John Carpenter’s Halloween introduced horror audiences to babysitter, Laurie Strode, and her psychopathic stalker, Michael Myers. The film begins with Michael’s initial murder of his sister and chronicles his killing all of Laurie’s friends. It also tells the story of Dr. Samuel Loomis, a psychiatrist attempting to understand the nature of evil, as it pertains to Myers. Halloween ends with Myers’ death at the hands of a wounded and distraught Strode.
Until the sequel.
Halloween II picks up at the conclusion of the attack. An injured Strode is taken to a hospital to recover. Myers, somehow recovered from a gunshot wound and fall, follows her. Continuing his murderous path through the town of Haddonfield, Illinois, Myers kills a good number of hospital staff before cornering Strode and the returning Dr. Loomis. This time, Myers is shot in both eyes before Loomis ignites a gas stream. He emerges from the flames but falls over, leaving the audience to assume, he’s dead.
Again.
Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers introduces audiences to Jamie Lloyd, daughter of Laurie Strode. Elsewhere, Myers wakes from a coma and returns to Haddonfield to track down Lloyd, who lives with a foster family. Myers succeeds in terrorizing yet another babysitter but is stopped before he can kill his niece. Along with a mob of angry citizens, a sheriff riddles Myers with bullets and he falls down a mineshaft. Lloyd, now traumatized, attacks her foster mother with a pair of scissors. Loomis witnesses this and attempts to end Lloyd’s life but is stopped by the sheriff.
Myers returns in Halloween V: The Revenge of Michael Myers. Emerging from the mineshaft, the masked killer is then taken in by a stranger. A year later, Myers comes out of yet another coma. He kills his benefactor and resumes his hunt for his niece, Jamie. Now in a psychiatric hospital, Jamie seems to have acquired the psychic ability to sense her uncle’s presence. Dr. Loomis tries to help Jamie and “end Michael for good.”
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers continues the story of the failed attempt to “end Michael for good.” The film sees a six-year time jump for Myers and a pregnant Lloyd. She gives birth to a child before she’s killed by her uncle. The focus of the film then shifts to Tommy Doyle, one of the children Strode babysat for in Halloween. Doyle now resides in a boarding house across the street from the Myers house. Relatives of the Strode family live in the house. By some odd coincidence, Doyle finds Lloyd’s baby and takes it to a hospital. A mysterious arrival in Haddonfield attempts to groom the youngest Strode child into becoming another Michael Myers. The introduction of a Druidic curse attempts to explain Myers’ homicidal tendencies but only confuses the plot. Dr. Loomis, now retired, helps Doyle to end the Myers’ threat.
Until Halloween: H20.
This film picks up twenty years after the events of Halloween II and ignores everything which came before. It opens with Myers breaking into Loomis’ home and stealing a file about Laurie Strode, who is presumed dead. Myers murders Marion Chambers, Loomis’ colleague from the first two films. Strode, now living in California with her son, has created a new identity for herself. Upon finding the school where his sister serves as headmistress, Myers ends the lives of several students before closing in on Strode. In their final confrontation, Strode decapitates her brother with an axe. This time, she and the audience are certain, Michael is dead.
2002’s Halloween: Resurrection proves otherwise.
To her surprise, Strode discovers she did not kill her brother, but rather an innocent ambulance driver in the killer’s mask. After this realization, she sets out to end Myers. Before she can, he stabs her and throws her off the roof. Myers then goes through the rest of the cast until he is electrocuted, then left to die in a burning garage. A coroner examines the charred body. Without explanation on how he survived, Myers wakes up.
Eighteen years after Resurrection, another Halloween is released. Picking up forty years after her initial attack, Strode lives in fear and paranoia. Dr. Loomis’ student, Dr. Ranbir Sartain, arrives in Strode’s life and offers his help to captures Myers, who has escaped. The inevitable showdown between Strode and Myers ends with her being stabbed and thrown over a balcony. Strode’s daughter, Karen, and granddaughter, Allyson, are able to trap Myers in a safe room and set the house ablaze.
Halloween Kills begins with an injured Strode being taken to a hospital to recover. Deputy Frank Hawkins, the officer who found Myers after the events of Halloween, is remorseful for not stopping the killer back in 1878. He makes a personal promise to end Myers. Survivors, Tommy Doyle and Lindsay Wallace celebrate the 40th anniversary of Myers’ incarceration – along with Marion Chambers. To further the nostalgia factor, Sheriff Leigh Brackett also returns, intent on avenging the death of his daughter, Annie. Members of the township of Haddonfield unite to form a mob, led by Doyle, descend on Myers and appear to kill him. The majority of the group disperses. Myers, still not dead, kills those who remain, along with Doyle and Brackett. The film ends with a “full circle” moment in which Myers kills Strode’s daughter in the same bedroom where he killed his sister.
The franchise’s latest offering, Halloween Ends, begins after these events.
In 2007, Rob Zombie directed Halloween. This new offering had the same characters but with a new cast and script. Ten-year-old Myers kills four people in the opening of the film. This results in his being put into a sanitarium and the audience is given a psychedelic glimpse into the slow transformation of a psychopath. This version of Myers is framed with an increase in brutality and mindlessness. The body count is higher, the blood more copious, and the story far more ambiguous.
Halloween II, released in 2009, follows the attack on Laurie Strode. Living with the Brackett family, Strode is sullen, moody, and unstable. Myers, presumed dead, waits a full year before returning to Haddonfield, intent on killing again. Dr. Loomis, in the meantime, has capitalized on his involvement with Myers by writing a book. It’s through this book that Strode finds out her familial connection to Myers. In an attempt to kill his sister, Myers goes to the Brackett home and attacks Annie. The young woman dies in Strode’s arms. Myers’ attack on Strode ends with him taking her unconscious body to a nearby shed. Again, the idea of a psychic connection is introduced, along with an odd narrative involving a white horse. Myers manages to kill Loomis before being shot by Brackett and impaled on a rake. Strode then kills Myers with his own knife. She then exits the shed wearing his mask
With twelve films, many novels, comic books, and video games, the continuation of Carpenter’s property seems to be endless. No matter the title or the story, Michael Myers seems to have found immortality, as has the name, Halloween.