The depiction of evil in 'Halloween' gets what made the 1978 original so scary
Note: This contains a discussion of plot points from the new "Halloween"; as such, some spoilers appear below.
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"Halloween," which debuted to a staggering $77.5 million box office haul last weekend, is the rare sequel to engage in a successful conversation with the movie that started it all. What John Carpenter's original film got right - and what the following films in the series often got wrong - was the notion that Michael Myers, the white-masked killer stalking teenagers on the streets of Haddonfield, Illinois, was pure, implacable evil.
This is the genius of the film's opening scene, during which Carpenter's camera puts us in the point of view of Myers himself. In a long, continuous shot, we see someone stalking a home, spying on a girl and her boyfriend, before entering through the rear of the house, grabbing a knife and clambering up the stairs. He puts on a mask, restricting our vision behind two eyeholes as if we, the viewer, are wearing it. Then he heads into a girl's bedroom and starts stabbing - at one point the camera drifts up while the stabbing continues, as if our villain is looking into the middle distance, lost in thought about a crossword puzzle clue he couldn't solve earlier in the day or an item he forgot to pick up at the grocery store.
It isn't until the stabbing commences that we learn the boy is Michael. And it isn't until we break from the POV shot and his father pulls off the mask that Michael is a small child, 6 years old. His face is blank, almost confused. He holds the knife awkwardly, as any child might. If we hadn't seen it for ourselves, through his eyes, we wouldn't believe him capable of the murder that lands him in an institution for 15 years.
This is the true horror of Michael Myers, the terror that Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) pinpointed as his scariest aspect: the blankness of his eyes, the inability to reason with the killer lurking within the boy's body. The inability to even communicate with him. It felt as though every "Halloween" movie after Carpenter's first was an attempt to break that barrier down in some way. Hence the twist in "Halloween II" that Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) is actually Michael Myers' sister or the effort to turn Myers into the victim of a Druid spell in 1995's "Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers."
Rob Zombie's 2007 remake of "Halloween," though not the worst entry in a franchise with stinkers like "Halloween: Resurrection," is guiltiest of violating the unknowability of Michael's evil. In Zombie's reckoning, Myers is the protagonist and we spend much of the movie with the killer as a child, learning of the abuses he suffered at the hands of bullies and stepfathers and mean sisters. Sure, he was a little bit creepy - like all good serial killers, he got his start on house pets - but he largely takes out his rage on those who mistreat him, sparing kind words only for his mother and his baby sister.
The blowback theory of Michael Myers may have been comforting for a post-9/11 America mired in the Iraq War trying to get a sense of how evil comes to be, but it's deeply dissatisfying as the peg on which to hang a slasher movie villain. Pure nihilistic evil is far more horrifying than a kid who took a beating or two growing up into a man who delivers a beating or two himself.
This is what David Gordon Green's "Halloween" gets so right: His Myers is silent and effective, brutally so. More important than that, Green and co-writers Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley seem to understand the absurdity of trying to understand the man behind the mask, the pointlessness of trying to get him to explain why he kills. The movie opens with a pair of podcasters peppering the long-dormant killer with questions, hoping to provoke a reaction of any sort. Just a word, a single utterance that would provide some insight into his evil. Later on, Laurie's (Curtis) granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) disputes the suggestion that Laurie and Michael were related, dismissing it as something someone made up to explain the events of that murderous evening 40 years ago.
Myers' psychiatrist, Dr. Sartain (Haluk Bilginer), is driven mad by the question of Michael's motivations. He kills a police officer and then kidnaps Allyson, putting her in the back seat of a cop car with an unconscious Myers before driving the two of them to Laurie's home in the woods in the hopes that bringing together Michael and the only girl to survive his approaches will cause him to finally speak, to finally reveal his motivations.
It almost feels as though Dr. Sartain's efforts here demonstrate the infectiousness of evil, the risk that comes with trying to understand why psychotics act the way they do. Laurie is affected by the monstrousness of Michael in her own way, removing herself from society and turning her home into a fortress designed to withstand her tormentor's unstoppable assaults. In the end, Laurie is right: Understanding Michael Myers is a pointless endeavor. The only way to snuff out his malevolence is to snuff him out altogether.
Unfortunately, as the "Halloween" series reminds us time and again, evil never dies. All we can do is stand vigilant against it.