Michael Myers' Screen Time In Halloween Ends Has Fans Making Comparisons To 1978 Film
The concluding chapter of David Gordon Green's "Halloween" sequel trilogy has been a surprise to fans due to just how little of the unstoppable serial killer Michael Myers is in the film. The controversy over Michael's diminished screen time in the new "Halloween Ends" became prominent enough for Green himself to address it to Collider, telling fans that he was aware of the risk he was taking in choosing to focus so much on a completely different character, young outcast Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell), rather than the masked super-killer they are accused to.
Things could be worse: The infamous "Halloween III: Season of the Witch" discards Michael altogether in favor of a standalone plot about evil jack-o-lantern masks and one devilishly catchy advertising jingle. But, as some fans of the "Halloween" franchise have pointed out, the original "Halloween" isn't exactly wall-to-wall Michael Myers, either. Some viewers of John Carpenter's seminal horror classic might be surprised at how much time the killer spends off-screen. And perhaps, as some fans are claiming, that makes "Halloween Ends" an appropriate tribute to the most important "Halloween" movie of them all.
One fan clocked Michael Myers' screen time in both films
If you've seen John Carpenter's "Halloween," you already know that even though the entire movie is based on a killing spree by Haddonfield's least favorite son (with a surprisingly complex backstory) Michael Myers, much of the film focuses on his victims, including quintessential "final girl" Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her friends, as well as Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence) and his attempts to track Michael down. But one fan, quoted on Twitter by "Halloween" fan account @SourceHalloween, got technical with it, clocking Michael Myers' total screen time in the original 1978 film as 9 minutes, 37 seconds. Compare that with the fan's calculation of his screen time in "Halloween Ends," an almost-as-skimpy 10 minutes, 55 seconds, and the creative swing of "Halloween Ends" doesn't seem so sacrilegious after all.
You'll have to watch both "Halloween" and "Halloween Ends" with a stopwatch to confirm those figures for yourself, but even if they're exactly right, there's still another qualifier to be addressed here. IMDb has the total runtime of "Halloween Ends" at an hour and 51 minutes, while the original "Halloween" is a lean and mean hour and a half — so, "Halloween Ends" does indeed feature a significantly reduced proportion of Michael Myers, even compared to the original. But the numbers still serve as a reminder that the great killers and monsters of the screen aren't always defined by their generous amounts of screen time.