Now that SHOCKtober 2022 has begun gurgling its death rattle, for today's favorite character I say it's time to pay respect to one of the reasons for the season: Mr. The Shape himself, Michael Margaret Myers. But not just any old iteration of le booeyman, no! I'm talking about the one and only...
BESPECTACLED AND BESHEETED MICHAEL MYERS IN HALLOWEEN (1978)
It's an iconic lewk, to be sure. But it's also...really effing weird. We hear so much about how Michael Myers is sooo evil but we don't hear a lick about him being sooo strange. Laying out Annie's body on the bed with his sister Judith's headstone, we could chalk that up to ooh, spooky and macabre. On one level, Michael standing there under that sheet and breathin' real heavy is also ooh, spooky and macabre. But also, Michael went through a lot of trouble to...play a prank? I can't decide if that makes him more terrifying or less, to be honest.
While Lynda waited upstairs for her post-coital beer, Michael killed Bob and took his glasses. Then he rummaged around in drawers or closets to find a white sheet, figured out where the eye holes should go, cut 'em just right, then got himself all garbed up for Lynda's big surprise. I just imagine him thinking--and maybe uttering, who knows--a few "hee hee hee"s while he's putting this all together.
Side note, I also imagine him thinking--and maybe uttering, who knows--a few "Where the fuck is it?"s while walking around the cemetery in search of Judith's grave, since he would have no idea where she was buried.
That Michael, what a prankster! What would Dr. Loomis make of all this? (Probably something about the devil's jokes and evil, no doubt.)
This sort of gets to what bothered me about the new trilogy, especially in the first movie where he starts going door to door quickly killing people. I get that a lot of people don't like how they made Laurie his sister in the original sequels, but just removing "wants to exterminate his family" doesn't return him to "just a killing machine." Michael in the first movie is inscrutable, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have motivations, it's just that we'll never be able to understand them, because they only make sense to him. But he stalks people. He messes with them. He creates tableaus. He admires his work. He seems to be curious about his own actions (like in the opening tracking shot when he turns to watch his own hand stabbing Judith).
ReplyDeleteSteve, spot-on! You got me thinking about that moment where Annie is in the laundry room and he pulls and smashes the hanging flower pot. The first film does such a great job of building him up as an unknowable "boogeyman" while also giving us moments where we can see that he's also just some guy. I love that we get that insight without the script resorting to giving him "a story" if you know what I mean. Like Leatherface's SKIN DISEASE or something :D
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