John Carpenter's Halloween...The Beginning of The Masked Killer
“ I met this 6 year old boy with this blank, pale, emotionless face and the blackest eyes….the Devil’s eyes. I spent 10 years trying to reach him and 5 years trying to keep him locked up because what I saw in that boy’s eyes was purely and simply….evil.” Dr. Sam Loomis
I remember seeing commercials for John Carpenter’s Halloween back in the fall of 1978. I was living in Washington Heights for a time and I knew that whatever this film was I wanted no part in it. It scared me. I remember the face…the mask. Pale, devoid of passion, of anything alive. I just ignored the previews and I just kept right along as I reached for my Darth Vader costume to get ready to trick or treat….
Halloween was a landmark film in its own right. Just a few years earlier, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre was released….and it shocked audiences with a similar chaos as did the Exorcist around that same time. Leatherface with his human skin mask and the chainsaw…running, screaming….total anarchy….as scary as that was…was still different from the character of Michael Myers….there was something that was worse…because Leatherface was at least passionate about his work…Michael? There was no passion there….only death.
Michael Myers…Halloween night 1963 as a six year old, for reasons still unknown, walked into his house and brutally killed his 16 year old sister in her bedroom.
Making news all over the small town of Haddonfield, ILL, Michael is institutionalized, kept under the observation and care of Dr. Samuel Loomis. He takes a liking to the young lad and spends nearly a decade trying to reach him and cure him. Nothing works. The boy does not speak. Does not cry. He does nothing with emotion or passion. There is no love there. Not even hate. There is just a void of where once stood a human being. Being left with no real knowledge of his rearing by his parents, we are left to simply speculate.
Frustrated and ultimately afraid, Dr. Loomis begins the process of making sure Michael stays locked up for the rest of his life. It had nothing really to do with his inability to reach him, but what he had discovered in trying to do so. He found that Michael was a living conduit of evil. Something beyond any kind of psychological or psychiatric help. Patience was sensed from him….a patience for something…or sometime…for it would be in that right moment in this young boy that action would spring from the darkness.
October 30th, 1978. Michael escapes from Smiths Grove where he was held. Destination: Haddonfield.
Stalking three teenagers, particularly oblivious Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), we see the darkness come to life in now 21 year old Michael Myers. He hides in the shadows, carefully driving a Smiths Grove car he stole in his escape (who the hell taught him how to drive?). He follows those particular three young ladies and soon, one by one, he kills them.
Of course we see what happens in the end. Dr. Loomis shoots Michael six times as he is found strangling Laurie. He falls off the balcony window and we see him laying there, thought to be dead. Doc goes to see….the body is gone.
Michael is still alive….thus arises a new wave of terror.
Why can’t he die? Dr. Loomis says it in the beginning of Halloween 2….He’s not human. No human being can take six shots off of a gun and fall two stories. The mystery begins…what drives him? What is keeping him from dying?
Soon we see a wave of other psycho killers with the same kind of effects. Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th….can’t be killed. Freddy Kreuger from A Nightmare on Elm Street….can’t be killed (even though being that he is a spiritual kind of character we can let it slide…) Killing Michael Myers is the same as killing Godzilla….you can’t do it. Out of all of the crazed killers of the horror genre, the top two in my opinion are Michael Myers and Jason Vorhees. Together they have spawned a whole set of sequels and remakes that were good in some things, horrible in others. John Carpenter was the one to set the standard. A great horror director in his own right with films like The Fog, The Thing, The Ward, Prince of Darkness and In The Mouth of Madness. We see in Michael Myers what Dr. Loomis saw…the unconscious mind. He said it in Halloween II, Samhain is about the unconscious mind..the dark within ourselves. Michael Myers is an example of the darkness within gone amuck and unleashed.
I make it a point every Halloween to watch my two favorite Halloween films, Halloween and Halloween 2 from 1980. I can do well and good without the other films. It’s tradition for me to watch these two films. They are dark, scary and well made. You know what’s great about the first Halloween? There’s no blood. No gore. The image of the Shape in the windows and doors is enough to make you quiver. Fear of the unknown. The music is awesome…and personally I’m yet to meet a person who can hum that piano main theme right. They always go off a note or two….I never got that.
Oh and one more thing…..Michael is the guy with the Halloween mask. Jason is the one with the Hockey mask. Get it? Got it? Good!
Happy Halloween.
I remember seeing commercials for John Carpenter’s Halloween back in the fall of 1978. I was living in Washington Heights for a time and I knew that whatever this film was I wanted no part in it. It scared me. I remember the face…the mask. Pale, devoid of passion, of anything alive. I just ignored the previews and I just kept right along as I reached for my Darth Vader costume to get ready to trick or treat….
Halloween was a landmark film in its own right. Just a few years earlier, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre was released….and it shocked audiences with a similar chaos as did the Exorcist around that same time. Leatherface with his human skin mask and the chainsaw…running, screaming….total anarchy….as scary as that was…was still different from the character of Michael Myers….there was something that was worse…because Leatherface was at least passionate about his work…Michael? There was no passion there….only death.
Michael Myers…Halloween night 1963 as a six year old, for reasons still unknown, walked into his house and brutally killed his 16 year old sister in her bedroom.
Making news all over the small town of Haddonfield, ILL, Michael is institutionalized, kept under the observation and care of Dr. Samuel Loomis. He takes a liking to the young lad and spends nearly a decade trying to reach him and cure him. Nothing works. The boy does not speak. Does not cry. He does nothing with emotion or passion. There is no love there. Not even hate. There is just a void of where once stood a human being. Being left with no real knowledge of his rearing by his parents, we are left to simply speculate.
Frustrated and ultimately afraid, Dr. Loomis begins the process of making sure Michael stays locked up for the rest of his life. It had nothing really to do with his inability to reach him, but what he had discovered in trying to do so. He found that Michael was a living conduit of evil. Something beyond any kind of psychological or psychiatric help. Patience was sensed from him….a patience for something…or sometime…for it would be in that right moment in this young boy that action would spring from the darkness.
October 30th, 1978. Michael escapes from Smiths Grove where he was held. Destination: Haddonfield.
Stalking three teenagers, particularly oblivious Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), we see the darkness come to life in now 21 year old Michael Myers. He hides in the shadows, carefully driving a Smiths Grove car he stole in his escape (who the hell taught him how to drive?). He follows those particular three young ladies and soon, one by one, he kills them.
Of course we see what happens in the end. Dr. Loomis shoots Michael six times as he is found strangling Laurie. He falls off the balcony window and we see him laying there, thought to be dead. Doc goes to see….the body is gone.
Michael is still alive….thus arises a new wave of terror.
Why can’t he die? Dr. Loomis says it in the beginning of Halloween 2….He’s not human. No human being can take six shots off of a gun and fall two stories. The mystery begins…what drives him? What is keeping him from dying?
Soon we see a wave of other psycho killers with the same kind of effects. Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th….can’t be killed. Freddy Kreuger from A Nightmare on Elm Street….can’t be killed (even though being that he is a spiritual kind of character we can let it slide…) Killing Michael Myers is the same as killing Godzilla….you can’t do it. Out of all of the crazed killers of the horror genre, the top two in my opinion are Michael Myers and Jason Vorhees. Together they have spawned a whole set of sequels and remakes that were good in some things, horrible in others. John Carpenter was the one to set the standard. A great horror director in his own right with films like The Fog, The Thing, The Ward, Prince of Darkness and In The Mouth of Madness. We see in Michael Myers what Dr. Loomis saw…the unconscious mind. He said it in Halloween II, Samhain is about the unconscious mind..the dark within ourselves. Michael Myers is an example of the darkness within gone amuck and unleashed.
I make it a point every Halloween to watch my two favorite Halloween films, Halloween and Halloween 2 from 1980. I can do well and good without the other films. It’s tradition for me to watch these two films. They are dark, scary and well made. You know what’s great about the first Halloween? There’s no blood. No gore. The image of the Shape in the windows and doors is enough to make you quiver. Fear of the unknown. The music is awesome…and personally I’m yet to meet a person who can hum that piano main theme right. They always go off a note or two….I never got that.
Oh and one more thing…..Michael is the guy with the Halloween mask. Jason is the one with the Hockey mask. Get it? Got it? Good!
Happy Halloween.
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