The Halloween franchise is one of varying tones, to say the least. While the first two original installments in the long running horror series strictly followed Jamie Lee Curtis’ character Laurie Strode as she was mercilessly stalked by serial killer Michael Myers on Halloween night, the films afterward began changing things up in many unexpected ways. For example, Halloween III: Season of the Witch introduced an unrelated storyline regarding a modern day cult of witches and their conspiracy to fry children’s brains on Halloween with the power of magical computer chips and killer androids. Granted, while it is a completely underrated movie, Halloween 4 tried to move things back to the series’ roots and reintroduced Michael Myers into the main story. When actress Jamie Lee Curtis at that point no longer wanted to return, Danielle Harris was brought in to play Laurie Strode’s daughter, Jamie Lloyd – a role she also reprised in Halloween 5. And as fans of Halloween 4 know, the film ends in an interesting twist that almost brings the series full circle in a way.
The movie ends with Jamie Lloyd wearing her clown costume, not unlike child Michael Myers in the opening of the original 1978 film, after she had stabbed her foster mother with a pair of scissors. As she stands covered in blood, Dr. Loomis screams as he realizes the cycle is about to begin again.
Of course, now those who’ve also seen Halloween 5 know, that ending was retconned. Jamie Lloyd no longer has any murderous tendencies and it’s revealed that her foster mother had survived the attack. Halloween 5 then continues with Michael Myers doing the murders as usual, with Jamie Lloyd merely sharing a sort of psychic connection with the slasher villain.
The decision to retcon the ending of Halloween 4 is sometimes considered a bad one by fans, which is understandable because it is a bit of a letdown following such a massive sequel tease with Jamie as a killer. But because the producers had just barely reintroduced Michael Myers after the negatively received Halloween III: Season of the Witch, it was decided to keep him as the main villain for the following sequel as well rather than pass the torch.
While we don’t exactly know how a Halloween 5 with Jamie Lloyd as the killer would’ve gone, it doesn’t matter much considering that entire storyline has now been retconned several times over. Instead we’ll be getting two new sequels with Jamie Lee Curtis going up against Michael Myers in both Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends.