Film Plot Summary
(based upon unrated Director's Cut, although some notes are included about the shorter theatrical version)

The film opened with a preface title card:

"The darkest souls are not those which choose to exist within the hell of the abyss, but those which choose to break free from the abyss and move silently among us." -- Dr. Samuel Loomis.

HADDONFIELD, ILLINOIS, OCTOBER 31.

The film began with the back-story of the Michael Myers family - a foul-mouthed, white-trash group in Haddonfield, Illinois, including these members, besides the disturbed, tormented and deranged 10 year-old boy himself:

• rough, mean, lazy, lecherous and drunken stepfather Ronnie White (William Forsythe) who was unemployed and claimed disability due to a cast on his leg
• beleaguered mother Deborah (Sheri Moon Zombie) who was an aging stripper at the Rabbit in Red Lounge in town
• slutty and nymphomaniacal sister Judith Myers (Hanna R. Hall)
• infant sister Boo/Laurie

Michael Myers (Daeg Faerch) mostly kept to himself in his upstairs room to avoid the constant fighting, where he wore a clown mask, and played with (and killed) his pet rat Elvis with a penknife. Ronnie accused the boy of being a "queer" ("He's gonna grow up, end up cutting his dick and balls off and changing his name to Michelle"). At school, Michael was mercilessly teased about his family by the local school bully Wesley Rhoades (Daryl Sabara), criticized for having a trashy sister who allegedly was caught selling blowjobs in the bathroom, and mocked for the occupation of his stripper mother ("Think she'd suck my dick for a quarter and let me suck her tits?").

Michael was repeatedly disciplined at school, and his mother was called in to meet with Principal Chambers (Richard Lynch) over his behavioral difficulties. He was also to be treated by bearded, grizzled child psychologist Dr. Sam Loomis (Malcolm McDowell). Loomis recommended that the child have a psychiatric evaluation. It appeared that Michael retaliated by killing animals (evidence of abuse included a dead cat found in a plastic bag in his backpack, and there were Polaroids he had taken of other mutilated animal carcasses), according to Loomis:

"The thrill of hurting or causing pain to smaller creatures, it's often an early warning sign...for much deeper and bigger problems. He's a very disturbed young man."

Loomis proposed a series of tests and evaluations, as Michael snuck away from the office, and then wearing his clown mask and using a large tree limb, bludgeoned a pleading Wesley to death (# 1 death) as he walked home through a wooded area.

On Halloween evening, as the Myers family was watching TV (The Thing (From Another World) (1951)), Ronnie called Michael "psycho boy" and "cat killer" - a "real bad-ass motherf--ker killer." Michael's selfish older sister Judith wouldn't take him trick-or-treating, and he sat outside his house watching other kids having fun - the soundtrack played the tune "Love Hurts" (sung by Nazareth) as his mother stripped in the local bar/lounge for clients. Judith chose instead to have sex with her long-haired boyfriend Steven Haley (Adam Weisman) in her bedroom - who insisted that he wear a 'Michael Myers'-like mask during intercourse.

Michael sought savage revenge with a series of horrific and vicious murders - he first butchered his sleeping stepfather (watching White Zombie (1932)) - slitting his throat with a large kitchen knife after duct-taping him to his chair (# 2 death) and gagging him; he then brutally and repeatedly clobbered Steve in the head with an aluminum baseball bat as he sat in the kitchen (# 3 death) preparing a sandwich after having sex; in his sister's upstairs bedroom, Michael donned Steve's grayish, featureless 'Myers' mask before creepily stroking his sister's leg and then stabbing her in the stomach with the same butcher knife - and continuing to stab and slash at her over a dozen times as she bloodily stumbled and crawled down the hallway (# 4 death). He killed everyone except his mother (who was at work) and his infant sister, whom he afterwards kissed and greeted: "Happy Halloween, Boo." When Deborah returned from work, she found Michael sitting on the home's front steps, cradling Boo.

The bodies were discovered in the home and wheeled away, as a reporter described the brutal and horrific murders ("more horrific than anything Hollywood could imagine") - "Manson-like in its viciousness", with a 10 year-old boy held in custody.

[In the original Halloween (1978) film, Michael was only 6 years old when he killed his sister Judith - and she was the only murder victim.]

SMITH'S GROVE - ELEVEN MONTHS LATER.

A reporter described how Michael Myers was transferred to Smith's Grove Sanitarium after being found guilty of first-degree murder during an eleven-month trial ("one of the lengthiest and most expensive trials in the state's history"). Dr. Loomis was appointed by the judge to "oversee" Michael's care while incarcerated at Smith's Grove. Loomis audio-taped sessions with the young Michael, asking him to recall the night of the killing, but he recalled nothing: "I didn't do that." Loomis concluded there was nothing "visually abnormal with this angelic young boy, but one must remember not to be fooled by his calm, unassuming facade." Loomis reported that Michael became obsessed with "the construction of these primitive masks" made of papier-mache and only during weekly visits from his mother did he show any hint of his boyhood. Michael claimed he liked to make and wear masks: "it hides my face...it hides my ugliness."

Over time, Michael's "normal moments" became increasingly fewer and fewer - Loomis believed the masks created "a mental sanctuary" in which Michael hid within himself and from himself. During one session, Michael screamed to be let out of the sanitarium so he could return home, and he continued "a downward slide into this hellish abyss." He was "on the verge of completely shutting down" and becoming unresponsive to Loomis. During treatment over time, Loomis further reported that his psychopathic patient was becoming a "ghost - a mere shape of a human being. There's nothing left here now" - he had been mute for almost two weeks.

In the sanitarium's dining room, Nurse Wynn (Sybil Danning) insultingly commented on a picture of Michael with his sister Boo: "Cute baby. Couldn't be related to you," and found herself stabbed in the throat with a fork (# 5 death). In despair over her violence-prone son that night, while watching home movies of her family, Deborah suicidally shot herself with a handgun (# 6 death) (off-screen).

FIFTEEN YEARS LATER.

Two sanitarium staff members, about-to-retire ex-con Ismael Cruz (Danny Trejo) and smart-mouthed Jack Kendall moved the hulking, 6' 8" tall, long-haired patient Michael (Tyler Mane) from his cell, now with hand-made masks covering the walls, to speak to his psychiatrist. After fifteen years of mute silence, an exasperated Dr. Loomis told Michael that he had become his "best friend," but after having done everything he could, he was giving up the case ("I have to move on. I'm sorry").

He began to give tours and lectures on his book: "The Devil's Eyes - The Story of Michael Myers" -

"These eyes will deceive you. They will destroy you. They will take from you your innocence, your pride, and eventually your soul. These eyes do not see what you and I see. Behind these eyes one finds only blackness, the absence of light. These are the eyes of a psychopath. Michael was created by a perfect alignment of interior and exterior factors gone violently wrong - a perfect storm, if you will. Thus creating a psychopath that knows no boundaries and has no boundaries."

(October 30) Two graveyard shift sanitarium workers Noel Kluggs (Lew Temple) and cousin Jack Kendall forcibly dragged a new catatonic female patient into Mikey's cell, where they both (first Noel, and then Jack) proceeded to mercilessly abuse and rape her on his bed in the killer's presence. Taunting him, they wore Mikey's masks and accused him of being a "faggot," until he angrily arose from his chair, bashed Noel's head against the cell wall (# 7 death) and then bashed Kendall's head against the corridor wall (# 8 death). Noel and his cousin, who both raped a female patient in Michael's cell, indirectly facilitated Michael's escape in the unrated version.

[Unrated Version vs. Theatrical Version: There are four additional death scenes (in the theatrical version only):

Four uniformed guards were killed in the theatrical version while Michael was being officially transferred. In chains, Michael was being led along a hallway by three uniformed guards for transfer to a maximum security prison. After a channel-gate was opened, and a second gate was being opened by guard Larry Redgrave (Tom Towles), Michael broke free from his chains and killed two of the guards who were in the channel-gate: guard Zach Garrett (Bill Moseley) who was bludgeoned with chains, and guard Redgrave whose head was bashed against a wall multiple times. When the fourth guard Patty Frost (Leslie Easterbrook) ran into the channel-gate with a pump-gun and shot at Myers, he grabbed the third guard, African-American guard Stan Payne (Steve Boyles) as a shield, and Payne was accidentally shot in the stomach by Patty. Then, Myers attacked the woman, ripped out her throat and dragged her along the hallway.]

When Ismael Cruz arrived for work that evening, he found that Myers had gone on a brutal murder spree:

• Nurse Gloria was lethally injured in the office with her throat ripped out (# 9 death) (off-screen, presumably died later)
• Cruz found two other guards bloodied on the floor of the corridor (# 10-11 deaths) (off-screen). [Were these two of the guards that were killed in the theatrical version? Probably not.]
• Showing no compassion for his befriending Ismael, who cried out: "I was good to you, Mikey!", the janitor/guard was semi-drowned in a sink (seen from a POV in the reddening bloodied water), and then killed when a television was dropped on his head (# 12 death).

Loomis received a distressed phone call from Dr. Koplenson (Clint Howard) at the sanitarium: "Michael's out...It's a f--kin' massacre." (After being a "comatose kitty for 15 years," he emerged as a psychopathic, homicidal killer.)

In a restroom at a truck stop car wash, an impatient Michael kept knocking on the toilet stall door of trucker Big Joe Grizzly (Ken Foree) as he sat on the toilet to pleasure himself while looking at explicit nude pictures in a Swank men's magazine. Grizzly realized: "What we got here is a failure to communicate" (quoted from Cool Hand Luke (1967)), and pulled out his knife ("I've got something for ya") and threatened to cut off Michael's mask, but after a struggle was himself stabbed twice in the stomach (# 13 death). The brutal killer switched clothes with Grizzly, and proceeded to Haddonfield.

HADDONFIELD, ILLINOIS - OCTOBER 31.

The Strode house included adoptive parents:

• real estate agent Mr. Mason Strode (Pat Skipper)
• his wife Cynthia Strode (Dee Wallace)
• Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton), their 17 year-old HS senior, a frequent baby-sitter for neighbor boy Tommy Doyle (Skyler Gisondo). [Laurie was the orphaned sister of Michael Myers.]

26 year-old mute homicidal maniac Myers had returned to his boyhood home in 1978, to further terrorize its inhabitants. In the dilapidated, overgrown, and run-down house, he broke through rotten floorboards to retrieve his butcher knife and the 'Myers' mask. As Laurie delivered an envelope to the old Myers' house, being sold by her father and Strode Realty, Tommy warned: "That's the devil's house. The boogey man lives in there."

Laurie's girlfriends included:

• foul-mouthed, slutty and conceited cheerleader Lynda Van Der Klok (Kristina Klebe)
• sheriff's daughter Annie Brackett (Danielle Harris, who played pre-pubescent kid Jamie Lloyd in Halloween 4 (1988) and Halloween 5 (1989))

Laurie was beginning to be stalked by Myers, who appeared outside on the street - looking up at her inside Haddonfield High School, and then abruptly vanished. Again, he appeared on the street as the trio walked along, as Annie surmised: "Probably just some pervert cruising school poontang." Laurie was followed further as she walked home, revealing the location of her house to Myers.

Michael was pursued in town by Dr. Loomis who had been notified of the escape and feared that the mindless killer was on the loose to come back and kill - targeting Haddonfield, 100 miles from Smith's Grove Sanitarium. In Haddonfield's cemetery, the caretaker Chester Chesterfield (Sid Haig) spoke to Loomis about Myers' mother Deborah, who "blew her f--king head off" when criticized as "Satan's mother." Her half-a-ton headstone had been vandalized from the grave site and replaced with a mutilated dead coyote on a cross of sticks, angering the graveskeeper.

Shortly after, at a local gunshop, Loomis bought a .357 Magnum, when it was recommended by the storekeeper Derek Allen (Micky Dolenz, one of the original Monkees) ("If you want to blow its f--kin' head off, this is what you want..What are ya huntin'?").

Later, Sheriff Lee Brackett (Brad Dourif) wasn't entirely convinced by Loomis that the desecration was nothing more than a Halloween prank, and certainly it wasn't proof that Myers had returned (Loomis: "Evil is here. It's walking amongst us...We're dealing with a soulless killing machine driven by pure animal instinct"). Brackett accused Loomis of writing books to earn "blood money" -- "I think you have created quite the masterpiece of a monster off the blood of this town, because monsters sell books." Loomis described Myers as a person devoid of a soul:

"Nothing inside. There was something missing, a void. There was no conscience, no reason, even a rudimentary sense of life or death, right or wrong...He's come back for his baby sister."

TRICK OR TREAT.

In the run-down and vacant Myers house (where Michael appeared on the second floor balcony), Lynda was there to party and have sex with her boyfriend Bob Simms (Nick Mennell) in sleeping bags. After they had intercourse next to a jack-o-lantern, Bob went downstairs and outside to his van to get beer from his cooler. When he returned, Myers repeatedly stabbed him and pinned him against a wall (# 14 death).

Listening to Don't Fear the Reaper on her radio, Lynda mistakenly thought that Bob had returned, although it was Michael wearing a white sheet and Bob's black glasses. She tantalizingly asked: "See anything you like" as she revealed her breasts to him. And as she stood before him completely nude and opened a beer can, Myers brutally strangled her from behind and then carried off her body (# 15 death).

After Annie drove Laurie away for her babysitting duties, Michael's next two victims were the Strodes at their own home. He slashed at Mason's throat and face on the front porch (# 16 death), and then snapped Cynthia's neck (# 17 death) inside the house as she held onto a framed picture of her daughter and screamed: "You leave my baby alone."

While babysitting Tommy, Laurie was asked: "Is the boogeyman real?" She teased him, responding that the boogeyman liked to eat little boys. (Later, Laurie told boogeyman-obsessed Tommy that it was all "nonsense".)

In order to be with her boyfriend, Annie was planning to skip her babysitting duties with Lindsey Wallace (Jenny Gregg Stewart) (by dropping her off with Laurie in the Doyle house for safe-keeping), while she had sex with her boyfriend Paul Freedman (Max Van Ville). Myers was already in the Wallace house, watching TV (The Thing (From Another World) (1951) again) behind Lindsey without her knowledge. When Annie returned to the Wallace house with blonde hunk Paul, Michael came upon the couple while they were having sexual intercourse on the couch ("It's so f--king warm") - Michael interrupted them and attacked them, grabbing Paul by the neck and pulling him off - and then killing him by knifing him in the stomach, and later hanging him from a rope near the stairs (and placing a pumpkin on his head) (# 18 death). Myers then chased and assaulted a half-naked, screaming Annie throughout the house.

As Sheriff Brackett drove Loomis to the Strode house, he admitted what he had done 17 years earlier. On the night of the Myers woman's suicide (Deborah), he had taken the "beautiful innocent baby" (Laurie Myers), driven her to another town, and dropped her off at the nearest emergency room - he said he had omitted everything from his official report. Three months later, he found out that Mason Strode had adopted the baby. They were alerted to a 911 call placed by Laurie Strode and proceeded to the Wallace home, about 10 minutes away (see next section).

After walking Lindsey home, Laurie found blood-splattered Annie bleeding to death at the foot of the stairs, and ordered Lindsey to run and call the police. As Laurie also called 911 from the Wallace home (at 1987 Winchester Drive), her brother Michael reappeared behind the front door and began to pursue her. Limping, she fled from the house and ran to the Doyle house, screaming: "Help, please!" As Michael crashed through the front door, Laurie and the two children hid in the upstairs Doyle bathroom, and were saved when two police officers arrived on the scene. However, as Laurie unlocked the door for Officer Lowery (Paul Kampf), Myers knifed him in the back (# 19 death), and Deputy Charles (Richmond Arquette), who shot at Myers, was knifed in the chest (# 20 death).

When Sheriff Brackett was diverted to the Wallace home, and the sound of his siren approached, Michael forcibly grabbed Laurie (who fell unconscious), kidnapped her, and carried her away to the Myers home. When an ambulance arrived to treat Annie, Dr. Loomis learned from the two children that the "boogeyman" had taken Laurie away, presumably to the Myers house. There, Michael had set up a shrine where he placed Lynda's naked body at the foot of the Myers concrete headstone he had stolen from the graveyard. When Laurie asked him: "Who are you? What do you want?", he presented her with a childhood photo (he knew she was his sister, but she didn't recognize the picture or understand). He then removed his mask for her, and although she claimed: "I want to help you," she stabbed him in the chest with his own butcher knife, crying out: "You motherf--ker!"

As Laurie was screaming for help and trying to get out of the locked house, Myers revived, removed the knife stuck in his chest, replaced his mask, and grabbed for her. She evaded him, but fell into an empty swimming pool and was trapped at the deep end.

The film culminated with a face-off between Dr. Loomis, Michael, and Laurie. Loomis arrived, calling out: "Michael, Stop! Michael, it's me, Samuel" and then fired three shots point-blank from his .357 Magnum at the evil monster. Myers fell into a pile of leaves and appeared dead.

As in the original film, Laurie asked Loomis in a squad car: "Was that the Boogey Man?" and he responded: "As a matter of fact, I do believe it was." Michael revived, suddenly smashed the passenger's side window, and snatched Laurie again. Loomis ran after Michael, claiming: "It's not her fault...It's my fault. I failed you." Myers let go of Laurie, crushed Dr. Loomis' head with his hands until he was unconscious, dragged Loomis' body inside the house, and then went after Laurie again, stalking her with his butcher knife.

After a long cat-and-mouse pursuit and struggle during which she hid in disintegrating rotting rafters as he destroyed the ceiling looking for her, they both tumbled off the second-story balcony of the Myers house when he charged at her, and she ended up on top of his immobile body. She spit on his mask, then finally shot him in the face with Loomis' gun at point-blank range (after the gun clicked empty three times) just as he gripped her wrist.

As sirens approached, the image dissolved from her bloody, open-mouthed screaming into her own crying baby mouth - as an upset infant sister in the arms of her 10 year-old brother Michael, in one of the family's home movies.

Film Notables (Awards, Facts, etc.)

This was the ninth film in the series - a nasty remake (or updated re-imagining) of the original 1978 film - with the first half or two-thirds a prequel, and the final half or third a fairly faithful remake and reshooting of the original.

Much more explicit in terms of obscene profanity, female nudity and bloody gore (and accused of following the trend of misogynistic 'torture-porn'). It still retained the main thesis that promiscuous sexual behavior would usually lead to death.

With the tagline: "Evil Has a Destiny."

With a production budget of approximately $15 million, and box-office gross revenues of $58 million (domestic) and $78 million (worldwide).

Body Count: 20 (unrated version), 4 additional deaths in theatrical version.