Contents
- 1 Why is Michael Myers obsessed with Laurie?
- 2 What is Michael Myers weakness?
- 3 Why does Michael Myers hate his sister?
- 4 Is Michael Myers Based on a true story?
- 5 Why did Michael Myers hide for 4 years?
- 6 Is Michael Myers asexual?
- 7 Is Michael Myers based off a real story?
- 8 Is the movie about Michael Myers based on a true story?
- 9 Is Laurie really Michael Myers sister?
What is the story behind Michael Myers?
The tale of Halloween in Haddonfield, Illinois, has been told and retold: the night in 1963 that an angelic 6-year-old Michael Myers, dressed in a clown suit, brutally murdered his teenage sister, followed by the night 15 years later, again on Halloween, when he broke out of a mental institution in his famously mutilated William Shatner mask to terrorize the virginal babysitter Laurie Strode, a.k.a.
- Jamie Lee Curtis in the role that would make her the ultimate scream queen.
- As Laurie, Curtis has battled the unkillable, silent but single-minded Michael Myers across seven of the 13 films in John Carpenter’ s Halloween franchise — including the newest trilogy, a trio of revamped sequels that kicked off in 2018, reenvisioning Laurie’s adult life but still showing her haunted and stalked by the killer.
Directed by David Gordon Green, the (alleged) final installment in the trilogy, Halloween Ends, arrives this weekend. The new film shows Laurie, now with decades of experience behind her, watching and waiting for Michael to return for one last round of leisurely unstoppable violence.
Of all iconic horror franchises, none is quite as quirky and erratic as this one. Though the original film, Halloween (1978), is Carpenter’s signature film, it’s the only one in the series he directed. He then co-wrote and co-produced a sequel with his collaborator Debra Hill, but their subsequent attempt to keep the series from becoming formulaic would end up sending it meandering off in random, truncated directions.
As a result, where most horror franchises stick to their main story concept and expand it over time, the Halloween franchise keeps getting lost and restarting itself — hence the shaky continuity of the latest trilogy. The only thing we can say for sure about the overall franchise timeline is that the first two films are paired and occur in sequential order on the very same night.
After that, the franchise goes haywire, spinning through one-offs, sequels, and remakes that perpetually overwrite each other. This cyclical quality may also be why Halloween is so enduringly popular — you definitely don’t need to have seen every film in the franchise to understand what’s happening, or to enjoy the next one.
For the upcoming Halloween Ends, it’s helpful to have seen the previous two films in the revamped trilogy, but watching all of the rest certainly isn’t a requirement. Of course, there’s another facet of the series’ enduring popularity that can’t be overlooked, and that’s the cat-and-mouse game between Laurie and horror’s most implacable killer.
Why did Michael Myers start killing again?
Why Did Michael Myers Start Killing? ‘Halloween’ Origin It’s Halloween night, 1963 in Haddonfield, Illinois, and trick-or-treating has already begun. We first see the house from 6-year-old Michael Myers’s perspective, as he walks from across the street up to the front door, only to find his older sister Judith and her boyfriend making out inside.
- Without drawing their attention, he walks around the outside of the house, watching as they move to the couch.
- When they go upstairs and turn off the bedroom light, Michael comes inside through the open back door.
- He takes a knife from the kitchen drawer, but doesn’t go upstairs until the boyfriend has left through the front.
Upstairs, he dons a clown mask, to match his clown costume, and enters Judith’s bedroom, where he finds her naked, brushing her hair in front of her dressing table. She has only time to say, more exasperated than afraid, “Michael!” before he stabs her nine times.
He walks down the stairs and out the front door, where his parents are arriving in their car. Michael stares straight ahead, insensible, the bloody chef’s knife held up, as his parents pull off his mask. That’s all we see of Michael’s origins in 1978’s Halloween, We next see him when he escapes from Smith’s Grove Sanitarium on October 30, 1978.
The opening’s first-person perspective, when we’re literally behind his eyes, may seem intimate, but is instead distancing, making it impossible to evaluate his face and determine what he’s thinking. Halloween withholds his mental state from us. Young Michael Myers, just after he murdered his sister, Judith. Compass International Pictures There’s a simple explanation for what motivates Michael Myers that closely follows slasher movie logic, in which the killer is often motivated by a combination of neglect and sexual jealousy.
- Just like Jason Voorhees, introduced in Friday the 13th three years after Halloween, Michael was supposed to be under supervision, not from camp counselors, but from his babysitting sister.
- Could his sister neglecting him in favor of a boyfriend be the reason why he would stalk teen babysitters like Laurie Strode? But part of the power of Halloween is that (at least in the first movie) it’s not reducible to the simple, vicious motivations of most 80s slashers.
Michael has a strong compulsion to return to Haddonfield, even killing a truck driver en route, but he doesn’t immediately look for victims. Instead, Michael returns home. This is where he first encounters Laurie, who drops a key through the mail slot for her father, a local realtor trying to sell Michael’s abandoned childhood home.
In the first Halloween, chillingly, Laurie is chosen completely at random. This all changes, beginning with the first sequel, Halloween II, which reveals that Laurie is Michael’s younger sister. In the sequel, Michael isn’t just motivated by a family connection either. Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance) and the police find a single word painted in blood at one of the murder scenes: “Samhain.” “It’s a Celtic word.
Samhain. It means the Lord of the Dead, the end of Summer, the festival of Samhain. October 31st,” Loomis explains. These two motivations combine to form Michael’s primary drive through eight sequels, as Michael repeatedly returns to kill family members—Laurie, her daughter in Halloween 4 and 5, then her granddaughter in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers— as part of some sort of pagan Halloween ritual.
Why Michael, who first murdered at the age of six, would feel this kind of compulsion is never satisfactorily explained. The Curse of Michael Myers introduced the Cult of Thorn, who attempt to bind and steer Michael with druidic magic. Rather than having any internal reason to kill, Michael becomes a pawn of the stars, his murders literally coinciding with a recurring constellation.
But none of these explanations ever really enriches our understanding of him as a character. Even original Halloween director John Carpenter came to regret his decision to make Laurie and Michael siblings in Halloween II, Michael does seem to obey some internal compass.
- We know, for example, that he connects his adult murders with the murder of his sister, because he steals her tombstone and places it in the upstairs bedroom of one of his latest victims.
- But whatever ritual Michael enacts is a private one.
- Michael’s motivations are not meant to be reducible to the psychological, which is why Dr.
Loomis abandoned psychology in treating him. “Don’t underestimate it,” Loomis says, refusing to describe Michael as human. “I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding, in even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, of good or evil, right or wrong.
- I met this six-year-old child with this blank, pale, emotionless face and the blackest eyes; the devil’s eyes.
- I spent eight years trying to reach him and then another seven trying to keep him locked up, because i realized what was living behind that boy’s eyes was purely and simply evil.” Which is why the 2018 Halloween is a direct sequel to the 1978 original, ditching all of the mythology built up around Michael in the sequels.
Michael and Laurie are no longer siblings. There is no Cult of Thorn. Instead, there’s Michael, returning 40 years later to complete what he had started. “There is nothing more terrifying in the world than a random act of violence,”, “Laurie Strode had something happen to her that no one should ever have happen and she just reacted in her intelligent way to save her life, period. Michael Myers, a little worn but just as destructive, in 2018’s “Halloween.” Universal Pictures “This new movie picks up 40 years later, and what happened is, there was no trauma therapy, no one went in and gave her mental health services. She was raised by Midwestern, simple people, who said, ‘Baby, you’re okay.’ And she went back to school two days later with a little scar on her arm.
- And that’s it.
- And you see, that kind of PTSD, that kind of trauma, just compounds,” Curtis said.
- But it’s also because Michael’s emptiness, his lack of human motive, is what makes him so terrifying.
- After Loomis shoots Michael in the original film, Michael falls off the balcony, seemingly dead.
- It was the Boogeyman,” Laurie says, sobbing.
“As a matter of fact, it was,” Dr. Loomis replies. Michael’s body disappears, but not because he got up and limped away. Instead of running out to search the yard, the last shot of Loomis in Halloween is of his eyes searching around the empty air just in front of him, as if for a ghost.
Why does Michael Myers wear the mask?
What would happen if Michael Myers did not wear a mask? – Without a mask, it would be easy for people to identify Michael. Bear in mind he has just escaped from his asylum, and Donald Pleasance is on his trail, so wearing a mask will conceal his real face from the authorities, and as it is Halloween, people may not give Michael a second look, assuming he is in costume, celebrating the festival as people do.
- From a storytelling point of view, this is another reason Michael would choose to wear a mask in the movie.
- Michael seems pretty keen on exacting some kind of terrible vengeance on the locals, he steals Judith’s tombstone from the graveyard, so he seems to have some kind of plan in mind.
- If like Dr.
- Loomis states Michael is “pure evil” then wearing a disconcerting mask will add to the terror that his victims will feel when he confronts them.
It would seem that Michael knows he will have more power over his victims if he is wearing a mask that will compound his victim’s terror. So, it seems that the internal logic of the screenplay would have always dictated that “the shape”, as Michael was originally known, would always wear a mask of some kind to help protect his identity, allow him to operate more easily at Halloween, and instill more terror in his victims, but what about the thought process at the writing stage?
What does Michael Myers do when he’s not killing?
When he was hospitalized, Dr Loomis explained that Michael convinced other Doctors that he was in a catatonic state when he was only pretending for too many years. If he is capable of doing that, then he can patiently wait hiding anywhere he wants where no one can see him, eating rats and dogs to survive.
Why is Michael Myers obsessed with Laurie?
Why is Michael Myers Obsessed with Laurie in the Reboot Trilogy? – David Gordon Green’s Halloween is a return to form with regards to explaining what drives Michael (James Jude Courtney) to relentlessly stalk Laurie. The movie finds Michael biding his time in a mental institution before escaping a transport bus while prisoners are being relocated.
Laurie has grown into a paranoid alcoholic biding her time in an isolated cabin just waiting for Michael’s inevitable return. His bloodthirsty obsession with her no longer stems from a familial connection. It’s simply a continuation of him seeing her as the right victim and then becoming consumed by his own inability to kill her.
The thought of her having been in the wrong place at the wrong time is a truly frightening concept when one remembers that it could’ve been anyone. Michael is The Shape, the human embodiment of the very concept of evil. He exists beyond human needs and thrives only on his ability to strike fear, cause chaos, and bring death with him where ever he goes.
Similar to real-life serial killers, Michael cares more about getting his thrills from the chase & the kill and less about who is on the sharp end of his giant knife. Simply put, 2018’s Halloween provides no specific reason for Michael’s obsession with Laurie, it just is. It’s gone on for a long time and the more he fails to kill her, the more intensely focused his obsession becomes despite getting his fill of violence along the way.
For some fans, the sibling explanation makes sense and adds an interesting twist to their 40-year-old dynamic. For many others, though, it’s scarier to think he randomly selected her and has spent all that time punishing her for being a survivor. The reboot trilogy may take the franchise back to basics, but it’s far from popular among Halloween fans,
- In fact, many see it as an insulting attempt to end a veteran franchise.
- They don’t like its ending or its plot twists.
- Regardless, Michael’s obsession with Laurie is one of the most enduring among all the horror franchises and has become as integral to Halloween as Michael’s heavy breathing.
- Reasons for it aside, it’s made for a wildly popular series of horror movies.
Only time will tell if it’s truly dead or just biding its time for a bloody return. MORE: Alien: Isolation ‘s Xenomorph Creates the Perfect Blueprint for Michael Myers in a Halloween Game
What is Michael Myers weakness?
Michael Myers has survived the impossible throughout the Halloween franchise, making viewers wonder if he has any weaknesses and what these could be. Michael Myers has survived all types of improbable situations throughout the Halloween franchise, making fans wonder if he has any weaknesses and what these could be. In 1978, John Carpenter introduced the audience to a new slasher villain in Halloween, which even though wasn’t well-received during its release, with time it has become one of the most influential horror movies ever, and Michael Myers has become part of pop culture.
- Halloween tells the story of Michael Myers, who on Halloween night 1963, when he was six years old, murdered his older sister for no apparent reason.
- Michael was then sent to Smith’s Grove Sanitarium, where he became the patient of Dr.
- Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence), who concluded that Michael is the incarnation of evil.
Fifteen years later, on October 30, 1978, Michael escaped and returned to his hometown Haddonfield, Illinois, where he began to stalk Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her friends, with Laurie becoming the franchise’s main final girl. Halloween made way for a franchise with a total of 13 movies (including Rob Zombie’s remakes), and Michael Myers has been unstoppable through all of them.
- Michael Myers has been close to dying multiple times, but the writers always find a way to bring him back and thus expand the franchise.
- This has led to retcons and the franchise branching out in different timelines, but Michael remains the same seemingly indestructible force, making viewers wonder if he has any weaknesses, as he has survived the impossible – from being burned alive to decapitation.
An official weakness hasn’t been revealed in the Halloween universe, but fans have come up with different possibilities, starting with Michael’s obsession with Halloween. Michael only kills on or around October 31, unlike other slashers who can go on murder sprees at any moment and for as long as they please. Another possible weakness of Michael Myers could be his obsession with his targets, namely Laurie and Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris), Laurie’s daughter in the first timeline. Whether because they are related (as they were in the first timeline, the Halloween H20 one, and the remakes) or because Laurie survived his first murder spree (as is the case in the reboot timeline), Michael’s drive to kill might be his weakness as well, as once he finally gets what he wants, he could be at the mercy of anyone who wants to avenge Haddonfield.
Another weakness pointed out by viewers is Michael Myers’ iconic mask, as every time he has been unmasked he stops killing, even though he had his victim in front and completely helpless. Some have even theorized that Michael’s mask was made by Silver Shamrock, which explains why he’s driven to kill when he wears it.
It’s to be seen if Halloween Ends will give Michael Myers some weakness after Halloween Kills made him supernatural again by having him survive being beaten, stabbed, and shot multiple times, and given all these events, it will have to be a believable weakness that can bring the reboot timeline (and perhaps the whole franchise) to a satisfying end without any more loose ends.
What does Michael Myers want?
What This Means For Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends – Michael’s main goal is to spread fear, but right after that comes revenge. Laurie was the only survivor of his killing spree from 1978, and he couldn’t let that pass. Thirty years passed between Carpenter’s film and the reboot, and in-universe is enough time for people to stop fearing “the boogeyman”, more so as he was eventually captured and imprisoned.
Michael’s return this time is not just to remind the residents of Haddonfield that evil isn’t over but that they should fear him, and going after the only survivor (up to that point, of course) of his crimes is both a good way to spread fear again and get revenge for what Laurie and her survival did to him.
Halloween Kills will pick up right after Halloween, with Laurie, Allyson, and Karen (Judy Greer) teaming up with new and old allies to protect the town from Michael’s crimes. While he already succeeded in spreading fear again, his goal will come across some big obstacles as the residents of Haddonfield join forces to stop him, and he will definitely not be pleased about it.
- Michael’s reason to kill being simply because he wants people to fear him makes him a scary and dangerous character again, as he could kill pretty much anyone, though he now has a special mission as there are three women who escaped, and this makes his journey (and Laurie’s) more interesting.
- Next: Halloween Theory: Dr.
Loomis MADE Michael Myers Into A Killer
Why does Michael Myers hate his sister?
Why did Michael Myers kill his sister? –
- Michael’s story starts on Halloween in 1968 when he is six-years-old and his sister Judith is babysitting him.
- Rather than taking him trick or treating, or even looking after him, Judith chooses to have sex with her boyfriend.
- After the boyfriend leaves, we see Michael, armed with a huge kitchen knife, go up to his sister’s room and stab her to death.
- His motive for murder could follow slasher movie logic – in which the killer is often motivated by a combination of neglect and jealousy.
2 Michael was just six-years-old when he committed the murder Michael was supposed to be being looked after by his sister who was babysitting him – but instead she went off to have sex. This leads to the theory that Judith choosing her boyfriend over him, saw Michael react by killing her.
Why is Michael Myers evil?
Goals and Motivations – While it is widely accepted that Michael Myers’s ultimate goal is to kill his own family, due to multiple changes in canon and continuity, confirming his ultimate goals and motivations to murder is nearly impossible. According to his nemesis, Dr.
Samuel Loomis, the once-innocent boy just spontaneously committed murder apparently for no actual reason except that he is nothing more than pure evil. Indeed, almost none of his murders have ever led to anything remotely self-serving. However, despite his complete lack of reasoning, many of his actions exhibit distinct patterns and recurring traits, which may provide hints to understanding his psychopathy.
But most famously, his ultimate target appeared to be Laurie Strode, who was originally his last sister, making it his most widely assumed goal to kill his own family, Despite that, his choice of targeted relatives still appeared somewhat inconsistent.
- Right after murdering his sister Judith, he was discovered by his parents who made no attempt to kill him.
- This motive is completely absent in the 2018 timeline, in which Michael and Laurie are not related and Michael has no known living relatives.
- Characters in Halloween Kills speculate that Michael’s only desire is to go back to living in his childhood home, and that Laurie and her loved ones have been incidental targets on his way there.
In the “Thorn” timeline, Laurie died during Michael’s absence, leaving behind her daughter, Jamie Lloyd. As his niece and last surviving family member, murdering Jamie became his next goal. It is revealed that Michael’s reason for targeting his own family, as well as the source of his supernatural strength, was a curse placed on him by the Thorn Cult,
The curse of Thorn tasks the bearer to sacrifice his/her own family on Halloween night to spare the community from death and natural disasters. Michael is the latest bearer of the curse, with his niece his next sacrifice. It should be noted the curse is explicit only in the “Producers Cut” where Michael is depicted as a supernaturally bound slave to the cult and curse.
In the theatrical cut, the curse is a theory never fully explored with Michael being driven by rage, and even Terrance Wynn describing him as pure evil. However, in the separate “H2O” timeline, Michael’s target is still his sister, Laurie Strode. He pursued her until he finally killed her, apparently completing his life mission.
Why doesn t Michael Myers talk?
Quite simply, he chooses not to. Dr. Loomis is quoted in the series as saying that Michael can talk, but simply doesn’t. There’s no known damages to his mouth, tongue, or vocal cords.
Is Michael Myers Based on a true story?
Michael Myers | |
---|---|
Halloween character | |
Michael Myers in Halloween (2018), portrayed by James Jude Courtney | |
First appearance | Halloween (1978) |
Last appearance | Halloween Ends (2022) |
Created by | John Carpenter |
Portrayed by |
|
In-universe information | |
Classification | Mass murderer |
Signature weapon | Chef’s knife |
Location | Haddonfield, Illinois |
Michael Myers is a fictional character from the Halloween series of slasher films, He first appears in John Carpenter ‘s Halloween (1978) as a young boy who murders his elder sister, Judith Myers, Fifteen years later, he returns home to Haddonfield, Illinois, to murder more teenagers.
In the original Halloween, the adult Michael Myers, referred to as The Shape in the closing credits, was portrayed by Nick Castle for most of the film and substituted by Tony Moran in the final scene where Michael’s face is revealed. The character was created by John Carpenter and has been featured in twelve films, as well as novels, video games, and comic books.
The character is the primary antagonist in all the franchise’s films with the exception of Halloween III: Season of the Witch, which is a standalone film, disconnected from the continuity of the other films. Since Castle and Moran put on the mask in the original film, six people have stepped into the same role.
Castle, George P. Wilbur, Tyler Mane, and James Jude Courtney are the only actors to have portrayed Michael Myers more than once, with Mane and Courtney being the only actors to do so in consecutive films. Michael Myers is characterized as pure evil, both directly in the films, by the filmmakers who created and developed the character over nine films, and by random participants in a survey.
In the first two films, Michael wears a Captain Kirk mask that is painted white. The mask, which was made from a cast of William Shatner ‘s face, was originally used in the 1975 horror film The Devil’s Rain,
Why did Michael Myers hide for 4 years?
How Michael Myers’ Sewer Survival Links To Laurie’s “Transcend” Line – Following the events of Halloween Kills, Michael Myers has taken to the sewers, With his house demolished and paranoia spreading through Haddonfield, he stayed away from the public, biding his time. It is said that there have been disappearances over the past four years, with the revelation by a homeless man that Michael is the reason.
Is Michael Myers asexual?
It’s arguable that Myers isn’t an asexual figure at all, but a man whose stormy, destructive sexuality is what drives him to kill. That Myers’ entire identity, down to his masked face and sadistic touch, feels like it’s born from an obsession with sex and a fear of it.
How many people has Michael Myers killed?
Michael Myers Kill Count: 159 – Michael Myers is one of our favorites here at Terror 29 and we are pleased to announce that he is second in line for the deadliest slasher! Michael racks up 159 kills over 12 films and will be adding more kills to the list later this year.
Does Michael Myers get stronger when he kills?
Warning: Spoilers for Halloween EndsMichael Myers’ ability to survive in the time leading into Halloween Ends lends credit to Laurie Strode’s theory about him. While Halloween Ends doesn’t dive into Michael’s backstory, it does hint at his almost supernatural ability to survive seemingly fatal attacks.
In Halloween Kills, Laurie states that Michael seems to transcend with every kill. Her statement seemed to be symbolic in nature, but the last entry in the trilogy shows it might be literal. When Michael stabs Doug after the cop is lured into the sewers by Corey Cunningham, he seems to be recharging after every stab.
At the beginning of the film, Michael is weak. As the film progresses, and he kills more people, he becomes stronger. If he can genuinely transcend after every kill, this would explain how he has survived after being jumped and attacked by various citizens of Haddonfield in the previous films.
10/18/2022by Anthony Jones ScreenRant.com
What is Michael Myers secret?
Why Halloween’s Michael Myers Kills – Michael Myers’ story has changed in each retcon and timeline, and with that the reasons for him to kill and target Laurie Strode. In the original timeline, Halloween II revealed Laurie was actually Michael’s younger sister, who was adopted by the Strode family at some point after Michael murdered Judith.
- Michael’s motive, then, was simply to kill his other sister as well.
- Laurie died between the events of Halloween II and Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, so Michael targeted her daughter, Jamie Lloyd, until the beginning of Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, where he killed her.
- In that same movie, a different reason for Michael’s evil and killing sprees was given: Michael was afflicted with an ancient Druid curse that drove him to kill, especially those related to him, and the Cult of Thorn was also responsible for his supernatural “abilities”.
The Halloween H20: 20 Years Later timeline brought Laurie back and ignored all movies that followed Halloween II, so Michael’s motive to kill was, once more, that Laurie was his sister. It’s important to remember that Dr. Loomis, after many studies, concluded that Michael Myers is the incarnation of evil, but that alone wasn’t enough reason for the writers, and all these explanations and changes only hurt the character and the franchise.
Who is stronger than Michael Myers?
Michael Myers Is Nearly Immortal on Halloween Night – When Michael Myers first appeared, he was nothing more than a shape who wanted to return to his childhood home and kill as many people as he could in the town of Haddonfield, Illinois. However, as his story continued, more layers were peeled back. Halloween II establishes that Michael can withstand multiple gunshot wounds, while the fourth, fifth and sixth entries explain that he is tied to the Cult of Thorn, which marked him by a curse that forces him to kill his entire bloodline on Halloween night.
To achieve his goal, the curse grants him strength, near invulnerability and high levels of endurance, which allow him to use any object as a deadly weapon. and the rest of his bloodline offers many perks, such as turning him into a machine that never stops and shows no mercy. But he can also take immeasurable amounts of damage, including being shot, burned and stabbed.
However, due to the curse, Michael isn’t entirely in control of his own free will. He is a one-track-minded person, and while that’s great for someone who isn’t in his sights, it places him at a disadvantage when facing someone like Jason. In his early appearances, Jason Voorhees demonstrated immense strength and durability when taking extensive injuries. However, he was still human in the earlier films, and as a result, he died at the end of Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, But by Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, the masked killer returns as an immortal revenant with a host of enhanced abilities.
Now, even though Jason’s body is in a constant state of decay, he still has superhuman strength and enough endurance to keep up with his victims in the sprawling forest next to Camp Crystal Lake. Over, he has mastered turning anything from a harpoon gun to his bare hands into deadly weapons and is motivated to honor his dead mother by killing teenagers.
While Jason has abilities that make him stand out among his contemporaries, later films have shown he has a weakness to water, and he is also susceptible to forms of trauma. However, because he is undead, he often shugs these weaknesses off. The only real threat he faces is water because, even though he can overcome his own fear, he still can’t swim. While Michael has proven time and again that he can survive nearly anything, he doesn’t stand a chance against Jason. Jason’s immense strength and ability to keep killing no matter the circumstances show that he can withstand a full-on assault from Michael.
Considering his one weakness depends on location, he also has a greater chance of coming out on top. That being said, Michael would make for a difficult challenge for Jason because they’re both immensely strong and creative. But due to Michael being so focused on killing his bloodline, he may not devote the attention necessary to defeat Jason.
Ultimately, Jason’s persistence and ability to make his own decisions make him the winner in this battle, assuming, : Michael Myers vs. Jason Voorhees: Which Slasher Would Win?
Is Michael Myers based off a real story?
Halloween Movie’s Michael Myers Was Based on True Story According to Director Michael Myers has been terrifying teen babysitters since the first Halloween film debuted in 1978. The masked killer stalks and knifes (and strangles, and drowns, and hangs and beats to death) residents of the fictional town of Haddonfield, Illinois, especially targeting high school students.
- This month, the iconic character returns to the big screen in Halloween, a direct sequel to the original film of the same name and the eleventh installment in the Halloween franchise.
- This content is imported from poll.
- You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.
Myers has become one of the most recognizable masked killers in horror history, alongside villains like Ghostface in Scream, who was real-life serial killer the “Gainesville Ripper,” and Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, who was the “Butcher of Plainfield.” But is Myers’s character similarly rooted in reality? This content is imported from youTube. The original film’s director and co-writer John Carpenter (who also co-wrote 1981’s Halloween II with his writing and producing partner Debra Hill) says a creepy encounter he had while attending Western Kentucky University served as inspiration for the fictional serial killer.
- I had a class—psychology or something—and we visited a mental institution,” he says in A Cut Above the Rest, included on the Divimax DVD from 2003.
- We visited the most serious, mentally ill patients.
- And there was this kid, he must have been 12 or 13 and he literally had this look.” The look, says Carpenter, is best described by the lines he gave to Donald Pleasence, who played Myers’s psychiatrist Dr.
Sam Loomis in Halloween and four of its sequels, to describe Myers in the first film, below: “This blank, pale emotionless face. Blackest eyes. The devil’s eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him and then another seven trying to keep him locked up, because I realized what was living behind that boys’ eyes was purely and simply evil.” This content is imported from youTube. When Carpenter was approached by film producer Irwin Yablans with the idea to create a horror movie set on Halloween night “about babysitters stalked by this psychotic killer,” he thought back to the boy at the institution with the “real evil stare,” Carpenter says in A Cut Above the Rest, John Carpenter on the set of Halloween, Sunset Boulevard // Getty Images Multiple Halloween fan claim Myers could also, in part, be based on Stanley Stiers, who went on a killing spree in Iowa in the 1920s, even murdering his entire family on Halloween.
But Esquire.com finds no evidence that Stiers actually existed. Carpenter makes no mention of Stiers in In A Cut Above the Rest, He credits Yul Brynner’s portrayal as a “killer robot that couldn’t be killed” in the original 1973 Westworld film as additional inspiration for raising Michael Myers from just a character “to a mythic status.” “Make him human, yes, but almost like a force.that will never stop.
That can’t be denied,” Carpenter says in A Cut Above the Rest, Carpenter says he and Yablans fleshed out the character over tuna fish sandwiches one day. They chose the name “Michael Myers” in honor of the European distributor of Carpenter’s previous film, Assault on Precinct 13. Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween Compass International Pictures Myers is portrayed by Nick Castle for most of the film, with Tony Moran and Tommy Lee Wallace taking over in some of the final scenes. The film went on to gross $47,000,000 at the U.S. box office (today, takings are estimated to be over $150 million, per ) and spawned a 10-film franchise.
The 11th installment, directed by David Gordon Green and co-written by Eastbound and Down star Danny McBride, will hit theaters on October 19. The new film sees Curtis reprising her role as Laurie Strode, and it is a direct sequel to the original movie, bypassing the several sequels (including the three in which Curtis starred: 1981’s Halloween II, 1998’s Halloween: H20, and 2002’s Halloween: Resurrection ).
This content is imported from youTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. Carpenter has never revealed additional information on the boy he encountered in Kentucky all those years ago, but it didn’t matter for the infamous character he inspired. “Michael Myers hasn’t evolved as a character in any way, shape or form ; he’s the essence of evil,” David Gordon Green told the,
“He has no character. He has no personality. He has no interests. He never has. He’s someone that is moving forward and reacting to the world around him, but not with any sort of conscious objective. And how the world around him reacts to his behavior is where our story comes to life.” Senior Editor Rose is a Senior Editor at ELLE overseeing features and projects about women’s issues.
She is an accomplished and compassionate storyteller and editor who excels in obtaining exclusive interviews and unearthing compelling features. : Halloween Movie’s Michael Myers Was Based on True Story According to Director
How did Michael Myers become evil?
Michael Myers In The Original Halloween Movies – The original Halloween timeline contains the most overtly supernatural explanation for Myers’ powers. As revealed in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, a group of druids belonging to Halloween ‘s Cult of Thorn placed a curse on Michael when he was an infant.
- This curse causes him to be possessed by Thorn, a demonic force that requires its host to sacrifice their family on Samhain (now known as Halloween night).
- Thorn also bestows supernatural gifts on its host, which was offered up as the explanation for Michael Myers surviving so many injuries that should have been fatal.
In this version of the Halloween timeline, Laurie Strode is Michael’s sister, and, therefore, he is driven to kill her on Halloween night in order to complete his sacrifice to the sinister entity, Thorn. Is Michael Myers immortal? In the original timeline, Halloween ‘s boogeyman is as immortal as Thorn’s supernatural gifts will allow.
- Despite an ambitious scope that attempts to inject some much-needed lore into the Halloween franchise, The Curse of Michael Myers — the only movie without Dr.
- Loomis and Michael sharing a scene — committed the cardinal sin of over-explaining its monster.
- Indeed, it is Michael Myers’ immortal nature, despite ostensibly existing in a world without magic, that makes him so terrifying.
Another wrinkle here is that he cannot be reasoned nor bargained with, and seems to have no real motivation for slaughtering people, meaning he kills indiscriminately like a manifestation of death itself. By taking away Halloween ‘s inherent mystery and replacing it with a druid curse, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers makes Michael seem considerably less frightening but also more confusing at the same time.
Is the movie about Michael Myers based on a true story?
For true stories of Halloween horror, watch “Homicide for the Holidays,” which has new episodes airing Friday, October 7 and October 14 at 9/8c on Oxygen. Since the first the “Halloween” film debuted in 1978, its impact on the horror genre has been undeniable.
John Carpenter’s classic slasher flick permanently ingrained Michael Myers’ mask and its pale, emotionless expression in our minds while simultaneously introducing America to a budding star in the form of Jamie Lee Curtis. Now, almost exactly 40 years later, Curtis will reprise the role of the tenacious Laurie Strode in the latest chapter of the franchise — a direct sequel to the 1978 original.
While the original “Halloween” was undeniably influential, its central themes — for which the film is often credited with popularizing within the slasher genre — actually precede Carpenter’s film. The image of a nanny stalked by a vicious escaped mental patient has haunted the American imagination since the mid-20th century.
- The urban legend of “the babysitter and the man upstairs” began spreading in the 1960’s, according to a Snopes investigation,
- The story generally goes that a young girl hired to watch the children for a middle-class suburban family received repeated phone calls from an unknown source pleading her to check on the sleeping kids.
Eventually, after the alerting the police, she is informed that the call is coming from inside the house, prompting her to run into the arms of law enforcement that at the last second save her from the vicious killer, who had snuck in through a window and killed her wards.
In some versions of the tale, the butcher knife-wielding killer had recently escaped from an unspecified mental hospital or sanitorium. This folkloric account is referred to almost directly in several horror films, including “When A Stranger Calls” (1979) and “Urban Legend” (1998). The 1974 film “Black Christmas” (often cited as one of the earliest examples of a slasher film) may also have served as inspiration for “Halloween,” and similarly derives its story from the legend.
Aside from the tropes it inspired and absorbed, true crime stories also influenced the legend of Michael Myers. The “babysitter and the man upstairs” may have been fabricated out of longstanding cultural fears about vulnerable young women, motherhood and the dangers of telecommunication, but the myth resembles and has been connected to the case of Janett Christman.
In March of 1950, 13-year-old Christman was hired to babysit 3-year-old Gregory Romack at his home in Columbia, Missouri. At 10:35 p.m., police received a call from someone screaming, urging them to “Come quick!” but could not obtain any more information from the girl on the other end of the line before the connection dropped, nor could the call be traced, according to The Columbia Tribune, a Columbia, Missouri-based news organization.
When the Romack parents returned home, they found their doors unlocked and Christman dead in a pool of blood. Investigation into the killing showed that Christman had resisted her assailant, who had raped her before strangling her to death. The case of Christman was never solved.
The primary suspect, Robert Mueller (no relation to the current head of the Special Counsel investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia), never faced any charges due to lack of evidence. Mueller’s noted sexual advances towards Christman before her death had piqued the interests of police, but his testimony while being administered a polygraph test suggested he was not involved in the crime.
He later sued the police department for holding him illegally, according to court documents, The tale of Christman bears little resemblance to the fictional Laurie Strode, who famously survived her attack from a nightmarish masked assailant. Still, the lore spawned from the case seems to have influenced Carpenter, especially in a key scene in the original film in which Strode mistakes a muffled call from a friend as a potentially obscene or threatening gesture.
- Another key aspect of Myers’ mythology is his unrivaled ability to bust out of psychiatric facilities: In the upcoming 2018 installment, directed by David Gordon Green, Myers once again flees from confinement to hunt Strode.
- Stories of murderous psychopaths slipping past sanitarium security also haunt the collective American psyche, but one particular instance stands out amongst the many.
The case of Andre Rand, discussed extensively in the 2009 documentary ” Cropsey,” also generated urban legends that bears resemblance to the Michael Myers mythos. Rand, a convicted serial kidnapper also known by the alias Frank Rushan (and, possibly, Andre Rashan, according to some sources ), committed his first known crimes in 1969 when he was caught right before sexually assaulting a 9-year-old girl, according to a 1987 report by The New York Times,
In 1983, Rand kidnapped a busload of children and took them to a local White Castle without the consent of their parents, for which he was confined for ten months. Five years later in 1988, Rand would be found guilty for the kidnapping (but not murder) of 12-year-old Jennifer Schweiger, a girl with Down’s Syndrome whose body was discovered near the grounds of the Willowbrook State Mental Facility, a treatment center that had fallen into disgrace after an exposé by Geraldo Rivera revealed several human rights abuses.
Rushan has since been linked to several other unsolved cases concerning missing children, and in 2004 was convicted for the kidnapping of Holly Ann Hughes, whose body was never found, 23 years earlier, according to The New York Daily News, Eventually, Rushan’s alleged crimes morphed into the stuff of urban legend.
“Cropsey” explores how through word-of-mouth, he transformed into a hook-wielding mass murderer who sacrificed kids to Satan within the imaginations of local Staten Island children. And although Rushan never in fact escaped his confinement, his linkage of his crimes to local mental health facilities and his connection to various unsolved cases has turned him into a figure of mythic proportion in New York, with many still blaming the disappearances of children on (a distorted version of) him, despite the fact he’s currently incarcerated.
The Myers character was invented as Cropsey’s legend started to take form. Like Cropsey, Myers also became imbued with supernatural qualities over the course of his 11-film journey, in which he is depicted as possessing demonic strength and is able to survive gunshot wounds and other lethal attacks.
In “Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers” (1995), Michael’s unearthly abilities are even explained as the result of an ancient Druidic curse connected to the holiday of Samhain, the pagan version of Halloween. Meanwhile, several other real life stories of escaped dangerous mental patients may have fueled rumors about Rushan, and perhaps inspired the continuation of Myers’ tale.
In 1983, for example, two dangerous patients escaped from a psychiatric facility on Wards Island in New York, according to The New York Times, More recently, in 2017, a man described as a “violent psychopath” escaped from a psychiatric in Hawaii and was quickly re-apprehended, according to USA Today,
- To say that any of the “Halloween” films are inspired by one or several true crimes, then, might be a bit of a stretch.
- But the genius of Carpenter’s character is that Myers draws on several legends, which, themselves, are only tenuously linked to actual events.
- As with Myers’ infamously faceless white mask, the real terror of “Halloween” is not the killer himself, but the fears we project onto him.
The extent to which those fears are based in any kind of reality is truly up to the viewers. For true stories of Halloween horror, watch “Homicide for the Holidays,” which has new episodes airing Friday, October 7 and October 14 at 9/8c on Oxygen.
Is Laurie really Michael Myers sister?
“I’ve been trick-or-treated to death tonight” With any long-standing franchise there are bound to be aspects that fans can’t agree on, and when it comes to Halloween, that aspect is a short scene in the 1981 sequel. Halloween II follows two prominent storylines — that of Dr. Loomis searching for Michael and that of Laurie at Haddonfield Memorial Hospital.
It’s towards the end of the film, in a scene with Loomis and his colleague Marion Chambers, that the divisive twist is revealed: Laurie Strode is Michael Myers’ sister. The moment those words were spoken, the franchise was changed forever. The following sequels would go on to further that plot point, creating convoluted storylines and excessive lore, until it was entirely retconned in David Gordon Green ‘s 2018 film.
But was such a thing really necessary? Some argue that the storyline diminished Michael’s villainous character and turned the franchise down a path that destroyed the carefully crafted story John Carpenter began with. However, it’s not all bad. I argue that the addition only made him scarier, and the absence of it in the 2018 timeline feels jarring and empty.