If It Doesn't Scare You, Perhaps the Halloween Trailer Will Confuse You to Death

Here are some confusing things about the upcoming Halloween movie:

• It is the third film in the franchise named simply Halloween, after 1978’s original and Rob Zombie’s 2007 remake/reimagining/reopening of old wounds.
• This film pointedly ignores all of the sequels in the franchise. “It was not her brother, that’s something people made up,” says Laurie Strode’s granddaughter about her attacker Michael Myers in this trailer. The revelation that Myers was Strode’s brother occurred in 1981’s Halloween II. Thus, this eleventh installment in a 40-year-old franchise creates another branch on a complicated timeline. The original, Halloween II, and then 4 through 6 comprise one narrative cycle. Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (the seventh film in the series) ignored 4 through 6, and was followed by Halloween: Resurrection, which featured Tyra Banks, Busta Rhymes, and a rather pathetic death scene for Jamie Lee Curtis’s Laurie Strode character. (I don’t know if that counts as a spoiler as it’s being disregarded in the latest Halloween, which once again stars Curtis). Then came Rob Zombie’s Halloween and its sequel, Halloween II, which was not a remake of 1981’s Halloween II, but did reference the first Halloween II by being partially set in a hospital. Halloween III: Season of the Witch does not feature Michael Myers as its villain (the killer in III is a corporation and its weaponized masks), but a character in III at one point does watch a trailer for the original Halloween. Got all that?
• Because of the way she’s styled, Jamie Lee Curtis is giving off serious Benjamin Franklin vibes.

Anyway, maybe this will be fun and good. Danny McBride co-wrote it with director David Gordon Green. It’s out in October.