Is Bob Odenkirk In ‘Halloween Kills’? Sort Of.
The following post contains minor spoilers for Halloween Kills.
A lot of viewers are going to wait out Halloween Kills’ closing credits in the hopes that there might be some kind of scene that sets up the next film, Halloween Ends, which is due in theaters in October of 2022. Unfortunately, they’ll be waiting in vain; the credits roll to black and then the movie is over. You get to hear John Carpenter’s unforgettable Halloween score one more time, but that’s about it.
Those who stick around to the end will spot a surprising name amongst the film’s credit. The very last person listed in the Halloween Kills cast is ... Bob Odenkirk. He supposedly plays “Bob.” But odds are if you watched the movie, you didn’t spot Bob Odenkirk anywhere in there. I certainly didn’t. His name popping up in the closing credits made me do a legitimate double take. How did Bob Odenkirk make a cameo without me noticing? Is he really in the movie?
Yes — sort of. First, though, keep in mind that Halloween Kills is deeply connected to Carpenter’s original Halloween movie from 1978. In addition to Jamie Lee Curtis reprising her role as Laurie Strode, almost every other notable character who survived Michael Myers’ original rampage shows up in this new sequel. Most are played by the actors who originated those roles, like Nancy Stephens playing Marion Chambers, the assistant of Michael Myers’ psychiatrist. Others are replacements, like Anthony Michael Hall as the new Tommy Doyle, who was one of the children that Laurie babysat in the old Halloween.
As part of these nods back to the original Halloween, Halloween Kills director David Gordon Green also wanted to mention Michael Myers’ original victims. They included Bob, who was killed by Michael shortly after he violated the cardinal rule of slasher movies: Never have premarital sex.
In Carpenter’s Halloween, an actor named John Mitchell Graham played Bob. While Green wanted to use a photo of Graham as part of the a news report on Michael Myers’ return, that turned to to be impossible. As he told CinemaBlend, “we couldn't track [the actor] down or get the rights. Somehow we couldn't clear an image of Bob for our television news broadcast.”
Green says he was so “frustrated” that he actually Googled “Bob 1970s High School” and the result was — wait for it — a photo of Bob Odenkirk in high school.
“So I thought,” Green said “‘He’s probably easier to find; let's go get him!’”
And that’s how Odenkirk wound up in Halloween Kills. Green reached out, and Odenkirk okayed putting his old yearbook photo in Halloween Kills as “Bob”’s yearbook photo. (Yes, the fact that he’s credited as Bob is a funny coincidence, although it would have been incredible if Bob Odenkirk had appeared in Halloween Kills as himself.)
So there you have it. If you missed Odenkirk’s cameo, don’t feel bad; it’s a blink or you’ll miss it moment. If you missed it and you want to see what Bob Odenkirk’s high school yearbook photo (from Naperville North High School, in Naperville, Illinois) looked like, click here. I promise, it’s worth a look.