The Halloween franchise is currently going through a reboot trilogy that, at first, fixed some of the mistakes of previous movies, but the most recent one, Halloween Kills, repeated one by making Michael Myers supernatural again. The horror genre has seen many franchises, and the 1980s was the beginning of many, including the Halloween one. It all began in 1978 with John Carpenter’s Halloween, which wasn’t well-received when it was released but has benefitted from the passage of time. Halloween is now regarded as one of the most influential horror movies ever, and the franchise is still alive thanks to its many retcons.
At the core of the Halloween franchise is the story of Michael Myers, and it all began on Halloween night 1963. Michael, then six years old, stabbed his sister to death that night, and as a result, he was sent to Smith’s Grove Sanitarium. Michael never spoke a word after that night, and became Dr. Sam Loomis’ (Donald Pleasence) patient, who simply concluded that Michael was “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. Laurie became the only survivor of Michael’s killing spree, and so their story continued in a series of sequels, but not all of them have been part of the same timeline.
The Halloween franchise has gone through various retcons, with Laurie dying and coming back, her daughter Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris) taking her place, and Michael’s motivations for killing also changing. Through all movies, Michael Myers has always seemed to be invincible, and different reasons have been given for that, but the one that fans have criticized the most is Michael being supernatural. Now, the current reboot timeline is a direct continuation to Carpenter’s first movie and ignores all sequels that came after it, meaning that Michael and Laurie are not siblings, Jamie Lloyd doesn’t exist (nor does John Tate, from the Halloween H20 timeline), and Laurie is still alive. David Gordon Green’s Halloween fixed some of the franchise’s past mistakes, but with Halloween Kills, they returned to one of its biggest mistakes: making Michael Myers a supernatural being.
Carpenter’s Halloween only established the basis for Michael Myers’ story by showing him murdering his sister and then his escape and murder spree 15 years later. However, Michael’s motivations weren’t revealed, as Dr. Loomis and others couldn’t get him to say a word and could never get to the depths of Michael’s mind, but after some time, Loomis concluded that his patient was evil. Halloween presented Michael as “the boogeyman” (and even credited him as “The Shape”), and as such, it made sense that at the end, after Loomis shot him multiple times and he fell off the balcony, he simply disappeared.
When Halloween II arrived in 1981, it planted the first ideas of Michael Myers being supernatural, for some reason. Michael famously survived the fire at the end of Halloween II and before that, he was left completely blind when Laurie shot him in both eyes, yet he returned alive and well in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. With Laurie now dead, Michael went after her daughter, Jamie Lloyd, and he continued to survive being shot and more. At the end of Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, more clues about something supernatural going on with Michael were added with the presence of the mysterious “Man in Black”, and it wasn’t until Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers that him being supernatural was confirmed. Halloween 6 introduced the Cult of Thorn and the curse that haunts the Myers family and drives Michael to kill (especially those related to him), and the cult was behind his supernatural “abilities”.
The Halloween franchise went through a retcon in 1998 with Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, in which Laurie didn’t die and instead faked her death and moved to California, where she had been living under a new identity. Michael eventually tracked her down and went on a new killing spree, and in the end, Laurie supposedly killed him by decapitating him. Now, as Halloween H20 ignored all movies after Halloween II, Michael Myers wasn’t supernatural in this timeline, and his return in Halloween Resurrection four years later was justified by Laurie decapitating a paramedic whom Michael attacked and swapped clothes with. At the end of Halloween: Resurrection, Michael was killed after Freddie Harris (Busta Rhymes) electrocuted him and then left him to burn, but when the coroner prepared to examine his body at the morgue, he suddenly awoke. Resurrection was the final movie in that timeline, so whether Michael Myers was also supernatural or just a very lucky individual is unknown.
After two remakes by Rob Zombie, the Halloween franchise came back to life in 2018 with the first entry in a reboot trilogy. Simply titled Halloween, the movie ignores all movies after Carpenter’s original, and through that, it fixed some of the franchise’s biggest mistakes, such as Michael and Laurie being siblings, which in this timeline was addressed as a rumor. This erased any motivation Michael might have had to specifically target Laurie, which made him more terrifying, and there were no hints at him being supernatural in any way. After spending decades locked up, Michael’s methods became more brutal and he didn’t seem to have a reason to go after Laurie – and he only found her because Dr. Sartain led him to her. At the end of Halloween, Michael was trapped in the basement of Laurie’s house and set on fire, but once again, that wasn’t the end of “the boogeyman”.
Halloween Kills showed how Michael escaped from the fire with the help of firefighters (who he later killed), and his murder spree continued. Laurie’s daughter, Karen (Judy Greer), took Michael’s mask off and lured him into a trap by the mob led by Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall). Michael was shot, beaten, and stabbed by the angry residents of Haddonfield and left unconscious on the floor, seemingly dead, but a voiceover by Laurie explained that she thought Michael was flesh and blood, but no mortal man could have survived everything he had gone through. Laurie added that the more Michael kills, the more he transcends “into something else, impossible to defeat”, the true curse of Michael is the fear he has spread in Haddonfield, and that he can’t be defeated with brute force. As she finished her discourse, Michael got up and killed those around him, including Leigh Brackett (Charles Cyphers) and Tommy Doyle, proving what Laurie had just said about no mortal man being able to survive all he went through. Of course, the details on Michael Myers’ new supernatural abilities are unknown, and that should be addressed in Halloween Ends.
Unlike other slashers who are also supernatural, such as Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees, there’s no logic in Michael Myers also being a supernatural individual (for example, Krueger haunts his victims in dreams and Voorhees died years ago and returned after his mother was killed). Michael Myers isn’t an identity either, as is the case of Scream’s Ghostface, whose killers can die but others can continue by wearing the costume. It’s understandable, then, that the Halloween franchise has tried to find ways to justify the many comebacks of Michael Myers, but the reasons so far have hurt his story and made him a less threatening killer. The Cult of Thorn storyline made no sense, and the way Laurie explained how Michael “transcends” with every kill points at Halloween Ends preparing an unsatisfying explanation on Michael’s “immortality”. Laurie’s explanation also implies that there’s no way to defeat Michael as he might not have a weakness (after all, he has been shot, beaten, stabbed, burned, is blind on one eye, and lost a couple of fingers), so in theory, there’s no way she, Allyson, or anyone else can win this fight.
This takes away the danger and fear that Carpenter’s original movie planted through Michael Myers and makes the story less interesting, as it’s yet another supernatural slasher who can’t be defeated. It doesn’t help that the Halloween franchise doesn’t have the best record when it comes to explaining why Michael Myers kills and is so hard to defeat, and it will be very hard for the writers to come up with an explanation that makes sense and doesn’t turn Michael into a joke. Michael Myers being supernatural was one of the biggest mistakes that the reboot trilogy had to avoid, but they ultimately fell into the trap.
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