TOWSON. MD. — Michael Myers' story has officially come to an end. Halloween Ends brought the demise of Michael, but how did this come to be? WMAR-2 News sat down with Michael Myers actor James Jude Courtney to discuss the decisions behind the film and what transpired.
RELATED: The man behind the mask: James Jude Courtney tells all ahead of Halloween Ends
Fans were curious on why the film took a turn from the previous films in the trilogy.
Courtney spoke on the decisions that director David Green made in Halloween Ends and how he interpreted them.
"David made some very courageous choices as a director and writer," Courtney said. "And I think that's what great art is. There was definitely a method to David's madness and I think these three films need to be viewed through the lens of one single film. And I think if you watch Halloween kills, and then ends and see it as one big film, you see a greater line of you know, what David Gordon Green created and I'm very proud of the work."
One of the decisions made was the emergence of the character Corey Cunningham who is portrayed by actor Rohan Campbell.
Cunningham's story in the film began in a luxurious home where he was babysitting a young boy who was too much to handle. The boy locked Cunningham in a dark room. Being afraid of the dark, Cunningham attempted to bust through the locked door, when he successfully escaped, he hit the boy with the door causing him to fall over the railing.
The child sustained fatal injuries.
As time passed, Cunningham was working to get back into society attempting to duck and dodge bullies at every turn. One day, he ran into a weakened Michael Myers and had a connection with him that fans had never seen the Haddonfield slasher have. Courtney refers to this as a transference.
"In the script, it was written as, and we played it as, and David directed it as a transference," Courtney said. "So there's a transference of energy. And that transference of energy wasn't just one-sided. There's sort of a portrait of Dorian Gray thing going on, you know, I feed him energy, I'm sucking his energy out though, so there's a duality going on there. So that's exactly how we framed it, we refer to it as a transference."
After the transference, Cunningham changed. His confidence was high and he became more violent. He even became more stern in his relationship with Laurie Strode's granddaughter, Allyson.
Cunningham even fought off Myers and removed his mask to become the new slasher in Haddonfield.
With the emergence of Corey, fans were curious on the limited appearances of Michael in the film. Courtney went on to say that the game plan was set and he was sticking to it.
"First of all, it's awesome that the fans care so much that they comment," Courtney said. "And it's awesome that the fans are so invested in these series of films and the films that we've made, that they feel so much a part of the family that they feel, you know, they see streams and rivers and roads and mountains that they think should be taken or feel should be taken. And that's awesome, because it creates dialogue. And so everybody's talking about this, you know, it's a dynamic art form, there's no perfect film, And so, from my perspective, being a part of the Halloween family, I like in making a movie, to play on a football team. And, and if you play football, or soccer, or basketball, or any other team sport, if you got a chance of winning, especially if you got any chance of winning a championship, you got to buy into the coaches program, if you can't lie to the coaches program and find another coach, but you got to buy into the conscious being a coach, and when you have a coach, or in this case of director, David Gordon Green, who's proved himself time and again, to be just profoundly gifted, you buy into his program. And so knowing that there was a method to David's madness, a lot of it I couldn't see until we got to the end."
Courtney went on to say that Green's story ideas worked and that he told the story the way he felt was right.
The story was built to end the way it was always meant to be....Michael vs. Laurie.
In a final battle between the two, Laurie gained the upper hand, thanks to Allyson and took down the masked killer to the point where he could not get up.
After immobilizing Myers, Laurie and Allyson took the body to a junkyard to perform a sort of cleansing ritual to make sure that Michael would never get up again. The whole town of Haddonfield attended.
When asked about the ending, Courtney said that he and Jamie Lee Curtis agreed that it was the most powerful scene Curtis had ever done.
"It was a very, very, deep, deep experience," Courtney said. "So now that I'm walked away from it, that process for both of us, me and Jamie, was the release of 4 or 6 some odd years of torture and pain and struggle and abuse, and then all the pathologies that you know, and so, in that moment, one of us was going to be released. Jamie and I both agree, which is really saying something for Jamie, that it's the most powerful scene that she has ever done."
Courtney says that he ranks Myers up there with some of horror's most iconic characters such as Freddy Krueger.
"He's definitely somewhere at the top of the heap," said Courtney. "He's definitely in the running. I think we'd almost have to categorize that early, you know, the 30s and 20s, then the classic horror, the, you know, 70s 80s and 90s. And then modern horror, you know, and I think we're looking at, it's almost like you're looking at three chapters of horror, therefore, three chapters of what really gets to us. Michael Myers, especially with classic horror and into modern horror now definitely needs to be right up there. I think classic horror I think Freddie, you know, Freddie Krueger is, you know, and Eagle back in the day, what Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff created, you know, and, and I and then look at the modern stuff coming out, you know, now, I mean, I think Get Out really was the beginning of changing all that, you know, all these different perspectives of what this all means and who are the monsters and I think a lot of it shows us that, you know, the monsters are in us, we are the monsters. But I think fairly and even if I weren't had not played this character, I think fairly Michael Myers deserves to be right up there in the neck and neck finish line."
With the series making its final film we just had to know.... what is next for James Jude Courtney?
Courtney's answer? Stay tuned.
"I've definitely engaged with some folks and I'm not at liberty to speak at the moment, but its fun stuff," Courtney said. "There's some horror-related stuff and there's some drama-related stuff, so we're working hard."
Halloween Ends is now available on Blu-ray where Courtney says there is more to be seen.
FULL INTERVIEW:
