By John Passarella

Titan Books, out now

Forty years after killer Michael Myers was incarcerated for a murder spree on Halloween night, victim Laurie Strode prepares to confront him for one last time.

I have something of a soft spot for movie novelisations, and people of a certain age will recall that in the 70s and early 80s buying a paperback tie-in of the latest movie was the only way you’d get to re-live it unless there was a re-run at the cinema or you waited three or five years for it to be screened on TV. And then video cassettes arrived, making this genre fairly redundant, to the point now where the window before a film is released for home viewing can be weeks or even the same day.

But the tie-in also served a purpose beyond being a replay of the film, it also allowed access to forbidden treasure – horror movies for the underaged. I bought Curtis Richards’ novelisation of the 1978 Halloween as a teenager, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to watch the movie for some time, and revelled in the introduction which talked about the brutal slaying of a young girl on Samhain at the dawn of Celtic race in Ireland. And when I eventually saw the film… it wasn’t there!

Which brings me rather long-windedly round to Bram Stoker award-winning author John Passarella’s novelisation of David Gordon Green’s 2018 sequel, Halloween. This is the first novelisation of a Halloween movie since  Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, and your first thought might be ‘why bother?’

Even a casual look at the size of the paperback’s spine will tip you off that this is no simple ‘copy and paste’ of the shooting script with stitching material to link it together. At 380 pages, this is a proper read, and a look at the author’s other genre work (including Supernatural, Grimm, Angel and Buffy spin-off novels) shows that he’s used to writing his own material based on established concepts.

Passarella has taken Danny McBride, Jeff Fradley and David Gordon Green’s screenplay and given it the depth that a 106 minute horror movie just can’t have. We get to spend more time in the protagonists’ heads, gaining a greater insight into their back stories and motivation, and that’s helpful in a movie where there’s three strong females crying out for further enrichment.

I have no idea whether the novel uses an earlier, fuller draft of the screenplay which was subsequently cut down for filming, or if the author has just added his own additional context and dialogue to add to the narrative. It doesn’t really matter, as what counts is that the seams aren’t apparent and he’s done a fine job in expanding on what was seen in the final theatrical version. It does include the recently-revealed deleted scene of the podcasters in the shower.

During the final act, Passarella employs the device of writing The Shape in present tense italics while other activity continues in past tense. It’s a neat way to build up the tension and helps flip between the different perspectives. And I also admire that he doesn’t unnecessarily deviate off track on his own follies, thus keeping the book authentic to its source.

Verdict: A movie tie-in that’s not just been dashed out to grab a fast buck, it’s encouraging to see that this paperback sub-genre can still thrive with well-written prose from genre enthusiasts. It’s not exactly the same as what’s on screen, it’s its own thing, and I say vive la difference. 9/10

Nick Joy