Michael Myers is back on the big screen this weekend, and there are two more nights of it left. Halloween and its first two sequels are playing AMC theaters on consecutive nights, tied to the launch of Halloween: The Game on September 8th.
The schedule runs one film per night: John Carpenter's 1978 original played Friday, Halloween II screens Saturday, and Halloween III: Season of the Witch closes it out on Sunday. Showtimes are on AMC's site.
Regal ran the original on Friday night as a separate one-night event across nearly 300 locations in 39 states. That one has been and gone, so AMC is where the rest of the weekend lives.
Both are billed as "presented by Halloween: The Game", the asymmetrical horror game from IllFonic arriving Tuesday. Compass International Pictures, the company that has held the original film's rights since 1978, is attached to the theatrical side of the promotion.
The AMC lineup is exciting because Halloween III rarely gets this type of treatment. The 1982 film doesn't include Michael Myers, swapping the slasher for a plot about a Silver Shamrock mask maker and a stolen Stonehenge boulder. Audiences hated it in 1982 and it has spent the forty years since turning into one of the most defended cult films in the genre. Carpenter and Debra Hill wanted the series to become an anthology, telling a different story every October, and the backlash to this one ended that plan on the spot.
As for the original, Carpenter shot it in 20 days on roughly $300,000, scored it himself, and turned an unpainted William Shatner mask into the most recognizable face in horror. It made around $70 million, and it influenced every slasher that followed.
The middle film gets less attention than it deserves. Halloween II picks up the same night the first one ends, moves the action to Haddonfield Memorial Hospital, and gives Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasence their last outing together in the original run. Carpenter co-wrote and produced it, then handed directing duties to Rick Rosenthal. It's also the film that introduced the sibling twist the franchise spent the next four decades arguing about.
IllFonic's game arrives Tuesday, and the studio is in familiar territory, thanks to Friday the 13th: The Game and Predator: Hunting Grounds. Putting the movies back in theaters four days ahead of the game's launch is a smart bit of promotion, especially for horror fans.
Two nights left, and one of them is the strangest sequel any horror franchise ever tried!