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Professor Saenz

English 1B

December 5, 2012

The Fears of Michael Myers

Horror films go back over 100 years starting with The Hunchback of Notre-Dame in the

1900s. Horror is one of the most favorable genre films to watch. According to Tim Dirks,

“Horror Films are unsettling films designed to frighten and panic, cause dread and alarm, and to invoke our hidden worst fears, often in a terrifying, shocking finale, while captivating and entertaining us at the same time in a cathartic experience” ( Filmsite ). There are many different types of subgenres to horror films: Action horror, body horror, comedy horror, gothic horror, natural horror, psychological horror, science fiction horror, and zombie film. However, in the

1970s horror film became more popular because of the slasher based horror film. According to

The Script Lab , “Slasher film is a sub-genre of Horror film that revolves around a psychopathic killer. This killer stalks and murders his victims in extremely violent and memorable ways.”

Moreover, because of the way slasher film was made, it simply became the most favorable and classic horror film time period. The most admirable slasher-horror film of the 1970’s is

Halloween , directed by John Carpenter.

John Carpenter’s, Halloween , takes place in Haddonfield, Illinois, when a 6 year old boy,

Michael Myers, on Halloween night in 1963, viciously kills his sister. On Halloween 1978, 15 years later, Michael breaks out of the care hospital he was forced to stay in, after murdering his sister, to return to Haddonfield. Michael’s doctor, Dr. Loomis, the only person who sees the pure 2 evil within Michael, heads back to Haddonfield because he knows Michael will go there to murder again on Halloween. While Michael is Haddonfield, he begins to stalk three teenage girls, Laurie Strode and her two friends Annie and Lynda. Laurie notices someone keeps watching her but does not know who or what to do. Later that Halloween night, both Laurie and

Annie have to babysit. Annie and Lynda want to use the house for sexual intentions and Laurie is left with watching Annie’s kid too to watch. Meanwhile, Dr. Loomis notifies the sheriff about

Michael Myers in Haddonfield, and the manhunt begins, in hopes of finding Michael before his killing spree begins. John Carpenter uses the antagonist, Michael Myers, to represent different cultural fears of the 1970s to show that evil is everywhere and one is never safe.

To start off, Michael Myers represents the illusion of security and safety. In the film, all the characters grow up in Haddonfield, Illinois, which appears to be a small and safe town where everyone knows each other. The people growing up in Haddonfield believe that it is always safe where they live and never think that anything bad can happen to them. Even referring to Tim

Rockwell, he states, “These characters have no reason to even consider the possibility that some dark evil would interrupt their idyllic, suburban holiday” (John Carpenter’s Halloween).

However, this changes when Michael Myers comes home to Haddonfield. When Michael Myers comes home people start to feel unsafe and that there is no place that is safe.

For example, when Carpenter shows the scene when Laurie is running away from

Michael Myers, she always runs back to the house, instead of running elsewhere, like to the police station. This shows that Laurie feels the safest inside the house than anywhere else.

However, that changes when Michael Myers gets inside of the house and breaks that sense of security and safety that Laurie feels within the house. Laurie feels that there is no safe place to 3 go anymore showing that Michael Myers represents a sense of illusion when it comes to security and safety.

From Michael Myers representing the illusion of security and safety, when he breaks into the house, where Laurie feels the safest and secure, shows that evil is everywhere and that one is never safe. People always have that one place where they feel the safest, and most often it is inside one’s house. One thinks that nothing can get to them, inside their house, because one is so comfortable there and knows the place front and backwards, that nothing can penetrate those walls. However, Michael Myers shows that no matter where one is, evil will be there and one is not safe, no matter where one is.

Furthermore, Michael Myers also represents that evil cannot be contained or controlled.

Throughout the film Michael Myers is wandering around Haddonfield stalking the three teenagers, waiting to make his move, while he is also being hunted by Dr. Loomis and the

Sheriff. During the entire film, Dr. Loomis and the Sheriff are searching for Michael Myers so they can find him before he starts his killing spree. The only problem is that Michael Myers can be anywhere in Haddonfield.

For example, Carpenter uses the one filming technique at the end of the movie when he shows many different shots of the houses with Michael Myers’s loud breathing playing in the background to show that Michael Myers could be anywhere at any time. This shows that how could a person contain evil when it could be anywhere at any time. While a person is in one place, something bad could be happening in another place, just like in the film. Dr. Loomis and the Sheriff are looking in places where they think Michael Myers would be, when in reality he was in the places they had no idea to look. Also at the end of the movie when Laurie stabs 4

Michael Myers, Dr. Loomis also shot him many times and he falls off the balcony, Michael

Myers still manages to survive. This also shows how evil cannot be contained or controlled because one cannot get rid of evil.

From Michael Myers representing how evil cannot be contained or controlled, the film technique of many different shots with Michael Myers’s loud breathing and how Michael Myers cannot die, shows that evil is everywhere and one is never safe. Often people think by calling the police means that one can contain or control something bad from happening, but it does not always work out. Evil will never die so it shows that no matter what one does, evil will always be there and one is never safe.

Lastly, Michael Myers also represents that there are repercussions for having bad behavior. Throughout the film Annie and Lynda are always talking about having sexual encounters and are always smoking, whether it’s cigarettes or marijuana. Annie also plans on using the house, where she is babysitting, for her and Lynda to have sex and Annie also pressures Laurie to watch her kid. In the film, the only people to have harm done to them are the people who showed bad behavior, like Annie and Lynda.

For example, Carpenter uses the scene when Lynda and the guy she was sleeping with gets killed by Michael Myers, and also when Annie is about to leave to go pick up the guy she’s going to sleep with, also gets killed by Michael Myers. This shows how if one does bad things, bad things will happen to oneself. It also shows that if one is more mature and does not partake in immature things, they will survive. Referring to Sam, he also believes that bad behavior comes with consequences. He states, “While the other two girls (who end up dead later in the movie) talk about sex with their boyfriends, Laurie is the type of girl that freaks out about forgetting her 5 chemistry book [and survives throughout the movie]” ( Visual Sociology ). He also notices that the two girls that have poor behavior both get killed and Laurie, the one with good behavior, survives throughout the film.

From Michael Myers representing that there are repercussions to having bad behavior, shows that evil is everywhere and one is never safe. People who often have bad behavior usually think that nothing can happen to them because they think they are smart, but they are usually the ones that most things happen to. As the Dictionary by Farlex puts it, “What goes around comes around [meaning] the results of things that one has done will someday have an effect on the person who started the events” (Dictionary ). This saying shows that if one does bad things, one is

going to pay for it one way or another, which shows that evil is always around and one is never

safe.

In John Carpenter’s Halloween , Carpenter uses the antagonist, Michael Myers, to

represent different cultural fears of the 1970s to show that evil is everywhere and one is never

safe. People often feel that they can always be safe somewhere, or that they can control

something bad from happening, and even thinking nothing bad will come from one’s bad

behavior. However, Michael Myers shows that one is never safe because evil is everywhere and

one cannot hide from it. This is also a reason why people like to go see horror films, such as

Halloween , to get that sense of evil in action from a perspective that’s not happening to oneself.

Referring to Stefan Anitei, he states, “People are eager to endure the terror just to experience a euphoric sense of relief at the end” ( Softpedia ). Horror movies will continue to be made but none will compare to the most admirable one, Halloween.

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Works Cited

Anitei, Stefan. "Why Do People Enjoy Watching Horror Movies?" Softpedia. N.p., 28 July 2007.

Web. 06 Dec. 2012.

Dirks, Tim. "Horror Films." Filmsite. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Dec. 2012.

"Horror." The Script Lab. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Dec. 2012.

Rockwell, Tim. "John Carpenter's Halloween, an In-depth Analysis." Yahoo! Contributor

Network. N.p., 6 Oct. 2010. Web. 06 Dec. 2012.

Sam. "Horror Film Analysis - Halloween (Carpenter 1978)." Visual Sociology. N.p., n.d. Web. 6

Dec. 2012.

"What Goes Around Comes Around." The Free Dictionary by Farlex. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Dec.

2012.