Why Halloween's Michael Myers Still Endures After 40 Years

This year marks the 40th anniversary of John Carpenter and Debra Hill's Halloween franchise featuring iconic masked killer Michael Myers and definitive scream queen Laurie Strode, most famously portrayed by Jamie Lee Curtis. Effectively launching the slasher movie subgenre into the American mainstream, the film series celebrates its anniversary with the release of its eleventh installment this year. Despite films of vastly varying degrees of quality and lengthy hiatuses between entries, the horror series continues to endure and thrill audiences with its cinematic bloodletting and its effectiveness ultimately falls on the presentation of Michael Myers in each film.

The Shape, as Myers is also commonly referred to, was originally inspired by a visit Carpenter made to a psychiatric ward as a college student. As Carpenter studied the various patients, he noticed a child with an emotionless expression and black eyes, believing the adolescent to be simply and purely evil. Years later, Carpenter and co-writer Hill used this experience to create Myers. The villain begins as a juvenile killer, murdering his older sister and her boyfriend on Halloween while wearing a clown mask before being confined to Smith's Grove Sanitarium under the supervision of Dr. Sam Loomis in the original 1978 film's prologue.

Echoing Carpenter's collegiate experience and sentiments, Loomis warns the authorities upon Myers' escape 15 years later that the young man is evil incarnate and liable to murder once again now free of the sanitarium. In the original film, Myers has no familial connection to teenage babysitter Laurie Strode, simply choosing her and her friends as his next victims in an act of spontaneous cruelty upon his return to his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois. And that's what sets The Shape apart from other slasher legends, including Friday the 13th's Jason Voorhees and A Nightmare on Elm Street's Freddy Krueger.

Jason and Freddy are both driven by a sense of undead revenge, risen from the grave to kill those somehow linked, however tangentially, to their respective untimely ends. Texas Chainsaw Massacre's Leatherface kills both to as a means of twisted nutrition for his family and for perceived trespasses on his family's property. Michael Myers, at least in his initial and latest incarnation, simply killed anyone and everyone because he could; death incarnate behind a cheap William Shatner mask.

Despite its cliffhanger ending, Carpenter and Hill never planned to create a sequel to the original Halloween, but the runaway success upon its release made a follow-up a foregone conclusion. Struggling to come up with a plot twist and give the sequel additional room to breathe rather than just rehash the first film, Carpenter and Hill decided to reveal that Laurie Michael is Myers' long-lost sister. Carpenter himself would regret the plot point, it would inform the franchise for decades and retcon The Shape as less a random serial killer and more someone obsessed with stalking those connected to his family.

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='Halloween%27s%20Sequels%20Went%20Further%20and%20Further%20Astray']

Taking place moments after the conclusion of the 1978 original film, 1981's Halloween II saw The Shape follow Laurie to a hospital to resume his hunt, killing everyone in his path. In the interim since the franchise's debut and the sequel's arrival, a wave of slasher films playing up jump scares and gore had hit cinemas, so Carpenter oversaw reshoots without new director Rick Rosenthal to increase both rather than rely on the tension-fueled pacing of the first film.

In comparison to most of its slasher contemporaries, Halloween II still stands clearly above them despite being considerably weaker than its predecessor. The Shape is still as relentless as ever and Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasence don't miss a beat reprising their respective roles even if the sequel comes off as derivative at times.

After 1983's Halloween III: Season of the Witch attempted to change up the franchise formula by featuring an original story completely unrelated to the previous two films, it was decided that the entire series would forever be associated with Michael Myers and depended on the masked slasher if it hoped to survive. 1988's Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers saw its titular killer revived ten years after the events of Halloween II after learning Laurie had a daughter of her own named Jamie Lloyd residing in Haddonfield.

Attempting to return to the tension-driven proceedings of the original while upping the scale, Halloween 4 downplayed the supernatural references briefly introduced in Halloween II while presenting Myers as an almost Terminator-like figure, singlehandedly wiping out an entire police station similar to Schwarzenegger's iconic character. With an even younger target being stalked, director Dwight H. Little leaned more into Myers' familial motivations with his connection to Jamie and set up the young girl to follow in her uncle's murderous footsteps in the film's climactic ending.

Released at a time when the slasher subgenre it had inspired was beginning to decline, Halloween 4 was a surprise success. In response, the producers opted to abandon Jamie Lloyd becoming a new villain and continue having her as Myers' single-minded target. Whereas previous entries only cited the supernatural and The Shape's connection to ancient Celtic practices, 1989's Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers leaned more into Myers being linked to a mysterious cult as he resumed his hunt for Jamie.

Page 3: [valnet-url-page page=3 paginated=0 text='The%20Halloween%20Franchise%27s%20Death%20-%20And%20Unexpected%20Rebirth']

Due to disappointing box office totals and legal issues, the franchise was shelved for six years before returning with its sixth installment, 1995's Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. Offering an origin of sorts of the Cult of Thorn introduced in Halloween 5 and an added backstory to Myers himself, the film reveals the cult targeted Myers using Celtic runes to drive him to kill his entire life, with a particular motive to kill family members to ensure his own immortality.

Even a young Paul Rudd, in his first leading role as a teenager caring for Jamie's baby, was unable to save The Curse of Michael Myers. Lacking suspense and adding a convoluted storyline put off audiences and the franchise always suffers when The Shape is given additional backstory instead of being presented as a mysterious absolute.

Rather than continue the story, a soft reboot followed with 1998's Halloween H20: 20 Years Later ignoring all but the first two films. Celebrating the franchise's 20th anniversary, the seventh entry saw the return of Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode who once again faces her homicidal long-lost brother after attempting to build a normal life in California. While a vast improvement over the majority of the sequels, H20 largely feels uninspired though the restored focus between Myers and Laurie is a welcome one.

A 2002 sequel Halloween: Resurrection began with The Shape finally killing Laurie in the prologue and turn his attention to a new crop of victims before ultimately being bested by Busta Rhymes in a burning garage. With Resurrection earning some of the worst critical response in franchise history, it was decided to reboot the entire franchise with Rob Zombie, fresh off the success of writing and directing The Devil's Rejects, chosen for the task.

Zombie opted to not only reimagine and modernize the events of the 1978 original film but also explore previously unseen territory by delving into Myers' childhood, both immediately before and after the murder of his sister Judith and her boyfriend. The 2007 remake reaffirms Laurie as Myers' baby sister, while making the adult incarnation of The Shape the most physically imposing he had ever been before. The film also depicted the violence meted out by Micheal as more grounded and brutal.

The highest-earning entry in the franchise without adjusting for inflation, Zombie was given greater creative control in helming a direct sequel in 2009. More surreal than its predecessor, Zombie was more interested in focusing on the psychological trauma inflicted on Laurie over the course of the first film and Laurie's own sinister potential given her familial connection to The Shape. Audiences and critics alike regarded Zombie's follow-up as sillier, meaner, and stranger than its predecessor with the film only being a modest success at the box office.

Michael Myers in Rob Zombie's Halloween 2

Now, 40 years since its debut, Halloween is poised to return to cinemas completely ignoring the events of all the sequels and reboots leaving only the original 1978 film as canon. In doing so, it restores the focus to Laurie Strode and Michal Myers while removing the familial link between the two. The Shape is once more the random, relentless killer he was when he first burst on the scene four decades ago which makes him all the more unpredictable and terrifying; an unstoppable force of nature. The iconic killer, and franchise overall, thrives when it's presented as an absolute without the unnecessary motivations and convoluted backstories.

Welcome back, Michael. And Happy Halloween.

Debuting on October 19, the latest Halloween is directed by David Gordon Green from a script written with Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley. The film stars Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, and Andi Matichak with Nick Castle and James Jude Courtney sharing the role of masked killer Michael Myers. The film is executive produced and scored by original filmmaker John Carpenter.