Halloween: Michael Myers Explained | Breakdown Of His Origins, History, Inspiration + More

This article we’re going to be going over one of the most infamous villains in all of movie history.

That man is Michael Myers!

Throughout this, I’ll be breaking down everything that you need to know about the character including his origin story, history, and numerous reboots.

There will be heavy spoilers here so if you aren’t fully caught up with all of the Halloween movies then I highly recommend that you turn off now.

With that out the way I just wanna give a huge thank you for clicking this, now let’s get into our breakdown of Michael Myers.

Michael Myers Biography

Michael Audrey Myers was born on the 19th of October 1957 in the town of Haddonfield, Illinois. Myers spent the first six years of his life at 45 Lampkin Lane and lived with his two parents and sisters. On the night of Halloween 1963, Michael, dressed as a clown murdered his elder sister Judith. Not long after, Michael was caught by his parents and handed over to the authorities who sent him to Smith’s Grove Warren County Sanitarium.

Here he was overseen by Doctor Samuel Loomis who stated the following after studying him –

Michael Myers is the most dangerous patient I have ever observed. He’s covering up. This catatonia is a conscious act. There is an instinctive force within him. He’s waiting.

Thus began the legend of Myers who would come to be known as the shape, the boogeyman, completely void of all human emotion.

John Carpenter On Michael Myers

John Carpenter, who directed the first Halloween and was a producer on several entries in the series, described the character as “a supernatural force—a force of nature” that is “unkillable“.

Carpenter gained inspiration for the character after visiting a mental institution in Kentucky on a class trip. Amongst the mentally ill patients, he came face to face with a young teenager who apparently gave Carpenter a stare that went right through him and completely creeped him out. This obviously had a huge impact on the director as Myers adapted this quality in several of the depictions.

Carpenter purposely left the fate of Myers up to the viewer at the end of the original film as he wanted his disappearance to evoke a sense of unease in the community. The idea that Myers could be out there, somewhere and moviegoers didn’t know what he looked like, meant that he could be anyone and this terror would haunt them long after they left the cinema.

The fact that you are unable to reason with Michael coupled with how unstoppable he is has added to the character’s appeal immensely and it’s easy to see why he has had such a legacy.

Halloween Timeline Explained

Now depending on what timeline you follow in the Halloween series, and there are several, Myer’s other sister, named Laurie was either adopted after her parents died in a car crash or after their mother committed suicide. There is also another timeline where the two are unrelated but either way, Myers has become somewhat of a nemesis to Laurie and has stalked her for the majority of her life.

In the first two timelines and reboot, on the night of October 30th, Myers managed to escape his holding cell and released a multitude of patients across the campus, providing him with a distraction to escape. Dr. Loomis arrived at the asylum during the breakout and Myers was able to commandeer his car and drive back to his childhood home. Hiding from the authorities, Myers immediately recognized Laurie who approached the house in order to drop off some keys. Myers desecrated his sister Judith’s grave and spent the rest of the day stalking Laurie and her friends before carrying out attacks on them on the night.

Halloween Timeline 1978 – Halloween 5

Loomis, who was hunting Myers managed to catch up to him during his attack on Laurie and shot him several times. After checking for his body though Loomis discovered that Myers had vanished and the character continued his killing spree that night before tracking down Laurie to a hospital in which he tried to kill her once more. With the help of Dr. Loomis, Laurie was able to cause an explosion that seemingly killed them both.

However, it was revealed years later that the two survived with Loomis suffering severe burns and Michael becoming comatose. During a journey in an ambulance, Michael was awoken by two after hearing that his sister Laurie died in a car crash and that her daughter Jamie lived in Haddonfield. This sent him on another spree in which he tried to track her down.

Now the series kinda jumps the shark a bit here with Jamie and Michael gaining a psychic connection to one another. At the end of the film, Michael is seemingly killed yet again after Police unload a Rambo amount of ammo into the character. Jamie seemingly takes on his personality by attacking her own mother but both of these aspects are retconned slightly later down the line.

Michael apparently escaped the police and was found comatose once more by a hermit. Here he was nursed back to health before awakening to kill his savior. From here Michael once more when on the hunt for Jamie.

Halloween 5: The Revenge Of Michael Myers – Halloween H20

Now this, Halloween 5: The Revenge Of Michael Myers is one of the only entries in the series in which Myers shows any side of his humanity, with the character unmasking and even shedding a tear at one point. However, as the character is inherently evil, this doesn’t last too long and shortly after this the character resumed his mute, soulless person.

In the film, Loomis returns and uses Jamie as bait and managed to subdue Myers. Myers was transported to Haddonfield Police Station but he was rescued or rather kidnapped along with Jamie by the mysterious Man In Black.

This is revealed to be the leader of a pagan group named the Cult Of Thorn, that may have used Myers to impregnate Jamie, though this is never explicitly stated. Jamie manages to escape with her baby but Myers is able to catch up with her and kill her. This was all in a desperate attempt to get the baby, named Steven, which is later found and taken care of by Tommy Doyle, who Laurie Baby sat in the first film.

Now it’s during this film, Halloween 6: The Curse Of Michael Myers that we get a lot of the character’s backstory and motives fleshed out.

Tommy is obsessed with getting to the bottom of Michael’s motives and discovers that the character has been infected with a Druid Curse named Thorn. In ancient times this involved a child from each tribe being chosen to bear the curse of Thorn which involved the bearer being forced to sacrifice their next of kin on Halloween night. This is how Michael cannot die and has been gifted with superhuman abilities and it’s also the point where the series starts to take a big turn for the worse that leads to its eventual reboot.

Relatives of The Strodes move into the old Myers house and their youngest son, similar to Michael, begins to hear voices that tell him to kill and he eventually becomes a target for the cult. Michael murders the Strode family bar Dany and his mother Kara and with the help of Danny and Dr. Loomis, they are able to bring an end to The Cult.

The film ends with a showdown between Loomis and Michael though we never learn the fate of the two.

Halloween H20 Timeline

The character’s backstory was then drastically changed for the film Halloween H20 which just made most of the article so far completely pointless. It retcons pretty much all of the franchise’s events after 1978 and follows Laurie Strode who faked her own death in order to escape from her Brother. She is now named Keri Tate and works as a headmistress at a school. Keri or Laurie has a son named John who is a student there and they very much become the center of this film.

Michael’s body was never found after the events of 78 and 20 years later he has decided to re-emerge for a family reunion with Laurie and John. Myers murders several people in this film but is eventually caught.

Though the film’s events play out with Laurie beheading Michael seemingly, it is later revealed in the following entry that during transportation, Michael killed a paramedic that was moving his body and switched clothes with him and this is the man that….I can’t, this is the worst retcon ever…this is the man that Laurie beheaded.

During this time Michael was able to escape and continued to go on the run.

Due to the crippling guilt from killing an innocent man, Laurie was taken to Grace Anderson Sanitarium where she feigned catatonia in order to lure Michael out. However, this failed and Michael was able to kill Laurie once and for all.

Myers lived in the sewers under 45 Lampkin Lane undisturbed until 2002 when the home was invaded by a reality tv show named Dangertainment that filmed students whilst they were locked in the property. During the broadcast, Myers returned and murdered most of the group but the survivors managed to seemingly electrocute him to death and trap him in the burning property. Michael was taken to the morgue where he resurrected and presumably continued his reign of terror.

Rob Zombie Halloween

The retcons follow a similar storyline to the first two movies with the Rob Zombie Halloween film fleshing out Myer’s origin story and actually having him talk as a child. Myers had a very unhappy home life and resorted to wearing the mask as a shield for his identity. Though they traverse much of the same ground already mentioned in this video, we actually got another big wiping of the timeline in 2018 with the release of Halloween.

Halloween 2018

This film stated that Michael had been locked up for 40 years after being apprehended on Halloween night in 1978. Unlike the majority of the timeline, Michael is no longer the brother of Laurie, though he still has a vendetta against her and after being freed by one of Dr. Loomis’ co-workers that studied the character, he continues to try and kill the citizens of Haddonfield.

Juxtaposing her prior characterizations, Laurie has spent the 40 years since the attack preparing for his return and she is not the quivering mess that she was in the first film.

With the help of her daughter and granddaughter, Laurie is able to trap Michael in her home and burn the property down with Michael still in it. Though he seems to go up in the blaze, we know from the announcement of two sequels that the character will be returning once more to get revenge and who knows who will become a target next.

Your Thoughts

And that’s everything you need to know about Michael Myers, obviously, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the character and what your favorite film starring him is. Comment below and let me know!