'Halloween Kills' Brought A Dead Actor Back The Old Fashioned Way
The newest entry in Michael Myers’ increasingly convoluted series of adventures, Halloween Kills, seems to be dividing fans. Some people love it, some people hate it, some are just tickled by the idea that one angry Haddonfield resident was straight-up going to try and iron Michael to death as if he were a crinkly pair of khakis, not an immortal killing machine.
Arguably the best part of the movie is the opening scene which flashes back to Halloween night, 1978. We get to see the immediate follow-up to the original Halloween, including Michael Myers arrest, which is almost how the 2018 Halloween began. At the end of the prologue, we briefly see a familiar face; Dr. Samuel Loomis, AKA the worst mental health professional of all time. But actor Donald Pleasance, not unlike America’s interest in the musical stylings of Ace of Base, died in 1995. So how did they bring him back?
A lot of viewers probably assumed that some sort of CGI wizardry was involved. But as we’ve pointed out previously, recent movies like Doctor Sleep have had a lot of success not necromancing dead actors with digital technology but using more practical methods. While that film cast lookalikes as their The Shining counterparts, Halloween Kills opted to use makeup effects.
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Yeah, according to makeup effects designer Christopher Nelson, they literally just slathered prosthetics on a dude and turned him into a convincing Loomis. Luckily it wasn’t one of those masks that kills you in order to honor the Celtic gods or some such nonsense. They didn’t even hire an actor; it was the production’s construction foreman, who was presumably just the nearest, most affordable old bald guy. The end result is similar to what you would have gotten from CGI but somehow less creepy and more impressive.
Nelson was also tasked with recreating the original ‘70s Michael Myers mask and did a terrific job. Hopefully, it won’t end up as a tobacco-stained scrap of garbage like the real mask.
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Top Image: Universal Pictures
