You Can’t Kill The Boogeyman: The Ongoing Halloween Saga – Wayne Byrne

Ask any horror fan who their favorite horror slasher, killer, madman, or horror legend is, and you’ll get a wide variety of answers. However, you can make a Vegas bet you’ll get three names repeatedly: Jason, Freddy, and Michael. Of those three, the debate of who is the “number one best horror character of all time”, well, that’s going to be a debate as long as time itself. However, it is safe to say that the majority of the voters will say… MICHAEL MYERS!

Since 1978, Michael has been slicing and dicing his way across the movie screen and into our nightmares, all thanks to legendary director John Carpenter. John has a long and impressive list of film credits, but it is his 1978, now considered a horror classic, HALLOWEEN, that will always lead the pack. No one really knows why Michael Myers does what he does, but you can bet every Halloween he will return to take out his anger and revenge on the young, the innocent, and the unexpected. With 13 films in the franchise, the longest list of sequels (even longer than Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street), it was fitting that someone had to compile all that horror franchise history into one book.

The author is Wayne Byrne, and his new book is You Can’t Kill The Boogeyman: The Ongoing Halloween Saga – 13 Movies and Counting. You Can’t Kill The Boogeyman is the first book about all 13 films in the Halloween franchise to be released. In this book, you will get a chapter-by-chapter count of every sequel in the franchise. Each chapter includes interviews with directors, cast members, crew, behind-the-scenes stories, the music score, and details on how special effects for the films were created.

The interviews are fascinating, in-depth, and informative. There were times when I laughed at some of the behind-the-scenes stories, and other times I found myself saying, “I didn’t know that!” and I thought I knew A LOT about the Halloween franchise. The book includes photos of the cast, crew, and the film set that have never been seen anywhere else! There is a very entertaining Foreword by former Fangoria editor, Tony Timpone, as well.

I found You Can’t Kill The Boogeyman a very entertaining, engaging, and fun book that will make even the most die-hard fans excited and satisfied. It makes an excellent book for newcomers to the Halloween franchise, providing them with a deeper understanding of who Michael Myers is and how fantastic the franchise is. Wayne Byrne has done the Halloween franchise justice with this excellent book that I could not put down!

I highly recommend it to all Halloween fans and to those who genuinely appreciate what it takes to make a horror film and its sequels. To some (especially film critics), the Halloween sequels were never taken seriously or never really appreciated. Still, Wayne Byrne has flipped that around with this new book, proving that Halloween is just as much of a classic today as any other horror film from yesteryear and that the sequels are works of art in their own right. Grab a copy of You Can’t Kill The Boogeyman… today.I had the honor and pleasure of interviewing Wayne to find out what it took to create this new book and to learn his thoughts on Halloween.

Here is that exclusive interview.

Anthony W. Northrup – Thank you Wayne for joining us today. Let’s begin by telling us a little about yourself.

Wayne Byrne – Thanks for having me, Anthony! Well, I’m a writer and film historian, and an autodidact one at that, as I’m completely unschooled and self-taught in the respective realms of Film and Literature. In a way you could say I’m an “accidental writer”. I had no desire to ever be a professional writer, it never even crossed my mind; I wasn’t even a big reader, let alone a writer, but I had a deep desire to own a book on the great filmmaker Tom DiCillo, and I eventually realized I had to write it because I couldn’t buy one – no one else had written it yet. How I got to the point of releasing that first book is a bit convoluted, but I’ll summarize it as succinctly as I can. Essentially, I was terrible at school, I had absolutely no interest in academia, and I just didn’t apply myself in any way. Hated every minute of school. So, when I graduated, I wanted to go to college to study Film and Literature because I thought that is what I would have to do to write that book, but I was rejected by all the colleges and universities because of my poor performance in high school. And then I received one rejection letter too many. That was the catalyst for my literary career. At that moment I decided I was going to start writing that book, almost as an act of defiance to the administrators of that college who turned me down. Ironically, that book is now on the reading lists of the film studies curriculum there. But I discovered that you do not need a degree to be a writer, you just need to put words on a page. So, I did that, and the result was that the first book I wrote was published by Columbia University Press…an Ivy League publisher! Which is incredible considering the circumstances of how I came to write it. But I had no ambitions to be a writer beyond that book, I said to myself that if it was the only book I ever published then I would be a happy man. However, in writing that book I discovered something I was good at: writing. And I enjoyed the whole endeavor. I was spending time with my film hero, Tom DiCillo; Steve Buscemi was writing my foreword; the guys from The Doors are calling my house phone; Catherine Keener is inviting me for coffee…! It was mind-blowing and entirely surreal. So, I decided to keep going, and I haven’t stopped since. I’m just about to release my tenth book and am presently writing eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth books. So, I guess I should say “thanks” to the last college that turned me down, because if they hadn’t done that then I would probably have never put pen to paper (of finger to keyboard) to write that first book in the way that I did.

AN – You’re an author of many books about the horror genre. What was the first horror film you ever saw and what is it about it that attracts you to that genre so much? Share with us the first time you saw John Carpenter’s Halloween.

WB – I have indeed written many books, but this Halloween book is only my second book that deals with horror. My first was Welcome to Elm Street: Inside the Film and Television Nightmares, which was a comprehensive overview of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. The first horror film I recall seeing was in fact Halloween III: Season of the Witch. And that is perhaps the main reason I decided to write this book, because it meant that I had that crucial emotional connection that I require to work on a project. So, I didn’t start my acquaintance with the Halloween franchise with Michael Myers. And the year I saw Halloween III (1989) was the year Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers came out on VHS in Ireland, and the same year that Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers came to the cinemas. It felt like Halloween movies were everywhere! So, I went straight from seeing the third film on TV to getting my dad to rent parts 4 and 5 for me from our local video store. Then I rented Halloween II many times as it was a favorite of me and my friends when we would have illicit movie nights – it is a perfect movie for sitting in the dark under a blanket with some snacks. And so, it was only after I saw all those sequels that I saw John Carpenter’s 1978 original for the first time. I recorded it off the TV late one night in 1994 when it was screened on BBC. It was programmed as part of their Moviedrome series and was introduced by the director Alex Cox. I loved it straight away, though having enjoyed the over-the-top action and violence of 4 and 5 I was surprised by the distinctly artistic sensibilities and controlled minimalism of Carpenter’s film. I knew it was something special immediately. I’ve always considered it a perfect film. It really is one of the flawless films, up there with John Ford’s The Searchers, Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows, Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, Sergio Leone’s The Good the Bad and the Ugly, and Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters, a film in which every aspect of its construction was applied by artists operating at the very peak of their creative power and authority. But I was already in love with the franchise from my early relationship with the sequels.

AN – Speaking of Halloween, let’s talk about your new book, You Can’t Kill The Boogeyman:The Ongoing Halloween Saga – 13 Movies and Counting. How did this project first come about and how long did it take you from start to finish?

WB – It was suggested to me by my agent. I guess it was the perceived success of Welcome to Elm Street: Inside the Film and Television Nightmares which drew attention to me. It reached number one on several Amazon charts and got some great critical reviews, so he approached me and suggested that I should do more horror franchise books. Perhaps that book defined me as a horror writer, but I wasn’t that at all, in fact my subjects have been extremely varied, covering everything from arthouse and Hollywood directors (Tom DiCillo and Walter Hill) to major movie stars (Burt Reynolds), acclaimed cinematographers (Nick McLean and Roy H. Wagner), to female musicians (whose biographies comprised my anthological book Hired Guns: Portraits of Women in Alternative Music). The only time I had written about horror movies was in my Elm Street book. And at the time Lee approached me I had various other books in different stages of progress, so doing another horror franchise book didn’t sound too appealing to me because they are a lot of work – with a horror franchise you have many different directors, screenwriters, cinematographers, actors, etc to interview, many films to analyze, a lot of historical and industrial background to explore, just a ton of research involved. It can be a considerable effort to work on one of these projects. So, I batted away some franchises that were presented to me but which I didn’t feel like spending a whole year or two with, because I do get quite intensely invested in the subject I’m writing about, so it must be something I really love. But when Lee said the word “Halloween” I felt that same sense of excitement and emotional connection that I got from the idea of working on an Elm Street book. From signing the contract to delivering the final manuscript to Bloomsbury took a year. Within that year I conducted all the interviews, watched all the films many times, did all the research, sourced all the images, and wrote the book. And then it took another year before it was released. So, it has been a two-year endeavor from contract to publication.

AN – Was the research for the book challenging and if so, share with us about that.

WB – Not really. The only challenge I had was tracking down certain people; not everyone has a website or is on social media, so I had to ask some of my Hollywood buddies who are friends with these people for an introduction. And then it was a case of confirming and scheduling their interviews around my already limited free time and their busy careers. Real research challenges were rare, but there was occasional disappointment; one such moment came after corresponding with a person and arranging interviews only for them to pull out of the project at the last minute with no explanation as to why. Ultimately, it wasn’t meant to be. And overall, the interviews went brilliantly; after they were all done and I had a clear idea of how I wanted to tell this story, my actual writing of the book was completed in a very short amount of time. You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you how long it took me, but I’ll keep that to myself…a trade secret, as Conal Cochran from Halloween III would say! “Final processing!”

AN – There are 13 films in the Halloween franchise. Besides the original, which are your favorites and why? Do you have any fun specific memories seeing these films in the theater or on cable or dvd? If so, can you share that with us?

WB – Halloween III: Season of the Witch is my personal favorite, though John Carpenter’s Halloween ranks alongside it. But after those I would say that Halloween 4 is my favorite. I think that film is a definitive example of how to do a great sequel that differs just enough from the original – aesthetically speaking it has its own particular style and captures the greatest seasonal tone of all the films – but which advances the story with its own narrative thread, in this case the introduction of Jamie Lloyd, Michael’s niece and new target. I’m also a big admirer of Halloween II (the 1981 one), and I really enjoy Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, Halloween H20, Rob Zombie’s Halloween, and Halloween Kills. The only films that I don’t have any affection for are Zombie’s Halloween II, and Halloween Ends. I would never choose to screen them for entertainment purposes. Although Halloween II does have some amazing imagery and a very pure artistic aesthetic that I must applaud Zombie for. My experience of these films was mostly on VHS, as I grew up in the 1980s. Being a non- academic, non-sports kid, film was my life, and the video store was my film school. I only started seeing the films in the theatre beginning with Halloween H20, and then I saw Halloween: Resurrection, Rob Zombie’s Halloween, I skipped his sequel because it didn’t play in my town, and then I saw the recent trilogy. I would say my most cherished memories of seeing the films are from those VHS days. I distinctly remember the illicit excitement of renting parts 4 and 5. I knew I was too young for them as the covers had an 18-age classification on them. Most of the time that didn’t matter, as my dad never really questioned it; but the one time he thought “maybe Wayne is too young for this movie” was when I was watching Halloween 5 after it just came out on VHS (when I was six years old) – my dad walked into the living room right as the barn scene was unfolding, which goes from the characters having sex to being slaughtered by Michael. My dad said he better take that tape back to the video store. That, and another time when my mom made me bring back Friday the 13th Part 7 was the only time my horror viewing habits were interrupted by censorious concerns.

AN – Which part of this project did you find more interesting: the interviews or the behind-the-scenes stories and why? Who did you enjoy interviewing most and why?

WB – The most interesting part of it was talking to those involved and learning about their lives before they came to the Halloween films and then how being involved in the franchise affected their lives and careers. I treat every interview as if I was writing a biography of that person, because I want to know where they came from, what the familial, social, cultural, and political milieu of their youth was like in order to have shaped who they are as people and artists, because I find that can say a lot about the art that they offer us. Dominique Othenin- Girard was one of my favorite interview subjects in my entire career. He was an interviewer’s dream because he was so open and candid and enthusiastic, he was not some precious artist, though he is extremely artistic in nature. The details of his background and childhood, along with his idiosyncratic personality and absurdist sense of humor, explains a lot about why Halloween 5 is so offbeat and unique; after speaking with Dominique I had a whole new appreciation for Halloween 5, because I can now see him in every aspect of it – even in the unfortunate comic music that they use for the bumbling cops. I hate that, but now I accept it as being uniquely Dominique. I also loved meeting Marianne Hagan. I was fascinated by her backstory and the details of her early life and work, and how she navigated her acting career to get to the point of making Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. She is lovely. We connected very well, and we have remained in contact as friends. She should have been a much bigger star; she is absolutely magnetic, onscreen, and off screen. Tommy Lee Wallace was fantastic. Extremely personable, a great sense of humor, and very generous with his stories and insights. I also greatly enjoyed speaking with some cinematography greats: Dean Cundey, Rob Draper, Peter Lyons Collister. I don’t want to sound like one of those industry luvvies who says “everyone was wonderful to work with” but it is true, everyone who contributed to this book was a joy to spend time with. Each brought a quality that elevated the project. I’m very grateful to them all.

AN – Were there any actors, directors, or crew members you tried to reach out to or wanted to interview but were unable to? If so, who and why?

WB – I initially reached out to John Carpenter and Jamie Lee Curtis, because that’s what I thought one must do when tasked with documenting the Halloween franchise. But it was the wrong time (or just plain wrong project) for both; Jamie Lee had just finished the promo cycle for Halloween Ends and so it was too soon to go back to Haddonfield all over again. John, I believe, was about to embark on a concert tour and couldn’t commit or wasn’t interested. But I was fine with that because I already knew the answers to the questions I would have been asking them; every Halloween fan does! So, it probably would have been redundant to have them in there repeating the same stories that they’d told to myriad writers and documentarians before. And it was a blessing in disguise because it meant I was able to present the book as almost an “alternative history of Halloween” because I was giving a platform to people who rarely speak about their work on the franchise in such great depth. That, for me, was a more exciting prospect, and it was really my way into this in terms of my overall vision of how the narrative would be structured. There were three others I would have liked to interview but didn’t: Tom Atkins, Rob Zombie, and Danielle Harris. Some people tried connecting me with Tom, but it never happened; Rob was unavailable at the time I reached out, as I think he was on tour or in the recording studio with his band; and Danielle never got back to me, I don’t know if she read my emails or not. I’ve met both John and Danielle in person before, and I could have asked them directly had the book been a thing at the time, but it wasn’t even on my radar when I met them, so I didn’t. And I am friends with some people who are close to Jamie Lee, so I could have went back to her after some time had passed to see if she was interested, but I respected her need for time away from the franchise after having spent several years working on the recent trilogy and all the promotional efforts involved in releasing them. I don’t regret not having any of those voices in there. Now that the book is done, I can’t imagine it existing in any other form. I’m happy with what it is, rather than unhappy with what it isn’t.

AN – What is it about Michael Myers that you feel has attracted fans around the world for over 40 years? In your opinion, how does he compare to Jason and Freddy?

WB – I think one of the keys to the endurance of Halloween in pop culture is the blankness of Michael Myers, both his aesthetic and personality. He is an elemental force of nature, devoid of any form of identification and humanity, not motivated by any emotional trigger that the mind can intellectually comprehend. Rob Zombie went down the sociological and psychological route with his 2007 reboot, and that is an aspect of his film that I enjoyed greatly, because I am hugely interested in sociology; it is one of my tools in analyzing films, so Zombie’s themes were very exciting for me to dig into. But I don’t think too many people liked the fact that he tried to explain Michael Myers’ malaise as being rooted in an abusive family environment and lower-class milieu. That is a very raw and very real thing to bring into a commercial genre film, especially in such an explicit and lurid manner. I mean these themes are nothing new in horror – the essential themes of the Nightmare on Elm Street films are the breakdown of the family, the destabilization of an idealized middle-class society, alcoholism, drug dependency, mental health issues, and the abuses of those in powerful positions over vulnerable people. But Wes Craven and the other directors of that franchise introduced those themes in a much more subtle and subtextual manner than Zombie did with Halloween, and so you can choose to ignore those troubling themes when watching Elm Street and just enjoy it as a masterful and entertaining piece of popcorn horror cinema, or you can engage with it on an intellectual level and embrace those themes as something important to the power of the films. But with John Carpenter’s initial idea of Myers being blank motiveless evil it makes him an even more terrifying prospect, because there is no person behind the mask to reason with on an emotional or logical level – he is an unstoppable beast

who only speaks the language of primal carnage, and that’s very appealing to audiences because each and every viewer can bring their own interpretation of who or what Michael Myers is. It is a very engaging storytelling tactic. If filmmakers definitively explain the reason behind something, it takes away the interpretive and investigative element that encourages the repeat viewing factor, that which is obviously a big appeal of the Halloween films as we consistently return to them on each successive physical media format and in the theaters.

AN – Halloween 3 is usually frowned upon by fans, yet as of recent years it has become a favorite or “guilty pleasure” type of film. What are your thoughts on Michael Myers-free sequel.

WB – I absolutely love Halloween III. It is the film that introduced me not only to the Halloween franchise but to horror cinema. I saw it when I was six years old and it just blew my mind. And because it was the first Halloween movie that I saw it meant I never felt the disappointment of it not having Michael Myers present. I’m very happy, as is Tommy Lee Wallace, that it has finally found an appreciative audience. We don’t have to be embarrassed about it anymore, because the secret is out that it’s a great film. It is very much a comfort film for me; I love the environment of Santa Mira, I love the folksy Irish element that is played sinisterly, I love the theatrical grandeur and the sense of austerity and authority that Dan O’Herlihy brought to Conal Cochran, and I especially love Alan Howarth and John Carpenter’s atmospheric electronic soundtrack. It is one of my favorite films of all time.

AN – Horror conventions have boomed over the last 20 years or so, especially recently. Have you attended these types of conventions and if so, which Halloween actor have you met or would like to meet?

WB – I have never been to a horror convention. They don’t really have them over here in Ireland, and even when they do I have not attended. I’ve already met many people from the Halloween franchise, either through making this book or in other settings. If I had to choose someone that I never met then the holy grail for me would be Dan O’Herlihy, the great Irish actor who played the dastardly evil toymaker in Halloween III. But that is never going to happen as he passed away a long time ago. He was a legend of Old Hollywood, a true film star in the classic sense, and a treasure of Irish acting heritage.

AN – Where do you see the Halloween franchise going from here? Is Halloween Ends truly “the end” of Michael Myers or will be back for more?

WB – Of course, you can’t kill the boogeyman…or a successful franchise! So, I can certainly see more Halloween products being produced in the future; there’s no way a cash cow as generous as Michael Myers will remain unexploited. And that is great for those who own the property and for fans whose appetite remains strong for further adventures of the man in the mask. How the people behind the franchise are going to do it, I don’t know; I guess resurrecting an old narrative, such as the Thorn strand or maybe jumping off Part 4 or 5 and tapping into the Jamie Lloyd legacy would be an idea. I can’t see a continuation of the recent trilogy as Michael is quite literally minced meat, and he didn’t pass the torch to any other character before he ended up in the shredder, even though it looked like he was going to in Halloween Ends, but that ultimately didn’t happen.

AN – Lastly, what do you want readers to take away most about this book and what is next for Wayne Byrne? Will you do another book on another famous horror franchise? If so, what franchise interests you the most?

WB – I hope that readers find some stories in there that they never heard before and enjoy my own critical and analytical insights into the films. But most of all my goal for this book is for people to appreciate the artistry and the artists, to gain a greater understanding of who the people are that provide them with this great entertainment. That’s what I try to do with all my books, to get to the heart of the creators, to understand who they are and what made them the artists that they are. I have four books in various stages of release or production. My next book coming out is called The Evolution of American Film Music, 1960s to 1990s. I co-wrote that with Amanda Kramer, who is the keyboardist of The Psychedelic Furs. We’re also working on another book which is a follow-up to our 2024 release Hired Guns: Portraits of Women in Alternative Music, this time documenting a selection of male musicians. I love Amanda, we’re best friends, so these books are a great excuse for us to spend a lot of time together. And to see them end up on the shelves of places like The Library of Congress and in major universities is an additional thrill that makes us very proud and excited to do what we do. Another book I’m in the middle of is a work of sociological film criticism on which I’m collaborating with my friend Carolina Cioara, who is a wonderful young writer and an absolute pleasure to work with. We are analyzing a selection of films from the mid-to-late 20 th century from class and cultural perspectives. I started that book in response to the intensity of this Halloween book. I decided I didn’t want to interview anybody nor did I want to document any behind the scenes production stuff, I just wanted to write a book which is entirely speculative and critical in nature, and this is the result of that desire. And one of the great things about it is we get to choose the films that we want to write about, we’re not tied to a particular set of films, such as what one has to do when the subject is a director, a cinematographer, or a franchise. And then the fourth book coming is indeed another horror franchise book, and the subject of that is the Living Dead franchise. Those films will provide central context and narrative structure, but the book will also function as an auteur study of George Romero by looking at all his films and the development of his style and themes. But after that, I don’t see myself doing any more horror franchise books. Unless I get that spark of inspiration which one can never predict. There are other films and filmmakers that I would like to write about, but I don’t want to commit to anything at this stage. I just want to take my foot off the gas, to stop and smell the roses, so to speak. I’ve committed ten years of my life to writing books and celebrating artists in this literary way, and I feel that I’m due some time off to quietly celebrate the work I’ve done and to celebrate life with my loved ones. I’ve come to learn that life isn’t all about one’s work or art; if those are meaningful it will certainly make life sweeter, but finding that often elusive balance between one’s life and one’s art is the goal. By this time next year I will have written thirteen books, all within the space of ten years, so I don’t know how much more prolific I want to be. I never set out to be a writer, and I never thought I would be in this position, to be here promoting a major book on the Halloween movies and being published by Bloomsbury. How the hell did I get here?! It’s amazing, and I have all the artists behind the movies that I love to thank for inspiring me to write, for giving me a career and a life I never thought I would have.

AN – Thanks for sharing with us Wayne.

WB – My pleasure, Anthony. And congratulations on your literary work too!