating a trilogy after the 2018 movie’s record-breaking success. His threequel Halloween Ends was recently released, and the diretor has revealed a scrapped connection to Season of the Witch.

While there have been a ton of Halloween movies over the years, but the third movie Halloween III: Season of the Witch stands out as it doesn’t actually contain the villainous Michael Myers. It’s a sore spot for many hardcore fan of the franchise, and it turns out that Halloween Ends could have featured a tie-in for that controversial sequel. As David Gordon Green recently shared with TV Line, 

Well, there you have it. Halloween Ends is one of the most divisive installments of the entire slasher property, especially when compared to David Gordon Green’s previous two movies. And one can only imagine how strongly moviegoers would have reacted if this tie-in to Season of the Witch was actually filmed and included in the threequel. Although in the end the filmmaker decided against it.

David Gordon Green’s comments to TV Line come from a larger conversation about Halloween Ends, including the backlash that’s come from the generations of fans out there. While the filmmaker stands behind his recent release and how he told a very different story in all three Halloween movies, it turns out that Ends almost had a tie-in to the other controversial entry in the property. Although that scrapped scene might have opened up more questions.

When the 2018 Halloween was green lit, it was revealed that David Gordon Green and writer Danny McBride were planning on making it a direct sequel to John Carpenter’s 1978 original. As a result the other timelines were completely ignored, and Laurie and Michael were no longer siblings. So it might have been odd if Ends surprisingly feature a tie in Halloween III. Perhaps he made the right decision by abandoning that easter egg before filming even began.

While Halloween Ends didn’t have a connection to Season of the Witch, David Gordon Green’s slasher therequel did make some bold narrative swings. This includes putting a focus on the new character Corey Cunningham, and keeping Michael Myers out of the first 40 minutes of the movie. And smart money says plenty more people are going to be watching that new release, which is out in theaters and streaming from people’s homes.

Halloween Ends is out now in theaters and streaming on Peacock. In the meantime, check out the 2022 movie release dates to plan your next movie experience. 

Spoilers ahead for Halloween Ends.

The horror genre has been thriving for years, and many of the best horror movies have recently returned to theaters in new sequels. This trend became popular after 2018’s Halloween broke franchise records, with filmmaker David Gordon Green tasked with creating his own trilogy via two sequels. That story was concluded with Halloween Ends, which recently arrived in theaters and streaming on Peacock. The movie put a ton of focus on the new character Corey Cunningham, played by Rohan Campbell. And it turns out that he was warned about potential backlash when taking his role in the slasher threequel.

Halloween Ends is set four years after the previous two movies, and further shows how Michael Myers’ evil infected the town of Haddonfield. The movie has been somewhat controversial for the lack of screentime for the masked villain, and focus on newcomer Corey. And actor Rohan Campbell recently revealed to Variety that both David Gordon Green and Jamie Lee Curtis herself warned him about the hate that might come his way. As he put it,

Clearly those involved in the last Halloween trilogy know the franchise and the fandom well. And as such, they knew putting so much focus on a new character in Halloween Ends was going to get a big reaction from moviegoers. And they were right, as the Corey-centric story definitely surprised audiences, who were primarily there to see the final battle between Michael Myers and Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode. Some fans have even signed a petition to get the movie reshot. 

It sounds like Rohan Campbell went into filming Halloween Ends unsure how the public would respond to his performance as Corey Cunningham. The focus on this newcomer is clear immediately, as the cold open is from his perspective and we follow his relationship with both Laurie and especially Allyson. Although through the movie he’s got another fascinating scene partner: Michael Myers himself.

Halloween Ends was obviously a departure for the franchise, and every one of David Gordon Green’s three movies did bring something unique to the table. Michael Myers didn’t actually show up until 40 minutes in, and when he did he was far weaker than the previous two installments. Indeed, some of the movie’s best kills actually ended up coming from his collaboration with Corey.

While Corey’s story in Halloween Ends was a controversial one, the movie ultimately did end on an epic note. The Laurie/Michael standoff happened as promised, and there was a final victor in their longtime battle. The movie performed well on its opening weekend, but has some big competition this week with Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam.

Halloween Ends is in theaters and streaming now. Be sure to check out the 2022 movie release dates to plan your next movie experience.

SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Halloween Ends. If you have not yet seen the film, proceed at your own risk!

Over the full span of the Halloween franchise, audiences have watched Michael Myers live through a great number of attacks that would kill a normal person, but it’s pretty damn hard to expect that he’ll be walking away from the injuries sustained at the end of Halloween Ends. He could have potentially come back from the wrist and throat slitting performed by Jamie Lee Curis’ Laurie Strode, but there is simply no way that the serial killer will be coming back from having his body thrown in a scrap metal shredder.

It’s definitely safe to say that the continuity that was first established with 2018’s Halloween has come to an end… but does that mean we’ll never see another Halloween movie again? Fans have certainly expressed a lot of cynicism on that front, and even co-writer/director David Gordon Green doesn’t believe that audiences will never get to see Michael Myers on the big screen again.

During my Halloween Ends interviews earlier this month at the movie’s press day in New York, I asked Green for his thoughts on what he thinks the future will look like for the franchise. He admitted that his great hope is that his trilogy closer will be received as the be-all and end-all of the Halloween franchise, but more realistically he thinks that we’ll get another new incarnation once some time has passed. Said the filmmaker,

This is a reasonable perspective not only recognizing the power of IP in modern Hollywood, but also just looking at the history of the Halloween franchise. Fans will remember that David Gordon Green’s 2018 sequel was the second time that Michael Myers had been given new life on the big screen in the 21st century (the first time being Rob Zombie’s reboot series, which had launched 11 years prior). It’s not particularly outlandish to think that the next Halloween film will start to get on its legs before the year 2030.

Having finished his trilogy and contributed to the Halloween legacy, David Gordon Green actually seems somewhat excited to see what the next generation will be. He added,

While we wait to see what Hollywood has in store for Michael Myers next, fans can enjoy his latest murderous romp on the big screen right now. Opening at number one at the box office this past weekend, Halloween Ends is playing in theaters everywhere, and it’s also available to stream with a Peacock subscription.

To learn about more scary films on the way, our Upcoming Horror Movies guide has the information you’re looking for, and our 2022 Movie Release Calendar lays out every feature set to come out between now and the end of December.

SPOILER ALERT: The following article contains spoilers for Halloween Ends. If you have not yet seen the film, proceed at your own risk!

Looking at the Halloween series and the works of Stephen King, there really aren’t too many points of comparison. Both have made significant contributions to the horror genre going back to the 1970s, but slasher storytelling has never really been the author’s thing, and that’s really the big sell of the Michael Myers-centric movies. Halloween III: Season Of The Witch is an exception here, and actually does feature a plot that could be called King-esque… but it’s also notably the film that exists as an outlier in the franchise.

Recognizing this, I found myself surprised recently when taking in David Gordon Green’s Halloween Ends. Watching the movie and its story of a troubled young adult being corrupted by a powerful evil force, I couldn’t help but register some strong Stephen King vibes, specifically reminiscent of the writer’s 1980s masterpiece: IT. There are some key elements in the newly released film that made me immediately think of the beloved novel – and my curiosity about them eventually led me to ask the co-writer/director if the book was something that he specifically referenced in the making of the movie.

Why Halloween Ends Reminded Me A Lot Of IT

Halloween Ends is set four years after Michael Myers’ violent rampage in October 2018 (the events portrayed in Halloween and Halloween Kills), and while some of the motivation behind this move was clearly to catch the trilogy’s timeline up with the present, the jump also has a fascinating impact on the atmosphere of the film’s setting. Because the masked killer was never caught, Haddonfield, Illinois is a town that swallowed by a pervasive darkness that is caused by constant fear, and every resident is poisoned by it.

In a word, Haddonfield is haunted… much like Derry, Maine – Stephen King’s fictionalized version of Bangor, Maine as depicted in IT. Instead of having Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney) as a secret denizen, the New England city instead has the titular IT, an evil, extraterrestrial entity that most commonly takes the form of a sinister clown named Pennywise. The monster has spent centuries beneath Derry, and while it only emerges every 27 years to feed, its malevolence is powerful enough that it radiates even during its hibernation and essentially curses everyone who is touched by it.

Thematically speaking, what’s “haunting” both Haddonfield and Derry is trauma, as people are unable to properly process the horrors of their past and it casts a dark shadow over everything. The David Gordon Green Halloween movies have been exploring this idea from the start, but with a primary focus on Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode. Halloween Ends expands the scope to find the entirety of Haddonfield unable to cope, and in doing so it invites the IT comparison.

It’s about more than just atmosphere, though; there is also direct influence and active corruption initiated by the evil, which is where Halloween Ends’ Corey (Rohan Campbell) enters the conversation. In the movie, the character is vulnerable in the aftermath of the tragic babysitting accident that results in the death of a child, and he has two forces pulling him in opposite directions. Hoping to help him is Allyson (Andi Matichak), who sees him as a kindred spirit given everything that she has gone through… and on the other side is Michael Myers. Unfortunately, the latter ends up winning, and Corey’s story ends with tragedy.

There isn’t a character exactly like Corey in IT, but I will say that he is reminiscent of Henry Bowers – the awful bully who torments the members of The Losers Club as both children and adults. As written by Stephen King, Henry is a kid with serious issues that can be traced to his abusive, alcoholic father, and that darkness ultimately leaves him open to It’s influence – first leading him to kill his dad and then to try and attack the novel’s protagonists.

Last but not least, there is what could be called the simplest and most obvious bit of evidence connecting Halloween Ends and IT: Michael Myers’ choice of “residence.” Corey first encounters the serial killer when he is attacked and dragged into a pipe where Michael has been hiding, and where does Pennywise famously live? The sewer system of Derry.

Are The IT Vibes Intentional In Halloween Ends?

With all of the thoughts above clicking in my head after my screening of Halloween Ends, I was sure that Stephen King’s IT had some kind of direct influence on the film, and I kept that notion in my head when I sat down to interview David Gordon Green during the new movie’s New York press day. I took a swing and directly asked about the potential connection, and you can watch his response in the video below:

Color me surprised. David Gordon Green told me that he had read IT when he was younger, but the Stephen King book was not a direct influence on his Halloween trilogy capper. Speaking about the depiction of Halloween Ends’ setting, the director said,

Even if not intentional, the shared themes and elements between Halloween Ends and IT are interesting – and it makes it all the more amusing that while the critical reaction to the 2022 film has been divisive, Stephen King has given it his stamp of approval.

Halloween Ends, which finished the weekend at the top of the box office, is now playing in theaters, and it’s also available to stream for Peacock subscribers. Check out our Upcoming Horror Movies feature to learn about all of the films of the scary variety that are scheduled to be released in the months ahead, and our Upcoming Stephen King Movies and TV guide will help you keep track of all the King adaptations that are currently in the works.

Spoilers ahead for Halloween Ends.

The horror genre has been in the midst of a renaissance for years now, with some of the best horror movies returning to theaters with new sequels/reboots. This trend is partly due to the massive success of the 2018 Halloween, which was expanded into a full trilogy by filmmaker David Gordon Green. And the Halloween Ends director recently explained why the new threequel focused on that new character Corey.

Prior to its #1 release in theaters, anticipation for Halloween Ends grew since it was billed as the final showdown between Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode and the villainous Michael Myers. But The Shape had a surprisingly limited amount of screentime, with a ton of the content focused on newcomer Rohan Campbell as Corey Cunningham (plus a deep cut cameo). David Gordon Green was asked about this departure during an interview with EW, responding with:

There you have it. While the 2018 Halloween focused entirely on Laurie and her family’s trauma, the following two sequels panned out to show how the town of Haddonfield was affected by the massacres (if you're confused, you might want to re-watch the Halloween movies in order.) While the townsfolk formed an ill-fated angry mob in Kills, the plot of Ends shows how The Shape continues to inform the violence among the survivors. And that definitely includes the way Corey was treated throughout its 111-minute runtime, and Halloween Ends' ending.

Corey’s importance in Halloween Ends became clear immediately, as the cold open sequence followed his experience in Halloween of 2019, one year after the bloody events of Kills. In it we see him accidentally kill a boy he was babysitting, with Michael Myers noticeably missing. And Rohan Campbell’s new character would have even more screen time thanks to his relationship with Laurie, Allyson, and even The Boogeyman.

Later in his same conversation with EW, David Gordon Green further explained why Halloween Kills gave so much focus to the new character Corey. He shared where his head was as a filmmaker regarding this unexpected plot point, saying:

When Laurie Strode is writing her book in Halloween Ends, Jamie Lee Curtis’ narration explains the way that Michael Myers was still an infection that the town of Haddonfield was fighting, despite being missing for a number of years. We saw suicides, murders, and (of course) the way the town turned against Corey and branded him a psychopath. The movie’s time jump shows how the years of that label has negatively affected the newcomer, ultimately leading to the violent events that occur when Michael Myers returns.

With Halloween Ends in the rear view, horror fans are looking to the various upcoming horror movies still heading to the big screen. In the meantime, check out the 2022 movie release dates to plan your next movie experience. 

SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains mild spoilers for Halloween Ends. If you have not yet seen the film, proceed at your own risk!

David Gordon Green’s Halloween trilogy is a series of movies chock full of cool behind-the-scenes stories and interesting trivia. From Jamie Lee Curtis voicing the crying baby in 2018’s Halloween, to Bob Odenkirk’s unusual cameo in Halloween Kills, the filmmakers clearly had a lot of fun making adding special ideas to the projects. The newly released Halloween Ends very much continues this trend – with one standout moment including the double-whammy of cameo and deep cut reference.

The next time you watch Halloween Ends, pay attention during the Halloween party sequence – specifically the moment where Allyson (Andi Matichak) gets “flashed” by another party-goer. The actor playing the Flasher is filmmaker Nick Castle, who is forever tied to the Halloween franchise having played Michael Myers a.k.a. The Shape in John Carpenter’s original movie. Castle previously reprised his slasher role for one scene in 2018’s Halloween and again for 2021’s Halloween Kills, but David Gordon Green wanted to do something special for his trilogy-capper, including Halloween Ends' ending.

As featured in the video above, I recently interviewed the Halloween Ends co-writer/director at the film’s press day in New York, and at the end of our conversation I specifically asked about Nick Castle’s cameo. Green started by explaining that he wanted to let James Jude Courtney play Michael Myers for the entirety of the film (the actor having played the character the majority of the time in the previous two movies), but he felt a particular loyalty to Castle and still wanted him to be on screen. Said the filmmaker,

Continuing, David Gordon Green said that he decided to get together with Nick Castle to ideate a role he could play in Halloween Ends. Castle was reticent to take on a role without a mask, but Green convinced him to put on a trench coat and a skin-tone bodysuit with human organs on display:

The Nick Castle cameo in Halloween Ends – which he teased back in June – is by itself a wonderful Easter eggs for fans… but it doesn’t stop there. While showing off his costume, Castle’s Flasher asks Allyson, “See anything you like?” which is a quote from the original Halloween (specifically when P.J. Soles' Lynda sees Michael Myers with a sheet over his head pretending to be John Michael Graham's Bob). If you don't recall, you might want to rewatch the Halloween movies in order. David Gordon Green gave full credit for the line to Castle, saying,

Should you care to revisit this fun cameo/reference moment in Halloween Ends, the film is now in theaters and available to stream for Peacock subscribers. Our 2022 Movie Release Calendar has the full list of features set to come out between now and the end of the year, and if you’re interested purely in those of the scary variety, our Upcoming Horror Movies guide has you covered.

To audiences, David Gordon Green’s Halloween Ends is the blockbuster conclusion to the modern Halloween trilogy and the epic battle between Laurie Strode and Michael Myers – but it obviously means a lot more than that to the people who made it. The cast and filmmakers have been working together on these three movies for half-a-decade, and their hard work and collaboration has forged strong bonds and relationships. And that’s all without factoring in the impact of a 40-plus-year franchise legacy.

The making of 2018’s Halloween, Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends has meant a lot to a lot of people, so naturally it was an emotional experience when it all came to an end and everybody had to say goodbye.

Earlier this month I had the opportunity to interview David Gordon Green and the stars of Halloween Ends during the New York press day for the film, and – as captured in the video at the top of this article – I asked them about wrapping principal photography and what the experience of saying goodbye was like. As described by the writer/director, everybody came together after the final take featuring Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode, and what made it particularly special was recognizing the faces of so many people who also worked on the previous two features in the trilogy. Said Gordon Green,

Making one movie let alone three requires immense dedication and fortitude in the face of many ups and downs, which makes what everyone did in the making of the modern Halloween trilogy an accomplishment. That was something that was clearly felt and understood when it came time to complete production, and David Gordon Green said that the emotions lasted from the last call of “cut” on set to the sun rising on the next day:

Of course, Jamie Lee Curtis has a different perspective than everyone else. She was front and center back in 1978 when John Carpenter introduced the world to the terror of Michael Myers with the original Halloween, and she has had a tremendous journey with the franchise in the decades since (including some great sequels and some not so great ones).

When it comes to the subject of playing Laurie Strode again, Jamie Lee Curtis has expressed a “never say never” attitude – but the future is unknown, and meanwhile the actor knows what Halloween Ends means to people right now. So when it came to her last day on set of the new movie, she was filled with gratitude for not only the people who worked on the film, but for everyone in the world who has been a part of the cinematic journey. Said Curtis,

Jamie Lee Curtis is recognized as a horror genre legend, and her role as final girl Laurie Strode has been inspirational for many fans. Continuing, she explained that she knows how much the character means to a lot of people beyond what it has meant to her own life and career, and that made saying goodbye all the more significant:

Audiences can now experience the big finale for themselves, as Halloween Ends is now playing in theaters (it’s #1 at the box office) and available to stream with a Peacock subscription. You can learn about more scary films on the way in the months ahead with our Upcoming Horror Movies feature, and learn about everything that’s being released between now and the end of the year with our 2022 Movie Release Calendar.

SPOILER WARNING! Go no further if you don’t wish to know about the ending of Halloween Ends.

When it comes to trilogies, the endings of endings are always fascinating. How will the capstone film not only conclude its own individual story, but the story that has been unfolding over the previous two chapters? It’s a challenge for filmmakers that always earns complex and divisive results, and the latest title to go under that particular microscope is David Gordon Green’s Halloween Ends.

The movie has promised closure to the end of the war between Laurie Strode and Michael Myers, but how does Halloween Ends end, and what does it tell us about the nature of the evil serial killer? And is this really the last Halloween film? We’ve put together this feature to address those questions and more, and we’ll start with a quick recap:

One last spoiler warning, if you have yet to see Halloween Ends, it's now playing in theaters and streaming on Peacock. 

What Happens At The End Of Halloween Ends

Halloween Ends ramps up to its big conclusion as Corey (Rohan Campbell), wearing Michael Myers’ mask, breaks into Laurie Strode’s home. Jamie Lee Curtis’ legendary final girl pretends to go through the motions of committing suicide – including making a call to the police and firing her gun – but it’s just a ruse to trick Haddonfield’s newest homicidal maniac. As Laurie and Corey fight, shots are fired and the latter flies through the second floor bannister, but their tussle continues in the house’s foyer.

Corey is fatally wounded, but he laughs as he sees Allyson (Andi Matichak) pulling up in her car. The former babysitter tells Laurie, “If I can’t have her…” and proceeds to stab himself in the neck with a knife. As Corey hoped, Allyson comes in at the exact wrong moment and she assumes that Laurie has killed him to stop him from taking her away from Haddonfield. She screams and runs back to her car as rain starts to pour.

As Allyson drives away, Michael Myers enters Laurie’s house and retrieves his mask and takes Corey’s knife. When a still-alive Corey grabs his wrist, Michael grabs his head and snaps his neck. Laurie, meanwhile, sneaks around and hides from her boogeyman.

When Allyson gets to the radio station and sees it burning, she gets a call from Officer Frank Hawkins (Will Patton) about Laurie’s suicide call. Back at the house, the bold grandmother and Michael Myers begin their final battle in the kitchen. They exchange blows, Laurie gets thrown around, and there is violence with a garbage disposal and a knitting needle – but eventually the heroine gets the upper hand. She stabs him in the chest and in the hand, she pins him to the counter with a knife, and she uses a cast iron plan like a hammer to drive the blade in deep. Not satisfied, she topples her fridge to trap his legs.

Laurie recounts all of the horror that Michael has brought to her life as she stabs him in the armpit, slices his arm, and cuts his neck – all wounds made with the intention of getting him to bleed out. When Frank arrives and sees Laurie with the “dead” Michael, she declares him not dead “enough.” The body is brought outside to where Sheriff Barker (Omar J. Dorsey) approves the proceedings, and it is strapped to the hood of a car that leads a parade to the local junkyard. The industrial-sized scrap metal shredder is turned on, and Michael Myers is turned into hamburger meat while Haddonfield residents watch on.

In the aftermath, Allyson does decide to leave Haddonfield, and Laurie finishes her memoirs. The doorbell rings and it’s Frank dropping off some vegetables, and Laurie brings back their earlier conversation about cherry blossoms while they sit together on the porch. Inside the house everything is still and peaceful, and then the title card pops on screen.

What Happened To Corey?

Haddonfield, Illinois becomes a dark, dark place in the aftermath of Michael Myers’ savagery on the night of Halloween 2018. With the killer never caught and memories of the terror he instilled still fresh, the community is disturbed and the presence of evil is persistent in the town’s atmosphere. The horribleness has an effect on everybody, but Corey Cunningham basically gets a concentrated dose of it from the source.

Corey is traumatized and scarred following the horrible incident on Halloween night 2019 when an accident resulted in the death of the child he was babysitting, and in 2022 he is balanced on a knife’s edge emotionally. He has people who care about him and connect with him, but there are others, like the high school bullies, who torment him. Like Laurie and Allyson, Corey doesn’t wanted to be defined by his terrible past, and he’s trying to move on… but then he ends up getting taken over by the darkness when he is ostensibly infected by the evil of Michael Myers when he gets dragged into the serial killer’s sewer lair.

All three Halloween movies in the David Gordon Green trilogy are about the lasting impacts of trauma, and while the journey ends up seeing Laurie Strode finally become free of her demons, Corey is the example of what could have happened had Laurie taken a different path in dealing with her past than the one depicted in Halloween, Halloween Kills, and Halloween Ends – and obviously it’s a whole lot darker. For all practical purposes he becomes the new Michael Myers, though in the end he’s not quite as powerful as the original.

Will This Really Be The End Of The Battle Between Laurie Strode And Michael Myers?

If you’re a person who reacts to the title of Halloween Ends with cynicism, that’s wholly justified. Between Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, Omen III: The Final Conflict, The Final Destination, and more, there are a whole lot of horror sequels that have promised firm conclusions and then been followed by subsequent stories. It’s reasonable to believe that this will not be the last time that movie-goers get to see Michael Myers up on the big screen… but this new film certainly is the finale of the franchise’s current era, and it’s believable that this will be the last time that we see the killer do battle with Laurie Strode.

Given the depicted death and destruction of Michael Myers in Halloween Ends, not to mention the closure earned by Laurie and Allyson, it’s made very clear that this is the firm conclusion of this particular timeline in the Halloween canon. Unlike its immediate predecessors, it doesn’t leave unanswered questions or leave us with a big cliffhanger. It closes the arc, and while Jamie Lee Curtis isn’t willing to say that she’ll “never” play Laurie again, it’s hard to see where her story would go next after this chapter.

Even if we don’t see another sequel in this canon, however, that doesn’t mean we’ll never see another Halloween movie again. If Hollywood thinks that there is money to be made with the brand, then Michael Myers will be back. Will that mean another remake a la the Rob Zombie approach? Will it mean catching up with Danielle Harris’ Jamie Lloyd from Halloween 4 and Halloween 5? Or will we see a whole new approach taken with the beloved slasher villain? Time will tell.

Earning expected mixed reviews from critics, Halloween Ends is now playing in theaters and is available to stream with a Peacock subscription. You can learn about all of the films set to come out in what remains of the year with our 2022 Movie Release Calendar, and keep track of all of the scary movies on the way via our Upcoming Horror Movies guide.

“Halloween Ends” stars Jamie Lee Curtis, Kyle Richards, Andi Matichak, Rohan Campbell and director David Gordon Green discuss their new “Halloween” movie in this interview with CinemaBlend’s Eric Eisenberg. They discuss Laurie Strode’s lifelong fight against The Shape coming to an end, their last days on set, and if the “Halloween” franchise will make an eventual return.

Video Chapters

00:00 - Intro
00:30 - ‘Halloween Ends’ Cast/Crew On Their Last Days On Set
04:42 - Will The ‘Halloween’ Franchise Return?
05:49 - Director David Gordon Green On ‘Halloween Ends’ Easter Eggs
07:45 - Jamie Lee Curtis On What She Wanted To See At The End Of Laurie Strode’s Story

Jamie Lee Curtis and Director David Gordon Green join the show to talk about bringing the Halloween franchise to an end with Halloween Ends. Jamie Lee Curtis opens up about her first and last days at Laurie Strode on set, Nick Castle, examining trauma and more. 

Stick around for our reviews of the film, and a lively chat on this past weekend's box office results. Also, we celebrate Glass Onion getting a theatrical run, and keep our hopes high for more films from Netflix following that model. 

Timestamps (approx. only)

00:00:00 - Intro
00:02:56 - Jamie Lee Curtis & David Gordon Green Interview
00:21:02 - Box Office Chat: Smile Still Crushing
00:39:15 - Glass Onion Headed To Theaters
00:51:42 - Tár Review
01:02:05 - Halloween Ends Review
01:16:14 - Our Favorite Halloween Sequels
01:25:54 - Outro

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A franchise like Halloween is always going to be a lightning rod of debate and deep fried in fandom, no matter which iteration you’re talking about. In the case of co-writer/director David Gordon Green’s new trilogy of direct sequels to John Carpenter’s original classic, we’ve seen that tide of opinion experience major ebbs and flows once again – especially in the reaction to 2021's Halloween Kills. 

As the season of the witch has reared its head once again, so too has this franchise with Halloween Ends: a promised grand finale to the rivalry that started it all. And not only does it deliver a bold and satisfying finale for the modern trilogy, it’s the ending that Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode deserves.

While the previous two films take place on the same night in 2018, Halloween Ends jumps to the present day... save for one fateful Halloween in 2019. The movie opens with another tragic death occurs in Haddonfield one year after the events of Halloween Kills, leaving the reputation of a teenage babysitter named Corey (Rohan Campbell) tarnished for years to follow. In 2022, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) has a similar problem, as various townsfolk blame her for the return of Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney), who still hasn't been captured.

Laurie writes her memoirs while caring for  granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak), and both try to put their tragic pasts behind them. It wouldn’t be Halloween Ends if the hulking shape of Michael Myers didn’t reappear at some point, however, and indeed it does. That’s just the beginning of where this threequel differs from its predecessors, though, and it’s part of what makes this departure worth the wait.   

Director David Gordon Green’s trilogy capper isn’t completely what you’d expect, and that’s beautiful.

Halloween and Halloween Kills burst onto the scene as killing machines, with Michael Myers rampaging across Haddonfield and leaving tons of bodies in its wake. So if you’re going into Halloween Ends thinking you’ll get more of the same, you may be disappointed. How much you enjoy the film is up to how you embrace its approach, and in my case, I was pleasantly surprised.

David Gordon Green and co-writer Danny McBride return once again for the writing duties, with Paul Brad Logan and Chris Bernier joining the team for this final fight. As each installment has seen Green and McBride collaborating with a new player or two, each film has had its own unique flavor as a result. With Halloween Ends, we’re offered a Neapolitan of slow burn horror, character driven drama/romance, and bloody action. It may sound like a tall order, but it works rather well. 

The film undergoes a gradual transformation into the sort of Halloween entry with scares and tears that one would expect. That’s only after we’re given time to become familiar with where Allyson and Laurie are in their lives, four years since Halloween Kills dealt them a most tragic hand. By kicking off Halloween Ends in such an atypical fashion, David Gordon Green and his co-writers establish the stakes for some pretty high value payoffs during the more traditional third act.

Jamie Lee Curtis and her Halloween Ends castmates get to explore who their characters are outside of their trauma.

With such a fresh approach to the lives of the Strode/Nelson family, the finale to the Halloween trilogy reminds us of what these characters are like when they get to exist outside of their usual trauma. That’s not saying previous entries didn’t build intriguing stories through the more violent and bloody means previously exhibited. If Halloween and Halloween Kills were about luring the boogeyman into what was supposed to be the ultimate showdown, then Halloween Ends is all about the consequences of that mission.

Jamie Lee Curtis’ classic final girl Laurie is the very definition of how trauma and consequences intersect in this universe. As the surviving Strode is trying to commit her struggles to paper, we see her trying to let go of the past and lead a normal life. In the earlier acts of Halloween Ends, that means we get to see her getting friendly with Deputy Frank Hawkins (Will Patton), which makes for some of the best moments in this movie.

The same could be said for Andi Matichak’s Allyson, who engages in a romance that actually infuses the movie with the vibes of other ‘80s horror films. Her courtship with Corey borders on the edges of darkness, as the two bond over their outcast status. It’s a combination that leads both to some sweet moments of love, as well as tense scenes that threaten to tear it all apart. It’s definitely not what I’d expect from a Halloween movie, but again, that’s part of what makes this movie so special.

Laurie Strode gets the ending she deserves thanks to Halloween Ends’ epic conclusion.

Going into Halloween Ends, I was expecting Jamie Lee Curtis’ ass kicking skills to be at full throttle throughout. If I had gotten the movie I’d expected walking into this screening, I don’t think I would have liked it as much as I did. Rather than making the endgame for Laurie Strode all about killing Michael Myers, this final chapter combines that old chestnut with a more powerful drive: to overcome the darkness that has sat with her ever since that fateful Halloween in 1978. 

If marketing, and Jamie Lee Curtis’ own claims are to be believed, this is the actor’s final ride as Laurie Strode. That builds even more pressure to deliver the goods, as we’ve seen her character written off in some pretty surprising and unsatisfying ways before. Push that notion out of your head here and now, because Halloween Ends is the epic conclusion that Laurie Strode has always deserved.

Carrying an entire legacy of convoluted timelines and continuities on its back, David Gordon Green’s Halloween trilogy has stripped away all of the other sequels and was made with the intention to fully conclude the legacy John Carpenter originated so long ago. Your mileage may vary on how much Halloween Ends succeeds in that enterprise, and that’s not a result that comes from playing it safe. 

This final chapter in the modern trilogy of Laurie Strode ends on a high note, which could only be sung after warming up through a non-traditional story of outsiders and the darkness that always threatens to overtake them. No matter the initial feedback that lands upon this movie’s debut, there's no question that Halloween Ends will have fans talking for some time to come.

The horror genre has been thriving for years now, with fans enjoying a thrilling renaissance of new and returning properties. Some of the best horror movies have returned thanks to new sequels, including John Carpenter’s beloved Halloween franchise. David Gordon Green’s current trilogy will come to an end this October with Halloween Ends (aka Jamie Lee Curtis’ swan song as Laurie), with the director explaining how it’ll be handling Michael Myers during the time jump.

Not much is known about the contents of Halloween Ends, despite the movie arriving next month. But one detail that’s been confirmed is that the upcoming horror movie will feature a years-long time jump, allowing the timeline in-universe to catch up to the real world. David Gordon Green recently spoke to Total Film about whether or not we’ll know what The Shape was up to during the years of the time gap, saying:

Points were made. Part of what makes Michael Myers such a terrifying force, especially in the current trilogy, is that he’s an agent of chaos. In the 2018 Halloween movie he kills and spares residents of Haddonfield seemingly at random. So in order to keep the Boogeyman terrifying, David Gordon Green and writer Danny McBride aren’t explaining what he was up to in the years that’ll make up the time jump between Halloween Kills and Ends.

David Gordon Green’s comments continue to show how methodically he has approached the storytelling of his Halloween trilogy, especially where franchise villain Michael Myers is concerned. Giving the masked killer a sense of mystery was important, which is partly why the 2018 movie didn't make Laurie and Michael siblings. He’s not motivated by anything but blood lust.

As previously mentioned, there’s not a ton of information about what will happen when Halloween Ends arrives in theaters and streaming on Peacock next month. We’ve only been treated to very limited footage of the movie, which doesn’t hint at the story or explain how Laurie, Allyson, and the other survivors have managed to move on in the wake of Michael’s massacre through Haddonfield. As a reminder, you can check out the first trailer below,

While this footage helped to buoy excitement for Halloween Ends, it didn’t actually tease much about its story. Fans are curious about Allyson and Laurie’s relationship, especially since they lost the rest of their family during the last two movies. Real Housewives of Beverly Hills icon Kyle Richards has also been noticeably absent from the movie’s marketing so far, despite returning yet again as Lindsey Wallace. Let’s hope she and Jamie Lee Curtis get to share a scene in the new slasher.

Halloween Ends will arrive in theaters and on Peacock October 14th. In the meantime, check out the 2022 movie release dates to plan your next movie experience. 

Horror fans have been treated to a non-stop supply of quality movies over the past years, hitting both theaters and streaming services. And as a result of the 2018’s Halloween movie’s massive success, a number of the best horror movies have returned via new sequels. That slasher’s current trilogy is coming to an end this fall, and a new Halloween Ends image has revealed one of Michael Myers’ victims.

Filmmaker David Gordon Green has been behind the cameras for the current Halloween trilogy, which stars Jamie Lee Curtis as final girl Laurie Strode. The upcoming threequel Halloween Ends will mark Curtis’ swan song in the property, so the stakes definitely feel high. The movie’s contents are currently a mystery, but a new image from Empire shows Michael Myers attacking one of the many people he’ll presumably kill in the slasher. Check it out for yourself below,

Ouch. The violence in the current Halloween trilogy has been pretty brutal, and Michael Myers is clearly not going to take it easier on his victims in Ends. This woman is covered in wounds from the Boogeyman and is still in the midst of an attack. Hopefully more footage is released as we get closer to its release both in theaters and streaming on Peacock. Will The Shape finally be stopped for good? Only time will tell.

The above image comes to us from Empire, who also interviewed director David Gordon Green about the mysterious contents of Halloween Ends. During that chat, the acclaimed filmmaker revealed that the slasher’s ending is constantly being changed and tweaked ahead of its release this fall. As he put it,

These comments show how methodically David Gordon Green and screenwriter Danny McBride have approached their work on the Halloween franchise. They both share a true love for John Carpenter’s 1978 original, and have aimed to honor it throughout the current trilogy. As such, Green wants to stick the landing when it comes to Halloween Ends’ finale. 

As previously mentioned, not much is known about the contents of Halloween Ends. The upcoming slasher is expected to feature a time jump, which will allow the timeline in-universe to catch up with the real world. The movie’s first trailer recently arrived online, which was intercut with footage from the original movie. You can check it out below, but don’t expect to glean much about the slasher’s actual plot from the teaser.

This first footage definitely helped to buoy anticipation for Halloween Ends, which will be in theaters and in homes before we know it. Fans are eager for a proper full-length trailer, which will offer more about how Laurie, Allyson, and the few other survivors have moved on after Michael’s massacre through Haddonfield. Hopefully the trailer will also feature Real Housewives of Beverly Hills icon Kyle Richards, who has been noticeably absent from the marketing so far.

Halloween Ends will hit theaters and Peacock on October 14th. In the meantime, check out the 2022 movie release dates to plan your next movie experience. 

The Exorcist is considered one of the scariest movies not just of the 1970s, but of all time, and memorable horror stars have been wowing audiences of late with big comebacks – like how the recent Halloween sequel trilogy brought back Jamie Lee Curtis. Ellen Burstyn, who played the mother of the demonically-possessed child in the 1973 horror film, is now becoming a part of this trend by starring in the Exorcist sequel that is scheduled to come out next year, and she has revealed the surprising and awesome reason why she decided to sign on for the upcoming project.

While Linda Blair has the most iconic role in The Exorcist as the terrifying Regan, Ellen Burstyn’s character goes through plenty in the movie, having to fight her daughter as she’s taken over by a demon and witness the horror she inflicts on herself and others. In a Q&A with The Hollywood Reporter, the 89-year-old actress explained why she decided to take on the upcoming legacyquel after rejecting multiple offers. She explained,

It’s such a beautiful thing for Ellen Burstyn to reprise the role of Chris MacNeil for the purpose of bringing a scholarship program for young actors. I'm so glad she got her way. She’s been the co-president of the Actors Studio since 2000, alongside Al Pacino and Alec Baldwin. This membership organization for professional actors has a Master’s degree program at Pace University. Once students graduate with an M.A. degree, they can head right into the final audition to get accepted into the Actors Studio compared to having to do the preliminary audition first. Being able to present a scholarship to many young actors proves she wields her presidential role well. 

The new Exorcist trilogy has the potential to revitalize the horror franchise when you think about the success of the Halloween sequel trilogy and the Scream series. David Gordon Green, director of the new Halloween films, signed on as director for The Exorcist sequels in July 2021, and a new trilogy of movies will continue after the story from the 1973 classic. This means we can completely ignore the poorly-received sequels that followed. 

Daid Gordon Green has said that he enjoys making these sequels because it's a chance to revisit his childhood during the time these chilling classics first came out, and he makes it his mission to honor the magic they brought. Screenwriter Scott Teems has said that he is feeling the pressure of taking on these upcoming sequels, but his efforts will hopefully be worth it.

Ellen Burstyn told THR that she has shot most of the sequel and very much likes working with David Gordon Green. The new Exorcist movie will center on a father (Hamilton's Leslie Odom Jr.) who turns to Ellen Burstyn’s Chris MacNeil for answers when his is child possessed by a demon. Since this woman went through the wringer when she tried to help her own daughter in the William Friedkin-directed original, she should have wisdom to share.

You can see the upcoming horror sequel when the untitled The Exorcist 2 scares its way into theaters and onto Peacock on October 13, 2023.

The horror genre has been thriving for a number of years, as fans enjoy the renaissance with projects streaming and in theaters. Some of the best horror movies have returned to theaters thanks to new sequels, including John Carpenter’s Halloween. Jamie Lee Curtis is back as Laurie Strode in the current trilogy, sharing a Halloween Ends set photo as the slasher threequel approaches.

The Halloween franchise returned to the big screen with David Gordon Green’s 2018 sequel, which broke records when it arrived in theaters. Two more sequels were quickly greenlit, with Jamie Lee Curtis set to end her run as Laurie Strode in the upcoming movie Halloween Ends. She’s hyping up the release with a photo on Instagram of her first day shooting the mysterious slasher. Check it out for yourself below,

Laurie Strode and her granddaughter Allyson are reunited for Halloween Ends, and this image shows Jamie Lee Curtis with her co-star Andi Matichak. The threequel marks the third movie these two actresses have worked together on, and it’s clear they have a bond IRL. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens to these characters when the movie arrives this October.

Joining Jamie Lee Curtis and Andi Matichak in this photo from Halloween Ends’ set is none other than director David Gordon Green. He’s the man behind all three installments of the current trilogy, collaborating with screenwriter/actor Danny McBride in the process. Curtis has had nothing but good things to say about working with the director, and the vision he brought to Laurie Strode’s story.

This image of Jamie Lee Curtis on the set of Halloween Ends shows Laurie Strode’s sweet new hairdo. It looks like everyone’s favorite final girl got some serious conditioner, when compared to her look in the previous two movies. This hair change will likely help to show how much time has passed since Halloween Kills, as the movie is expected to feature a lengthy time jump that will allow the timeline in-universe to match the real world. You can check out the first footage from Ends below,

Not much is known about Halloween Ends, and this first teaser didn’t exactly answer any questions. Indeed, Allyson barely appeared and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills icon Kyle Richards is noticeably absent. But with Jamie Lee Curtis taking her final bow as Laurie Strode, the stakes are very high.

The success of 2018’s Halloween movie preceded a number of exciting projects for Jamie Lee Curtis. She starred in Rian Johnson’s Knives Out, and recently had an acclaimed performance in the massively successful multiverse blockbuster Everything Everywhere All At Once (which lead to her throwing shade at the MCU). She’s also got a role in the upcoming Borderlands movie adaptation.

Halloween Ends will hit theaters on October 14th. In the meantime, check out the 2022 movie release dates to plan your next movie experience. 

Back in 2018, the Halloween franchise got a brilliant and surprising rejuvenation. Ignoring most of the established canon, director David Gordon Green established a new timeline in the series, and in doing so reintroduced the epic battle between Jamie Lee Curtis' Laurie Strode and the mysterious slasher Michael Myers. Four years later, that story is ready to climax, and tonight we have a fantastic preview of it with the first trailer for Halloween Ends (the arrival of which producer Jason Blum was teasing just a little over a week ago).

Set in the aftermath of Halloween Kills, which saw Michael Myers nearly defeated before going on one of his signature murder rampages, the new movie catches up with Laurie Strode as she seeks revenge not only for the friends she's lost over the years at Michael's hands, but also for her daughter – who was slaughtered in the final moments of the last film.

So how will Laurie actually get the upper hand on Michael this time? Obviously we won't know the full answer to that question until Halloween Ends arrives in theaters, but an interesting aspect of this trailer is that she seems to predominantly be the one executing cat and mouse games. There are two different moments in the footage where Laurie is ready and waiting for Michael as he slowly and silently stalks around, starting with the first big thrill of the trailer – featuring Laurie standing behind a door with a gun drawn:

Of course, one also has to discuss the exciting conclusion of the Halloween Ends trailer. Featuring a sequence that was first previewed earlier this year at CinemaCon 2022, we see a struggle between Laurie and Michael in a kitchen, and he gets very close to sticking her hand in an active garbage disposal. Thankfully, she is able to momentary disable him with a nice reverse headbutt, and she uses her moment of freedom to grab a chef's knife and stab him straight through the hand.

Clocking in at only a minute and 16 seconds long, this Halloween Ends trailer doesn't exactly give us an extended look at the upcoming horror blockbuster, but it most definitely does its job, which is to say that it gets us excited and prepared for the movie's forthcoming arrival. It's the kind of movie where you definitely don't want the trailer to give too much away.

Halloween Ends sports an excellent cast that includes Jamie Lee Curtis, Kyle Richards, Andi Matichak, James Jude Courtney and Will Patton. It's unquestionably not only one of our most anticipated upcoming horror movies, but one of our most anticipated upcoming 2022 movies. Look for it in theaters everywhere on October 14, and stay tuned here on CinemaBlend more more news and updates about the project (and check out our Halloween Ends quick things guide to learn more about the film).

SPOILERS are ahead for 2021’s Halloween Kills. 

Last year’s Halloween sequel once again proved something about the horror franchise we’ve been reminded of over the past four decades: Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode is still the ultimate final girl. David Gordon Green’s slasher film shockingly killed off Laurie’s daughter, Karen, played by Judy Greer, and we’re not over it. Of course, it'll up the stakes for Laurie’s next standoff with Michael Myers, but as you can imagine, Greer wasn’t privy to the news of her character’s death. 

Now that the audience have had half a year to process the ending for Halloween Kills, and with half a year to go before the trilogy closes with Halloween Ends, Judy Greer has spoken about receiving news of her character’s fate. In her words:  

Judy Greer got blunt about her first reaction to Karen being killed off while speaking to Collider, and it's incredible. The actress was clearly not stoked to say goodbye to the Halloween franchise so soon, calling the writer/director a “fucker” when she received the phone call. However, Green did have a solid argument as to why, and ultimately, Greer filmed the tragic, but epic conclusion to her role ahead of the movie’s 2021 release. 

If you need a refresher, Halloween Kills waited until the final act to slash Karen. Right before Karen’s daughter, Andi Matichak’s Allyson, looks to be done for, Karen comes in and saves her by stabbing Michael Myers in the back with a pitchfork before grabbing his mask and luring him into an angry mob trap. Unfortunately, Michael fights off the mob and gets quick revenge on Karen. It’s obviously especially brutal because now Myers has killed off Laurie’s own daughter.  

Previously, Greer shared that she wanted fans to be “bummed” and “upset” about her death to match her own reaction to Halloween Kills. The actress also said that she wasn’t too surprised to learn of Karen’s fate in the sequel because she felt like it was the “right thing” for the story as a whole. She is, of course, the most sad about leaving the cast and crew of the horror trilogy. 

The moment sets the stage for what is to come in Halloween Ends. The movie has already finished shooting as of last month. Greer sent her Halloween mother and daughter “Final Girl” shirts despite no longer being alive in the movies. Is it possible we might see Greer again in a flashback? We’ll wait and see when Halloween Ends hits theaters on October 14. Until then, you can stream Halloween Kills with a HBO Max subscription and stay updated with other upcoming 2022 movies here on CinemaBlend. 

It’s been a great time to be a horror fan, as the genre’s renaissance has been going strong for years. A number of beloved franchises returned to theaters in the process, including John Carpenter’s Halloween. David Gordon Green and Danny McBride’s current trilogy continued with Halloween Kills last October, with the slasher arriving for home release in time for the Holiday Season. And a new exclusive clip shows the practical way Dr. Loomis was brought back without Donald Pleasence.

Aside from Jamie Lee Curtis, the late actor Donald Pleasence is the other protagonist of the Halloween franchise— especially the sequels. But given his death in 1995, fans were shocked to see his character Dr. Loomis return to the big screen in Halloween Kills. As explained in the video above, rather than using visual effects, this was done via prosthesis and one seriously good lookalike. And just like that, we're able to see him help arrest Michael Myers on that fateful 1978 night.

Early in Halloween Kills’ runtime, the story has a flashback to the night of Michael Myers’ original attack through Haddonfield. Loomis was played on set by Tom Jones, Jr., who was also the film’s art director. Add in some stunning prosthesis by make-up artist Chris Nelson, and the The Shape’s doctor was miraculously brought back from the dead.

In both the clip about Dr. Loomis, as well as in the accompanying interviews for the past two movies, it’s proven just how methodically David Gordon Green and company approached their work on Halloween Kills. They’re big fans of John Carpenter’s original, which is why it was so important to bring Donald Pleasence’s character back to the big screen. And in the end, Tom Jones looked uncanny as the iconic character.

Overall, Halloween Kills truly made the town of Haddonfield into a character, and expanded the mythology of the 1978 original slasher. Aside from the miraculous return of Dr. Loomis, the sequel featured the return of a number of actors from John Carpenter’s OG Halloween. That includes Kyle Richards, who has been confirmed to be returning for the threequel Halloween Ends. 

With the same crew presumably joining David Gordon Green and Danny McBride for Halloween Ends, there’s no telling what sort of bloody drama will come with the highly anticipated slasher. But with the Ends serving as the ending to the current trilogy as well as Jamie Lee Curtis’ swan song as Laurie Strode, the stakes have never been higher. 

Halloween Kills will arrive on DVD and Blu-ray January 11th, after first being released in both theaters and Peacock. In the meantime, check out the 2022 movie release dates to plan your next movie experience. 

The horror genre has been in a serious renaissance for years, and is showing no signs of slowing down. Halloween Kills arrived in time for the titular holiday last month, with David Gordon Green back behind the camera. Green will once again direct Halloween Ends, and he recently teased the threequels’ new tone and nods to John Carpenter.

Despite having the same director-writer combination, 2018 Halloween and Halloween Kills had very different tones; the first focused on Laurie and her family while the sequel allowed the town of Haddonfield to become a character. Halloween Ends will end the trilogy, and seemingly be Jamie Lee Curtis’ swan song as Laurie Strode. David Gordon Green recently spoke about his next slasher, saying:

Well, color me intrigued. It looks like Halloween Ends will bring something unique (and serious) to the table, just like the previous two installments did. While David Gordon Green is careful not to actually reveal anything concrete about the next sequel, it’s clear that John Carpenter’s influence continued to be felt.

David Gordon Green’s comments to the Empire Podcast (via Comic Book) help to peel back the curtain on what it’s like working within the Halloween franchise. Green and Danny McBride have been telling very specific stories with their trilogy of movies led by Jamie Lee Curtis. And it sounds like there’s going to be a brand new tone in Halloween Ends. With so few survivors left, this makes a great deal of sense.

John Carpenter’s influence has certainly been felt throughout the last two Halloween movies, so it makes sense that this would continue with Halloween Ends. The legendary filmmaker also serves as an executive producer, and he continues to write each chilling soundtrack. Halloween Kills included a flashback to the original movie, plus the return of a number of original actors who reprised their roles.

While information about Halloween Ends is limited, what David Gordon Green and company have revealed is certainly intriguing. We’ll be treated to a time jump in the upcoming threequel, allowing Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode to catch up to how time has passed IRL. The movie will also seemingly be influenced by the pandemic; one can only imagine how much worse Laurie’s isolation must have gotten.

Halloween Ends is currently expected to arrive in theaters October 14th, 2022, so filming better start sooner rather than later. In the meantime, check out the 2021 movie release dates to plan your next movie experience. 

In the last few years, Jamie Lee Curtis and writer/director David Gordon Green have developed a wonderful working relationship. When the filmmaker was given the keys to the Halloween franchise, he rejuvenated Curtis' legendary character, Laurie Strode, to phenomenal effect, and the end result thus far has been two great and successful films – with a third set to arrive just in time for the titular holiday in 2022. Beyond the terror of Michael Myers, Gordon Green will also soon try to apply his magic touch to a semi-reboot of The Exorcist, which was announced as in development this past summer, and should the door be open for her to participate, Curtis has a wonderful idea of how she could be involved: she wants to voice the devil.

Jamie Lee Curtis already has a ridiculous amount of cred in the horror world, as she is not only the star of the Halloween franchise, but also John Carpenter's The Fog, but she recently revealed to Entertainment Weekly that she would love to add The Exorcist as another notch on her genre belt. The reason for this is actually personal, and goes beyond just her friendship with David Gordon Green, as she identifies the William Friedkin-directed original as a film that truly terrified her when she was young. She explained,

For those who don't understand the reference, Mercedes McCambridge was an Academy Award-winning actor (winning Best Supporting Actress for 1949's All The King's Men), and during her time she was particularly famous for her work on the radio. By the early 1970s she was doing primarily television work, but the power of her voice led William Friedkin to cast her as the disturbing and traumatizing voice of the demonic Pazuzu in The Exorcist.

Should she actually get the opportunity, Jamie Lee Curtis is confident that it would be an aspect of the new film that would shock audiences and potentially make them cheer, adding,

Rather than just being a funny and odd pipe dream, this is something that very well could become a reality. The magazine caught up with David Gordon Green and proposed Jamie Lee Curtis' idea of voicing the devil in his upcoming Exorcist project, and he was definitely very open to the idea:

David Gordon Green is now developing not just one new Exorcist movie, but a whole trilogy that is being produced by Universal Pictures as an exclusive for the company's Peacock streaming service. Ellen Burstyn will reprise her role from the original film, and she will be joined in the cast by Hamilton star Leslie Odom Jr. The first title in the new series presently has a October 13, 2023 release date, so look out for a lot more updates about the development of the features next year.

Filmmaker David Gordon Green has had a successful career spanning both TV and film. Horror fans will know him as the man behind the camera for the current Halloween franchise starring Jamie Lee Curtis. And Green recently explained why he makes sequels for classic horror movies like Halloween and the upcoming Exorcist series.

David Gordon Green brought the Halloween franchise back to theaters in 2018, and has plans to put his own take on The Exorcist after that trilogy is wrapped up. He recently sat down with our very own ReelBlend podcast, where he spoke about why he returns to these beloved horror franchises. It turns out it goes back to his childhood, as Green explained:

Well, there you have it. David Gordon Green is going back to his childhood when it comes to horror sequels like Halloween Kills. But rather than crafting something wholly unique, he wants to make sure that these adaptations are done with respect to the original. Mostly because Green is a fan himself.

Those moviegoers who saw 2018’s Halloween and its recent sequel Halloween Kills can certainly attest to the way David Gordon Green and company respected John Carpenter’s original. Carpenter himself is both a producer and the composer for the movies’ chilling score. The most recent sequel also brought back a number of actors from the 1978 original to reprise their roles.

Given how acclaimed The Exorcist is, David Gordon Green certainly has his hands full when planning his series of movies. Later in the same conversation with ReelBlend, he further explained how he approached these legacy sequels, saying:

That’s certainly one way of working out your childhood emotions. Moviegoers are just lucky that David Gordon Green’s inner child loves horror so much. The Halloween movies have been massively popular, and smart money says that reputation will help the new take on The Exorcist.

David Gordon Green’s penchant for horror recently came to fruition with the release of Halloween Kills in both theaters and streaming on Peacock. The movie performed well at the box office, and all eyes are on how the trilogy will wrap up with Halloween Ends. Especially given that bloody twist ending.

Halloween Kills is still in theaters now. Be sure to check out the 2021 movie release dates to plan your next movie experience.

Three years after Michael Myers returned for 2018’s Halloween, the story continues with Halloween Kills, which takes place just moments after Laurie Strode, her daughter and granddaughter set a trap for the infamous killer. The movie has The Shape continuing to lurk around Haddonfield as Jamie Lee Curtis’ scream queen is bedridden in a hospital recovering from serious injuries Michael inflicted on her. Halloween Kills is a seriously brutal sequel to come to the horror franchise and it’s time to talk about the most shocking moments. 

This article is dripping with big SPOILERS for Halloween Kills, so if you’ve yet to see the latest movie in theaters or on streaming come back here when you have. Now let’s get to the Halloween Kills ranking. 

8. Officer McCabe Down Flashback Scene 

Ranking this scene is the lowest on the list is proof that Halloween Kills was brutal from the beginning to end. Early on in the horror flick, the movie takes us back to 1978, when it all started, and follows a pair of cops on the trail of Michael Myers’ rampage. Officer Hawkins and Officer McCabe find themselves in an empty house before Michael grabs McCabe and begins to strangle him. Hawkins fires, but accidentally fires at his partner, killing him. In the present day, Hawkins later tells Laurie Strode about the fateful day in the hospital. 

7. Michael Myers Emerges From The House Fire

Another early brutal moment in Halloween Kills is when Michael Myers is seen escaping Laurie Strode’s trap as firefighters come to put out the fire, unaware that it was intentionally set by Laurie to kill off The Shape once and for all. This sequence has a round of really insane moments, between one firefighter asking Michael to take his hand before he pulls him into the blazes to when he uses a saw blade to cut right through another’s head. The scene signals that Michael may just be unstoppable. 

6. Haddonfield Mob Is Foiled By Michael 

Moving on to later in the movie, there’s a similar sequence shortly after Michael Myers is stabbed by Laurie’s daughter Karen (played by Judy Greer). Of course, Karen’s attempt does not kill off the masked monster and he proceeds to slaughter the Haddonfield mob who spend the entire movie attempting to hunt him down whilst chanting “evil dies tonight”. It’s a bit of a hopeless moment considering at this point just about every original Haddonfield survivor has since been killed. Evil very much lives on as Michael takes out Anthony Michael Hall’s Tommy Doyle as his mask becomes drenched in blood. 

5. Playground Slaughter 

One of the most central moments in Halloween Kills is when a group of Haddonfield characters are in a car in the dead of night and Kyle Richards’ Lindsey stops them to go out and warn some kids of Michael. While she’s speaking to them on a playground, on the other side of the street, Michael comes for the remaining people in the car, including the couple who are dressed as a doctor and a nurse and Nancy Stephens’ Marion, who was also in the original 1978 movie. He kills them brutally before placing bloody masks on them on the playground. 

4. Elderly Couple Wine And Die With Michael 

One especially traumatizing sequence in Halloween Kills occurs early in the movie when Michael Myers ventures out of the embers of the house and on to murder them. The elderly couple are playing around with a drone as they pour wine when it unexpectedly stops in the next room and shoots back around to them. The wife gets murdered through the window before her husband gets dragged into the kitchen and placed on his stomach. Michael then uses the knife block to repeatedly take out each knife and continually stab the husband as his nearly dead wife watches in horror. 

3. Michael Comes Home To Little John And Big John

Throughout Halloween Kills, we follow Little John and Big John, a couple who live in Michael Myers home and early on have a fake out scare scene when some kids prank them. They are a lovable pair who offer up some cute and comedic moments throughout the film. It’s then even more heartbreaking than the other kills when Little John and Big John are also murdered by Michael Myers. Big John goes first when Michael Myers stabs him in the side before gouging his eyes out by pressing his hands into them. It’s super gross! And then Little John sees his partner die before being confronted by Michael himself. 

2. Poor Karen Strode Gets Executed 

This might be one of the most straightforward, one-note death scenes in Halloween Kills, but it definitely hits one of the most brutal because of who it is. Laurie’s daughter Karen is killed off at the end of the movie by Michael who sneaks up behind her in his house. As soon as Michael stabs her, the movie flashes to a concerned Laurie who has yet to find out that Michael has now killed someone who probably means the most to her. It signals that Laurie is going to really be at her wits end for Michael when it comes time to Halloween Ends. 

1. Cameron’s Stair Beheading 

The most brutal Michael Myers moment in Halloween Kills is when Michael Myers murders Cameron in front of Laurie’s granddaughter Allyson. Cameron is taken to the stair banisters and beheaded while he’s still very much alive and then Michael goes around and twists his head around. It’s incredibly disturbing and feels like a step too far, even for Michael Myers. 

Bonus Brutal Moment: The Haddonfield Mob Turns Evil 

We’ve ranked all the brutal Michael Myers moments, but before we gear up for Halloween Ends, I did want to point out an especially brutal moment that does not involve the Shape. One of the most tense and terrifying scenes in the movie is when the mob backs a mental patient into a corner and leads him to suicide whilst chanting “Evil Dies Tonight!” They think they are killing off Michael, but in trouth they are creating hysteria and causing more harm than good. It’s a powerful scene that reminds us that the horrors of Haddonfield have become larger than Michael Myers alone. 

Now that Halloween Kills has played out, check out CinemaBlend’s list of best horror movies next to drown out these scenes with new shocking moments from the genre. 

Spoilers ahead for Halloween Kills. If you haven’t seen it, keep this tab open and check out the movie in theaters or on Peacock.

A beloved horror franchise returned to theaters when David Gordon Green’s Halloween Kills was finally released last weekend. The slasher picked up immediately after the events of the 2018 sequel, and had a strong performance at the box office. Halloween Ends will complete the trilogy, and Green recently revealed the length of the upcoming time jump between the sequels.

The 2018 Halloween was a record-breaking success, and plans were quickly formed for David Gordon Green and Danny McBride to create two more slashers. Halloween Ends will seemingly be Jamie Lee Curtis’ last performance as Laurie Strode, and will also feature a considerable time jump in the timeline. The director further explained this, saying:

Well, there you have it. While Halloween Kills was also set in October of 2018, the upcoming threequel will do some catch-up. And it should be interesting to see how the last four years affected survivors like Laurie and Allyson.

David Gordon Green’s comments to Collider show how methodically he and the rest of the folks behind the current Halloween trilogy are approaching the work. Halloween Kills hit the ground running by continuing Michael Myers’ return to Haddonfield, but Halloween Ends will allow for some time to pass. This will presumably result in the movie’s pacing being more gradual, and I’m especially eager to see how the few surviving characters have managed to live after that fateful night.

Halloween Kills had a massive body count, as nearly everyone who came into contact with The Shape met a grisly fate. This sadly includes Judy Greer’s Karen, who was the final in a scene that paid homage to Pyscho. It was a tragic ending, one that will no doubt shatter both Allyson and Laurie. There are just two Strode women left, and the four-year time jump will reveal if this either brought them together or tore them apart.

Another character I’m eager to catch up with is Kyle Richards’ Lindsey Wallace, who managed to escape Michael and survive Halloween Kills. She’ll likely also have a role in Halloween Ends, which should please fans of John Carpenter’s 1978 original movie. Let’s just hope she keeps that pillowcase full of bricks around for safety.

The 2018 sequel and Halloween Kills have wildly different tones, with the new movie making Haddonfield a character itself. Halloween Ends will presumably focus back on Laurie and her family, especially after the losses they faced when Michael Myers returned.

Halloween Kills is in theaters and Peacock now, and Halloween Ends is currently expected on October 15th, 2022. In the meantime, check out the 2021 movie release dates to plan your next movie experience. 

By the end of David Gordon Green’s Halloween, Laurie Strode (played by Jamie Lee Curtis) is left in a complicated place. On the one hand, her attempt to trap Michael Myers in her burning bunker has succeeded… but on the other hand she has taken a knife to the gut and received what would be a fatal wound if not immediately treated. As we see in Halloween Kills, she does indeed survive, getting rushed to a hospital and having emergency surgery – but the way that Curtis see things, Laurie would have died a happy woman if she didn’t survive her long anticipated fight with the boogeyman.

I had the wonderful pleasure of interviewing Jamie Lee Curtis, David Gordon Green, and producer Jason Blum earlier this month during the Halloween Kills domestic press day, and I began the conversation asking about where the sequel starts with Laurie Strode compared to the 2018 film. Curtis discussed that dichotomy, adding the fascinating insight of where her mind is at the start of the new movie:

Because 2018’s Halloween ignores basically all elements of the previously established franchise canon and operates solely as a direct follow-up to John Carpenter’s original from 1978, the showdown between Laurie Strode and Michael Myers in the third act is one that is 40 years in the making. She knew the masked monster would eventually return, and when he did she decided that she would be ready. It was paranoia that unfortunately ruined her life in many ways, but she was also proven right to prepare.

Of course, this sets up the second shoe to drop in Halloween Kills. Jamie Lee Curtis noted that Laurie Strode would have been happy had the end result of their fight been both Michael and her dying – but the sequel instead presents the second worst possibility: they both live. The horror icon continued,

The fact that Halloween Kills is set in the immediate aftermath of the last movie and begins with Laurie Strode getting live-saving surgery means that her role in the story is vastly different than what fans previously witnessed. She is forced to take a backseat role, recovering in a hospital room, and the responsibility of leading the fight transfers to the other survivors of Michael Myers’ reign of terror in 1978.

When you think about it, the fact that she gets stabbed at the end of the 2018 film very much defines much of Halloween Kills, and recognizing that made David Gordon Green ponder what the movie would have been like had he and his fellow screenwriters not written themselves “into a corner.” Said the filmmaker,

The awesome fun of Halloween Kills is now yours to be witnessed, as the film is coming off a mammoth opening weekend at the box office. You can see the movie in theaters everywhere, and it is also available to stream at home with a Peacock subscription.

Michael Myers is back for Halloween Kills and he’s not only bringing no mercy to Haddonfield following Laurie Strode’s solid attempt to get rid of him once and for all, he’s stabbing the competition at the box office this weekend. After its first couple days in theaters, the Universal flick is tracking above early projections and is set to have a very successful opening weekend. Yes, even though it’s also available to see on Peacock. 

Halloween Kills was initially expected to make in the neighborhood of $30 to $40 million on the domestic front, but on Thursday night it made $4.85 million and $22.86 on Friday and is heading into a $50 million haul by the end of the weekend. According to Deadline, these opening numbers for Halloween Kills would make the return of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode the highest opening for a movie since the pandemic with a same-day streaming option, without an extra fee, which counts out Disney+ Premier Access films Cruella, Black Widow and Jungle Cruise. 

It’s yet another win for horror movies in theaters following the successes of films like Candyman and The Forever Purge, which also came from Universal. The big difference with Halloween Kills is it’s the first live-action film from the studio to get a day-and-date release on Peacock. (In September, DreamWorks’ Boss Baby: Family Business was the first Universal film to get this treatment). 

Other high-performing films this year that have also been available to view free with a streaming subscription are Godzilla vs. Kong, The Suicide Squad, Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It and Space Jam: A New Legacy, which had opening domestic weekends ranging from $24 to $31.6 million. The difference here with Halloween Kills is it's available on Peacock, which is on the lower end of subscriber bases for streaming services. 

In March 2021, it was reported that Peacock, which also offers a free with ads tier for their service, had just 3 million paid U.S. subscribers, which is a far cry from Netflix’s reported 66.2 million, Hulu’s 41.6 million, Disney+’s 38 million and HBO Max’s 20.7 million. The decision to place Halloween Kills on Peacock is undoubtedly a strategy for Universal to get more eyes on its streaming service, but it looks like the move has not dampened the theatrical success of the sequel. 

2018’s Halloween, which was director David Gordon Green’s first of a trilogy with Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode, made $76 million domestically in its first weekend before racking up $255 million worldwide on a budget of just $10 million. Given the circumstances, Halloween Kills is set to be another success for the franchise. We’ll keep you updated on how this weekend’s box office plays out here on CinemaBlend. 

Halloween Kills, the middle chapter of Michael Myers' new trilogy, hits theaters and streaming this weekend. Director David Gordon Green joins the show to talk about working with such a beloved horror franchise, working closely with John Carpenter himself, and how the third film is set to jump forward in time. 

We also preview some of what is expected to drop at DC’s FanDome event this weekend, and what we hope to see. Stick around for our in-depth reviews of The Last Duel (starring Jodie Comer, Ben Affleck, and Matt Damon) and Halloween Kills (starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, and Anthony Michael Hall). 

Timestamps (Approx. Only)

• 00:03:18 - Weekly Poll 
• 00:12:21 - David Gordon Green Interview
• 00:32:20 - Scream Trailer Reactions
• 00:36:08 - No Time To Die Box Office
• 00:43:53 - DC FanDome Preview
• 00:51:32 - The Last Duel Review
• 01:05:49 - Halloween Kills Review
• 01:18:45 - Our Favorite Supernatural Movies
• 01:34:03 - Outro

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This time of year many moviegoers take the time to watch some horror movies. David Gordon Green’s Halloween Kills will arrive in theaters in mere days, offering a ton of scares and the return of Michael Myers. Anthony Michael Hall is making his franchise debut in the slasher, and revealed a sweet cameo in the horror sequel.

In Halloween Kills Anthony Michael Hall plays an adult version of Tommy Doyle-- the little boy who Laurie was babysitting in John Carpenter’s 1978 original movie. His version of the character is a strong defender of Haddonfield, created by director David Gordon Green and company. I had the privilege of speaking with Hall ahead of the movie’s release, where he revealed a cameo that Green added to the upcoming release. As he put it,

I mean, how cool is that? While David Gordon Green is working with legacy actors and the iconic Jamie Lee Curtis on Halloween Kills, he’s also someone who highlights lesser known talents. And that includes casting his friend who owns a bar as Joe the Haddonfield bartender.

During our conversation, Anthony Michael Hall helped to peel back the curtain on what it was like working on Halloween Kills. From our chat I got the feeling that everyone involved in the project was genuinely happy to be there. And that joy starts from the top down with director-writer David Gordon Green.

David Gordon Green has had a unique career, as his collaboration with Danny McBride has resulted in both comedies and drama. That includes the current Halloween trilogy, as well as Pineapple Express and shows on HBO like The Righteous Gemstones. We’ll just have to wait and see if Joe the bartender ends up in a future project like the new Hellraiser movie.

Anthony Michael Hall is making his debut in Halloween Kills as Tommy Doyle, but it's a character beloved by the generations of fans out there. He was played in John Carpenter’s 1978 original by Brian Andrews, and then more recently by Paul Rudd in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. Rudd gave Hall his blessing, although that sequel technically isn’t part of the current canon.

Halloween Kills hits theaters and on Peacock on October 15th. In the meantime, check out the 2021 movie release dates to plan your next movie experience.

Halloween Kills isn’t just another Halloween sequel; it’s the second in a trilogy that will presumably cement the legacy of the original scream queen, Laurie Strode. John Carpenter’s now classic Halloween film not only started Jamie Lee Curtis’ career, but marked the beginning of the slasher genre’s Golden Age. As we get ready to see how it all plays out, writer/director David Gordon Green shared how he’s feeling about being at the center of delivering a satisfying finale. 

David Gordon Green appeared at an advanced screening of Halloween Kills at Universal Cinema AMC at CityWalk Hollywood this past Sunday evening, and he shared his approach to dealing with the pressure of being the filmmaker behind Laurie Strode and Michael Myers' return. In his words: 

David Gordon Green and Jamie Lee Curtis are currently getting ready to film the final installment of the trilogy, Halloween Ends, which is set to hit theaters one year from now on October 14, 2022. Halloween Kills is the twelfth installment of the franchise, but it follows 2018’s Halloween, which had Green ignoring the events of the other films aside from the original and focusing on Laurie Strode, Michael Myers and Haddonfield. 

2018’s Halloween is one of the most well-received Halloween sequels, and going into Halloween Kills, there’s been some positive praise as well. CinemaBlend’s own Eric Eisenberg gave the movie 4 stars out of 5 in his review. Overall, the movie has received a mixed bag of responses by critics. 

While David Gordon Green spoke to the audience about to see Halloween Kills at the AMC Theatre, the director shared the benefit of sharing the theatrical experience when seeing the new horror movie as well: 

Ahead of the Sunday Halloween Kills screening, it was also announced that AMC Theatres has launched a new program tailored to horror fans called AMC Thrills & Chills, that will include Halloween Kills. The program will also feature $5 surprise screenings of genre favorites every Wednesday and Friday throughout October.

Halloween Kills will pick up where the 2018 film left off after Laurie Strode attempted to kill Michael Myers in a house fire. As Laurie deals with her serious injuries brought on by the serial killer, the town of Haddonfield will rise up in an attempt to “let evil die” and finally see the last of Michael Myers over 40 years later. Halloween Kills comes to theaters on October 15, and check out what other scary movies are coming up here on CinemaBlend. 

While the Halloween franchise is one full of loose sequels and remakes, the movies thus far made by writer/director David Gordon Green are most definitely not either of those things. The 2018 Halloween does wipe the canon slate clean, ignoring everything but John Carpenter’s seminal film, but both it and the sequel, Halloween Kills, also do a tremendous job weaving themselves to that original title. It makes one wonder if a five-hour-plus of the three movies would be plausible – and for what it’s worth, star Jamie Lee Curtis is very much on board with the idea.

As captured in the video at the top of this article, this seal of approval was delivered earlier this month during the Los Angeles press day for Halloween Kills – at which time I had the pleasure of interviewing Jamie Lee Curtis, David Gordon Green, and producer Jason Blum. The topic came up because there are a number of flashbacks in the new movie set during the events of John Carpenter’s Halloween, and I was curious if any attempt had been made to splice the material together. When they all agreed it would be an interesting experiment, I asked about doing the five hour version, and that definitely got their wheels spinning.

Jason Blum noted that such a cut would not be something that could be given a wide release, as the situation with the rights precludes that as an option, but the idea of a one-night-only event at the Hollywood Bowl was suggested (featuring a live performance of the score, of course) – and that’s just an idea that is too good to ignore. Imagining what such an experience would be like practically makes one want to start rubbing every lamp in sight hoping that a genie will pop out in a wish-granting mood.

Not only does Halloween Kills feature flashbacks that tie back to the events of Halloween night in 1978, but it’s also a sequel that is primarily set in the immediate aftermath of the events featured in 2018’s Halloween. The main narrative in the film begins where the last one ended: with Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) in the back of a flatbed with her daughter, Karen (Judy Greer), and granddaughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak), driving away from a compound that is burning to the ground and has Michael Myers trapped in the basement. It seemed like a moment of victory in the last movie, but the tide quickly turns as the killer manages to once again escape certain death.

Fans will be able to watch all of the gore-soaked mayhem unfold in just a couple days, as Halloween Kills is arriving in theaters everywhere this Friday (it will also be available to stream on Peacock – but this is one that you’re going to want to see with a large crowd). Go see it, and then stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for our in-depth coverage!

Halloween Kills stars Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Anthony Michael Hall, Kyle Richards, director David Gordon Green and producer Jason Blum are back to discuss the follow-up to one of the greatest horror reboots of all time. 

In this interview with CinemaBlend’s Eric Eisenberg, they discuss behind-the-scenes secrets (including a hidden cameo by Bob Odenkirk), how Laurie Strode and her relationship with her daughter have evolved, what it was like to bring back characters from the 1978 classic and more.

Video Chapters

• 00:00 - Intro 
• 00:09 - David Gordon Green & Jamie Lee Curtis Discuss The Dramatic Shift In Laurie’s Story Arc 
• 02:03 - How Halloween Kills' Director Helped Revive Characters From The Original 1978 Film 
• 03:21 - How Judy Greer & Jamie Lee Curtis Approached Karen and Laurie’s Closer Relationship 
• 04:31 - Halloween Kills Director Blew Jamie Lee Curtis' Mind With His Sneaky Bob Odenkirk Cameo 
• 05:28 - The Halloween Kills Cast Discusses Working Behind The Scenes With Director David Gordon Green 
• 06:11 - We Have An Awesome Idea For A 5-Hour Halloween Special, and Jamie Lee Curtis And Jason Blum Are Here For It

While Halloween Kills was delayed a year, it’s finally coming out in just a few days, and the final movie, at least for now, is set for next Halloween. And with a name like Halloween Ends, it’s clear that the movie at least wants us all to believe this is really it.