To bring us out of Halloween I thought I would do a daring deed and take on Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger in a no holds bared face off (literally) where I have watched the entire back catalogue of their films to determine once and for all who is champion slasher, Part 1 was on Jason, Part 2 is Michael Myers.
The three killers have haunted us through our childhoods with each horror legend bringing us movies which have completely terrified and equally bemused us with poor sequels and terrible plots
Beware pictures of blood and gore to follow.
Michael Myers is very similar to Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger in that nothing seems to kill him, but the big difference is that Michael Myers is the only non-supernatural monster out of the three, he is a killing machine that has been shot numerous times, blown up in fire, stabbed and apparently beheaded but never outright killed.
First appearing in 1978 and going on to make nine films in total and killing around 95 victims he is the longest serving of the trio. But compared to the deaths i posted in part 1 of my Halloween Vs Me Blogs, Michael’s Myers kills are no where near as “fun” as the Jason Voorhees ones but vital in showing the kind of killer he was.
The first film called Halloween was released in 1978 and directed by the incredible John Carpenter and was originally called The Baby Sitter Murders but was renamed after the producer Irwin Yablans suggested it get released on Halloween night and called Halloween and so it became legend. Made on a budget of just $325,000 going on to make $47 million, buying the scary William Shatner mask for just $1.98 and going on to be one of the scariest horror films ever made. All the original movies from 1-8 were joint produced by Moustapha Akkad but none ever reached the heights of the original.
The Halloween plot was simple, Michael Myers was shown killing his sister as a six year old in 1963 and later sentenced to Smith Grove-Warren County Sanitarium. 15 years later on the eve of Halloween, Michael escapes the sanitarium witnessed by his doctor Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance) and colleague Marion Chambers. The next day Loomis discusses the apparent ease of escape from the sanitarium with a Dr Wynn and then heads of to Haddonfield as he knows Michael will return home to kill.
On route to Haddonfield Michael kills some guy and takes his blue boiler suit, then in Haddonfield he gets his mask from a shop and finally a big old kitchen knife to create the look that will stick with him for the next 31 years of movies.
Michael then proceeds to stalk Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her friends appearing subtlely in the background and vanishing like magic, at this point Loomis is panicky telling the police that Michael is back but until the bodies start appearing the police dismiss him.
Michael kills Laurie’s friends in the house over the road that Laurie is babysitting in and she goes over after she receives a strange phonecall and finds her friends murdered and comes face to face with Michael getting slashed and falling down stairs.
She hobbles back to the house and after a tense moment where she cant get in with a walking Michael Myers coming to get her she gets in. Michael gets access to the house and Laurie first stabs him in the neck wih a knitting needle apparently killing him, but it didnt, she hides in the closet and he smashes through, she stabs him with a coat hanger in the eye the uses his knife to stab him which apparently kills him, the children run off screaming alerting Dr Loomis, Michael sits up and walks towards Laurie and tries to kill her but Loomis comes in, shoots Michael 6 times and sends Michael falling off the balcony to his death. The next time they look he has gone.
The film really succeeded due to it’s simple story, terrifying monster and the haunting Halloween tune.
Best Kill :- Bob, it has to be Bob. Michael bursts out a cupboard and lifts Bob by the throat and whilst he hangs in the air stabs the knife through him pinning him mid air against the wall. What makes it brilliant is not that he dangles but how Michael reacts to it staring at him in turning his head from side to side, it’s a very subtle glance into his mentality and utterly brilliant.
Halloween Part 2, Released in 1981 and set straight after the events of Halloween, the film was due to be the last Michael Myers based Halloween film and then it was set to go into a Halloween anthology with a new Halloween story released each year which started with Halloween 3, but more of that later.
Michael is still alive and loose, Loomis is in pursuit screaming that he shot Michael six time, he shot him in the heart and Laurie is heading to hospital. Michael heads to the hospital to finish off what he started.
It’s revealed in dreams and flashbacks that Laurie is adopted and that she is actually Michael’s sister, Michael arrives at the strangely empty hospital and kills all the hospital staff one by one and finally comes for Laurie who’s a bit drugged up.
Meanwhile Loomis and his posse head to a school where Michael broke in and scrawled the word Samhain in blood which means “Lord of the Dead, The End of Summer and October 31” it’s from here Loomis learns that Laurie is Michael’s sister from Marion Chambers (from Part 1) and so they head to the Hospital and face off where eventually Michael is shot in both eyes abd then finally blown up along with Loomis in a ball of flame
Best Kill:- Yeah, Michael myers is dead. Or is he?
Halloween Part 3: Season of the Witch 1982, As i mentioned before this was meant to be the start of a new and different Halloween story each year but due to the backlash from fans it was the only one to be made.
Although not a terrible film and quite a decent original story, I believe it was unwise to use the name Halloween without having Michael Myers starring after the success of the first two films. The basic plot of part 3 was of the sale of three Halloween masks by a company called Silver Shamrock Novelties and the suspicious murder of a patient of Dr Dan Challis who came in holding a Halloween mask claiming they will kill us all.
Dr Dan investigates and it takes him to Silver Shamrock HQ where he learns the Halloween masks all have a badge containing a tiny piece of stone Henge (that Silver Shamrock stole a pillar of!) which when worn and mixed with an annoying subliminal TV advert (that really grinds when you hear it for the 15th time during the film) the wearer dies and so do all around, the dead person then has bugs, worms and snakes come out of there head as is shockingly shown when a young kid is used as a guinea pig as proof to Dr Dan.
By now the craze of the masks has a meant there is one in every home and so the film climaxes with Dr Dan calling the TV studios telling them to remove the advert now playing it’s final killer song, they remove all but one and the song plays out with Dan Screaming and then presumably everyone dies, which is pretty dam cool. You have to love dark endings.
Best Kill:- Everyone who listens to the song dies probably due to the annoying tune, so it has to be the advert can you survive watching the advert? i certainly can’t.
Halloween Part 4: The Return of Michael Myers in 1988, after the omission of Myers in part 3 Michael comes back. It’s been ten years since Michael was blown up by his former doctor, Sam Loomis, at the end of part 2 and he has been in a coma ever since only a bit charred and not apparenty shot in both eyes.
Michael is being transferred back to Smith Grove Sanitarium and on route he is awoken from his coma by the news that his sister Laurie was killed in a car crash and that her daughter Jamie (Danielle Harris) is alive in Haddonfield and so Michael kills the ambulance crew and heads off to Haddonfield to finish off killing his family and anyone else in his way and of course the now burned/scarred and really over the top acted Dr Loomis follows suit to finish Michael “Evil on Two legs” Myers killing spree.
Jamie has nightmares of Michael but doesn’t know who he is and is bullied at school about not wearing Halloween costume so Jamie and her teenager step sister Rachel buy a Halloween costume which turns out to be the same clown costume as Michael wore when he killed his sister, now where is this story going?
Michael single handedly kills the entire police force at the police station, which leads to vigilanties hunting Myers, and he takes out Haddonfield’s electricity and follows Jamie. Loomis goes to Michael’s house and the town sheriff gets everyone barricaded in his house where Michael arrives killing all but Rachel and Jamie although Rachel is left unconscious and Jamie flee’s finding Loomis they head to the school with Michael in pursuit.
Blah blah blah Rachel saves the day after Loomis is thrown through a window and the two girls get picked up by the vigilantes, but wait Michael hitched a ride killing the guys, Rachel takes the wheel eventually throwing Michael clear then running him down, Jamie approaches Michael and takes his hand and as he reaches out to grab her the state police arrive to shoot the hell out of him and he falls down a mine shaft. Michael is dead, Horray!
But wait, Remember Jamie was wearing that clown costume and touched her uncles hand? well his evil soul has apparently passed to Jamie, she puts on her mask and stabs her mum with scissors recreating the scene from the first Halloween, Loomis being the crazed Psychiatrist he is pulls his gun to shoot her but is stopped just in time, phew, so now Jamie is the new evil right?
Best Kill:- The hero vigilante driver has his neck ripped open, don’t know why the girls are screaming, it’s not that scary!
Halloween Part 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers in 1989. Set one year after the ending of part 4 and starting with a recap showing Michael falling down the mine shaft and the police actually throwing some dynamite into the mine to really finish him off. But good old Michael climbs free just in time and crawls to a shack owned by a hermit where he lies in a comatose state for a full year until Halloween, what a body clock!
Michael returns to Haddonfield where Jamie, now a mute since the attack on her step mother and having some kind of telepathetic link to Michael sensing him kill a janitor that highlights a symbol on Michael’s wrist of a thorn and also the introduction of a mysterious character dressed in black that follows around Myer’s activities, Hmmmmm Plotting plotting plotting.
Michael kills more people, including Jamie’s step sister Rachel, that Jamie senses. This leads to more killings and Michael bored of walking drives around in a victims car chasing Jamie and her new heroine friend Tina through a forest where she finally sacrifices herself to save Jamie.
The raving lunatic Dr Loomis’s saves Jamie and plans to lure Michael back to his old home to kill Jamie and so off they go waiting for Michael to arrive.
Michael chases Jamie through the house in cat and mouse routine until finally cornered she calls him uncle which stops Michael and she asks to see his face and as he does he sheds a single tear and as Jamie reaches to wipe it away (Oscar nomination stuff) Jason freaks out and chases her where Loomis uses Jamie as bait to catch Michael in a chain net, shoots him with tranquilizer gun and then beats him with a wooden plank. Michael is taken to prison.
As Jamie sits in the police car outside the station an explosion occurs and Jamie enters the station to find everyone dead and Michael gone taken by the mysterious man in black.
Best Kill:- Mickey, the annoying owner of the car Michael steals gets a three pronged garden tool in the head after he confronts Michael for scratching his car, the perfect advert for the negative side of road rage.
Halloween Part 6: The Curse of Michael Myers was released in 1995 and was a bizarre mess with over 43 minutes of footage re-shot and it showed in the film.
it’s apparently set six years after part 5 and Myers Jamie and the man and black have all been in hiding since. The man in black is the leader of a Druid cult of Thorn (the tattoo shown on Michael wrist) and they have impregnated Jamie. A nurse helps Jamie escape with her baby and they try to head to Haddonfield but at an empty bus station Jamie calls a radio show reporting on the old Haddonfield murders and begs for help and warning of Michael’s return (the police might have been a better choice) here she is chased by Michael but her baby is hidden, a quick chase and she is killed.
Meanwhile we are introduced to Tommy, the small kid Laurie strode was babysitting in the first Halloween now a grown up and played by the comic star Paul Rudd, He lives in a boarding house and he spends his time watching over the old Myer’s house at Kara Strode and her son Danny as Michael’s old house is now lived in by Laurie Strode’s relatives, makes sense?!
Tommy heard Jamie’s plea on radio and hunts down the bus station and finds the baby and takes him into hiding, and after getting to know Kara he explains the curse of the Thorn which have protected Michael as part of the Druid rite to sacrifice one family so the entire tribe may be saved.
So from what i understand of this Michael was cursed with the Thorn symbol and unless Michael Kills all the Myers family then the Druid tribe will die with Jamie’s baby to be the final victim to save the tribe. But if he does kill Jamie’s baby the the curse will pass onto another child and this would be Kara’s son Danny who hears voices like Michael did as a child.
What complete utter nonsense to try explain the purpose of Michael Myers, he’s just a psycho killer Qu’est-ce que c’est?
Moving on, Michael kills a few people, Jamie’s baby is kidnapped by the boarding house owner and everyone heads to the Sanitarium where the man in black is revealed as Dr Wynn from the first Halloween. (What is going on!) Dr Wynn leads the cult who have been trying to grow a new Thorn Baby in test tubes (seriously) and are about perform some ritual when Michael kills them all, then there’s a final showdown and Tommy unleashes years of tormented hell on Michael and they all escape. Dr Loomis re-enters to find just the mask remaining. Michael is still alive. Great….
Best Kill:- For some reason a Doctor is running away from Michael Myers only to meet a dead end of a barred gate. Michael does the decent thing of helping him through the gate, well his head anyways in three pieces.
Halloween Part 7: H20 Twenty Years Later, Released in 1998 it was a fair enough attempt to revive the series and did the best thing possible and ignore parts 4-6 as no one could add a plot to continue on from the whole druid thorn curse shambles.
So Halloween H20 is the sequel to Halloween part 2 and the first film not to feature the raving lunatic Dr Sam Loomis, played by Donald Pleasance who sadly died shortly before the release of Part 6.
The story starts on 29th October 1998, Dr Loomis’s old collegue Marion Chambers comes home to find someone has ransacked her home, she enlists two teenage boys, one a young Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who find nothing. Marion discovers her file on Laurie is missing (clever) and runs next door where Joseph-Levitt face has an Ice Skate embedded in it, Michael is back.
Laurie, now living as Keri Tate in California, works as a headmistress at a private boarding school where her son studies but lives under her mothers strict paranoid state of mind as she still suffers from her ordeal 20 years ago.
Michael being quite the detective locates her and kills of students and staff and finally comes face to face with Laurie again. Her son, his girlfriend and Laurie escape but she chooses to go back to finish it and eventually as he she has him down and unconscious with a knife in hand about to stab him when the police come in and she leaves, the body of Michael is put in a body-bag and put in van but Laurie being quite the clever lady steals the ambulance and knows he probably isn’t dead.
The body-bag moves and as he sits up and reaches out she slams on the brakes that propels Michael through the wind screen and then tries to run him over and misses but eventually pins Michael against a tree and confronts Michael, he reaches out and Laurie does too but the memories of what has happened is too much and she offs his head with the masked head rolling to a stop. Dead as dead can be….
Best Kill:- Not a Michael Death but a nice beheading by his sister Laurie that leads on to a plot twist for the next sequel.
Halloween Part 8: Resurrection in 2002, Hey wait a minute, Michael lost his head he must be dead! But no, Michael did the old switcharoo by crushing his larynx and swapped his clothes with a paramedic who was then carried off in ambulance and then beheaded by Laurie.
I hated this film, easily the worst film of the lot and just a pure cash in with an extremely dislikable cast of Busta Ryhmes and Tyra Banks who were so bad it was embarrassing and that with the appalling story after the initial opening that was ok that explained the switcharoo and then the final meeting of Laurie, now in a mental asylum as she couldn’t deal with killing the paramedic and the fear of her brother.
And so Michael finally kills Laurie and heads back to Haddonfield on Halloween one year later and six college students win a competition to appear on an internet reality show so spend a night in the old Myers household using cameras on their heads to broadcast what they see joining the band wagon of internet and reality tv concepts and of course Michael returns home to evict his squatters and thankfully he kills them all (including Battlestar Gallactica’s Starbuck Katee Sackhoff) except for Sara and Busta Ryhmes and in a final battle Busta Ryhmes does some kung fu on Michael and beats him down and he gets tangled up in wires, gets electrocuted and as is burnt as the flames rise.
He is taken to the morgue and as the woman opens up the bag his eyes open, hopefully he will go and kill Busta Ryhmes for embarrasing him and actually saying “trick or treat Mutha Fu*ka”. Shocking shocking film.
Best Kill:- All of them dying was fine by me.
Halloween 2007
Again Michael Myers was subject to a reboot in 2007 and a further sequel in 2009 when it was brought back to the big screen by Rob Zombie.
Zombie actually did half a great job in bringing something new to the franchise by focusing on what made Michael the killer he is famed for, It showed him being bullied by his dysfunctional family and by bullies at school, How he was killing animals and showing a taste for blood which all eventually led him to snap and kill his stepfather sister and sisters boyfriend in a brutally realised scene.
This was then followed by the excellent Malcolm Mcdowell as Dr Sam Loomis trying desperately to get through to him over years in the asylum with a young Michael slowing losing connection with everything and focusing only on making papier-mâché masks that were all very creepy, years later he’s six foot ten tall and built like a tank and escapes and so begins the Halloween story we all know. As reboots go this was a fairly good one and definitely added something worth seeing but it had too much of Zombie’s OTT scenes and dialogue which ruined some scenes and made some very disturbing and pointless.
The story covers the same direction as the 1978 original with the same Halloween theme music and even a familiar face of Danielle Harris (Jamie, the little girl from parts 4+5) as one of Laurie’s friends and daughter of Sheriff Brackett (the excellent Brad Dourif). Laurie babysits, Michael kills her friends comes to get her then kidnaps Laurie back to the old family home and tries to explain he is her brother through photo of them as children. Laurie doesn’t understand and escapes with Michael giving chase and here Loomis tries to help with gun in hand.
They head back to Myers house, Loomis gets battered and Laurie ends up falling out of the top balcony to the floor with Michael and lands on top of him, she holds the gun to his head and shoots, Splat.
The look of Michael was ok, although a bit to big, he was very dominant on the screen and very fearful. But the key to the film is the set up with the deterioration of the young Michael Myers which was not bettered through the rest of the film which was a shame.
Best Kill:- Just a brutal example of Michael expressing himself in the way he does.
Halloween II : 2009
Another Sequel and another step in the wrong direction. Everything that made Rob Zombie’s first movie a reasonable success is clearly missing from this sequel. With his usual use of grinding music and over the top brutality it’s a film that is bizarre and inexplicably stupid with the need to shock more than explain.
The film follows on directly from the point of the first movie with Laurie Strode shooting Michael in the head and then in a kind of homage to the 1981 sequel we see a dream sequence set in a hospital and then Laurie wakes screaming and it’s a year later and she’s in therapy, living with Sheriff Brackett and his daughter Annie.
Michael is carted of in ambulance but after crashing he escapes following a a vision of his mum Deborah dressed in white leading a white horse and later has further visions of a young Michael telling him to bring home Laurie and so off he goes to get her.
Laurie for some reason is having similar visions to Michael’s and acting out Michael’s murders and Dr Loomis is cashing in on Michael by promoting his new book on him and Laurie finds out she is Michael’s sister through the book.
Michael proceeds to kill including Sheriff Brackets daughter and Laurie is taken by Michael to an abandoned shed where she has more visions of her real mum and a young Michael, Loomis and the police arrive and Loomis tries to persuade Michael to let her go but the vision of Deborah instructs Michael that it’s time to go home and stabs Loomis repeatedly. Sheriff Brackett has an opportunity and shoots Michael twice and he falls on some spikes which releases Laurie of her visions.
Laurie walks over to her brother and tells him she loves him and then stabs him in the chest and face, she appears from the shed wearing the Halloween mask and as she removes it she is sitting in isolation in a psychiatric ward grinning as she sees her mum standing with a white horse in her room, what a laugh.
Again Zombie goes over the top and glorifies the violence far to much which in turn makes the film hard to watch and disjointed, Zombie proves again what a terrible director he can be.
Best Kill:- None.
That’s all the Halloween films, not as fun as Friday 13th and not as enjoyable to watch overall. The Reboot was definitely more successful than the Friday the 13th one but self destructed in trying to show the violence in a more serious and brutal ways especially in the 2009 Sequel.
But having said that, the original Halloween 1978 version was and is one of the best horror films ever made and that is what made Michael Myers such an iconic horror villain for over 30 years.
Next up is Freddy Krueger and The Nightmare on Elm Street Franchise that has also set on rebooting the franchise. Watch this space for my review and rundown of the Nightmare on Elm Street films and the final summing up of who wins the Slasher Faceoff.
