The trailer for the new HALLOWEEN movie has finally arrived and I have to admit that all of my trepidation was washed away almost instantly. I was unsure of just how a new HALLOWEEN movie would be handled by Danny McBride (who I loved as Kenny Powers on EASTBOUND & DOWN but wasn’t the first name I thought of when it came to horror) but if this trailer is any indication, McBride and his partner David Gordon Green have the feel of John Carpenter’s slasher classic down and Jamie Lee Curtis is coming back loaded for bear. So click onward fellow horrorphiles to see what I thought were the top 5 moments gleaned from the trailer.

1. Laurie Strode is a bad ass mee-maw survivalist

Jamie Lee Curtis may be older but she is showing some major steely determination and “Don’t Mess With Me” swagger as a Laurie Strode who has not moved on from her encounter with Michael Myers but instead has been spending her time preparing for the rematch. She looks like a high school social studies teacher who just decided one day that she has had enough and dropped out of society and become the leader of a militia.

2. Michael Myers is as sadistic as ever

I love this scene! I love this scene so much that I wish it hadn’t been included in the trailer so that the first time I saw it would be while watching the movie in October. There is something so twisted and sadistic about how Michael toys with the documentary lady and while it starts out pretty routine for a Michael Myers style prelude to murder, that one action of dropping the bloody teeth from Jebus who knows over the bathroom stall is chilling. It shows the uninitiated that Michael is not just an unfeeling killing machine (I have seen him referred to in some places as being akin to a shark) but instead a cruel sadist who doesn’t just have an uncontrollable need to kill but also wants to instill fear in his prey before finally ending their lives. It is one of the most monstrous acts I have seen in a slasher movie and I love it to pieces!

3. Closets are going to be scary again

Holy crap this was a great scene. I knew as soon as the little kid asked his babysitter to shut his closet door that Michael was going to be in there but the way it played out was just perfect and another illustration of just what a creep Michel is because his need to play games with his victims is almost as great as his need to kill people. And when the babysitter opens the closet door and Michael was standing there brandishing a knife it was such a satisfying moment even though there was nothing surprising about it at all.

4. Michael still loves the classics

I love nods to the past and this trailer had a bunch from the courtroom sketch of Donald Pleasance’s dearly departed Dr. Loomis, Michael killing a mechanic in his garage to steal his overalls (Michael’s preferred fashion aesthetic), and the scar on Laurie’s arm from when Michael slashed her during their first encounter. But none of those filled me with as much joy as the sheet ghost scene. Now it is quite possible that the person under that sheet isn’t Michael but rather another victim (the blood and overturned chair makes a good case for that possibility) but I am still pleased as punch that we get all these little nods to the original film and I’ll like it even more if there are new touches added to the bits of nostalgia.

5. Laurie vs Michael: One-on-One

And finally the rematch we have all been waiting for: Laurie Strode vs Michael Myers!
Sure this isn’t the first time since 1978 that we have seen these two do battle. They fought in the hospital in HALLOWEEN 2, they fought again on the grounds of a private school campus in H20 and had what was billed at the time as their “final” battle on the roof of a mental hospital in HALLOWEEN RESURRECTION. But I like the idea that this is the first battle between these two after Carpenter’s movie and that Laurie is not a scared teenaged babysitter, an unsuspecting teacher or a traumatized woman at the end of her rope. Instead we are getting a Laurie Strode who has been preparing for this encounter for 40 years. We are getting a Sarah Connor in T2 style Laurie Strode and I am extremely curious to see how Michael reacts to that woman because it is going to be an entirely new dynamic than any of the face offs we’ve seen these characters have before.