One of the best features of “Halloween Kills” (2021) is the collection of flashback sequences which show the rest of the night Michael Myers came home to terrify Haddonfield, a continuation of the events from the original “Halloween” (1978). “Kills” depicts a completely different course of events that were shown in “Halloween II” (1981).
In “Halloween II”, Michael continued his rampage on that night in 1978. In “Halloween Kills”, Michael is captured after a brief encounter with police, and with Lonnie, a Haddonfield kid. Michael retreats to the old Myers house, thereby setting up the alternate timeline.
I thought it would be fun to edit together a seamless version of that night into a re-edit called “Halloween: The Night of Terror Ends”, a short film that respects the alternate timeline of the latest trilogy. It turned out to be a very exciting editing exercise that took up far more time than I originally thought it might. And because I wanted to make it seamless, I spent a great deal of time with music and sound effects editing, including recording some of my own sound effects.
Some observations and facts about this silly project:
- Footage comes from “Halloween”, “Halloween II” and “Halloween Kills: Unrated”.
- Music is from those three films, and also extensively from “Halloween” (2018).
- There are some fun hookups with early Michael POV scenes from “Halloween II”, which help set the geography and timeline, and I thought it was fun to include more of Dr. Loomis and even a POV shot of trick-or-treaters that tied into the Lonnie scene from “Kills”!
- I had to add a ton of music tracks and sound effects to help blend abrupt cuts between movies (and erase any remnants of the “Halloween II” score. I recorded some sound effects with my 14-year-old son, who “played” Michael Myers in a few takes, of him breathing, grunting (reacting to punches) and having a mask ripped off his face, with my iPhone and Voice Memos.
- The most extensive sound design challenge was the capture of Michael, his beating, and attempted execution. Those scenes from “Kills” were all over the place with audio (including voiceover!), so the soundtrack in this area is almost entirely reconstructed by me.
- I generously peppered in Michael Myers breathing sound effects throughout the piece because it was fun. I found some nice nighttime soundscapes that helped blend together shots, as well.
- The opening titles are from “Kills” which I extracted and recolored. Just like they did in the 2018 trilogy, I added pretend gate-weave to the titles.
- I’ve come to admire the flashbacks in “Kills” even more after embarking on this editing exercise (notice that Dr. Loomis’ car is still parked across the street from the Myers’ house!). The way Haddonfield was lit was dramatically different than the original film - there is a TON more atmosphere in “Kills”’ version of 1978, plus Haddonfield streets that were pitch black in the original and “II” now are fully lit as opposed to being bathed in complete darkness.
- To help blend the three movies together, I had to do some color grading. The original film is pale and green, “II” is very warm and contrasty, and “Kills” is bright and blue. I settled on a warm, slightly desaturated look, and did my best to match the contrast of all three films.
- Picture, music and sound editing all done in Final Cut Pro.
- Graphics created in Pixelmator Pro and Adobe After Effects, and color grading was finished in After Effects.
These types of editing exercises invigorate my love of picture editing and sound effects editing. When I was a kid, I would lug our second VHS VCR near our first VCR and hook them together after I realized I could cut together shots of a movie in a different order! At that time, I couldn't possibly imagine how advanced the tools would get so that I could do something like this fun "Halloween" video at home on my personal Mac.
