Halloween: The Complete History of Michael Myers (40 Year Timeline) | Horror History

– Michael Audrey Myers was born in 1957, as the second, and FINAL child of Edith and Donald Myers after his nine year old sister, Judith. In this video, I’m analyzing the latest version of the Michael Myers character, from the 40 Year Timeline. That includes Halloween, Halloween (2018), Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends. Most cities have a union station or joint station where most of their routes connect. In the case of the Halloween Express, that is Halloween (1978). From there, you can go down the original route, where Michael is involved with a cult worshiping an ancient demon,

you can go down the 20 Year Timeline route, where Michael escapes after getting blown up by Dr. Loomis, or you can go down the 40 Year Timeline route, where Michael is captured, and locked up for 4 decades. So his origin in this timeline is mostly a familiar one… but not entirely. Things would take a twist. In this video, you’ll learn how this iteration of Michael Myers was modeled after Jaws, the meaning of his signature traits like the head tilt and the answer to the one question on everyone’s mind: is this the end of Michael Myers?

To find out, stick around to the end of this video. (metal music) Welcome to Horror History. One of the goals set by co-writers David Gordon-Green and Danny McBride was to make the Michael Myers character scary again. To do this, they looked back to the original, which included no familial relations, no complex backstories, and no ove explanations of the character. Producer Jason Blum and David Gordon-Green have both described their approach as walking the line between honoring the old and twisting that into something new. For example, Michael’s look and body language are closer to that of the

original than ever before, but they weren’t opposed to ramping up the blood and gore to keep up with the modern slasher, something we didn’t really see during Michael’s first appearance in the more conservative 1970s. The most important direction for a contemporary boogeyman was to re-introduce the mystique, and that comes across in the way he’s written, acted, and even in the design of his iconic mask. – [McBride] There’s something scary about someone committing those kinds of violent acts with no emotion at all, and that’s what that mask does. You can project your own things that frighten

you onto that mask. Special FX designer Chris Nelson created the mask with the goal of preserving the melancholy of the character, and many fans agree that it was effective in using a blank slate to bring back the horror of what might be. Other timelines mess up the illusion of emotionlessness by showing his face, making him cry, explaining his childhood in great detail, or in some cases, just using masks that look too surprised or too angry. “I'd like to know as little about him or his history and abilities as possible,” the director offered (in an interview

with HalloweenMovies.com. “I think there was a reason he was called The Shape in the original because in some ways he's more of an essence than he is a traditional character.” While this is a valid point, I also think that the very practice of doing a sequel trilogy results in new lore being added to the character. This one goes back to the idea that Michael Myers is human, but with a supernatural edge; he’s nearly invincible. – [Carpenter] A character who is between human being and the supernatural. – And he’s a human being, we need to understand.

– And with more scenes to study, we can start to recognize patterns and draw a few conclusions about him, without disrupting the mysterious allure that has made him a legend for so many decades. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so let’s get into it. (ominous piano) As a child, Michael was an outcast. While he didn’t exhibit any alarming behavior, he didn’t seem to exhibit much behavior at all. This caused some adults to feel bad for him, including the mother of a boy in his class, Peter McCabe. Mrs. McCabe would make her son go

over to Michael’s house to play, but Michael would spend all of his time just staring out his sister’s window. At the age of six years old, on October 31st, 1963. Michael’s parents go out for the evening, and his older sister is hanging out with her boyfriend, leaving him unsupervised. After seeing Judith and her boyfriend go upstairs, he takes a knife from the kitchen and heads up himself. Judith is combing her hair when the boy creeps up and stabs her several times. He simply walks outside and stands in front of the house as his parents come

home to discover his crime. He was taken into the custody of the Illinois Department of Public Safety - Juvenile Justice on November 1st. Officials at the time stated he likely would not be charged with first-degree murder, pending a psychological evaluation. After the evaluation, it was decided he would undergo psychiatric treatment. Michael is labeled as patient number A-2201, sentenced to Smith’s Grove Sanitarium and assigned to a psychiatrist named Dr. Samuel Loomis. His initial stay at Smith’s Grove lasted 15 years, none of which is documented in the Halloween films. – Michael Audrey Myers shall be brought before

the court on the day of his 21st birthday, where he shall be tried as an adult. – For those who are wondering, this scene is one of the extra scenes shot for the television version of the original 1978 film. Long story short, they wanted to add scenes to fit a television time slot with more commercials. The question is, if these scenes are still canon in the 40 Year Timeline, because in Halloween 2018, we see this: Michael’s middle initial is A. The name Michael Audrey Myers comes from these made for TV scenes. It’s totally possible that

this was intended to be an easter egg though, because another made for TV scene shows that Michael wrote the word “sister” on his door before breaking out of Smith’s Grove. This suggests that he broke out to go after his sister, Laurie, which he does in Halloween II. However, Michael and Laurie are not siblings in the 40 Year Timeline. Co-writer Danny McBride has talked about this change. “I was pushing for the removal of the familial mythology set-up in Halloween 2 right off the bat. I just felt like it was an area where he wasn't quite as

scary anymore. It seemed too personalized.” The idea was that the audience knows they’re not related to Michael, so they didn't have anything to worry about. But if he’s just going after random people, everyone has a reason to be afraid. It’s possible that Michael wrote “sister” in reference to Judith, whose tombstone he steals after breaking out. So you could make an argument either way as to the canonicity of these added scenes. My take is that they are not part of the 40 Year Timeline. The extra scenes were shot using the crew from Halloween II, and they

aired in 1980, right before Halloween II, so it’s pretty clear that they’re meant to set up that movie. Halloween (2018) takes a strong stance in that it only acknowledges Halloween 1, going so far as to say that Halloween II was just made up. – [Dave] Wasn’t it her brother who, like, cold blooded murdelated all those teenagers? – [Allyson] No. That’s just a bit that some people made up to make them feel better I think. – In 1978, after Michael turned 21, he was due back in court for re-evaluation, but when Dr. Loomis and his associate

Nurse Marion Chambers arrived to pick him up, he and several other patients were on the loose. Michael stole their car and escaped into the night in Warren County. This version of the Michael Myers character plays into his status as an urban legend. And it makes sense, because Halloween (2018), Kills and Ends are aimed at a new generation. A generation who has probably heard of Michael Myers, but not yet experienced him for themselves, much like an urban legend. Think about the popular urban legends of our culture. There are always repeating elements and symptoms. Bloody Mary will

appear if you say her name into a mirror three times with only a candle’s light. Slenderman will appear nestled in forest trees and cause glitches in video equipment. The lights will flicker on and off before the appearance of The Hash Slinging Slasher. In Michael’s case, he comes out around Halloween night, surrounded by a fleet of wraith-like mental patients. There are many other symptoms of the urban legend that are seen by multiple generations of Haddonfield residents, which I’ll point out throughout this lesson. First example: in 1963, Michael had a one piece clown suit, a mask and

a knife; and he targeted a teenager who had been getting busy with her boyfriend. So in 1978, the legend would continue with Michael obtaining a one piece jumpsuit, a mask and a knife; and he would once again target teenagers who are trying to do the act, as stand-ins for Judith. He runs a mechanic’s truck off the road and offs him to get the suit. To make this night a tribute to his last rampage, he steals Judith’s tombstone from the cemetery. He breaks into the general store to steal a Halloween mask, and also gets some rope,

which he would use later, in addition to picking up his now signature weapon, a couple of knives. His next stop is his childhood home, which now sits abandoned. It is here that he gets hungry, and eats part of a dog. And it is also here where he first encounters Laurie Strode, a high school student who is there to drop off a set of keys for her father, who is a realtor trying to sell the property. He follows her around all day until she arrives at her babysitting job that evening. Her friend Annie is babysitting across

the street, and she becomes the next victim. Michael hides in her car, so when she goes to pick up her boyfriend, he strangles her before she gets out of the garage. His next victims are Bob and Lynda, who are trying to use the house as a private place to do their thing. He arranges all three dead teens in the upstairs bedroom with Annie on the bed under the Judith Myers tombstone, making it clear that he’s trying to recreate the scenario from his youth. He stuffs Lynda in a cupboard and hangs Bob overhead in the closet.

Then he kills the lights in the house and waits for Laurie to notice and come over to check on her friends. When she does she’s demonstrably distrubed, but her next find is even more horrifying. (screams) Michael slowly but methodically chases her back across the street to the Doyle household and makes several more attempts on her, but she puts up a good fight, first stabbing him in the neck with a knitting needle, then poking his eye out with a clothing hanger and finally stabbing him in the chest with the knife he dropped. But Michael Myers is

far from any ordinary man, and rises back to life in an almost vampire like fashion. He gets ahold of his exhausted prey, finally seeing his chance to end it by strangling her, but she does something unexpected by removing his mask. This causes him to stop momentarily and he attempts to put it back on before continuing to attack her. His fixation with the mask is never detailedly explained, but it’s obviously an important part of the process for him. In the original timeline, I analyzed the mask as an important part of the ritualistic practice he’s taking part

in, but here in the 40 Year Timeline, Michael is simply an escaped mental patient. It’s a common occurrence for mental patients to respond poorly to any change outside their comfortable normal. That’s why mental institutions never deviate from having simple white walls with no decorations. The staff are always dressed identically, with the same inoffensive music played every day. The same old boring facility actually creates a calm, safe environment for the patients. We also see this with a character in the 40 Year Timeline, Mr. Tivoli. He has a fixation with tied shoelaces, and anything else is upsetting

to him. Michael was wearing a mask and one piece costume when he killed his sister in 1963, so he feels the need to wear similar attire, mask included, to kill during the anniversary here in 1978, and the same would be true in the future. But this little distraction ends up being a much larger detour. – I shot him! I shot him six times! I shot him! I shot him in the heart! I shot him six times! Fired six shots into him. – To this point, this would be the most damage that Haddonfield’s boogeyman had ever

taken on, and it came at the hands of his own psychiatric doctor, but it doesn’t keep him down for long; he only needs a couple of seconds to flee the scene and cut through an alley to escape. He is spotted by a timid young Officer Frank Hawkins, who shoots at him, but an unphased Michael simply walks away, out of sight. It seems the first thing he does after this is move his car, because we can see it right here, parked outside the old Myers house. Combine that with the breathing we hear at the end of

Halloween while looking across the street at the house, and it seems likely that this was the first place he went. If you think about it, it makes sense that he’d try to repark the car, because he was just attacked by Dr. Loomis, who is the most likely person to recognize that car. Michael goes back out on foot and comes across a boy named Lonnie Elam, who had tripped on the sidewalk. Michael doesn't kill kids, and he sees a pair of police officers approaching, so once again, he miraculously disappears, something he’s managed to do a number

of times now. He retreats into his old home and stands at the window, just as he did as a child. The officers are McCabe, who Michael had play-dates with in their youth, and Frank Hawkins, who he had encountered not long before. They investigate the house where Michael surprises McCabe, one of the few times we ever see him run. He slams the officer into the wall several times and uses the remainder of the rope taken from the hardware store to strangle him. We see McCabe manage to get in several good punches in the abdomen, but Michael

hardly seems to notice, and takes him hostage just before Hawkins gets into the room and shoots. But the rookie officer accidentally hits his partner, rather than the masked perpetrator. Michael drops his meat shield, and calmly walks out of the house, even as several more shots are fired at him. This entire night, he’s been trying to recreate the circumstances of his first kill in 1963, and he brings it all to a close by walking out of the house and standing in the front yard, just as he did back then. This time, he is immediately surrounded by

six armed police officers, who are able to beat him down, capture him and return him to captivity, this time in prison. “Shortly after Myers began his term in the state prison, he was transferred from medium to maximum security because he apparently formulated escape plans.” He also forged his own identification credentials, took notes on airplane schedules and somehow acquired road maps and a driver’s license. After shooting him six times, Loomis was removed from his position as Michael Myers’s doctor. Whether this was voluntary or involuntary is not known. In a statement recorded in audio on January 22nd

1979, about three months after the babysitter murders, he suggests that Myers should get the death penalty. – My suggestion is termination. Death is the only solution for Michael. – However, the state wanted to keep Michael alive to be studied, hoping they could gain more insight on the mind of a killer. This is probably why he was eventually returned to Smith’s Grove. I like to think I’m doing a much better job of that in this video than they did in their 55 years of study. But as I mentioned, Michael is more of an essence than an

actual character. We can assume Loomis knew this, and kept watch over Michael with only the intention of keeping him locked up. However, he eventually passed away, and his successor would not have the same intentions. The next psychiatrist assigned to look over Michael is a man by the name of Dr. Ranbir Sartain. Dr. Sartain became obsessed with trying to understand Michael and his motives and abilities. This causes Sartain to develop a bond to his patient and become protective of him, the same way an artist might defend their own life’s work. He brought in over 50 clinical

psychiatrists to try to see Michael, and each had different opinions about him. During these 40 years, Michael rarely speaks, which Sartain sees as a personal choice to stay silent rather than a disability. In the years of Michael’s second stint of captivity, Smith’s Grove Sanitarium became Smith’s Grove State Hospital. Patients are calmed with old jazz music on vinyl records, a courtyard area is outfitted to give them their own space to get some fresh air and sunshine every day and Sartain meets individually with patients to check in on them on a morningly basis. After 40 years of

not much progress, Michael was set to be transferred to a new facility, Glass Hill, and assigned a new doctor on October 30th, 2018, the 40 year mark from the date of his first escape. (impact) (mysterious music) There are not many visitors for Smith’s Grove's most infamous resident, so Dr. Sartain doesn’t have many opportunities to see how Michael reacts to different people or different environments. I imagine this feels quite limiting to him, and speculate that when British investigative journalists Aaron Korey and Dana Haines approached him about speaking to Michael, he gleefully accepted, with hopes of seeing

a new side of his mysterious long studied mental case. They were able to arrange a meeting just before the transfer on October 29th, 2018. – And there he is. – When introduced to the reporters, Michael ignores them, so in order to try to elicit a response, he brings out the William Shatner mask that was worn during the 1978 rampage, but it manages to aggravate just about every other patient than the one it was intended for. The evening of the 30th, each of the transferring patients were lined up and loaded into a caged school bus outfitted

by the Illinois Department of Corrections. Curiously, Dr. Sartain sees him through to the end, and tries to comfort him, something that seems unnecessary given that Michael is a well established sociopath. – Don’t worry Michael. I’ll be by your side. – He even fights to go with on the bus, arguing that Myers is his patient until he’s been delivered into someone else’s care. During the ride, the bus crashes into a ditch on Marlowe Road. My theory is that Laurie was the one to drive the bus off the road in hopes of killing Michael, but things do

not go according to plan. She’s very unstable, and we do see her in her car overseeing the patient transfer, plus she hardly seems to react when the accident is reported in the news. Someone, presumably Michael after being freed by Sartain, attacks and seriously injures the guards and bus driver, allowing the patients to escape into the night. I say this because Dr. Sartain previously expressed frustration in the fact that so many clinical psychiatrists had looked at Michael, but only one, Dr. Loomis, had gotten to study him in the wild. When a father and son drive up

and discover the accident, they both end up getting out of the car to look around. Michael brutally snapped the neck of the father and stealthily stowed himself away in their backseat. The kid encounters the injured guard, who urges him to just run, leading me to believe that Michael was in fact the one to attack him, showing off the unstoppable power that had faded into legend over the last 40 years. And that legend was playing out once more because Michael takes out the kid by surprise-choking him when he gets back into the vehicle, just as he

did with Annie in 1978. This also allows him to steal that vehicle, like he did during that first escape. To continue with the tradition, his first stop in Haddonfield is at the cemetery where his sister, Judith is buried. He finds the reporters from the previous day recording more content at the Judith Myers gravesite and decides to follow them to the gas station in order to get his mask back. While Aaron is not looking, Myers walks into the mechanic’s shop, punches him out, and steals his suit. He also bashes an additional employee’s face in and pockets

his teeth, so he can drop them over the bathroom stall that Dana is using to scare the sh*t out of her. Pun kinda intended. Aaron realizes what’s happening just in time before his partner is killed, but even whacking Michael in the face with a crowbar is not enough to save her, and both of their lives are taken, allowing Michael to reclaim his prized mask. He would only need one more item to finish his iconic look, and he would waste no time getting it. Because it’s Halloween night, he blends in with the crowd in costume, allowing

him to fly under the radar. Just like in his last rampage, he bumps into some little kids, but lets them go. Even though the one kid comes really close to dropping an f-bomb. – Oof! – What the f- – BOOOOOOM! (explosion) – [Zac] He steals a hammer from the Elrods’ shed and uses it against Mrs. Elrod so he can claim her kitchen knife. And with that, the look is complete. After 13 Halloween films, I’ve come to appreciate just how important Michael’s appearance is when it comes to making him a scary antagonist. And where’s a good

reason for that. It goes back to the root reason that we are drawn to horror movies. Human psychology. Danny McBride was onto something when he described what makes Michael scary to him. He noted the contrast between the horrible acts Michael commits, and the lack of emotion that he seems to have while committing them. This is called incongruent affect. The literal definition of this term is when feelings, mood, or emotions do not match up. In psychology, incongruent affect is when a patient’s feelings do not match their appearance, or do not match what is appropriate for the

situation. It’s fitting that the first costume we ever see Michael in is the clown costume, because clowns are the perfect example of incongruent affect. Many people find them creepy because their painted smiles give them the appearance of always being happy, even if they are not happy, or the situation does not call for happiness. That’s why seeing a clown at the circus probably isn’t so creepy, if done correctly, because the circus is a happy place and the clowns are trying to be funny. But seeing a clown in a sewer grate, stand pipe or abandoned house is

definitely creepy. That’s incongruent affect. It comes off as creepy because we, as humans, are designed to socialize with other humans. Humans have traditionally lived in tribes with other humans for safety, so socialization meant survival. As a result, our brains have evolved for millions of years to get really good at picking up on social cues. That’s why outlets look like a face. That’s why cars look like a face. That’s why Iggy Pop’s torso looks like it’s about to cry. We are hardwired to pick up human emotions using only visual cues. When those cues don’t match what

the person is really feeling, or don’t match the situation, we pick up on that too, because it tells us that something is wrong. Perhaps it is a predator trying to deceive us, or there is something wrong with the person, and we need to heal someone in our tribe. Seeing Michael slashing up victims, all with a blank, expressionless stare is an example of incongruent affect. Other Halloween films which make Michael look surprised or angry just don’t have the same effect. And that’s why it’s important for Michael to recollect all of the pieces of his iconic look.

Now that he has his knife, he’s got to test it out! And he finds a suitable victim in the house next door. This victim seems to be chosen at random, but the next would be chosen to maintain a tradition established in ‘78. His main targets that year were Haddonfield’s teen babysitters, Annie and Laurie. This year he finds another babysitter, Vicky, who is looking after a boy named Julian Morrisey. Like any good urban legend, the story begins to repeat itself. Michael sneaks into the house and stares through Julian’s bedroom door, but again, isn’t concerned with killing

kids. It just freaks Julian out and gets him to run down the stairs for help. – Ghosts and goblins little buddy? – Shut up Dave! I heard him breathing. And then I saw him! He’s in here. The boogeyman’s in this house! – Michael hides in the closet while the room is vacated. Vicky goes up to investigate, but doesn’t find him there, because she’s not taking Julian’s warning very seriously. As she puts him back to bed, he asks her to close the closet door, but she finds something is blocking it. (door jamb) (loud music and scream)

Michael is undeterred by Vicky throwing a chair at him so she rushes out of the room, but slips on the hardwood floor in the hallway, allowing him to drag her back into the room and bring the knife down on her. After taking her out, he cocks his head, something we saw him do after killing Bob Simms 40 years prior. This moment is explained by the actor behind the mask: Nick Castle. He plays Myers in the original Halloween and in parts of Halloween (2018). In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, he reveals that director John Carpenter instructed

him to tilt his head like that on the spot. “I had no idea what he was trying to get at until I saw the movie and I said, ‘Oh, how cool, it looks like I’m admiring my kill.’” Which makes sense when paired with the pin-up model comparison I made in my Things You Missed in Halloween video; it’s almost as if the body pinned to the wall is seen as a piece of artwork that Michael is gawking at. As we discussed, Michael is a mental patient and a creature of habit, which is why Castle was instructed

to perform the head tilt again after killing Vicky. Or at least that’s how I see it. I’m willing to close the door on that mystery. (door slams) Actually, everything he does before leaving the house is a callback to his Bob Simms kill. He covers Vicky’s body with a bedsheet, the same disguise he used for himself, after finishing Bob, and then his next victim is Vicky’s boyfriend Dave, who he pins to the wall with his knife, just as he did to Bob. Frank Hawkins, now a deputy in his sixties, shows up to investigate the disturbance and

finds Vicky, but Michael is hiding in a bedroom on the opposite side of the house, looking out the window through the reflection of this mirror. He makes eye contact with Laurie, the once 17-year old girl who evaded him the last time he was free. Now, at 57, she’s more prepared, and fires a shot in his direction, which might have at least dealt a blow to his head if she had realized she was looking through a mirror. Michael walks out of the house, drawing the attention of Hawkins, but he cannot land a shot either. The discovery

of Dave’s body distracts his attention, so Michael is once again able to walk out and disappear into the black of the night. But this time is different. This time, Laurie spots him and fires a shot through the left side of his back before he completely disappears. This is the first time that Laurie has turned the tables on him and become the hunter rather than the hunted. Only Loomis was previously able to scare Michael away up to this point. He retreats, and manages to get away and take cover within the fortress of the Elrod’s backyard, which

is surrounded by high concrete walls. But eventually, a new victim falls into his lap. (impact) (ominous music) High school student Oscar Berlucchi is in a vulnerable state after getting drunk and rejected by his crush, and mistakes Michael for Mr. Elrod. The yard is illuminated by these motion sensored lights, but each time they go off, Michael somehow manages to creep closer. – [Oscar] Hey, where’d you go man? You’re acting really sketchy right now. – Logically, it doesn’t make sense that Michael should be able to move without turning the lights back on while Oscar can’t, but if

there’s any ability that seems to be focused on the most in this version of Michael’s character, it is his ability to disappear. Part of what makes him so scary and unique is that despite being a huge immovable force, he’s incredibly sneaky. He could be waiting behind any corner or hiding within any shadow. Ever since Laurie first spotted him outside her classroom window, there are many instances where he’ll be there one moment, but gone the next. Perhaps he really does have a power to move without being seen, and this allows him to get the best of

Oscar and stick a knife in his back before he’s able to climb over the Elrod’s fence. When Oscar’s crush Allyson Nelson comes back after hearing the commotion, the lights turn on again, and Michael comes out to greet her. (screams) She runs away and gets help from the police, so Michael ends up going for a stroll. He’s spotted and reported on 11th Street, near Saint Park, where he encounters a police SUV carrying Hawkins, Sartain and Allyson. Upon seeing the scourge of Haddonfield, Hawkins floors it. Michael continues to walk right towards the vehicle until the point of

impact, demonstrating the complete lack of fear he saw towards bodily injury. Hawkins rams Michael with the vehicle, knocking him to the sidewalk, where he’s temporarily knocked out. To this point, we’ve seen Michael get knocked out a few times, all of them during the 1978 rampage. He goes down after getting his neck punctured, after getting stabbed in the eye and chest, and finally after getting shot off a balcony. Each time this happens, he lays there until he can regain the strength to continue his spree, something that I refer to as his “recharge period”. This scene is

the first time we see Michael recharge in 2018, which represents a terrifying possibility. Earlier we saw him get shot in the chest and continue walking like nothing happened. That fact it takes a hit from a 5,000 lb Chevrolet to put him down means he may have become even stronger during his years of captivity. Or, if we’re going by the theory that Laurie would later suggest, each of his kills adds to his power. – The more he kills, the more transcends into something else impossible to defeat. When I covered Michael’s history in the original timeline, I

discussed the possibility that he has the capability to kind of bear down and hold off the recharge for a little bit in critical situations. It’s possible that this is what happened here as well. After getting shot, he held off doing a recharge until the vehicular impact knocked him out cold. This is also the longest he’s ever been sidelined for. He’s out for 4 minutes and 45 seconds, more than twice as long as his longest nap to this point. During this time, Deputy Hawkins is prepared to shoot him in the head, but Dr. Sartain gets out

to protect the subject of his life’s research. When Hawkins refuses to stand down, Sartain attacks him and drags Michael into the cabin of the vehicle, where Allyson is currently locked. He heads towards Laurie Strode’s house, hoping to see a reunion between the two. – [Sartain] Michael’s pursuit of Laurie Strode could be what keeps him alive. I would suspect the notion of being the predator or the fear of becoming prey keeps both of them alive. – Laurie had previously expressed a similar sentiment about her rival. – He waited for this night. – He’s waited for me.

I don’t know if her interpretation is accurate, but if it is, the wait would not have to go on much longer. Michael comes to in the back of the cop car and kicks through the partition hard enough to basically immobilize him. Keep in mind, these partitions are made of steel and they’re literally designed to keep officers in the front seats safe from whatever unruly criminals they’re arresting. The fact that Michael destroys this barrier in one kick is insane. He drags his doctor out of the car, allowing Allyson the chance to escape, but Michael doesn’t seem

to mind, because he’s mostly concerned with stomping Sartain’s face in. He crushes the man’s head with one hard stomp, more evidence that the Shape has kept himself in shape; he’s not skipping leg day. Yeah, take a good look at that one Mikey. He proceeds to make quick work of the two cops on standby outside of Laurie’s house, one gets his throat slashed with the pen blade acquired from Sartain and the other just straight up gets turned into a man o’lantern. No, not that kind of man o’lantern. This kind looks almost just as painful. Michael parks

the cop car outside of Laurie’s house and gets the attention of her son-in-law Ray, so he also gets whacked when Michael chokes him with a chain. If we were to give this one a 1978 counterpart, it would be to Lynda van der Klok, who gets strangled with a telephone cord and stored in a closet, which is exactly where Michael leaves Ray. But first, he’s got to break into the house. (breaking glass) The surprising move nearly kills Laurie. It makes me think back to an earlier part of the movie where police told citizens to stay inside

and lock their doors. When Michael Myers is on the loose, there’s really no reliable line of defense, because even Laurie’s fortress is not enough to withstand Michael’s brute force. She’s able to raise her shotgun in his direction and, perhaps in an effort to keep the blast away from his head, he grabs the end of the barrel and gets two of his fingers blasted off. It happens very quickly, and obviously I have to blur it so that the YouTube Boogeyman doesn’t come for me in the night, but you can see right here, as he’s letting go,

Michael is now down to three remaining fingers. This is a good time to talk about how Michael handles injuries in this timeline. Obviously Michael is nearly invincible, there’s only one way to kill him, and nothing else seems to affect him much. But it’s still possible for him to get scars, and each of his major injuries throughout the story visibly leaves a mark on him. The first is when Laurie gets him with the knitting needle. The scar can be seen on his neck at the hospital. Laurie also jabs his eye with a coat hanger. After the

prisoner escape, you can spot a quick glimpse of the eye, and it’s clouded over as if to suggest he has lost vision on that side. He’s also stabbed and shot in the torso. We haven’t had the Halloween beach OVA yet, but if we did ever see him shirtless, I’m sure those scars would show up as well. That’s what the Michael Myers fangirls had in mind when they first heard the title: Halloween H20. But the point is, it probably would have been smarter for him to just grab the end of the gun without covering the cap,

because he is permanently left with three fingers on his left hand. This handicap doesn’t really slow him down too much, but it stands to reason that you could reduce him into a non-threat if you eventually removed all of his limbs or something. This is contrary to the original timeline and 20 year timeline, where he gets shot in both eyes and blown up, but he just seems to regenerate and eventually he looks fine. The setback doesn’t stop him from breaking into the house as Laurie retreats to the basement to shoot up at him through the floorboards.

Instead of going straight for her, he takes this time to put away Ray’s body, as I mentioned earlier. He may not be a nice guy, but at least he keeps things tidy. Laurie searches the house for him and finds him in an upstairs bedroom, nearly identical to the one they fought in 40 years ago. But for the second time now, she is the aggressor, and as Dr. Sartain predicted, they are both vying for that role of the predator. In ‘78, Michael came after her with a knife, but she was eventually able to use it against

him. Now Laurie is the one armed with a knife, but it is Michael who finds a way to use it against her. (Laurie grunts) She also bites his hand, – Laurie Strode got hungry. – But this time, Laurie is the one to get thrown off the balcony, so Michael turns his attention to her teenage granddaughter. (door hinges squeak) (impact) (somber music) – Allyson comes home, hoping to find safety in her grandmother’s protection, but Michael hears her come in first. However, this brief distraction gives Laurie enough time to pull another trick out of Michael’s book and

disappear. He heads downstairs to try to finish off Laurie’s bloodline, who are hiding in the basement. Laurie’s daughter, Karen, begs her mom to come help her, but it’s a trap. – Gotcha. (gunshot) – In the face! – Laurie uses this opportunity to emerge from the shadows and attack! Michael does land a blow against her with a fire poker, but the tussle ends with her grabbing a frying pan to knock him down into the basement. This triggers the second recharge period of the night. It’s only a few seconds, but that’s just enough for Allyson and Karen

to climb to safety and shut the bars over the only exit. Michael finds himself in a basement sized cage of Laurie’s design. She’s turning out to be a much more formidable rival than he remembers her. She opens the gas valves throughout the house and all he can do is stare as she tosses a flare down into the basement, to ignite a blaze on the man that haunted her nightmares for her entire adult life. Still, Michael is unflinching as the room explodes around him, his empty eyes locked onto her just as they were since the very

beginning. One of the benefits of living in a small town is that it doesn’t take long for the fire department to arrive. At least, it’s usually a benefit. One of Haddonfield’s finest falls through the floorboards into the seemingly empty basement. Like a spider with a fly in its web, Laurie’s gun closet opens to reveal Michael Myers. He brutally uses the firefighter’s own Halligan bar against him, shattering his protective mask and face. His mayday call sends another firefighter on the way to offer a hand of rescue, but Michael emerges from the smoke to yank him into

the basement as well. The efforts of the emergency crew, combined with the collapsing structure of the house create a path of escape, and a shape appears at the doorway. It’s *The* Shape, charred from the trap Laurie had left him to die in, but stoic as ever as he clasps his new weapon with the 8 fingers he has left. The group of firefighters is well equipped to fight back with axes, circle saws, and the power of numbers on their side, but Michael Myers methodically destroys each of them. All in all, Michael tears through eleven men. –

Eleven dead bodies. They’re all first responders. – Perhaps it is as the young Tommy Doyle suggested so many years ago. – You can’t kill the Boogeyman. – But as I discussed, he’s not immune to injury, and he’s still nursing that left hand. He sneaks into the home of Phil and Sondra Larson, and raids their bathroom for first aid supplies. A small drone crash lands in the bathroom, and probably not knowing what it is, he throws it out into the living room, getting the attention of the terrified homeowners. When Phil comes in and turns the lights

on, he briefly sees Michael, with disinfectant, a soiled washcloth and bandages spread out across the sink. Michael immediately smashes the light, and Phil locks the door, but Michael powers his way through a glass window and bludgeons him against the wall before pulling him down through the glass shards which puncture his neck. He does this all almost entirely with his good hand, only bringing his bandaged hand up at the end to help grip Phil’s head; he is quickly learning how to be resourceful with his remaining fingers. Sondra takes hold of a small kitchen knife to defend

herself, but Michael has another idea, and dismounts the fluorescent tube light from above the stove. (glass shatters) (screaming and sobbing) He sticks it right though her neck and twists. Before leaving the house, Michael tosses Phil’s still not dead body onto the table in the kitchen and sticks knife after knife after knife into him, until he finally finds one he likes, and walks outside. Having taped up his hand and having acquired a new knife, Michael makes his way home, but he would have to go across town to get there. He wanders the streets of Haddonfield as

the clock rolls over into the early hours of November 1st, 2018. He goes through a park, where he is reportedly up to his usual stalking antics. – [Lindsey] Where did you see him? – He’s just hiding behind trees. – And he pops out, I’m like, peek-a-boo! I mean we’re not 3 years old. Come on man! – When one of the kids wanders from the group, Michael gets him without the others noticing. We don’t see it, but we do see the kid’s mask, dripping in the aftermath. These kids appear to be young teenagers, maybe 13, so

I’m guessing Michael really does draw the line, regarding who he’s willing to kill, between teenagers and pre-teens. He spots another face from his past talking to the other 2 teens. This is Lindsey Wallace, the same girl that Annie was babysitting before being killed by Michael 480 months before. That’s 40 years. I just wanted to change things up, because I feel like I keep saying that. He also discovers an SUV containing Marion Chambers and two other passengers. Mimicking what he did to her in 1978, he climbs on top of the vehicle and grabs her through the

window, but this time she’s armed and tries to shoot at him through the roof. When he comes down to meet her face to face, she’s got a line prepared for him. – Hey Michael! This is for Dr. Loomis. – Ah yes, let’s avenge Dr. Loomis. The one guy who seemingly died of natural causes in this timeline. Fortunately for Michael, her tribute to her former colleague doesn’t work out, because she’s out of bullets. (Marion clicking gun and babbling in fear) He climbs into the window and stabs her four times before he’s strangled with a prop stethoscope

by the man in the backseat. Michael is not affected by this at all, and sticks the knife into the man’s left eye, putting an end to the struggle. Maybe Michael picked that one up from Laurie Strode. The man’s wife comes back towards the vehicle with a handgun, and Michael’s quick thinking results in a kill that would probably be more at home in an FPS montage than a Halloween movie. (airhorns and cheering) As Michael does his trademark corpse admiration head tilt, he gets a surprise bag of bricks to the face from Lindsey. Despite being one of

the four survivors of the babysitter murders, she vastly underestimates him, and he chokeslams her against the car. However, her experience does help her, because she’s able to use the same tactic that Laurie once used to get away from his grip, by removing The Boogeyman’s mask. After readjusting it, he follows her into the woods at his customary walking pace. We are now moving at the speed of… pretty slow but somehow intimidating. Shortly thereafter, the couple from the SUV is somehow moved to the carousel at the park, and Marion is decorated with the Witch mask left behind

by the teens and hung from the top of the swingset. We literally see Michael leave the scene to look for Lindsey, so the only explanation is that he went back to rearrange the bodies. Which, to be fair, is consistent with his character. Annie, Lynda and Bob were arranged in a scene in ‘78, and he also pays special attention to the presentation of Vicky and Ray earlier on this night in 2018. Seeing this trend repeated so many times makes me automatically start searching for a reason behind it. As with many aspects of the character, we’ll probably

never get a definitive answer, so all I can do is use the clues and speculate. The first scene was clearly a recreation of his sister’s grave site, which is something that happened when Michael was a kid, and this one depicts the bodies playing at a playground, somewhere you would usually find kids. Michael was a child during his first killing, and we know he has psychological issues -- he’s been in a mental hospital for 55 years. Maybe his childhood trauma prevented him from maturing out of a childlike mindset. Maybe he sees these bodies as toys that

he can play with and maybe he avoids killing kids because he sees them as one of his own kind. His next destination would also play into this idea. Because Michael Myers would return to his childhood home. (impact) (mellow music) The first time Michael broke out of Smith’s Grove, he visited his former residence and found it abandoned. It was in a dilapidated state, but other than the natural effects of time, it was unaltered. This time, the property no longer sat empty. He would find it occupied by two men: Big John and Little John. He sneaks in

through the back door, probably because this was the entrance he used shortly before killing Judith. I also find it interesting that he leaves behind a three fingered handprint on the doorframe. It almost looks like a dinosaur track, which seems appropriate given Tommy’s speech at the hospital. – He is an apex predator! – The way Dr. Sartain describes him compares him to another apex predator, a shark. – He only knows how to keep moving and keep killing. And he will kill again unless he’s captured. – This is actually no mistake. In an interview with HalloweenMovies.com, director

David Gordon-Green explains how he used Jaws, almost like a template for this iteration of Michael Myers. “In some ways, it's like a film like Jaws. There's not a lot of personality in the shark. Technically he's very elusive and we're trying to keep that as our framework and not get too much into who he is, why he is, or what he's been doing.” It sounds like this approach was also communicated to mask designer Christopher Nelson. – [Nelson] And it ended up being this very strange mannequin-like soulless, almost Great white shark of a human. – In this

scenario, much like the opening scene of Jaws, the predator stalks its prey silently. Michael sneaks around upstairs and gets the draw on Big John without ever being noticed. And squeezes his eyes out of their sockets just for good measure. After this, Michael resumes the position he took as a child, just staring out his sister’s bedroom window. When Little John addresses him, he turns and approaches. It is not long before he joins his partner in death. – [Little John] Noooo!!! – He poses the remains of the two Johns just like a photo found in their study,

only their positions are switched. I don’t have time to explain the significance of that here, but watch my Things You Missed in Halloween Kills after this if you’re interested. Another trait of Michael’s that we’ve seen come up time and time again is his love of darkness. There’s one I can relate to. We saw him turn off all the lights after taking over the Wallace house in 1978, and he follows suit here after reclaiming his own residence. This makes it easier for him to hide in the shadows and hunt his prey. The next victim is Lonnie

Elam, the kid that Michael briefly encountered just outside the Myers house after escaping from Dr. Loomis. Now that he’s no longer a kid, he’s a perfectly viable target. He makes quick work of Lonnie and throws him into the attic, then hides in a closet and waits for someone to come looking for him. And that someone is Lonnie’s teenage son Cameron. Michael bursts out of the closet and pins him to the wall where he is able to stab him several times. Cameron’s girlfriend, Allyson, comes marching with a shotgun, which he easily deflects, but she’s able to

land several knife jabs into his stomach before he slams her face into a railing and tosses her down the stairs. As he finishes Cameron, Allyson challenges him to come get her, in hopes of creating a distraction, but he doesn't come for her until after breaking Cameron’s neck with a 180° twist. Allyson is nowhere near a match for Michael’s quick reflexes and strength, but she’s saved when her mom shows up to save the day by stabbing Michael in the back with the pitchfork found on the front porch. This is actually one of the most effective attacks

that we’ve ever seen against him, he actually appears to recoil in pain for a moment as he’s driven to the ground. What makes this pitchfork so effective as opposed to the stabs and gunshots he’s endured all night long? In my opinion, this goes back to the recharge period. Imagine Michael is like a Pokémon, just hang with me for a second here! He has a set amount of Health Points. Each attack against him will lower his HP, but they won’t slow him down until his bar reaches zero. Once that happens, he faints and has to rest

for a little while before his health is restored, at which point he can go on fighting again. You can make him faint all you want, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to die. He’s not Gary’s Raticate. (Lavender Town syndrome music) So the pitchfork, and the subsequent head stomp was probably just the final blow, the last of Michael’s HP. This recharge period is pretty short though, just long enough for Karen to steal Michael’s mask, which tracks now as a well tested method to distract him from anything else. He totally ignores the vulnerable Allyson and walks after

Karen, who goads him on, through backyards and side yards, into another street, which turns out to be yet another trap. He’s surrounded by an angry mob of Haddonfield townspeople and their obnoxiously big trucks. F*ck cars. They’re led by Leigh Brackett, the father of the babysitter Annie, whose life he famously cut short 40 years before, and by Tommy Doyle, the boy that Laurie was babysitting during her encounter with Michael that same night. The mob is armed with firearms, hockey sticks, shovels, pipes, baseball bats, and one lady even brings an iron. Not a golf club, but like

a clothing iron, for some reason. With Michael surrounded, they’re able to overwhelm him by attacking from his blind side, burying close range shots into him and turning up the beatdown once he hits the pavement. He drops his knife, and barely has the strength to reach for it, so Karen, the woman whose life was spent preparing for Michael’s onslaught, grabs it and slashes it into his upper back. It looks like it may be over for Michael, that he had finally met his match. Just to be sure, Brackett lines up his gun to Myers head, but in

one quick motion, the evil being draws the knife from his own back and uses it to slash through Brackett’s throat. From here, Michael’s abilities seem to grow. Laurie Strode has the theory about Michael’s tendency to seemingly become more and more difficult to defeat. She believes that the more he kills, the more transcends into something else impossible to take down. I guess my Pokémon analogy is actually perfect to describe this too. In Pokémon, the more monsters you defeat, the more experience you gain, which eventually levels you up. After taking out Leigh Brackett, Michael seems to get

a boost in his abilities, and the same attackers he was overwhelmed by moments earlier are now outmaneuvered, overpowered, and with a little bit of luck… come on people of Haddonfield, you gotta learn to keep track of how much ammunition you have left… he takes each of them down until it’s just him and Tommy. When Michael deals the finishing blow, the two lock eyes… sort of. Michael looks into Tommy’s eyes but Tommy can only see the dark voids of shadow created by the mask. When covered by the mask under the fall of night, the facial features

that make him human just aren’t visible, another example of incongruent affect. With the entire mob taken care of, Michael returns to his post, sneaking past the commotion of emergency vehicles and crime scene investigators to return to Judith’s old bedroom. He finds Karen, standing at his spot, gazing out the window, but by the time she notices him in the reflection, it’s already too late for her. Karen is killed, and The Shape retakes his rightful place atop Haddonfield. – [Dr Sartain] How does a crime like Michael's affect him? What's that feeling? Is he on a random path

or is he emotionally driven? Triggered by something. Perhaps some unheard marching order imprinted on his very being? I want to know what he’s feeling. I want to know what pleasure he gets out of killing. – Dr. Sartain, in his quest to understand the mind of a killer, nearly became a killer himself. He wanted to gain more insight into Michael by observing him in the wild. As misguided as this may have been, could it be argued that seeing Michael break free for a third time helps us understand him? Helps us identify his patterns? Helps us understand

the mind of a killer? Maybe. It’s up to your interpretation if any of the analysis provided in this video, or any of your own conclusions hold any more ground than any of the 50 psychiatrists who examined him in captivity. Personally, to this point, I feel pretty good about all of my teachings here in this lesson, but I’d still hesitate to call them definitive. Mostly because of what happens next. Just when we think we’re starting to understand Michael… the pattern breaks. He doesn’t go back into captivity as you would expect. This time, Michael gets away. (impact)

(mysterious music) “A manhunt for suspected killer Michael Myers continues in Haddonfield, Illinois on Friday, two days after 27 people were brutally killed on Halloween night. The suspect, Michael Myers, 61, is believed to have fled the area and is currently at large. He is in possession of a knife and considered armed and very dangerous.” That’s what newspapers read in early November after Michael Myers's worst crime spree yet. However, they were wrong about two things. The first being Michael’s kill count. They probably haven’t even tallied all the bodies, yet, because it’s more like 57, give or take

a few whose fate is never explicitly seen. The second error is that Michael did not necessarily leave the area. At this time, he most likely retreated to the sewers where he could easily lay low while the drama died down. I imagine at some point he tried to go back home, but found his old residence demolished, and ended up just staying in the sewer. Over the next 4 years, there were other Halloween murders, which were ultimately determined to be inspired by Michael, but not committed by Michael himself. There were also people who went missing around Halloween

and never turned up, like Meagan Baxter, in October 2021. Despite the fact that police did not name Michael Myers as the culprit for any of this, it is likely that he did take in a few victims during this time, based on the comments of this homeless man who hangs out around the sewer entrance. – You see that man in there? He’ll take people in there now and then. Why’d he let you live? – We have no way of knowing which victims were taken by Michael, and which were taken by other people, because the police seem

like they are just taking educated guesses rather than getting real evidence, for some reason. – Do you think he's come back? – Michael doesn’t use guns. I really don’t understand that logic. Just because Michael has not fired a gun in the past doesn’t mean he isn’t going to. He never killed anyone with a Halligan bar… until he did. Plus, one of his victims did die from a gunshot, even if he wasn’t the one to fire it. I’m guessing he mostly just killed people near the sewer entrance though, in order to keep a lower profile. For

example, Meagan Baxter’s missing billboard is right near this overpass, and it makes sense that they would want to place this near the location she was believed to have disappeared, so she was probably taken by Michael. In October 2022, a young man named Corey Cunningham is tossed from the overpass into the hobo camp, where he is abducted by Michael, who drags him into the sewers. Strangely he doesn’t kill Corey while he’s passed out. As he tries to escape, Michael reaches out and tries to strangle him, during which they make eye contact, and something seems to be

passed between the two, and Corey escapes. We’re not really given a reason that Michael lets Corey live, but we are given a reason for Allyson’s attraction to Corey. – I know what it’s like to have everybody looking at you thinking that they know you, thinking that they know what you’ve been through, but they don’t. – So maybe Michael relates to Corey on a similar level. Then on October 29th, Corey leads a police officer named Doug Mulaney into the sewer where Michael is waiting for him. Michael jumps Officer Mulaney, but Mulaney is able to get the

upper hand and knock Michael to the floor. But Corey intervenes by attacking Mulaney, and begs Michael to show him how he kills. Michael grabs a rusted old knife, probably the same one from the Larsens’ house, and Corey restrains Mulaney, giving Michael the opportunity to slash his throat and stab him over and over. We can see the life and power return to Michael’s body as he does this, and he stabs Mulaney several times more each with increasing tempo and power. It appears that Laurie’s theory is partially correct, the more that Michael kills, the more powerful he

becomes. However, at this point, he seems weaker than he was in 2018. My first thought was that long periods without killing can drain his power, however, that doesn’t exactly track with his escape four years prior. He had not killed anyone during his 40 year stay at Smith’s Grove, yet, he still had the power to overtake the entire bus full of armed guards. So it could be that Michael’s power is fading as he gets older, and he needs to continue to kill in order to maintain his strength. Another thought I’m stewing with is that maybe killing

is not what gives him power, but maybe his status as the boogeyman is what gives him power. This would explain why his power builds through 1978, but Laurie, the one character who doesn’t believe in the Boogeyman, survives. Then in 2018, his notoriety had grown even greater. We literally see reporters coming to Haddonfield from across the globe to investigate him. With each victim he took that year, he became even more infamous, which makes it appear as if each kill is actually powering him up. But then in 2019, Corey Cunningham killed the kid he was babysitting and

he became the new villain of Haddonfield. Michael was now sharing the boogeyman spotlight, and some of that power went to Corey, not to Michael. – I keep seeing his eyes. Michael’s eyes. In Corey. – The one snag in this theory is that he kills Officer Mulaney in private. Before the town learns about his death, we see the power immediately go back to Michael. However, there is one witness to this: Corey. Even if he is just an audience of one, Michael is still bringing life back into the urban legend, which in turns literally gives life to

the legend himself. It’s something I’ve brought up several times throughout his history, so Michael’s status as an urban legend may be important here as well. After this, Michael follows Corey, who goes back to Laurie’s new house, where he witnesses the woman he’s become all too familiar with over the last 44 years spying in her own windows, at a young couple, much like he did as a child. The next night he follows Corey again, this time to the home of Dr. Mathis, Allyson’s ***hole boss. He watches as the young man in the scarecrow mask takes him

out. Corey is unable to reach Mathis’s girlfriend before she locks him out of the house, but Michael is already there waiting for her. He puts his full power on display for the first time in four years by pinning her up against the wall with his knife, as he had with Bob Simms and Dave in the past. Earlier I talked about Michael’s head tilt being a sign that he is admiring his kill like artwork, and that idea is furthered here, because Deborah is pinned up over a large painting. The next day is an important one: October

31st. Halloween fell upon Haddonfield once again, and it would not pass without their infamous boogeyman paying them one final visit. (impact) (horror soundscape) (dripping) Michael’s favorite holiday begins on a low note, with Corey charging into the sewers, picking a fight with him, pinning him to the ground and stealing his mask. As he does this, he says “you’re just a man in a Halloween mask”. Perhaps he is able to overpower Michael because of this belief that he’s nothing more than an ordinary man. He could not have been more wrong. As we’ve seen time and time again,

Michael will stop at nothing to get his mask back. He somehow tracks Corey to Laurie Strode’s house and sneaks in through the back door to reclaim his mask once again. By the time Michael gets there, Corey appears to be laying dead in the foyer, but when the Shape reaches down to take his knife, he springs to life and grabs Michael’s hand. It would appear that Corey has just had his own “recharge period”, but I’ll come back to that a little bit later. This time, Michael is the apex predator once more, and he snaps Corey’s neck.

Now he can turn his attention back to Laurie Strode for one last showdown. He goes into the kitchen, drawn to the hum of the microwave, before hearing movement from a closet. Before opening it, the contents of the microwave pops, but meal that Michael is served is not the one he was hoping for. Because Laurie uses the distraction to bust out of the closet and knock the knife loose from his hands using a fire extinguisher. How ironic that 11 fully equipped firemen couldn’t manage to disarm Michael, but little old Laurie Strode with a fire extinguisher could.

However, he’s still able to grab hold of her and smash her face against a china cabinet. He throws her down and stomps his boot onto her throat, so she won’t be able to get out of this one by simply removing his mask, because she can’t reach. Instead, she retaliates by kicking his other knee. The tussle continues on, with one notable moment being when Michael turns on the garbage disposal and tries to force her hand into it. Not only is this an homage to a scene from Halloween H20, but from Michael’s point of view, it’s revenge

for their battle four years earlier, where Laurie blasted off his fingers with the shotgun. This was probably the most damage that anyone had ever done to him, because as I mentioned, Michael can’t just grow back fingers in this timeline, so he’s looking to get even with her by mangling a few of hers. However, she’s able to get out of this with a well-placed headbutt, and there just happens to be a knitting needle lying around, so she tries that attack again, seeing as how it worked in 1978, but this time, he is prepared. Once again, he

tries to get his revenge on her, by impaling her face with the needle in the same spot that she once got him, and this time he is successful. But, it comes at a cost, because this time, she does manage to get close enough to remove his mask and the momentary distraction allows her to pin his hand to the counter with his own knife, leaving him only one arm to work with. She somehow manages to pin him down to the kitchen island, reach into her own knife drawer and drive the blade into his heart. Ironically, this

leaves him in a very similar position to the one he left Phil Larson in four Halloweens prior. I discussed the possibility that Michael can hold off the recharge period sometimes, and continue to power through to get himself out of a critical situation, and I’m guessing that’s what happens here, because it only takes four seconds for him to sit up, with so much force that he throws Laurie off of him. With it abundantly clear that she won’t be able to kill Michael, or even slow him down with recharge periods, her only option is to try to

immobilize him, which she does by pinning his other hand down to the counter with the knife, and using the frying pan like a hammer to push the metaphorical nail in metaphorical crucifix. He squirms when he realizes he’s now totally defenseless, but just to be safe, Laurie also topples her refrigerator, pinning his leg to the island. Michael is truly immobilized for the first time. Even the trap she left him to die in at her old home still gave him the freedom to move around the basement and eventually escape. Now, he truly could not go anywhere, and

Laurie takes advantage of the situation by grabbing her chef’s knife, the tool that Michael favored and used to destroy so many families, and forced him to look at his own reflection one last time. After all, if Deputy Hawkins’s interpretation is to be believed Michael was never looking out the window at the Myers House, he was looking in at his reflection. Laurie jabs her rival in the side, then, for one last time, removes his mask, and looks into his real face. There is a supposed phenomena among initial viewers of the original 1978 Halloween film. Many audience

members reported seeing a deformed face during the scene where Laurie first removed his mask, but in reality, it was just the actual face of actor Tony Moran, with some spooky lighting and a small injury prosthetic, meant to represent the damage that Laurie had done with the coathanger in the prior scene. I can only imagine the blow to Tony’s confidence was more damaging than anything any boogeyman can do, but the consensus is that because of the atmosphere, the audience was projecting their expectations of horror and their own fears when they watched that scene. The 2022 unmasking

has the opposite effect, because Michael really is kind of deformed at this point, through multiple stabs and gunshots to the face, and of course, the blaze that seems to have melted his ear off and left him with burns that nearly rival one Mr. Frederick Krueger. However this time we don’t get a direct look at his face, leaving part of the horror up the imagination of the viewer. Laurie slashes cleanly through Michael’s throat with a sense of finality… but Michael Myers is truly even closer to invincibility than even she believes. He has to rip his hand

out of the knife, effectively splitting it in two, but it doesn’t matter, because he’s still able to grip his fingers around Laurie’s throat, a vice that she cannot escape from. Strangely, she seems to egg him on from this position. – Do it. Do it! – Four years ago, her granddaughter had a similar line when Michael had her cornered at the Myers house with death as the only visible outcome. But it turned out she was talking to her mother, who was standing behind him with the pitchfork. Laurie’s words here are also directed at someone else; this

time it’s Allyson who gets to play the savior. She pulls Michael’s arm away from her Grandmother and ****ing breaks it on the side of the counter! Wow I did not think she had that in her. With her airways free, Laurie slits Michael’s wrist, which she seems to naively think this is the end of him when Deputy Hawkins arrives on the scene with police. – Michael. – He’s dead. – Not dead enough. I’m glad someone has some common sense here. It seems like Allyson’s the only one who is aware of the recharge period. Michael is moved

to the roof of vehicle and tied down with rope. I would honestly go with something a little bit sturdier, knowing Michael, but that’s just me. Police lead a procession towards the junkyard, and many other Haddonfield residents join in to ensure that there’s no wiggle room for Michael to pull some kind of miraculous escape, as he had in 2018. He is untied and involuntarily crowd surfed to the industrial shredder. Carefully, he’s a villain. In the end, it is Laurie, the woman who lost her best friends, her daughter, her son-in-law, and so many who were close to

her, who rolls Michael’s body into the gears, where it is completely crushed and shredded into bits. There would be no tombstone. No memorial. Only the legend of the boogeyman. But even with his body completely destroyed, is this the end of the boogeyman? Maybe. But maybe not. (impact) (haunting piano music) Is this truly the end of Michael Myers? Has the Halloween franchise finally run its course? Sure, they could always start a new timeline branch or do another reboot, but for the purposes of this video, let’s focus on the 40-Year iteration of Michael Myers. It is certainly

the end of Michael Myers, the man. We’ve seen throughout this timeline that his injuries are permanent, and he gets his entire body ripped to shreds, so there’s no coming back from that. But in Halloween Ends, we saw Michael’s evil infect other people in the town of Haddonfield. It started with random crimes on Halloween night, but it really took hold on Corey Cunningham, who started to go down the same path as Michael, eventually developing an inexplicable desire for the mask, and even coming back from a mortal wound after a short recharge period. We don’t see what

happens to him, he’s left laying in Laurie’s foyer and we never find out if he comes back to life again. If you’re not familiar, Halloween franchise producer Moustapha Akkad created a special clause in the contract for each Halloween film. The filmmakers were legally not allowed to kill Michael Myers, so that Akkad could continue making money off the IP forever, which he did. Which is why Michael’s apparent death in H20 was retconned in Resurrection, the filmmakers made a deal with him where they were allowed to make it look like Michael had died, but they had to

undo it at the start of the next film, so they came up with this whole scenario, where Michael switched costumes with the EMT, and that’s whose head got cut off. It’s really dumb, but it’s also another reason that Michael being unmasked during his death in Halloween Ends is significant, because Laurie can see that she’s actually killing the right guy. Moustapha Akkad died in 2005, but I’ve heard that his son Malek Akkad includes the same clause in his contracts. I can’t help but wonder if the ambiguity behind Corey Cunningham’s fate was another deal with the Akkad

family. Malek allows Michael Myers to meet his end at 64 years old, and in exchange, Corey becomes the new Michael. Corey is 21, just like Michael was during the original movie. So they could potentially start again from there. I’m not saying that’s what I think is going to happen. It probably makes more sense to just start another timeline branch or go back to the anthology franchise idea and do some other stories that take place on Halloween night, like what they did with Halloween III. That’s personally what I want to see. But aside from the potential

contractual reason that it ended as it did, I think there’s an artistic reason as well. Perhaps this was the end that David Gordon Green and Danny McBride wanted, because of the message it sends. Perhaps they wanted us to feel like the evil that drove Michael Myers is alive and well in Corey Cunningham, or even in somebody else. The opening credits of Halloween Ends show a constant cycle of jack o’lantern rebirths and there’s also this scene where Lindsey does tarot cards with Allyson. – [Lindsey] That just means a major phase is ending and a new one

is about to begin. – The most overused phrase in this trilogy was “evil dies tonight”, to the point that it kind of became a meme, but if there’s anything that I took away from the end of this Michael’s story, it’s that you can stop one evil person, but you can never totally defeat evil. There will always be evil in the world. There’s no point in turning your house into a fortress and obsessively trying to stop it, because there will always be another evil on the horizon. If you enjoyed this video, I’ve also analyzed the original

timeline of Michael Myers, so if you’re interested in how that character differs from this one, check out that video on the left. And if you love scary movies, that is exactly what I cover on this channel, so go ahead and subscribe to CZsWorld for new horrors every week, ring the deathbell and select all notifications so you don’t miss any uploads and I will see you in the next one. Assuming we both survive.