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Halloween: Evil Dies Tonight

Speems

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Heyo! I'm Gianni Belotti and I have some kind of thoughts regarding the Blumhouse trilogy for Halloween. 2018 started on a great note, Kills was okay, but Ends was bad. The big problem comes from studio greed thanks to greenlighting TWO sequels rather than just one. I had a feeling that Kills originally was going to be the finale given how it feels like some of its ideas may have been forced to be cut for an additional film, making it a trilogy rather than a duology. But what if we were only going to get one sequel? What if we were going to have a Blumhouse duology that makes up a trilogy when paired with the 1978 classic? Enter Halloween: Evil Dies Tonight, a merge cut aiming to combine Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends into one viewing experience (hence the dumb title atm). I am currently undecided on where to begin with my editing, other than making sure idiotic character decisions would be cut, including the awful scene regarding mistaking an obvious random unrelated cellmate for Michael and his suicide (awful in the sense of the Haddonfielders being fucking pea-brained dumbasses).

I have a mockup of how I'm going to open this fanedit on Vimeo, but I can't link it due to being new here.

Main progress should begin when I own proper Blu-rays of Kills and Ends, as it uses a legit digital copy of 2018 for the first half, but I had to resort to a YouTube clip for the second half. Plus I haven't fully decided to use Marco Beltrami score due to its usage in this mockup, but maybe I'll find some fitting tracks down the road. The software used for this mockup is Wondershare Filmora, and I will not use it for the real deal (likely gonna use Vegas 15 since I have it ready to go). I'm excited but scared to tackle my first fan-edit ever, I'm def unsure if I'll hit all the right notes, so feedback on what exactly should be included is more than welcome, especially since I was unsure myself on how to make it work. Cheers!
 

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Good luck with this project! There are a plethora of huge Halloween fans and faneditors here.
 

ArtisDead

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Heyo! I'm Gianni Belotti and I have some kind of thoughts regarding the Blumhouse trilogy for Halloween. 2018 started on a great note, Kills was okay, but Ends was bad. The big problem comes from studio greed thanks to greenlighting TWO sequels rather than just one. I had a feeling that Kills originally was going to be the finale given how it feels like some of its ideas may have been forced to be cut for an additional film, making it a trilogy rather than a duology. But what if we were only going to get one sequel? What if we were going to have a Blumhouse duology that makes up a trilogy when paired with the 1978 classic? Enter Halloween: The Kills of The End, a merge cut aiming to combine Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends into one viewing experience (hence the dumb title atm). I am currently undecided on where to begin with my editing, other than making sure idiotic character decisions would be cut, including the "evil dies tonight" meme and the awful scene regarding mistaking an obvious random unrelated cellmate for Michael and his suicide (awful in the sense of the Haddonfielders being fucking pea-brained dumbasses).

I have a mockup of how I'm going to open this fanedit on Vimeo, but I can't link it due to being new here.

Main progress should begin when I own proper Blu-rays of Kills and Ends, as it uses a legit digital copy of 2018 for the first half, but I had to resort to a YouTube clip for the second half. Plus I haven't fully decided to use Marco Beltrami score due to its usage in this mockup, but maybe I'll find some fitting tracks down the road. The software used for this mockup is Wondershare Filmora, and I will not use it for the real deal (likely gonna use Vegas 15 since I have it ready to go). I'm excited but scared to tackle my first fan-edit ever, I'm def unsure if I'll hit all the right notes, so feedback on what exactly should be included is more than welcome, especially since I was unsure myself on how to make it work. Cheers!
Don't be scared. There are plenty of kind people on this forum who will lend an assist. @LastSurvivor , @Ryantology , @thebutcher , and @Jnisch are all huge Halloween fans and award winning editors. Post your changelist, get a nice poster, keep the project thread updated with progress and clips which will promote feedback and you will find yourself in good company. Good luck!
 

Speems

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Thanks for the words of encouragement! I can confirm there's some form of plan for a couple scenes.
  • As described with my opeNning mockup, this would start off similar to Halloween II in the sense of starting with the 2018 ending and working our way to new footage (Laurie, Karen, and Allyson in the truck). The firefighter encounter is definitely being used as a pre-title massacre, yet I haven't decided if the opening credits will be before the scene entirely or afterwards similar to 2018. Same applies when exactly the "four years later" card would come in handy to make sure timing is still effective.
  • The ending is definitely from Ends, complete with the brawl between Michael and Laurie, the procession, the junkyard execution, the calm porchside shot with Laurie and Frank, and interior shots acting as polar opposites of the ones from 78. I could workshop some of their other interactions and the post-title monologue with the finale's, mainly to make things flow like Laurie decided to make her memoir after all of the events. I kinda want to use a more somber version of Don't Fear The Reaper since I think it thematically makes more sense than the original version's usage.
  • I want to incorporate that shot of Laurie ready to take action from the Kills extended cut (that common trailer shot with her walking down the hospital hall with a knife) when Tommy gives her the scoop on Michael and they're ready to get goin'. Downside is that I don't have the best memory for scenes where Laurie's involvement can flow between these two films properly.
  • Some of the deaths in Kills will be trimmed down. First off, Michael being quicker to nab the fluorescent bulb and Sondra being quicker to grab a knife before being stabbed in the neck (I honestly don't want to include the part revealing she survived, since I don't know if it's medically accurate for an encounter like that). That car brawl scene also has plans for a trimmed down encounter from Michael and Marion, like her death being similarly faster since the pre-asskick line and empty gun is weak. I'd also remove Vanessa's death, although I think this may require digital editing similar to P.L. Boucher's Returns edit of 2018, despite myself thinking it is possible for Marion's death and being jumped on by Lindsey to flow between each other smoothly.
  • I don't know if some of the deaths in Ends will blend in nicely given the merge cut intentions, but maybe it could give extra umph since it'd imply that Michael is still out and about rather having his work stolen by Corey (who is NOT in this edit btw).
Fortunately my Blu-ray of Kills is arriving alongside a Scream Factory 4K UHD/BD of the OG film (maybe I could workshop clips of it as part of the flashback?) on Tuesday, but I stand by on getting to work when I have a Blu-ray of Ends. This means I probably won't get major progress started until January 2023, mainly because of a vacation to Florida that'll get me back home on New Year's Eve, especially since the disc release happens during said vacay. Thanks again!
 

Speems

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Indeed, my Blu-ray for Kills arrived and I decided to at least work on small portions related to it. So here's the rundown on how I'm able to import the files into Vegas Pro 15: first I rip the Extended Edition from the disc using MakeMKV with only the 5.1 English audio track since the software can't support 7.1 properly, then run a M4V conversion through Handbrake (which severely cut down the file size but looks just as good as the MKV file).

Hurrah! However my iTunes code-redeemed rip of 2018 has only the strange stream issues rather than the proper channels of my Kills import, but fortunately I can run that through Handbrake to fix it. And for some reason my dumbass REALLY wants to use the Giganto boss fight song (Undefeatable by Tomoya Ohtani and Kellin Quinn of Sleeping with Sirens) from Sonic Frontiers during Laurie's final battle with Michael, mainly since I feel it REALLY intensifies any scene and makes the fight feel like something that gets you standing and cheering.

I did have a WIP screenshot that has a text layer saying "four years later" but I can't even post images due to my new member status, although I have decided to stick with the initial timeline position (right after the 2018 ending) but a time-skip will happen way later. But at least I can confidently say things are somewhat on track to hopefully complete this by October 2023.
 
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Speems

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Progress Update - December 1st 2022:
Bullet points are separated this way for clarity.

  • Things are going surprisingly smoother than I anticipated and already managed to hack down the Kills portion between about 70-something to possibly 90-something minutes (given how far apart some edited portions are to make room for future scenes). I'm worried about it breaking the two hour mark, but I'll see how to handle this when I buy the Ends Blu-ray.

  • I promised some deaths would be trimmed down and I kept that promise! Sondra's is cut down (like initially planned) to have Michael going towards the lightbulb first, smashes it, then Sondra grabs a knife but then it's too late to fight back as she's killed.

  • Marion's attempt to shoot Michael in the face is deleted and instead he wastes no time to kill Marion. Vanessa's gun flub is cut out, and although it flowed just fine, it introduced a continuity flub with the door's window. Now it's instead given her an off-screen demise, which honestly kinda started to make less sense unless you imply that Michael eventually found her not too long after getting jumped on by Lindsey.

  • Big John's death is slightly trimmed, although it still uses the Extended Cut's gorier kill but has improved scene focus. Little John is killed right when he sees Michael's work with Big's body. That "you've come home" bit seemed silly and dumb at the same time.

  • Some scenes are rescored with a few tracks from the Halloween Ends soundtrack, especially during a few scenes. Some of the Kills OST had really cheap sounding piano keys at times and to be honest, I really hated how it sounded against the awesome synths. Ends however is fucking delicious with its music, with my usage of The Junkyard, Evil Eyes, and Corey's Requiem.

  • The Fanedit.org logo is colored orange and is accompanied with one of the scare chords from the original Halloween film. The opening's text layers are painstakingly recreated, and I even included my real name in the "edited by" section under Tim Alverson.

  • Some instances of repeating the "evil dies tonight" chant are (and will be) removed, plus all of Tivoli's scenes are removed, making the Haddonfielders slightly less stupid. Another thing removed was Laurie's monologue over the rioter fight, as well as a shot with the hallucination of young Michael in the window. Allyson shouting "do it" is also cut out, giving proper urgency to Karen's surprise attack.

An idea is to workshop Laurie's suicide lure (that brought Corey in Michael's get-up in) to a supposed false alarm, with the kid saying something like "dude what the fuck are you doing?!" then something about the bogeyman being a hoax, then being suddenly killed by Michael. This could be a more complex edit, but maybe I could actually record a voiceover dub to make it work. But yeah, you can see how this would be insanely difficult to make it transition correctly. I am optimistic that things will work out to make it blend nicely between it and the final battle.

Of course, I don't own Ends yet in any form so I can't cheat my way towards it, unless I bought the digital release. Besides, the current iTunes DRM strippers really don't work with the current iTunes version. But all in all, I may not have to wait until October '23 to get it published. A trailer will get workshopped during the Ends ownership, meaning yes, it properly won't be widely announced until possibly Christmas or New Year's. All in all, things are coming together faster and I'm happy with the edit's progress so far.
 

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As of December 2nd, I can officially say I may be finished with the Kills portion of the edit. I haven't double checked certain areas for plot pacing or such, but progress is still smooth. The current runtime for this edit before I get my Ends Blu-ray to finish is approximately 78 minutes without credits, and 84 minutes with them. If we include the unaltered state of the last half hour (or so) from Ends, this could be range between 100 and 110 minutes overall. At this point, things may work out unless I send a workprint version for QA purposes to see if I did things correctly. Of course I gotta make sure the pumpkin for the opening credits looks on par with the officially released product's, since it currently uses a crappy looking Blender render as a potential placeholder (the text layers are for real tho).

UPDATE 12/3/2022: A trailer is set to go live on December 23rd, with the actual edit's release date as my 23rd birthday, March 9th.
 
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I am currently planning to send a workprint to get feedback on my progress. If anyone is interested, please send a DM to my profile and we'll work out how I can send it over. The workprint contains the Kills portion and lasts roughly 80-something minutes with credits due to bundling two out-of-order clips together for the sake of some form of presentation. I should be able to get this going tomorrow, and if the extra work from it and the Ends footage isn't allowing me to release it on March 9, then I can delay it for further improvements. Thanks in advance!
 

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Progress Update - January 9th 2023:
Bullet points are separated this way for clarity.

  • Progress may be going a bit slower given I had to take time off due to a vacation in Florida. However, I am planning experimental music usages with tracks by other composers and strange movie sources. And I still need to buy my Ends Blu-ray, lol

  • That teaser trailer was indeed uploaded to my main YouTube channel, and I decided to make a mirror of my intro mockup there too. Links and embeds are provided below.

  • During editing, I noticed glitch frames occur when a shot ends and goes to another. Like you know that occasional editing mistake where a frame that shouldn't be there when putting two separate split clips with scene changes together? It kinda prevented me from sending a workprint til most of them were taken care of. Thankfully, it is mostly resolved until I test the rendering again and it repeats itself...

  • A weird continuity mistake is patched. When Cameron drops from being stabbed, Allyson starts fighting Michael with a few stabs. The first stab has Cameron on the floor, but the close-up with the additional stabs has him dropping to the floor again. This is fixed by going from the first stab to Michael grabbing Allyson, keeping Cameron on the floor as intended. Seriously, has anyone else noticed that before?

UPDATE 2/13/2023: Teaser trailer is now hosted on Speems After Dark, much like the opening mockup.
 

Speems

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It's about time. I finally got my Blu-ray of Ends earlier today, applied the usual ripping tricks for Kills, and the remaining unedited chunk of the former is giving a 102 minute runtime for the fanedit. I'm not sure if it'll be that much of a deal breaker if further editing slips it down in the 90 minute range, but I hope I don't slip into the 80 minute range at the least.

UPDATE 1/21/2023:
Well, I guess I didn't make it to the 100 minute range, but fortunately with the amount of cuts and changes, I managed to secure an estimated runtime of 98 minutes. All that's left is to make sure glitch frames, audio hiccups, and freshly-introduced continuity errors don't appear, I've worked too hard on this to ensure a decently secured string of events. Plus I may have used a Sonic Frontiers song (Undefeatable) for the Laurie VS Michael battle, if y'all think it doesn't make sense I can swap it out.
 
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Speems

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Progress Update - January 27th 2023:
Bullet points are separated this way for clarity.

  • I think I'm confident enough to say that The Kills of The End is on the verge of completion. Music selection is mostly finalized, clips are in the order I'm assuming works best for the narrative to stay consistent, the whole shabang! But as the next few bullet-points indicate, it's not exactly 100% complete. I think the 90's range is appropriate for my progress.

  • I have to fully reconstruct the end credits to accommodate the edit state, but thankfully that's the last thing I need to complete (aside from making sure the opening credits pumpkin actually looks decent considering what I have atm).

  • Current release date I'm aiming for (and likely to actually reach) is March 9th. I'll have to find the proper means to host the edit in the meantime and ensure the output render has minimal (if not, no) audio/video glitches, but I think I can manage.

  • The bit with the remaining Corey footage in the Ends portion is chopped off anyway, since I found a way to get around it. And to be honest, this was the part I was really worried about in terms of fresh accidental plot-holes.

It's surreal to go from October/November 2022 with little to nothing for material, then jump to late January and it's nearly complete. It may take a bit more time with updated closing credits, but like I said, I'm definitely I'm on the verge of finishing the edit. So yes, I've spent roughly two (or 1.5) months and it's kinda wild. I end this message with one promise: you won't be disappointed with my efforts.
 

Speems

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After hearing about the recent passing of George P. Wilbur (performer of Michael in the fourth and [the majority of the] sixth Halloween films), I have to decided to give him a "in loving memory" message in the end credits. We'll miss you immensely, Mr. Wilbur.
 

Speems

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Big news! The Kills of The End has just been submitted for approval on the site! The release date may depend on when the edit is approved. I'll look into places that'll host it, although there may or may not be plans for a final trailer.
 

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Big news! The Kills of The End has just been submitted for approval on the site! The release date may depend on when the edit is approved. I'll look into places that'll host it, although there may or may not be plans for a final trailer.
Congratulations... I would really like to see this.
 

Speems

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Progress Update - March 19th 2023:
Bullet points are separated this way for clarity.


  • This fan-edit is getting a new name. The new title is Halloween: Evil Dies Tonight suggested by @ArtisDead

  • Sondra's death is re-edited to reflect how it was presented in the original Kills. It looked somewhat cheaply done in my last render with the old title, and fortunately the current state allows it to flow properly.

  • Previous renders were mixed down to stereo with all the tracks taken into effect. The final render before the rename is proud to introduce proper 5.1 surround sound.

  • The project file has been upgraded from Vegas Pro 15 to 18. The older software had a noticeable framerate drop 18.5 minutes into the initial submission. This is apparently Vegas 15 at fault considering the source media files didn't have this problem, and it doesn't seem to happen on 18.

  • The fan-edit is being delayed to allow the approval process to go at its own pace. Once I receive the word on approval, I can determine the new release date.

  • A final trailer is on the table, with the song choice being Lunatic Fringe by Red Rider, another idea from ArtisDead.

It's been quite a crazy ride with this project. From November 2022 to March 2023, these past four months have been quite a thrillride. It's technically complete, so the aforementioned approval process is all that's left.
 
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