Hollow-eyed homicidal psychopath Michael Myers has the tenacity of a cockroach, refusing to die no matter how many times he’s seemingly vanquished. The last installment of the long-running Halloween franchise saw the villain trapped in the basement of a burning building to be turned to ash once and for all, only for a post-credits scene to suggest that he somehow made it, a hint confirmed in the first look at the upcoming sequel.

The trailer for Halloween Kills appeared online late last night, opening with an only-mildly-scathed Michael emerging from the inferno to massacre a handful of firefighters and reannounce himself as a menace on the loose yet again. This time, however, the equally hard-to-kill Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis, reprising her career’s signature role) isn’t just going to survive — she’s going to fight back.

In the new film, the second from series steward David Gordon Green, Laurie gathers a citizen taskforce to bring the pain to Michael Myers as he continues picking off townspeople. She theorizes that he gains in power with each life he takes, which could be a canny in-universe way of explaining why the character has seemed to grow immortal and unstoppable as the films have rolled on.

Those well-schooled in the mythos of Halloween will be pleased to find that continuity plays a greater role here, with such familiar faces as Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall), Lindsey Wallace (Kyle Richards), Marion Chambers (Nancy Stephens) and Leigh Brackett (Charles Cyphers) reappearing for the first time since earlier installments. To Michael, they’re all just lambs awaiting slaughter.

Though known primarily for his work in comedies (as in Pineapple Express) and the arthouse (as in George Washington and Joe), Gordon will ultimately direct a trilogy of films for this franchise, to conclude in October 2022 with Halloween Ends. That title certainly sounds final, but if we learned anything from H20, it’s that there’s no resolution Michael Myers’ creators aren’t willing to undo for the sake of continuation.

Halloween Kills comes to cinemas in the UK and US on 15 October.