Happy Halloween! Trick or Treat! Do you know who likes Halloween? Yes, your favorite and mine! To know him is to love him…

Mr. The Face! Wrongly identified as the helpful and protective…Pazuzu, or…Pazuy, if you don’t spell good.

Ego te slovo!

Well, something like that. Now! One thing you can certainly say about Michael Myers is that…

…that’s one way to put it. But it is a more-than-common mistake to miss hidden, yet discernable, clues that tend to undermine how one understands whatever one thinks she understands. One such example that occurred to me concerns a person that I have written about often…Judas. In other essays, I argued that Judas was not the Betrayer of Christ. Christ wasn’t betrayed? Hey! I didn’t say that. All I said was that it wasn’t Judas who did it. I noted that in Mark, Jesus states that the betrayer would dip with him in the dish during supper. And generations of so-called Bible Commentators seem to miss the fact that Mark doesn’t indicate who Jesus’s co-dipper is. Or perhaps, choose to miss it. But Luke says…Hey! I didn’t ask was Luke said! It doesn’t matter what Luke said! Luke was not written yet! And no guy named Luke appears during Christ’s lifetime. But Matthew says…Hey! I didn’t ask what Matthew said…what did Mark say? The identity of the dipper was left out to protect him. Judas is the fall guy, and as I will point out in another essay, it was Peter who was so keen to oust Judas, something that he convinced the other guys to do, not because Judas betrayed Christ, but because, as Peter lamely attempted to prove…Judas was dead. Sounds like some of the other disciples were as skeptical about Judas as the betrayer as I am. But could there be a strange clue in Mark? Luke will assert that Judas was not to blame. But here is an odd thing…
 

Now His betrayer had given them a signal saying, “Whomever I kiss, He is the One; take Him and lead Him away safely.”
 

Betrayed with a kiss is poetic…but it is also a bit ridiculous. Why not just say…the guy I point out and say, “that’s him!” Being sneaky? It’s not like anyone with half a brain would be fooled by this whole…whomever I kiss nonsense. But what I think is really important is the statement…

 

…lead Him away safely…

 

Why? If Judas is turning over Christ to be killed, why does he think that the arresting party will lead him away SAFELY? So what does Judas think is going to happen after Jesus is lead away…safely? Actually, this is a Detail of Absurdity…something that figured in many of the Sylvia Likens essays I have published on this website. Details of Absurdity are intended to intentionally, yet often subliminally, indicate to the discerning reader that whatever these details are embedded in is, essentially, false. What I think the incorporation of the word…safely…is meant to do is to say to the reader…don’t you see an impossible paradox in what I’m saying? I can’t come out and say that Judas was not the betrayer because I am protecting the real betrayer, but I feel it incumbent upon myself to indicate that what I’m writing to accomplish this is…false. He who has ears to hear…let him hear!

The thing that got me thinking that there was much more going on in the film Halloween than is commonly believed was the following scene:

Dr. Loomis is in pursuit of Michael Myers and he knows he will be going back to Haddonfield. Now a question can be asked as to…why? On the surface, a crazy killer breaks out of the Lunatic Asylum. Why doesn’t he just say…cool! I’m out! I will now flee! The last thing you would think that he would do is to go to the very place that law enforcement would look for him first. And for some reason, that’s exactly what he does. And! Dr. Loomis is convinced that Michael would go back to Haddonfield. According to Dr. Loomis, Michael was committed at the age of six. He spent the next fifteen years in a catatonic state. He stared at the wall, a blank look on his face. He never spoke. Dr. Loomis built a terrifying image of the person he knew as Michael Myers. He says, several times, that Michael is pure evil; he calls Michael “it.” The evil is gone! That’s what he declared when he discovered that Michael apparently broke out of the asylum. “This is no man,” he tells the cop. I find it puzzling that Dr. Loomis could come to such a conclusion. If Michael sat in a chair, not speaking to Dr. Loomis, staring at the wall, how could the Good Doctor come to believe these things? If we go by what Dr. Loomis said about Michael’s state of mind while in the asylum, then the most you have is a six year old boy who killed his sister. Don’t get me wrong…that is a horrible thing to be sure. But it’s very tame when you consider other such killers that Dr. Loomis may have had in his Not-So-Funny Farm. But! Dr. Loomis should have learned absolutely nothing from a boy, then a young man, who quickly descended into a deep, catatonic state. These considerations would suggest that Dr. Loomis is a seriously unbalanced man. The thing that really indicates that this is true is the following scene…

I met him, fifteen years ago. I was told that there was nothing left. No reason…no conscience…no understanding, or even the most rudimentary sense of life or death…of good or evil…right and wrong. I met this six year old child with a blank, pale emotionless face…he had the blackest eyes, the Devil’s eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up. Because I learned that what was living behind that boy’s eyes was purely and simply…evil.

So we know that someone, or someones, had worked with Michael before Dr. Loomis got his hands on him. And they told Dr. Loomis a bunch of bunk about Michael? But Loomis also says that he “learned” the terrible things about Michael while he was under his care. Perhaps Michael was particularly violent in the asylum? No…he was in a catatonic state staring at the wall. And this, within the Artificial Reality of the movie must be true…since, in my opinion, Michael was not simply a violent man given to murder. He commits murders…in all…he kills four people in the movie. I will return to that theme later, but I think that the first murder was simply a utilitarian murder…he needed something from the garage mechanic who showed up when the asylum’s station-wagon, with a new owner, broke down. And Michael killed him to get it. That is not the act of a mindless lunatic. He then killed Annie, Lynda, and Lynda’s boyfriend. Then, an attempt was made to kill Laurie Strode, who was saved in the nick of time by Dr. Loomis. If what Michael wanted to do was simply kill people, then he had a town full of victims from which to choose. But he wasn’t interested in them…any one of them could walk right past him without any trouble, well…apart from a creepy feeling. He really intended to kill only one person…and it wasn’t Lynda…and it wasn’t Laurie, although the movie does a very good job of sending us up that particular cinematic blind alley. One person had to die for a specific reason, but Lynda and Bob were simply collateral damage. In fact, Dr. Loomis’s comments are so over-the-top, so extreme, that one is forced to believe that Dr. Loomis is himself…crazy. He has taken the person of Michael Myers, and created his own paranoid, even psychotic, delusion about him. The Devil has black eyes? Perhaps…after 3 rounds with Michael the Archangel! And Dr. Loomis shows a strange knowledge about the case…

Dr. Loomis and the cop have entered the old Myers house. The doctor believes that Michael would return to this house. And he does. But as they enter the bedroom, Loomis says…It happened in here. How does he know that? How does he know which bedroom in the house belonged to Michael’s sister? A police report…perhaps. Certainly Michael didn’t provide Dr. Loomis with a floor-plan of the house and mark his sister’s bedroom with a big black X. And I think it iffy that a police report in 1963 would include something along the lines of something else Loomis says…

She was sitting right here

How does he know where she was sitting…and the very spot? Unless he had a previous tour of the house complete with a Police Tour Guide…he would appear to be making up some of the details as he goes. However, he was right…that is where Judith was sitting when Michael killer her.

I watched him for fifteen years…sitting in a room…staring at a wall…not seeing the wall…looking past the wall…looking at this night.

Dr. Loomis seems to have an amazing insight into the mind of someone who never spoke to him. So Loomis is trapped in a serious delusion of his own. But he does seem to be right about something that he shouldn’t really know if Michael never spoke…that Michael was waiting for a specific moment to break out of, or into, the insane asylum…he wasn’t interested in anything else. Or any other time than October 30, 1978. I believe that Loomis’s patient had indeed sat and waited for that specific date. None other would do. And I return to the picture I showed earlier…

And as I indicated, this is the scene that lead me to suspect that the common perception of the movie is, alas…wrong. When Dr. Loomis arrives in Haddonfield he does the most sensible thing that one would do if one were desperate to find a killer currently in possession of the Devil’s Black Eyes. He goes to a cemetery. Really? That’s what you’d do? I thought about that and could not help feeling that the scene simply didn’t make sense. Until, that is, I realized that it made all the sense in the world. Why?

Two important things…first, Dr. Loomis stopped at the cemetery to visit the grave of…Judith Myers, the sister Michael killed in 1963. Secondly, someone…perhaps Michael…has stolen the headstone. Why would Dr. Loomis want to visit the grave of Judith Myers? It was broad daylight…it’s not like Michael would be sitting at Judith’s grave waiting for some unknown thing to happen. I think that the only logical conclusion, taking it for granted that Dr. Loomis wasn’t a Myers Family Genealogist, is that Dr. Loomis wanted to see the headstone. Why? He knew that Judith died in 1963…but he didn’t know when she was born. Is that important? It couldn’t be more important. It means that Dr. Loomis did indeed know what Michael planned to do…who he planned to kill…well, I should qualify that. He didn’t know the identity of the intended victim, but he did know what Michael was thinking. If Loomis could learn the age of Judith Myers when she was killed by Michael, then he could get an idea of the approximate age of Michael’s intended victim. But the stone was taken, and thus he had no idea how old the victim would be. Not knowing that, he had nowhere to start. Thus he could do little more than hang out at the Myers house and wait for Michael to return. And, I would add, that if Dr. Loomis did not know how old Judith Myers was when she was murdered and had to resort to a visit to the Haddonfield cemetery, then he did not have access to a police report. Surely that information would be in it. So how does he know details about the inside of the Myers’ house? Well, someone…not the cops, must have told him.

It is a common assumption that Michael had no motive for killing his sister. I thought so too, until I realized that he did, indeed, have a motive. That would indicate that the event that started Michael down the path he ended up taking was not simply a motiveless murder. I’m convinced that Michael did have a motive…a bizarre motive that, if true, would indicate that Michael was very deranged. At the beginning of the movie, Carpenter resorts to a well-worn effect…the camera moves around the house and we are seeing through the eyes of someone. One might think that whoever this person is, that he is either looking to break in, or that he is stalking someone. It is Halloween, and Mr. and Mrs. Myers were out for the evening. Michael, so it would seem, went trick-or-treating, given the fact that he is dressed in a clown outfit.  And Judith tells her boyfriend, who, hearing noises, asks if they are alone, that Michael is around somewhere. So why is Michael’s mask still in the house. Going off trick-or-treating is a little odd, seeing how Michael was six years old. I think that Michael left the house with no intention of trick-or-treating. This is the scene when his parents, suddenly appearing, find Michael at the front of the house…

So Michael is dressed like a clown. And his father just pulled off his mask…

A clown wearing a clown mask only makes sense. But there is something interesting about the mask. Michael, having snuck into the house to kill his sister, does this…

Judith’s boyfriend leaves. Michael goes upstairs to kill his sister. The clown mask is lying on the floor. He picks it up and puts it on. Now it would seem to me that if Michael did leave the house to go trick-or-treating dressed as a clown, then he should have had his clown mask with him. Yet he doesn’t…he apparently left the house without it. This would suggest that Michael had no intention of trick-or-treating. No, he left the house under that pretense, but then waited outside. Would Judith’s boyfriend show up?

He did. Did they go upstairs to the bedroom?

They did. Then Michael waited for the boyfriend to leave. But now for that which provides the motive for the murder…having put on the clown mask, we see things through the mask…we see what Michael sees. And when he entered Judith’s bedroom, he takes a look at this…

When directors give us an extended shot of something, particularly if we are looking through the eyes of someone in the movie, it is important. In this case, Michael, having entered Judith’s bedroom, scans the room. His eyes stop on Judith’s bed. The sheets are rumpled. Why? Because Judith and her boyfriend just had sex in Judith’s bed. Thus we have the key to Michael’s Not-So-Motiveless Murder. In fact, it is one of the most common motives there is…if he couldn’t have Judith, then no one could. Michael was in love with his sister. He knew she had a boyfriend, and suspected that she was doing that which, if true, Michael could not bear…Judith and her boyfriend were having a sexual relationship. So it is Halloween…Michael dresses up like a clown to go trick-or-treating…but that is not what he really intends to do. He drops the clown mask on the way out, and then hangs around the outside of the house, waiting to see if the boyfriend would appear. He does. Michael waits to see if Judith and her boyfriend have sex. They do. Then Michael did the only thing he could think to do…if he killed her, then no one could have her. If I’m right, then Michael did indeed have a motive for killing his sister.

It is, without doubt, a troubling thing to believe that Michael was erotically obsessed with his sister. And that proves he’s psychotic? Deranged…yes? That all depends. If this sort of thing developed without any circumstances that may have induced him to develop such an obsession, then he was simply deranged. But I don’t believe that this is the case. There is a clear indication that, at least possibly, Michael’s obsession was actually…inevitable.

These are the last few moments of Judith’s life. Actually…Judy’s life. If you turn the volume up as loud as it will go, you hear Michael whisper…Judy…as he enters Judith’s room. It is also clear that Judy is a shapely gal, sitting at her mirror, wearing only panties, bare-chested, combing her hair. She is, in fact, ten years old than Michael. There is an extended shot of Michael, presumably, climbing up the stairs and walking into Judy’s room. But what one sees along the way is puzzling. I will begin the tour with…

Michael enters from the hall, first stopping to pick up the clown-mask.

A pink sweater, Judith’s sweater, lying on the floor. To continue…

More clothes on the floor. But look to the far left. What you see is a version of…

The popular, Fisher Price Garage and Service Center. This is, of course, a boy’s toy. To continue…

Yes, a toy truck.

A boy’s bed…apparently, Michael’s bed.

The toy drum and another truck become momentarily visible as Michael continues his trek to the right of the shot.

The toy drum and another truck become momentarily visible as Michael continues his trek to the right of the shot.

Michael has rounded the dresser visible to the right in the previous shot, and we can clearly see Judy’s night-table become visible.

Judy’s all-but-naked body becomes visible. Michael will whisper…Judy, before he kills her. Now if you think about the course that Michael has taken, one encounters something rather disturbing. Michael’s bedroom opens directly into Judy’s bedroom. Climb up the stairs, turn right from the hall…you walk into the room, Michael’s part of the room. You pass his toys and his bed. Then you turn right again, and thus Michael has an excellent view from his part of the room into Judy’s part of the room. In fact, in her haste to get upstairs to have sex with her boyfriend, she has dropped her pink sweater in Michael’s part of the room. And believing Michael to be around somewhere, she and her boyfriend have sex with full knowledge that Michael could, by simply going to his room to get a toy, walk in on the whole scene. Even when the boyfriend is gone, she sits virtually naked, brushing her hair, knowing that Michael would walk in on her, and without sneaking into her part of the room, simply going to his part of the room to get a toy. This is, in fact, the worst possible arrangement for the sleeping arrangements for a young boy and his teenage sister. It can readily be assumed that the site Michael sees as he enters Judy’s part of the room is one that he has seen many times. It represents not only terrible parental supervision, but virtually ensures that Michael, jump-started into puberty, would develop a sexual obsession with his sister. I would suggest that Michael was a deranged kid who developed an obsession with his sister. No, he was an ordinary kid whose inevitable obsession with his sister turned him into a deranged kid. In short, it wasn’t Michael’s fault at all. And it makes me wonder whether the parents, finding the scene they did when they arrived home on Halloween night, suddenly realized that it was their own fault. But if this reading of the situation is correct, then I find it astonishing that a psychiatrist like Dr. Loomis could have been totally unaware of the very simple dynamics at play…know exactly where Judith was sitting at the moment Michael attacked her, yet know nothing of the ridiculously inappropriate sleeping arrangements, or conclude that Michael was Evil Itself when his action had both a motive and a precipitating development resulting from an almost criminal failure of parenting. Michael thus becomes a very tragic figure…a victim of the failure of basic familial practices. In fact, the way in which Michael whispers…"Judy" suggests that killing his sister is causing him immense pain. But he sees no other way out.

Of the group of three high school girls…Laurie, Annie, and Lynda, only Laurie would survive the night. I will repeat what I have said before. When a rather brilliant movie is made, one that is subtle and subliminal, one that requires looking behind the Cinematic Clown Mask that the film’s makers have put on the face of the viewers, and the movie is a smash success…then the studio naturally decides to make a sequel or two. Because they thought the original story was brilliant? No! Because they want to make more money. And when they realize that they have a smash success like The Exorcist or Halloween, they ask themselves…what about the movie was the thing that movie-goers liked? What was their perception? If one could determine that, then the studio could make a sequel that was constructed, not around the brilliant first story…one that almost everyone missed, but rather…around the movie-goers’ perception.  If The Exorcist was a smash hit, which it was, and the real story in the movie…but not the novel, which, like the movie, fools the reader as much as the viewer, then the studio wants to make a sequel. What was the thing everyone dug in the movie? The Supposed Demon…the one who is never called, nor does he call, himself Pazuzu. Pazuzu was there at the beginning, where only Merrin saw him…an impossible statue for an Apotropaic Entity, then he appears at the end of the movie…in Regan’s bedroom. Surely a demon possession movie? No, only Merrin saw Pazuzu in Regan’s bedroom. So he was never really there, although I did identify a tempting clue in the Arabic Box Scrawl in the great Up There. Everyone thinks it’s a demon-possession movie, so for the sequel, you give them a really crappy demon-possession movie. But the misperception of the original movie becomes a virtual fact. Thankfully, no sequel to another brilliant film was made…A Clockwork Orange. And yet another absolutely brilliant movie, yet not too hard to figure out, had no sequel…The Shining. But the really interesting thing about Halloween, the thing that separates it from the other movies I just named, is that the movie was not preceded by a novel. When a novel comes first, and you’ve read the novel, you will get sidetracked by the movie unless you don’t say to yourself…I will not view the movie from the perspective of the novel…which I may, or may not, have properly understood. Is The Exorcist novel a movie about demon-possession? I have published essays on this website that take the position…no, it was not. It was a possession story, the novel I mean, but the Terrible Possessor was not a demon. So that then is the basis of the movie? Absolutely not! The story morphs into a totally different one. But people see the movie and say…cool! Demon-possession nonsense! So you ruin a great story for a few more dollars in the studio’s pocket, and now the Greatest Movie Of All Time…The Exorcist, becomes a weird tale about Little Pazuzu Guy who is, at least, taller than…

 …Khufu! I meant no offence to Mankind’s Biggest Little Man, but it is not my fault that…

…he could easily end up as a toy in Pebbles Flintstone’s toybox.

The sequel to Halloween is a strange mix. It falls back on the Michael Vs. His Sister theme. The basic essence of this theme in the sequel is, in the opinion of your…

…friend and humble narrator…sort of correct; well, as far as the Sister Thing goes. Where it goes astray, is when Laurie Strode is made a mysteriously appearing bona fide sister of Michael. So my approach to the movie is essentially the same as my approach to The Exorcist. The Halloween novel, which oddly followed the movie, connected Michael with the rather lame Samhain Thing, bringing the element of a Supernatural Michael in to ruin the story behind the movie. In fact, there is only ONE scene where recourse to the Supernatural Michael is tempting. However, I will offer my interpretation of that scene…which does not require a Supernatural Michael at all…anywhere, in the movie.

So why does Michael stare at a wall for 15 years? According to Dr. Loomis, Michael sees through the wall, waiting for a particular Halloween night. Then he escapes, only to go on a rampage, which isn’t a rampage at all, seeing that it focuses on a group of three teenage girls? And why that particular Halloween? He escapes not to escape, but to satisfy a psychotic impulse…one that came to be the only thing behind the Blackest Of Eyes. The prevailing view is that Michael’s chosen victim was Laurie Strode. That is, in my opinion, completely wrong. But we are given the Shiny Object of Michael following Laurie around. And she is aware of him. So Michael has decided to kill Laurie, and her two friends are collateral damage, so to speak? Actually, I think that Michael was looking for someone specific, but didn’t know who she was. The problem for Michael was the same problem for Dr. Loomis…he did not know what she looked like. Michael suddenly notices Laurie for a very good reason. Laurie’s father is a real estate agent, and he has finally found someone interested in buying the old Myers residence. On the way to school, Laurie is told to drop off the key…placing it under the doormat. She doesn’t know that Michael is inside. But we get another look at the scene through Michael’s Blackest of Eyes…

My opinion is this…the reason Michael begins stalking Laurie is because he is looking for a high school girl but doesn’t know what she looks like. However, Laurie has walked up to the house, and I think that Michael thinks…this COULD be her. Why else would she walk up to the front door? If that was the night he came home…could that be the night she came home? How easy it momentarily seemed. He sat and waited, and here it was…she simply walked up to the front door. But still…was this the girl? So, he decides to find out. And that means…

…stalking Laurie. A very cool shot…

Laurie looks out the schoolroom window only to see a strange man. The station-wagon, it should be said, is the one that was stolen at the beginning of the movie when the asylum break-out takes pace. Is that significant? I will return to that subject later.

Michael is also watching the Elementary School students…in particular, Tommy. Laurie is his babysitter. Now Michael will have plenty of opportunities to kill Tommy if he wishes to do so. But he does not. Why is Michael initially interested in him? That’s obvious…he was with Laurie when she approached the Myers House to put the key under the doormat. I think that Michael is still trying to understand who is who. So he watches Laurie, and then he watches Tommy. In Michael’s mind, a high school age girl who approaches his old home is a good candidate for the person he seeks. But the boy? That’s confusing, so Michael is working it out. Assuming for a moment that the guy in the work suit is, in fact, Michael Myers. When Tommy leaves the school, we get this interesting shot…

If we are seeing through Michael’s eyes, then this is a fascinating camera angle. Tommy is still under surveillance, and we get the same angle…

Now let’s confuse Michael a bit more…something you should not do if standing next to him. But out of confusion cometh…certainty.

Riddle me this, Michael…what happens when you add one Laurie to an Annie and a Lynda? Ok, Michael is not the talkative type. The answer? The Teenage Triumvirate! Three friends, and Laurie is one of them. And if you are watching Laurie, then you are also watching Annie and Linda. That becomes a problem for Michael, not to mention…Annie and Linda! Let’s not forget…Laurie.

Here he comes!

Laurie points him out. Strangely, Lynda thinks she knows him.

Isn’t that Devon Graham?

Wow…didn’t see that coming! Blackest of Eyes Michael “Devon Graham” Myers! Perhaps…an alias…his Outside of the Insane Asylum name? I think that there is a good explanation for what seems inexplicable. I think that Linda sees the jumpsuit worn by the guy driving the car. And so the first victim…

I suggest that this Devon Graham. He works for Phelps Garage, which would explain the jumpsuit. Michael has killed him and taken his suit. He did not, however, take the truck. Nearby is a payphone, which Dr. Loomis uses to make a call. Perhaps the station-wagon broke down at this railroad junction. Phelps was called. Devon Graham was dispatched to help with the car. He fixed the problem, but rather than getting paid, he was murdered. Why? Because Devon Graham saw something he shouldn't…so he must die.

Annie has a big mouth! As the car passes, Annie shouts…

Hey, Jerk! Speed kills!

The car screeches to a halt, then continues on. Guess what also kills! The guy you just shouted your insult at! The girls continue walking. But after only a few moments, we get this angle…

Interesting…seeing through someone else’s eyes. Then, only another few moments, Linda having left the group as she reached her house, we get this…

So here, he is positioned in front of the girls. In the previous shot, he stands behind the girls. The guy gets around.

Laurie clearly sees him, and tells Annie, and Annie decides that Not-Devon-Graham is some kind of stalker and goes over to confront him. But he’s vanished. Annie arrives home, then Laurie. And now it’s time for a very cool shot…

What all of this suggests is that Michael is stalking Laurie Strode, and has decided to kill her? I disagree. I think Michael is confused. He believes that one of the three girls is the one he is looking for. But he is not sure which one. Laurie was a good possibility, seeing how she approached the house. But during the walk home from school, Michael was also watching the other two. And! The other two knew what car he was in. He doesn’t know whether the other two girls got a good look at him. I know…I know…he’s got a mask on…so who cares? Michael does. I’m sure that he would prefer that even such a vague description not be given to the police. Or Dr. Loomis, for that matter.

At this point, I will make a very strange statement about what I think is happening, and how it unwinds. Michael decides that one of the group of three is the girl he’s looking for. But she isn’t Laurie Strode. Michael decided that Annie is the girl…

There is the stolen headstone. Annie was killed in the car, and then brought back to the house. She was placed on a bed in the upstairs bedroom, and obviously posed. So what does this all mean? I think that there is only one possible conclusion. Michael Myers, who as a child, murdered his sister because he was sexually obsessed with her, decided that no one could have her if he couldn’t, came to believe that his sister Judith Myers would be coming back from the dead. Wow! She would be resurrected, and that means that Michael would have to kill her again. He then metaphorically buried her beneath her own tombstone. So in Michael’s mind, he has killed the Resurrected Judith Myers.

Yet, as we all know, Lynda is also killed, along with her boyfriend. Lynda was one of the girls who saw Michael, and so she had to die too. Her boyfriend happened to come over to the house where Annie was babysitting, accompanying Lynda to a house where she and her boyfriend could do what they couldn’t do elsewhere. And so Lynda’s boyfriend, being at the focal point of the violence, had to die as well. That left Laurie, and a concerted attempt was made to kill her too. However, one can certainly ask the question…how did Michael decide Annie was his resurrected sister?

I said earlier that Michael spent some time attempting to decide which of the girls was his sister. One of the pitfalls of casting a movie like Halloween…a movie that centers around three teenage girls, is the unintentional diversion created by casting adult women to play the roles of girls somewhere around the age of 16-17. We know it is high school…that is made clear. But it is easy to subconsciously relate to the characters by what they overtly are…grown women. By losing a connection between the viewer and females actually perceived as teenage girls, the ability to perceive the story-line becomes virtually impossible. Jamie Lee Curtis, in particular, comes off almost as Tommy and Lindsey’s mother. I believe that Carpenter realized this, and in one incredible scene, sought to try to compensate for this effect. And! He has embedded an incredible clue within it.

Laurie’s room…with a little girl bed…and a Raggedy-Ann…but still, she looks like a mother going in to clean-up her teenage girl’s bedroom. And…subliminal clue alert! I doubt that there are too many teenage girls interested in the artist James Ensor…a Belgian painter and printmaker who was influential on expressionism and surrealism. Well, maybe if Laurie was an art major in college, but she isn’t. And here is a painting by James Ensor…

This one is called…Masks Confronting Death. Again…

Another…

And…

And so a guy obsessed with masks is the favorite artist of Laurie Strode. But this one is particularly relevant…

The Despair of Pierrot. Pierrot was a figure from Italian comedy, who was essentially a tragic clown or harlequin.  As we know from the beginning of the film, Michael Myers was the Great Tragic Harlequin…Pierrot…a tragic figure who could not help walking the course that others set for him.

So in this regard, Halloween may contain a well-deserved criticism of post-modern America. He does terrible things, but the pain he inflicts is the pain that others have inflicted on him. And so post-modern America makes its own monsters.

It is clear that despite Michael’s early interest in Laurie, his attention shifts abruptly. Laurie is babysitting on one side of the street, while Annie is babysitting on the other side of the street, the houses being directly opposite one another. Lynda and her boyfriend would soon show up at the house where Annie is babysitting. By this point, Michael is completely ignoring Laurie. His focus is on the other side of the street, in particular…Annie. Again…why Annie? I believe that Michael was not looking for the girl who most looked like Judith Myers…of the group, that would have been Lynda. But he clearly identifies Annie, not Lynda, as his sister Judith. Now I will offer a possible cue chosen by Michael that led to Annie’s death. Annie loses her pants…actually, she spills something on her pants, takes them off, puts them in the washing machine, and walks around wearing a shirt and a blanket. But Michael is shown looking in on this scene…

I bring to you…Underpants Annie! Sorry. Annie, as I said, goes to the laundry-room, which is actually external to the house. Michael follows…

What does he see?

Smile for the camera, Annie! She’s a star…no buts about it! It’s Halloween night, and the full moon’s out! Fear not! Captain Underpants will save the day! Or…night. Lindsey goes out to tell Annie that Paul is on the phone, only to find Annie stuck trying to get out of the window. The elements of the two shots provided above present the following clear parallels between Annie and Judith Myers…

That would be an amazing coincidence if not intentional. The top two shots are Judith Myers, and the lower two are shots of Annie. But Annie’s Wardrobe Failure leads to another important element….

In the bottom left shot, Judith wears knee-socks. The bottom right shot is from the sequence of shots featuring the all-important route Michael took in 1963 to reach and, ultimately, kill his sister. I noted that the inappropriateness of sleeping arrangements represents a terrible failing; in this shot, there is an extended pause as Michael sees his sister’s knee-socks thrown onto the floor of what could be called his bedroom…except that they essentially sleep together. As Annie comically walks around with her knee-socks prominently on display, Michael connects his sister’s appearance at that moment that he decided that he would have to kill her to save her for himself with Annie's appearance. He becomes convinced that Annie is Judith Myers, The Second.

That is the Michael Myers Mind-Set that I propose. He killed Judith in 1963, but he also believed that she would come back from the dead. But when? How old was Judith when she was killed?

Judith was born November 10, 1947, which made her sixteen years old when Michael killed her. Michael believed that his sister would come back from the dead. So he waited…and waited…until, as Dr. Loomis pointed out, the night for his escape would arrive. But I think that Michael began his count not with 1964, when Resurrected Judith would actually be aged one. I think he counted from the night he killed her, thus he reckoned New Judith’s first year, not as 1964, but as 1963. Year one began on October 31, 1963.  And so Year Two was October 31, 1964. He continued the count from there, thus October 31, 1978 would be the Sixteenth Year, and that was the day that he waited for so patiently. Of course, if that was the Magic Date, he would have to be sure that he could get out of the asylum on that day…which one might believe was something that he couldn’t count on. He had to have had a very good plan that offered him very good assurances that he could be free on the Magic Date.