The Halloween franchise has seen several novelizations and tie-ins over the years. But weirdest on paper might be the decision to turn Halloween into a young adult book series in 1997. When you look at where the horror was and what was going on at the time, it makes sense. RL Stine was the king of horror fiction throughout the 90s. There was a huge thirst for horror stories that could be aimed at young readers, from Goosebumps and Street of Fear to Scary Stories . to tell in the dark.
Tales from the Crypt served as the perfect bridge between the worlds of young adult and adult horror. It was funny enough to appeal to kids, even though the stories were horrific. The Crypt Keeper received both an animated spin-off and a children’s game show due to this popularity. He has also animated a few books aimed at young readers. Other franchises would also follow this trend. Both Friday the 13th and Freddy franchises have received young adult book series.
In this regard, Halloween was a natural progression. He didn’t do anything that two other major slasher icons hadn’t. It was also a smart decision to release these novels in 1997, shortly before Michael Myers’ triumphant return to cinema in 1998 with Halloween H20.
Like H20, these novels, each by Kelly O’Rourke, bring the franchise back to basics. The somewhat convoluted storyline of Thorn, the focus on Michael’s family ties from the sequels onwards, all of that is gone. And frankly, it’s refreshing. These books read almost like campfire stories. Michael Myers is a local legend, people only know vague details as their only point of reference on who he is comes from local gossip. These books don’t try to accomplish anything that can’t be achieved in a Halloween movie, and their lack of ambition endsbextremelrefreshing.
Unfortunately, all three novels are very hard to find and therefore tend to be offered at extortionate prices online. If you keep an eye on them, these prices occasionally drop within a reasonable range. Once in a while, you might come across one in a second-hand bookstore. I managed to find each of the Halloween novelizations like that, so anything is possible. But it is because of this lack of availability that I will be able to talk less about the first in the series, because I have never read it.
Fortunately, the books are only loosely connected and easy to follow. But like a great slasher, they each revolve around a particular setting. The first centers around a Halloween party, the second centers around the Myers house itself, and the third brings the action back to Smith’s Grove Sanitarium.
I was lucky enough to get my hands on Halloween: The Old Myers Place (the second book) when it was first released in 1997 – in fact, I got in quite a bit of trouble for doing a book report on it in second or third year. As I mentioned about the three books, the plot is simple. Mary just moved to Haddonfield, and she just moved into the Myers house. This house has a history she was completely unaware of until she moved in, and now she has to worry about fitting in while dealing with the fact that she’s sleeping in Judith Myers’ room.
It was a young adult novel in the ’90s, and there’s plenty of teen romance stuff at the center of it. I’m sure that’s enough to put people off, because Kelly O’Rourke really puts the spotlight on it, but I think the Dawson’s Creek of it all adds a kind of charm, even a believable element to the teenage characters, as ironic as these representations may be.
Mary is trying to be popular, she doesn’t want to be seen as the monster living in the serial killer’s house. She had a brief summer fling with Jeff, a guy from the poor part of town who helped fix her house, but now she’s caught the eye of the high school quarterback. She tries to avoid eye contact with her goth cousin Shannon, whom she was friends with during the goth days, and who now hates Mary and views her as a betrayal.
Like I said, she’s stunning. But one of the things I love about these novels is the fact that I think they’re still the only entries in the Halloween canon to delve into what it’s like to be a teenager in Haddonfield. All of these kids have to live with the stigma of this crime hanging over their heads and it’s legitimately interesting, in its own way. The Old Myer Place is a teen book through and through, but when Michael Myers shows up, he reveals .
The thing that still amazes me about these novels, reading them now, is that they don’t hold back when it comes to gore. For a young adult series, I can’t believe what they did. There’s a murder that happens in a cemetery in Old Myers Square that made me drop the book when I read it as a kid and it still kind of squirms in me even now.
The Crazy House, the third book, is the one I came to much later when I stumbled across it for a reasonable price. I really don’t regret buying it. This one is a bit of a surprise for a couple of reasons, the biggest being that it’s essentially found video. Halloween long before the concept was rumored – or vaguely attempted in Halloween: Resurrection. To attempt a story like that A, set in the 90s and B, in novel form, is surprisingly bold on its own.
This one follows a male protagonist and his friends as they sneak into the abandoned facility to try and record some of the supposed paranormal activity on film. They hope to make contact with either the spirit of the supposedly dead Michael Myers or one of the most malevolent doctors on staff, who allegedly tortured Michael as a child while he was a patient at the facility. It’s true, there’s a lot of forgotten backstory in this novel that will or absolutely intrigue fans. hate . If it were a movie, it would probably be boycotted for that reason alone.
That in itself is a neat take. A side story within the franchise. It’s cool to think that even though Loomis tried to reach Michael when he was a young patient, there was another doctor – one who reads a lot like Channard from Hellraiser II – who had completely different plans for the boy. . Like the best stories in this franchise, it gives insight into a moment in Michael’s youth without ever providing an explanation. None of this explains this fact Michael Myers in who he really is, it’s just another glimpse of what could have happened during the fifteen years he spent at Smith’s Grove.
In another interesting twist, The Mad House is the rare Halloween story to give Michael a new look. Because he was burned at the end of Old Myers Square (spoiler alert) the mask is now burned on his face. Thinking about it, I guess that’s the Resurrection aspect would take for its ending.
These novels might be Halloween stories told through the prism of ’90s teen fiction, but they’re Halloween stories nonetheless. Through and through, they feel like the franchise. If the series ever went straight to video or TV, that seems like the best case scenario for whatever they might end up being. I know it sounds terrible, but it’s kind of endearing. More than anything, these books are probably exactly what you think they are, if not a whole lot bloodier. These novels are Halloween through Street of Fear.They are certainly not for everyone. But as a young fan obsessed with Michael Myers, they were absolutely for me.
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