SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Halloween, in theaters now.
Halloween director David Gordon Green has revealed that the film’s final shot was deliberately left open-ended to make you question yourself as to the fate of Michael Myers.
When asked about the scene, which leaves it obscure as to whether or not Myers’ body is seen being burnt to death in Laurie Strode’s (Jamie Lee Curtis) death-house, Green said to Polygon, “In that shot that you’re referring to, if you [could] linger it for another three seconds, you see him.”
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“Or you don’t see him, you’re more confident in what you’ve seen,” he teased. “I’ll say, it’s a two second shot, which is not enough for you to be confident in what you saw.”
This final shot is overlaid to the audio of someone breathing, which fans assume to be Allyson, Laurie’s granddaughter, as they left the compound, barely alive after a brutal final showdown. However, Green indicated the breathing could well be the masked slasher’s, hinting that he does survive, paying tribute to the ending of John Carpenter’s original film from 1978.
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”That, to me, is the fun. When you see the original film, you hear him breathing and you know that he lives on,” he emphasized. “Here, when we see the burning house, we actually hear Allyson breathing from the truck where she’s flagged off of a truck driver and she’s breathing heavily, turns, and then we go into the answer to that house and it’s burning, but we’re hearing her breath over it, which depending on what theater you hear it, it’s super subtle.”
Halloween, directed by David Gordon Green and starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, Will Patton, Virginia Gardner, Nick Castle, Jefferson Hall, Rhian Rees, Toby Huss and Haluk Bilginer is currently in theaters.