Based on only the trailers for Halloween Ends, you’d be forgiven for going into it thinking Rohan Campbell would be playing just another in a long line of photogenic Haddonfield teenagers who would be gruesomely murdered after a few minutes of screentime. Hell, Campbell himself even thought so.
“When [director/co-writer David Gordon Green] sent me the script I was like, ‘Okay, I’m the babysitter, when do I die? Oh, I made it this far, okay,’” Campbell recalls.
But the Canadian actor, known primarily for his role in Hulu’s The Hardy Boys series, is anything but slasher bait in the final installment in Green’s rebooted Halloween trilogy. Campbell, 25, plays Corey Cunningham, a young man haunted by a traumatic accident who winds up in a relationship with Laurie Strode’s (Jamie Lee Curtis) granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak). But Corey’s unsettling backstory and chilling embrace of violence make him a kind of more relatable proxy for the inscrutably murderous Michael Myers: He’s a painfully earnest, dorky midwestern kid with an overbearing mother, seeking an escape from his past and a sense of control.
Green’s first Halloween movie, which came out in 2018 to critical praise and massive financial success, was a respectful addition to the John Carpenter canon, showing extreme deference to the horror auteur’s vision. The subsequent sequels have gotten stranger. 2021’s Halloween Kills was overtly, unsubtly political, while Halloween Ends plays for much of its runtime like a romantic drama about two young adults yearning for freedom before the film finally gives viewers the latest Laurie-Michael showdown. A week after the movie’s release, GQ spoke to Rohan Campbell about working with the eclectic David Gordon Green, why he keeps seeing the movie in theaters, and the importance of character wardrobe, right down to the underwear. (Spoilers follow for Halloween Ends)
Coming into the role, how versed were you in the Halloween lore?
I had gotten into it early, man. The first two horror films I watched were Halloween ‘78, and it was a double billing with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It scared the life out of me. I spent a long time trying to recover from it, but I had this obsession with John Carpenter afterwards. I think the only other Halloweens I saw were Rob Zombie’s and [Halloween III:] Season of the Witch. And then, obviously, everyone was stoked for 2018’s, and it’s David Gordon Green. I’ve been a fan of David Gordon Green forever since the. Eastbound & Down, Pineapple Express days. After I saw those two movies I saw George Washington and then All the Real Girls and was like, ‘This guy’s a genius. This is one director making nine different genre movies.”
David has a well-rounded CV, going from making a really small indie like Prince Avalanche to one of the biggest horror franchises ever.
For Ends, when I was cast, it sort of felt like this massive movie. But when you show up, it feels more like Prince Avalanche. It’s David and [cinematographer] Michael Simmons. For example, one of the writers on this movie was one of the drivers on Prince Avalanche and the PA on Prince Avalanche is still working with David. It’s the same core group of guys and sometimes on these films, it does feel like you’re on a single-camera in the woods with your buddies making a student film. That’s the vibe David has always run on set.
In this one, there are so many scenes where it’s just you and Andi Matichak riding the motorcycle, on the roof, at the party. They’re these very private, two-hander scenes.
And then you get that little David Gordon Green flair where he can interject his own creativity and bizarreness and originality, even in a romance movie. David is always so interested in [finding], “What’s the most interesting way to do something?” And I feel like that’s [the question] with Ends: What’s a new way to attack this and catapult the audience to where they want to go with Laurie and Michael in that finale?
There have been a lot of unrelentingly bleak horror movies in the last year, but Green’s Halloween franchise brings a lot of irreverence, which feels like a well-timed change of pace.
If I have to talk about this movie I tend to watch it, so I went to see the movie again last night. I just find the busiest theater and I go there, because I’m addicted to figuring out when the audience realizes that you can laugh. I love when people start getting audible in the theater. The “Oh don’t do that!” and “Oh, come on!” That’s what these movies should be. It should be an experience, it should be audible, you should be reacting.
Which of Corey’s scenes gets the biggest audience reaction?
Well, one of my favorite moments is the cold open when you watch [Corey’s babysitting charge] fall over the railing and hit the floor. Every time, everyone in the theater, it’s such a gasp. You’re expecting violence, but you’re not expecting that sort of accidental violence. I think it just grabs the audience really quickly in the movie. Another really fun moment for me [that] I get addicted to watching is when Mom kisses me. There’s like three or four seconds, which are usually followed up with a “What the fuck was that?” And then it’s usually just me laughing and then a group of laughter behind me. It’s just the weirdest moment in such a beautiful way. That reaction always gets me.
It’s really clever to make your character the babysitter. Because what usually happens to the babysitter in a Halloween movie? They die in the first few scenes.
It’s this character-driven route to get the audience to understand a perspective, not even necessarily of Michael, but of what happens to somebody when they’re given certain choices or influence. What I like about this movie comes in the last moment when Corey drives the knife into his own throat—either hearing the audience get upset about it or cheer. It changes from audience to audience. I think what David did really well was create an empathy for evil.
Seeing how Corey becomes a killer works way better than seeing how it happened to Michael. Michael is a mythical figure and you don’t want to know more about his life than you glean from that first movie.
That’s the joy of Michael. The scariest thing ever: there’s no intent. You should never understand why, there should never be a why.
What does it feel like to be at the center of this movie that’s doing very well, but has been divisive?
The divisiveness didn’t really hit me until people brought it up. All I was nervous about was delivering something that had an arc, that had change. Obsessing over the levels of evil in each scene. Like the cold open of the movie [was a zero], and then letting it leak in, creating playlists with David and stuff like that. I was so caught up in trying to deliver a character to David and to John Carpenter and to the universe of Halloween.
There’s something in me that feels like five years from now, people are gonna watch this movie a whole lot differently than they’re watching it now. Any big promoted movie is always gonna be divisive. I think what’s interesting about making movies and going to the theater to see them is that it’s your experience and whatever your experience was is as true as any other person’s. It excites me working on divisive stuff, but it’s never something you meditate on before you do it.
You mentioned creating playlists for Corey, but what else did you watch or listen to in order to make him a three-dimensional character?
I have to credit COVID for this movie in a weird way. We were supposed to shoot and then I suddenly had another year of metabolizing the character and watching more movies. I think a big thing we got into was his family life. I journal a lot and try to figure out every core memory that this person might have, down to events with Mom. Voice was a big thing for me. I watched Willard. [LAUGHS] When there’s so much change when going into the evil space, I have to empathize with Corey more than anything. There was this side of humor to Corey that was really fun to explore and that was me talking to David and exchanging emails for a year and a half about, “Wouldn’t it be funny if we had this level of social awkwardness?” Phone calls with David about what that overbearing mother is like. There are little notes we’d written about like, the marinara sauce on the side of a milk glass, just painting those pictures. And then it was watching a lot of Halloween movies and trying to get the soul of what ‘78 felt like, the tone, in Corey. “How do we make it feel like Corey’s been walking through Haddonfield his whole life?”
I loved the scene where Allyson tries to tell the dad joke about the bicycles and Corey completely misses it. I think it’s so indicative of how he’s this painfully earnest, well-meaning, awkward kid.
I think there was a literalness to Corey that was fun, too, because of his intense fear of being wrong all the time. There’s also a fun thing when you’re building a character with costume. For this movie, I wore tighty-whities the whole time.. And then putting on the heavy work boots and the most ill-fitting jeans we could find. Things that might sound a little superficial to building a character, suddenly, I’m alone in my Savannah hotel room trudging around with glasses on that I don’t wear in real life and mumbling to myself for days. David sent me down to the mechanics shop and I worked with mechanics in Savannah, GA for a little while.
Corey is definitely someone whose mom is still buying him underwear in like a six-pack as a 22-year-old man.
Exactly. That’s why the tighty-whities were such a choice. It was like the calling card. I’m realizing this is such a bizarre conversation, but like, there’s a scene that didn’t make the movie where Corey is working out in his room, in his tighty-whities and his mom comes in and just cleans everything up and leaves custard on his desk. It’s the nod to “Boys who keep secrets don’t get custard.”