Movies

Rob Zombie's Halloween: Alternative Ending And Deleted Scenes

Halloween
By Peter Sciretta

Much of the horror community theorized that The Weinstein Company forced Halloween director Rob Zombie to film a series of reshoots. Zombie has disputed this claim on his blog, and now the musician turned horror director tells MTV about the alternative ending that could have been, and the real reason for the reshoots.

"And the weirdest thing about movies is it's all planned out, but you just don't know. Sometimes, things that you really think will work work, and sometimes they're like 'eh'," said Zombie. "We were kind of rushed because, filming in Pasadena, it's like 11:00 and – boom! – they shut you down…the cops would step in front of the cameras," Zombie told us. "We were shut down and I thought 'Well, maybe we have it.' Then I started editing, and it didn't feel like I had the end of the movie. Luckily, I had the luxury of going back."

The original ending came after Myers reached into Loomis' car and pulls out Laurie Strode. Sheriff Brackett and several other policemen pull up in their cars. Loomis attempted to talk to Michael, urging the cops to hold their fire. He blamed himself for Michael's madness, and convinced Myers to drop the knife and release Laurie. Loomis embraces Laurie as Myers takes a step forward and the police unleash reactionary gunfire. The old ending will be included on the eventual special edition DVD release.

"Now by the end of the movie, on those final frames you're going to think 'Wow, that is Michael's sister," Zombie said of the new finale. "The other way, it was more like she was a victim being rescued. Now, she becomes her own person."

Also of note, HorrorMovieADay took a look at the differences between the workprint that leaked online last week, and the theatrical version of the film. Here are some of the interesting bits:

  • In the workprint, there is an additional scene of young Michael with Deborah at the institution, where he expresses his need to "get out of here". When he learns he cannot leave, he says "Then I have nothing left to say."
  • In the workprint, an orderly and his friend harass and then rape a female inmate in Michael's room. Michael ignores them until they begin playing with his masks (this pays off the line about him not liking it when people touch his things). He kills them both, gets their keys, and escapes. This also explains why Michael would kill someone who is seen as his friend in the scenes prior. This gives him a moralistic reason to be killed.
  • When the nurse looks at the photo of Michael and "Boo", there is an additional line where she alludes to Michael being ugly. This provides more of a motive for her killing than is present in the theatrical version.
  • The Workprint showed the scene where Michael finds and removes the tombstone in the graveyard.
  • Bob's death is completely different. In the workprint, he is killed in his van when he goes out to get beer. In the theatrical, he is killed in the exact same way he was killed in the 1978 film.
  • In the theatrical print, Loomis buys a gun, the scene where Brackett explains how he knows who Laurie Strode's real family is (the workprint never explained how she came to be with that family or how Loomis would know where to find her), and the whole sequence where Loomis runs up to the House at the end (ie the new ending).
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