The ‘Halloween’ series starring Michael Myers is one of the longest-running horror franchises ever. The masked serial killer first appeared in 1978 in “Halloween – The Night of Horrors”. This was followed by twelve (!) films in which Michael Myers repeatedly caused carnage. And that’s not the end yet: a “Halloween” series awaits us, which could be the starting signal for a gigantic Michael Myers universe.
One thing stands out about the ‘Halloween’ series: no matter what efforts people make to finally put an end to Michael Myers – the Boogeyman always comes back! The invincibility of evil is, of course, a long-standing motif in horror cinema. “Halloween” director John Carpenter, who played a key role in shaping this, now explains why Michael just doesn’t die:
“Well, I’ll tell you something: he’s a universal character. If you want the first movie, you got it. If you want Michael to kill all the time, that’s what you have. The only other monster for all intents and purposes is Godzilla.”
Michael Myers lives because we want him to
A simple but plausible explanation, because ‘Godzilla’ has also been reinvented over and over again, while the 1954 original remains the inviolable masterpiece of the series, which is still about art and not about commerce (or pure entertainment). Fittingly, the series “Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters” starts on November 17 on AppleTV+, with the King of the Monsters making another appearance.
Michael Myers was also brought back again and again, often in an uncreative way or through a narrative loophole. For example, in ‘Halloween: Resurrection’ he got to cause a bloodbath on a reality TV show alongside Busta Rhymes, Tyra Banks and Thomas Ian Nicholas. David Gordon Green, on the other hand, simply ignored all the films after the 1978 original and created his own sequel trilogy with ‘Halloween’, ‘Halloween Kills’ and ‘Halloween Ends’.
In summary (and this obviously not only applies to Michael Myers): As long as people want to see the masked killer killed, he will not die, but will be brought back again and again. The possibilities for this are endless – the 13 “Halloween” films featuring the character have proven this more than impressively.