Nostalgia and Retcons: The Many Returns, Homecomings, and Revisions of theHalloweenFranchise (1978–2018)

Abstract

In recent decades, the steady remaking of individual films and rebooting of film franchises evince the cultural and commercial appeals of reimagining established titles. This article analyzes how the related practice of retroactive continuity (retcon) functions as a nostalgic intervention within a franchise’s broad mythology and ongoing narrative. Nostalgia is a longing to return to a desired space or time from which one is separated, and the retcon is an attempt to bind the past and present within a particular franchise’s story world. As such, retconning is an act of nostalgia in at least two ways. First, retconning may be used to nostalgically restore a franchise to a lost, idealized state. Second, a retcon may alter a franchise’s overarching narrative while still preserving selected story elements from earlier instalments; in this case, the retcon creates new audience understandings of the franchise and invites a nostalgic revisiting of previous films. To examine nostalgia and retcons, this article uses the first eleven films of the Halloween series (1978–2018) as a collective case study, as the franchise is distinguished by frequent retcons. Further, the original Halloween (1978) has evolved into a lost ‘home’ to which filmmakers and audiences alike nostalgically seek to return. Overall, this article exposes how nostalgia manifests on the levels of narrative, aesthetics, theme, and marketing across the Halloween series. While illuminating these dynamics within the Halloween franchise, the article argues that, in ways that are related to and discrete from remakes and reboots, the retcon is a nostalgic practice.