LITERAL REMAINS

  

A study was conducted by California State University’s Media Psychology Lab, on the psychological appeal of movie monsters—Vampires, Freddy Krueger, Frankenstein’s monster, Jason Voorhees, Godzilla, Chucky, Hannibal Lecter, King Kong, and The Alien—which surveyed 1,166 people nationwide (United States), with ages ranging from 16 to 91. It was published in the Journal of Media Psychology. In the survey, Michael was considered to be the “embodiment of pure evil”; when compared to the other characters, Michael Myers was rated the highest. Michael was characterized lending to the understanding of insanity, being ranked second to Hannibal Lecter in this category; he also placed first as the character who shows audiences the “dark side of human nature”. He was rated second in the category “monster enjoys killing” by the participants, and believed to have “superhuman strength”. Michael was rated highest among the characters in the “monster is an outcast” category.

Born Michael Audrey Myers in 1957, the troubled child that would become known as The Shape began his decades long career of murder at the age of six on October 31st, 1963.  On that Halloween night, Michael’s parents arrived home to discover he had murdered his sister, Judith.  In the aftermath, with his mother and father seeking answers, Michael was institutionalized under the care of Dr. Sam Loomis.  His parents’ search for the reasons that fueled his murderous madness would, ultimately, be fruitless.  As Dr. Loomis stated, “I met this six year old child with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and 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 realized what was living behind that boy’s eyes was purely and simply…evil.”

Young Michael Myers was held at the Smith’s Grove Sanitarium until he was twenty years old, at which point he was to be transferred and tried as an adult for his sister’s murder.  Upon attempting to transfer, the now adult, patient, Myers escaped.  Dr. Loomis, who had opposed the transfer, wanting simply to keep Michael locked away under the strictest security imaginable, was certain he knew his patient’s destination.  Loomis quickly headed to Haddonfield, Michael’s hometown, to sound the alarms.

In the years that Michael was locked away in Smith’s Grove, his parents her killed in a car accident.  His youngest sister, just an infant, was adopted by another Haddonfield family; they renamed her Laurie to protect her identity, and to guard her from the negativity now associated with the Myers name and its legacy.  But, after his escape and return, Michael sought and found his sister, knowing her by either instinct, family resemblance, or some other sixth sense.  Laurie Strode, a high school teen, would soon meet her brother on the night of Halloween, 1978, forever to be known as “The night he came home”.

Patiently, and systematically, stalking and killing all who stood between him and his sister, Michael Myers finally came face to face with Laurie.  Whatever drove Michael, whatever spurred him, whatever twisted and coiled in his mind and darkest of dark souls, brought him to Haddonfield, to his sister, to kill her.

In a fight for her life, which she narrowly escaped with, Laurie strode survived her battle with her criminally insane brother, thanks in no small part to Dr. Loomis, and his, albeit limited, understanding of Michael’s psychology.  Their relief and reprieve was short lived.  Michael Myers was not dead, merely injured, and escaped to try his hand at finishing his sister at the local hospital.  Once again, Laurie and Dr. Loomis narrowly survived.

Sam Loomis was physically scarred with his last confrontation with Michael Myers.  Michael was left comatose and Laurie disappeared.  Loomis watched, waited, and saw to the care and detainment of Myers at the maximum security Ridgemont Federal Sanitarium.  The administrator of Ridgemont deemed the comatose Myers a non-threat in 1988 and arranged for his transfer back to Smith’s Grove.  Myers once again escaped, his ten years coma being a waiting game for him.

Free once more, Michael once more returned to Haddonfield.  Again he was drawn to a relative, Jamie Lloyd.  Jamie was his niece, the daughter of Laurie who had died in a car crash, the same fate as her parents.  It was Dr. Loomis, thanks to the help of the people of Haddonfield, who stopped Michael once more.  Michael once more escaped, and slipped into a coma to awaken a year later in the shack of a hermit.

Michael was stopped by Jamie and Dr. Loomis, but he was not killed.  He went into hiding for the next several years only to emerge after the death of Dr. Loomis.  Rummaging through Loomis’s old case notes, he discovered that his sister, Laurie, was in fact a live and he tracked her down to the secluded private school where she now taught.  That confrontation ended with Laurie, seemingly, beheading Michael.  The truth was that Michael switched places with a paramedic, and Laurie killed an innocent man.  Laurie suffered a breakdown and she herself was institutionalized.

It was during Laurie’s institutionalisation that Michael found her and finally succeeded in her murder.

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*This profile follows the timeline set forth by the original Halloween film series.

*In “reporting” this profile of Michael Myers I thank the assistance of Wikipedia and Horror Film Wiki