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Halloween (1978): Michael Myers Intro

By Jim Rohner · August 2, 2011

No one ever really sets out to create an icon.  Be it a film's character, a camera movement, a specific score, or a line of dialogue, there is no formula for creating the everlasting.  Those who try to create the iconic, often fail and those who succeed, often didn't intend to.  Scorsese's long take in Goodfellas, Han Solo's "I know" from The Empire Strikes Back, and Indy's bringing a gun to a sword fight in Raiders of the Lost Ark were never planned; they were all improvisations, moments born out of their filmmakers' quick thinking brought on by creative or logistical restraints. 

John Carpenter is another benefactor of such quick thinking.  The man most directly responsible for spawning the Halloween series is also by proxy the man most directly responsible for the creation of Michael Myers, who alongside Freddy Krueger and Leatherface is arguably the most iconic face in the horror genre.  Upon hearing the word "Halloween," devoted fans are more likely to think of Myers' expressionless, white mask than they are to conjure up images of ghosts, witches, or jack-o-lanterns.

And yet, while reading through the script for the original Halloween, you'll find no details about Myers' mask, nor any signifiers to differentiate the villain from any other slasher that would come afterward.  In fact, Myers, at least at the script level, was barely an entity, credited only as "The Shape."  In this entry, we'll explore the unremarkably plain nature of the Michael Myers that appeared in the script and the tactics that John Carpenter used to elevate him to the status of an icon.

FROM SCRIPT: How It Reads

Halloween (1978), screenplay by John Carpenter and Debra Hill.

For the sake of demonstrating just how generic Michael Myers initially appeared to be, I'll reference two separate instances of his appearance here: the first moment he appears in the script and the first moment that his mask is referenced. 

His first appearance:

POV THROUGH WINDSHIELD — SANITARIUM DRIVE

Ahead of them is the entrance to the sanitarium.

INT. STATION WAGON

Marion slows down to turn.

Through the rear window we see a SHAPE spring up out of the darkness, streak through the rain and leap up on the rear of the station wagon.

The station wagon bounces up and down. The roof sags in and out with the weight of someone on top.

MARION:  Something fell on the roof.

The roof continues to buckle in and out wildly.

LOOMIS:  Something jumped on the roof…

Marion stops and rolls down her window to look outside.

Loomis opens his door and steps out. Suddenly he is hit in the face by a powerful fist from the roof. Loomis staggers backwards and falls by the side of the road.

Marion starts to react. Suddenly a hand reaches in through the window and lunges at her.

The fingers grab her hair. She SCREAMS. The fingers tighten around her hair and the hand pulls Marion roughly to the window.

Twisted around in the seat, Marion's foot jams down all the way on the gas pedal. The station wagon ROARS forward.

Marion continues to SCREAM, clawing at the hand.

POV THROUGH WINDSHIELD — ROAD

Through the rain the road spins crazily ahead, the wipers erasing sheets of rain.

Suddenly the other hand reaches down from the roof and grabs the wiper, holding it tightly. Rain splashes on the windshield obscuring the road.

INT. STATION WAGON

The hand rips at Marion's hair. SCREAMING. Clawing.

POV THROUGH Windshield

The windshield is completely obliterated by rain.

INT. STATION WAGON

The station wagon skids and WHAMS into the shoulder on the Side of the road. Marion is hurled across the seat against the passenger door.

Suddenly the hand springs down from above and SLAMS against the passenger window, shattering it.

SHRIEKING, Marion scurries across the front seat, opens the driver's door and scrambles out.

EXT. ROAD — STATION WAGON

Marion frantically crawls her way across the rain-drenched road away from the station wagon. CAMERA TRACKS with her as she slides down into the muddy shoulder. She looks back.

POV — STATION WAGON

From the shoulder we see the station wagon in the rain, and the shape jump in the driver's seat and SLAM the door.

Then the station wagon takes off and disappears down the road into the darkness.

ANGLE ON SHOULDER

Loomis runs up out of the rain and helps Marion to her feet. She CRIES hysterically. Loomis stares off down the road at the disappearing taillights.

LOOMIS:  You can calm down. The evil's gone.

First reference of his mask:

INT. GARAGE

Annie walks into the garage, over to her car and opens the door. It is now unlocked, but Annie doesn't notice.

INT. CAR

Annie slides in and inserts the key in the ignition. The car starts. Annie glances at the car door lock. Suddenly she remembers it was locked. She stares at it, puzzled.

An instant later, a man sits up in the back seat.

He wears a Halloween mask made of rubber with the grotesque features of a man. He reaches forward and grabs her.

Annie SCREAMS. She lurches for the door. The man puts one hand over her mouth and brings the huge butcher knife up to her throat.

INT. GARAGE — ANGLE ON CAR

From outside the car we see the struggle inside. Annie's Anguished face presses against the steamed window. Her SCREAMS are muffled by the closed car.

Suddenly, the struggle stops.

Annie's face slides down the car window leaving a track in the wet surface. Then slowly the track in the glass steams over again.

 

THE SCENE: How It Looks

His first appearance:
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First reference of his mask:
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TO SCREEN: How It's Improved (Or Not)

As you see, there's practically no physical descriptors nor personality given to Myers upon his first, fleeting experience, and the description of the mask as "made of rubber with the grotesque features of a man" is not only vague, but also incongruous with the final product.  Dr. Loomis takes every opportunity to remind anyone who'll listen that Michael Myers is pure evil, but as laid out on paper, Myers comes across as more visceral than ominous. 

Until we see the mask.  Originally a William Shatner mask, the filmmakers spray painted it white, teased out the hair and slightly enlarged the eye holes to create one of the most plain and simultaneously terrifying faces in history.  Plain and expressionless, Myers' mask is a blank slate that allows our psyche to fill in any horrific face or any malevolent intentions that terrify us.  On a less psychoanalytical level, the unchanging expression emotes nothing but apathy for the plight of Myers' victims, uncaring about the harm he's causing and unfeeling towards his victims' screams.  By enlarging the eye holes, Carpenter has also ensured that the shadows cast over the eye sockets are larger, entirely eliminating the eyes, which are commonly thought of as the gateways into the human soul.

All this would be creepy enough, but what allows Myers to persist in both character and legacy is Carpenter's direction of his actor.  "He's not a man," Loomis frequently declares, and the subtlety creepy actions of Myers hint at slightly inhuman mockery of humanity.  While Myers can be knocked down, he shows no hints of pain or urgency, never speaking a word nor pursuing his victims above the pace of a brisk walk, almost robotic in a task that he pursues for unknowable reasons. 

His reactions to his murders also display a complete lack of empathy as evidenced by the death of Bob.  After jamming a knife through Bob's chest and hanging him on the wall, Myers steps back a distance and tilts his head slightly to the side.  What would be an innocuous action for any other resident of Haddonfield becomes a sickening symbol of infantility, almost as though Myers is both admiring and curious about what he's just done. 

The final result is a killer that has been able to scare the crap out of audiences for over three decades by doing little more than just standing there.