Halloween Kills To Hit Peacock the Same Day as Theaters

It seems that the only thing scarier than iconic slasher kingpin Michael Myers is the still-surging Delta variant of COVID-19, because director David Gordon Green’s upcoming sequel Halloween Kills has become the latest major Hollywood release that will premiere on a streaming service the same day it hits theaters. Specifically, Halloween Kills will drop on Peacock on Oct. 15, 2021, on the same day as its theatrical release. The film and streaming service share a parent company in the form of Comcast’s NBCUniversal. The film will be available to Peacock Premium subscribers at no extra fee—Premium is the second tier of Peacock at $9.99 per month, which is the advertisement-free tier. The service likewise has a cheaper tier at $4.99 per month that is ad-supported.

Halloween Kills is of course the long-delayed sequel to Green’s 2018 Halloween, which standardized the modern horror trend of direct sequels to iconic horror properties that ignore all other sequels. In the case of Halloween, that meant ignoring everything through the original Halloween II, to the likes of Halloween: Resurrection and Rob Zombie’s Halloween reboots. Green’s film was partially successful (though badly overburdened) as a slasher exercise, but very successful at the box office, ultimately generating $255 million globally in a coming-out party for Michael Myers. Without adjusting for inflation, that made 2018’s Halloween the highest-grossing slasher film ever. There was little wonder, then, that Green would be tapped to direct not one but two more follow-ups, Halloween Kills and 2022’s planned Halloween Ends.

Of course, the knowledge of that additional, upcoming sequel effectively neuters Halloween Kills of any potential finality—you can’t take Universal Pictures seriously when they proclaim in the synopsis that “evil dies tonight,” when you know that Myers will still be around for one more installment at least.

Halloween Kills debuted at the recent Venice Film Festival to rather middling reviews, although almost all of them have noted that the film’s body count is perhaps bigger than ever before, a detail that will likely delight the horror purists. Regardless, it will be nice to be able to watch the film from home this October if you live in an area where COVID is still a particular threat. Halloween Kills hits Peacock on Oct. 15, 2021.