By Caroline Mora
Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for the first six Halloween movies.
Michael Myers is a fictional serial murderer created by John Carpenter. Myers is an indestructible embodiment of evil. He has no morals, no conscience, and has a lot of family issues he needs to work through. He murdered his sister on Halloween night when he was six years old and has been locked up ever since. Michael is always dressed in his dark blue jumpsuit, dark to hide the bloodstains of his victims. He also never leaves home without his favorite white mask.
I watched all six original “Halloween” movies. These movies were produced over a span of 17 years. It was interesting to see how the film quality improved, how different changes in John Carpenter’s directing style, and the evolution of the acting.
1. Halloween (1978)
The first “Halloween” movie takes place on Oct. 31, 1978, in Haddonfield, Illinois. Actress Jamie Lee Curtis plays a 17-year-old high school student, Laurie Strode, who is a normal girl with a normal life. On Halloween, Laurie is tasked with watching and babysitting her neighbor, Tommy Doyle (this will be important later)… Her mischievous friends decide to convince Laurie to throw a small party at Tommy’s house because his parents are absent. Meanwhile, Michael Myers escapes from the sanitarium and is on his way to wreak havoc in his hometown … Haddonfield. Dr. Loomis, Michael’s former psychologist is on his trial, knowing exactly where Michael will go.
Michael hunts down all of her friends and are left to defend themselves with nothing but a sewing needle. Typical in horror movies, she chooses to make the worst decisions ever. Laurie decides to hide in the closet just before Michael breaks down the closet doors and frantically slashes the air with his knife to get to her. She gets ahold of his weapon and uses it against him. Myers slumps to the ground believed to be dead but miraculously gets up and lunges toward Laurie for one last attempt at her life.
Right when he’s about to take her life, Dr. Loomis arrives to save the day. Dr. Loomis pulls out his gun and shoots Myers off the balcony. The cops arrive and everything is looking up. Dr. Loomis is about to leave the crime scene when he decides to get one last look at Michael. He walks over to where he fell out of the window but sees only the bloody body print he left in the grass.
I rate this movie a generous 7/10. It gets points for creativity and the plot twists, though most of the twists were predictable. The suspense picked up toward the end of the movie, including the dumb decisions. Every time Laurie got her hands on a weapon, she would drop it or lose it. She also fell way too many times for it to be healthy. This was far from the first stalker/slasher movie, but it had a huge impact on the horror subgenre. It felt like the blueprint for other popular movies such as Scream and Friday The 13th.
2. Halloween ll (1981)
“Halloween II” takes place on the same night as the first movie but at the Haddonfield Hospital. Laurie is transferred to the hospital to be treated for her injuries. However, the hospital staff quickly become Myers’ next victims, and Laurie becomes increasingly more paranoid as the night goes on. The phone lines die, the nurses disappear, and Laurie knows this may be her final night. Dr. Loomis tracks down Michael and arrives at the hospital, but not before learning one crucial detail:
Laurie Strode is Michael Myers’s lost sister. The Myers parents had a baby shortly after Michael was sent away to the sanitarium, after dying tragically in a car accident, Laurie was adopted by the Strode family.
Laurie and Dr. Loomis eventually find themselves in a compromised position. Laurie’s body grows weaker by the minute, still recovering from her injuries earlier that night and Dr. Loomis is just old. Suddenly, Michael pounds down the door and begins to attack Laurie. Dr. Loomis uses spare gas tanks in the room to fill the room gas and lights the fire as he makes time for Laurie to run away from the impending explosion. The force of the explosion is so strong that Laurie is thrown to the ground on her last breath her savior Both she and the paramedic get away safe and sound in the back of an ambulance. The movie ends with Laurie visibly relaxing and falling asleep.
I give this movie a well-deserved rating of 8/10. I much preferred the sequel to the original Halloween. Jamie Lee Curtis was able to develop her acting skills more; she was visibly more panicked and paranoid which made the movie more suspenseful and carried more appeal for those who love the horror genre. The ending was open, which I appreciate in a horror movie. Not only because the audience can come to their conclusions and speculations, but also because it leaves something for the creators to build off on.
3. Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
“Halloween 3” is about a mask company called Silver Shamrock. These masks are installed with pieces of Stonehenge, yes, that Stonehenge. The stones are meant to release lasers to obliterate the children who wear the masks when they’re activated by a series of flashing lights. The children are instructed to watch a special commercial at an exact time nationwide so that Silver Shamrock can destroy millions of people at once.
Our main character Dr. Daniel Challis whose patient was shot and killed during his hospital stay, clutching a Silver Shamrock mask in his right hand. The doctor and the patient’s daughter, Ellie Grimbridge, team up to figure out what happened to her father. They uncover a secret villain’s lair complete with robot henchmen and Stonehenge. The Doctor and the patient’s daughter eventually fail in their mission to save the children, and it is implied that Silver Shamrock does indeed activate every mask in the country.
This installment gets a tentative 5/10. They had me in the first half when I thought it was a well-filmed movie with the potential to be great with more action. However, once I found out the men working for Silver Shamrock were robots, and the CEO was implanting pieces of Stonehenge into the masks, I was over it. I can understand that John Carpenter wanted to do something different and take a break from the Michael Myers of it all, but the plot was just too insane. He could have made a movie about a killer turkey on Thanksgiving, and it would’ve received a higher rating than this one.
4. Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
“Halloween 4” follows Laurie Strode’s daughter, Jamie. It is implied that Laurie died in a car accident. It is revealed that Michael and Dr. Loomis survived the hospital fire from Halloween ll, and Myers was on his way back to Haddonfield to kill his niece because he has issues. The niece, Jamie, is haunted by visions of Michael Myers and is beginning to show signs of a psychic connection to him. Michael begins to stalk Jamie and her step-sister, Rachel, like a child playing with their food.
Now Dr. Loomis is back on the killer’s trail and makes it his sole mission to help Jamie. In leaves tons of bodies in his wake, slaughtering an entire police station so there could be no reinforcements. Jamie and her gang of protectors all head to a friend’s house to hide. The killer finds them and rips everyone to shreds… except for Jamie and Rachel.
After some running around town, Jamie and Rachel are driven out of town by a local hilly militia. Little do they know, Michael is also on his way out of town, hiding under their car. He takes down all the hillbillies, forcing Rachel to take the wheel of the truck while Myers frantically stabs into the car window. Rachel slams on the brakes causing Michael to fly off the truck and then she hits him with the truck causing his body to fly into a nearby field. He is believed to be dead when all of a sudden, Jamie feels this overwhelming urge to go to Michael. As she runs her hands over his scarred hands, he grabs her. The police shoot at him. He falls into an abandoned mineshaft and is officially presumed dead. Later that night, as Jamie’s mother is running her a bath, Jamie pulls a knife from behind her back and attacks her mother. Michael Myers is reborn.
This movie will receive a 7.5/10 because there was just so much going on, and not enough explanation. It wasn’t the kind of directorial omission that would be enjoyed in a horror movie. It was just confusing. I was upset not to see Laurie’s character, but the directors made up for it by casting good actors and actresses in her place. I think that the twist at the end left room for the expansion of the franchise. If you do it right, I will always applaud.
5. Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)
“Halloween 5” opens with a recap of what happened at the end of “Halloween 4,” revealing that Michael Myers survived falling into that mine shaft by crawling underground and floating down the river to safety. We are shown again that Jamie has some weird psychic connection to Michael when she is thrashing in her bed after having a vision about him. Jamie lives in a children’s clinic after attacking her mother last Halloween. She lost the ability to speak after enduring so much trauma. She has become the outcast of the town, with people sending her death threats—believing she is the reincarnation of Michael Myers. Dr. Loomis is still trying to track down Michael, and he believes that Jamie can help him do that through her connection to Michael. We see a tall person in a long black cloak, steel-toed-toed boots, and spurs that clack when they walk, but their identity is not revealed.
Dr. Loomis convinces Jamie and the Haddonfield police to stage a coup in the old Myers house. When Michael eventually shows up, Dr. Loomis tries to reason with him and make him see that Jamie could cane the storm that rages inside of him. This plan backfires and Michael leaves Dr. Loomis downstairs on his way to Jamie. Jamie runs past Michael and hides in the laundry shoot. Just as he’s about the get to her, Dr. Loomis comes in and shoots Michael with tranquilizers and then chains him to keep him down. Michael is taken to the local jail to be transferred to a maximum security prison when the man with the steel toe books shoots the guards and lets Michael out.
I give “Halloween 5” a 7/10. To me, the movie felt sloppy, and it was still confusing. Why does Jamie have a psychic connection with Michael? Who is that guy with the shoes? I just have so many unanswered questions, that I don’t even know if I want the answers at this point. The film quality was better, and there was plenty of gore and suspense. Although I think, at this point, it’s obvious that the storyline could have ended a long time ago.
6. Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)
We open to Jamie, postpartum, carrying her baby fleeing from Michael. As usual. Michael kills Jamie. Then, he begins to look for the baby that she had stashed away, but he cannot find him. We are then introduced to Kara Strode and her son, Danny. They had just moved to Haddonfield, into the Myers house: the worst idea ever. And Tommy Doyle, that boy that Laurie babysat all those years ago? Yeah, him. He lives across the street from the Myers house and is paranoid about Michael’s return.
Everybody believes him dead but Tommy thinks he knows the truth. He thinks that Michael bears the curse of Thorn, an ancient Druid symbol that represents a demon that spreads sickness and destruction. He goes to Jamie’s last known location, and he finds her baby in a bathroom cabinet. Dr. Loomis involves himself in this case for the last time by teaming up with Danny to help the baby and kill Michael once and for all. Kara and Danny come back home to find their whole family slaughtered by Michael Myers. Kara, Danny, and Tommy become a unit trying to defend themselves and the baby from Michael.
They all eventually end up in the meeting place for this Celtic-Druid cult. We find out that the man with the steel-toed shoes (from “Halloween 5”) is Dr. Wynn, Dr.Loomis’ former coworker and trusted friend. He is the head of the cult who originally placed the mark of Thorn on Michael. After Myers learns of the ways the cult has exploited him, Michael kills every single member, including Dr. Wynn. Dr. Kara, Tommy, and Danny all make it out alive, leaving Dr. Loomis inside because he wants one last stand-off with Michael. Upon his return to where he last saw him, all he finds is Michael’s mask, the camera pans away from Dr. Loomis, and all that you hear is his screams.
I gave this last movie an 8/10. I liked the callback to the early Halloween days when John Carpenter brought back Tommy Doyle. I also thought that Paul Rudd was a great choice to play this character as he has a wide range of characters and personalities that he can play. I could not believe that Dr. Loomis was still alive and, in his old age, still decided to follow Michael’s trail. I thought it was interesting that they chose to bring together those subtle references to Celtic mythology that they’ve made for the last six movies. I certainly did not think that Michael Myers was the bearer of an ancient curse put upon him by a cult that was being run by Dr. Loomis’ old former coworker. It was an insane ending to the original franchise, but it was fitting.
