Michael Myers is a character from the slasher film series Halloween. He first appears in John Carpenter's 1978 feature film Halloween as a young boy who murders his elder sister, Judith Myers. Fifteen years later, he returns home to Haddonfield, Illinois, to murder more teenagers. In the original Halloween, the adult Michael Myers, referred to as The Shape in the closing credits, was portrayed by Nick Castle for most of the film and substituted by Tony Moran in the final scene where Michael's face is revealed. The character was co-created by John Carpenter and Debrah Hill, and has been featured in twelve films, as well as novels, video games, and comic books.
The character is the primary antagonist in all the franchise's films with the exception of Halloween III: Season of the Witch, which is a standalone film disconnected from the continuity of the other films. Since Castle and Moran put on the mask in the original film, six actors have stepped into the same role. Castle, George P. Wilbur, Tyler Mane, and James Jude Courtney are the only actors to have portrayed Michael Myers more than once, with Mane and Courtney being the only actors to do so in consecutive films. The filmmakers describe Michael Myers as pure. He typically kills using a chef's knife. In the films, Michael wears a white Halloween mask, as well as coveralls, which he usually steals from a victim. The mask used in the first film was a Captain Kirk mask that originated from a cast of William Shatner's face made for the 1975 horror film The Devil's Rain.
Appearances Michael Myers appears in all of the Halloween films excluding the standalone Halloween III: Season of the Witch, although he is briefly seen on a television advertisement for the original film. Myers has also appeared in expanded universe novels and comic books.
Films and canons Michael Myers’ story has gone through different timelines and canons, with some retconning previously established plots.
The Original continuity
Myers made his first appearance in the 1978 film Halloween. At the beginning of Halloween, a six-year-old Michael murders his teenage sister Judith on Halloween night in 1963. Fifteen years later, he escapes Smith's Grove Sanitarium and returns to his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois, where he stalks a teenage babysitter named Laurie Strode, while his psychiatrist, Dr. Sam Loomis, attempts to track him down. After murdering three of Laurie's friends, Michael attacks her as well. She fends him off long enough for Loomis to arrive and shoot Michael six times, knocking him off a balcony; when Loomis goes to check the body, he finds that Michael has disappeared. Halloween II (1981) picks up directly where the original ended. Michael follows Laurie to the local hospital and kills the staff one by one. Loomis discovers that Laurie is Michael's younger sister and rushes to the hospital to find them. Laurie shoots Michael in the eyes, and Loomis blows up the operating theater while Laurie escapes. Michael emerges from the explosion, engulfed in flames, before finally collapsing dead.
Michael does not appear again until Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers in 1988, which picks up ten years after the events of Halloween II. In this canon, known as the "Thorn Timeline", Michael survived the explosion, leaving him in a coma. He awakens when he learns Laurie has died in a car accident but has a nine-year-old daughter, Jamie Lloyd. Returning to Haddonfield, he causes a citywide blackout and massacres the town's police force and some civilians before being shot by the state police and falling down a mine shaft. Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers begins immediately after the fourth film ends, with Michael escaping the mine shaft and being nursed back to health by a local hermit. One year later, he kills the hermit and returns to Haddonfield to find Jamie again, chasing her through his childhood home in a trap set by Loomis. He is eventually subdued by Loomis and taken to the local police station, but a mysterious "Man in Black" kills the officers and frees him.
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers takes place six years after the events of the previous film. Jamie, now fifteen, has been kidnapped and impregnated by a druid cult led by the Man in Black, later revealed to be Dr. Terence Wynn, Loomis' friend and colleague from Smith's Grove. After giving birth, Jamie escapes with her baby, only to be killed by Michael. The baby is found by Tommy Doyle, whom Laurie babysat in the original film. Upon returning to Haddonfield once more, Michael kills relatives of Laurie's adoptive family, who are living in his childhood home. He is revealed to be inflicted with the Curse of Thorn, which drives him to kill his family. Wynn and his cult kidnap Jamie's baby, as well as Kara Strode and her son Danny. Loomis and Tommy follow them to Smith's Grove, where Michael ultimately turns against the cult and slaughters them all. Tommy injects Michael with chemicals and beats him unconscious. Loomis stays behind as the others escape. In the theatrical version, Michael's mask is shown on the ground as Loomis screams in the distance, leaving their fates unknown. In the longer "Producer’s Cut", however, Loomis unmasks whom he thinks is Michael, but instead is revealed to be the dying Dr. Wynn (the "Man in Black"), passing the Mark of Thorn on to Loomis as Michael, now donning the outfit of the "Man in Black", escapes.
The H20 continuity
Halloween H20: 20 Years Later establishes a new timeline following only the first two films and ignoring the events of the previous three "Thorn" films. In this particular film, Michael has been missing since the hospital explosion twenty years ago. Laurie Strode has faked her death and gone into hiding in California under an assumed name. She is the headmistress of a private boarding school and has a teenage son named John. Michael tracks them down and murders John's friends. After getting her son to safety, Laurie decides to face Michael and ultimately decapitates him. Halloween: Resurrection, which picks up three years after H20, retcons Michael's death, establishing that the man Laurie decapitated was a paramedic whom Michael had attacked and swapped clothes with before escaping. Michael tracks down an institutionalized Laurie and kills her. He returns to Haddonfield, where one year later, he kills a group of college students filming an internet reality show inside his childhood home. Contestant Sara Moyer and show producer Freddie Harris escape after electrocuting Michael. Michael's body and the bodies of his victims are then taken to the morgue. As the medical examiner begins to inspect Michael's body, he awakens.
The Remake continuity The series was rebooted in 2007 with Rob Zombie's Halloween remake. The film establishes from the beginning that Michael and Laurie are siblings, and has an increased focus on Michael's childhood: a ten-year-old Michael is shown killing animals and suffering emotional abuse at home. After killing his sister Judith and three others, he is committed to Smith's Grove where he takes up the hobby of creating papier-mâché masks and receives unsuccessful therapy from Dr. Sam Loomis. His mother Deborah commits suicide after witnessing him killing a nurse. As an adult, Michael returns to Haddonfield to reunite with Laurie. However, Laurie has no memory of Michael and is terrified of him, ultimately shooting him in the head in self-defense after he kills her friends and adoptive parents. In an unused alternate ending, Michael is shown listening to reason as Loomis convinces him to release Laurie and drop his weapon. He then begins to approach them, intentions unclear, before being shot down by Sheriff Brackett's overzealous men.
Zombie's story is continued in the 2009 sequel, Halloween II. The subsequent events and Michael's fate differ between the theatrical cut and extended Director's Cut of the film; in the former, the events of the film take place one year later, whereas in the latter, it is two years later. In both versions, Michael is presumed dead but resurfaces after a vision of Deborah informs him that he must track Laurie down so that they can "come home". In the film, Michael and Laurie are implied to have a mental link, with the two sharing visions of their mother. During the climax of the theatrical cut, after Michael has murdered Loomis, Laurie kills Michael by stabbing him repeatedly in the chest and face with his knife, with the final scene suggesting that she has taken on her brother's psychosis as she dons his mask. In the Director's Cut ending, Michael speaks a single word, 'die', before killing Loomis. He is then gunned down by the Haddonfield police. Laurie approaches Loomis' body whilst holding Michael's knife, and appears to raise the knife before she too is shot dead by police.
The Blumhouse continuity
Michael's appearance in the 2018 film Halloween establishes the "Blumhouse continuity". This version is a direct sequel to the original film in which Michael and Laurie are not siblings. It is established that after being shot by Loomis, Michael fled to his childhood home and was arrested by the Haddonfield police. After forty years at Smith's Grove Sanitarium, he escapes again and returns to Haddonfield for another killing spree. He again encounters Laurie, who has been living in fear of his return. She shoots off two of his fingers and, with the help of her daughter Karen and granddaughter Allyson, traps him in the basement of her house, which they then set on fire. Michael is heard breathing at the end of the credits, indicating that he survived.
Halloween Kills is a direct sequel to the 2018 film in which Michael escapes the burning house when the fire department arrive to stop the blaze before it becomes too intense. As Michael resumes his killing spree, the enraged townspeople form a mob to hunt him down. While the mob proves to be unnecessarily destructive, they do eventually swarm him and seemingly kill him. As they attempt to confirm he's really dead, Michael rises again and massacres them all. He returns to his childhood home, where he kills Karen as well. Halloween Ends (2022) picks up four years after its predecessor, revealing that after Karen's death, the town was unable to locate Michael and demolished his childhood home. Now in a badly weakened condition, Michael inhabits a sewer cavern where a troubled young man named Corey Cunningham, who is dating Allyson, encounters him. Corey brings Michael a victim to kill and starts to manifest the same evil. Corey dons his own mask and kills a doctor who passed Allyson over for a promotion. When Corey is having difficulty murdering the doctor's girlfriend, Michael appears and finishes the job. Corey eventually steals Michael's mask and murders several people who wronged him. He also goes after Laurie but is shot down a stairwell in her home. Michael arrives to retrieve his mask and kills Corey. Laurie pins Michael to a table and slits his throat, but he chokes her with the last of his strength. Allyson intervenes and breaks Michael's arm, allowing Laurie to fatally slice his wrist. A town-wide procession takes place, where everyone watches Laurie dispose of Michael's corpse in an industrial shredder, ending his rampage once and for all.
Literature