Halloween trailer: Mike Myers in So I Married a Knife Murderer

Now with survivalist Jamie Lee Curtis

Universal debuted the latest trailer for Halloween today, and boy, I’m pleasantly whelmed. This is the most promising material for one of the original slasher-horror characters to come to light in recent memory.

Halloween, the horror series starring Michael Myers, the knife-wielding murderer, is a somewhat confusing franchise. Begun in 1978 with the original Halloween, there have been nine other films, one of which has nothing to do with Michael Myers, and two of which were a reboot and sequel by Rob Zombie. Continuing this grand tradition of a lack of continuity comes Halloween (2018), a direct sequel to the original film from 1978 that ignores the other various comings and goings of the franchise.

Jamie Lee Curtis stars as Laurie Strode again, and her character seems to have ignored the supposed lack of sequels, for she’s armed to the teeth as if she’s failed to kill Michael in 10 films already. Realistically, characters don’t jump to this level of preparedness in the second film in a franchise, do they?

But who cares! The promised battle between the original starring protagonist and antagonist looks amazing, as does setting the film on the streets of small-town America in the midst of trick-or-treating on Halloween night. Add to that a return of John Carpenter’s iconic theme, the original Michael Myers, Nick Castle, a Blumhouse collaboration, some screenwriting by Danny McBride (yes, that Danny McBride), and a directing by frequent McBride collaborator David Gordon Green, and I’m 100% in on this one.

Not only do the events in the film take place 40 years after the events of the original, but Halloween (2018) will release in theaters on October 19, a week before the 40th anniversary of the original Halloween‘s release.