i
i
PHOTO BY KIM GOnUEB
Stephanie O’Brien keeps a photo of three crew members from the original Halloween holding the masks worn by Michael Myers.
Halloween evolves over 40 years
TAYLOR SEXTON
Arts & Features Editor
tsexton@unca.edu
No seat within the darkened the
ater sits untouched, the audience holds
a collective breath as the Halloween
theme song begins to play on screen,
knowing exactly who’s about to appear.
Even after 40 years, Michael Myers still
holds the same effect over a captive
audience.
The Halloween franchise began in
1978, featuring Jamie Lee Curtis as
teenager Laurie Strode, who watch
es all of her friends get killed and
becomes Michael Myers’ fixation for
the night. Though the franchise has
many parts, 2018’s Halloween is 40
years in the future and shows the hard
life Lorie has lead from her traumatic
experience that fateful night 40 years
ago.
Twenty year old actor Drew Scheid
plays the character ‘Oscar’ in the
contemporary Halloween movie and
expressed his excitement to be a part
of such an iconic movie franchise.
“It still does not seem real, it’s still
very surreal, like a dream,” Scheid
said. “It’s overall been an honor to be
chosen for this really cool experiment.
I think they took the franchise in a dif
ferent way and it was just cool to be a
part of that experiment and I’m excited
to be a part of the Halloween family.”
Scheid admits he didn’t even
know that he was auditioning for the
Halloween movie, due to the fact that
the franchise used a false production
company name and false movie title. It
wasn’t until Scheid received a call from
his agent saying he’s gotten a callback
for an in-person audition that he even
knew what movie it was for.
“I had auditioned for it and most
auditions, you don’t get like 99 percent
of the auditions, so I just didn’t even
think about it. And then a month and
a half later, she called me and was like
‘hey, remember that thing you audi
tioned for? Turns out that’s Halloween
and they want you to drive down to
Charleston for the in-person callback,”’
Scheid said.
When Scheid found out he had
landed the role of Oscar, he said he felt
nothing but immense joy and excite
ment to be working with actors such as
Jamie Lee Curtis and Director David
Gordon Green.
According to Scheid, the shoot
ing process for the movie started in
January and went to February and the
teenagers worked about only six days
total, shooting separately for the most
part. Even though they worked apart,
they all still managed to become close
friends, playing the board game Catan
after shooting every day in each other’s
hotel rooms.
“They were like, ‘oh, you guys are
all playing friends, so you should be
friends.’ So they had us there for the
entire month of January and we just
went to set everyday and got to watch ‘
all this scary stuff and hung out, went
to restaurants and it worked because
we’re all really good friends still,”
Scheid said.
Scheid describes his character,
Oscar, as a major party animal.
“He loves to get down. It’s his
senior year of high school, it’s Hallow
een, he’s just in his own Superbad type
of movie. He’s just trying to get drunk,
find the party, find the after party and
find any girl who will talk to him,”
Scheid laughed.
Oscar, unfortunately, meets his
untimely end at the hands of Michael
Myers, who impales his head through
a fence.
Scheid admits it was frightening
to be killed by Michael Myers and he
now understands why people in scary
movies fall all the time.
“You just kind of fall when you’re
this scared,” Scheid laughs. “When
you’re this immensely terrified and
someone you don’t know is coming up
to you in the middle of the night, your
body just can’t control itself.”
Scheid’s scene with Michael was all
CONTINUED ON PAGE 22