Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
Halloween is here, let's talk about the famous Michael Myers.
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
This first appeared in the 1978 version of "Moonlight Panic", and then became famous, thus ranking as one of the four mask maniacs in film history.
Myers' popularity in the West is much greater than in our country, just look at the box office of the rebooted version of 18 years, foreigners are really with fanaticism. On the one hand, he is stained with the light of Halloween and has a certain sense of alienation from us in the East; On the other hand, Michael Myers is less prominent in various aspects such as image, characteristics, etc.
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
"Moonlight Panic" is known as the originator of hack-and-kill movies, and Michael Myers is naturally a pioneer. Helplessly, the age is long, and the descendants have produced many talents, this kind of mask person who only holds a small kitchen knife is actually not dazzling.
Among the "Big Four" of his peers, Myers is not as hot as the leather face of chasing people on the road with a chainsaw ("Texas Chainsaw Massacre"), not as exciting as Freddy, the disfigured uncle who holds an iron claw hand and smiles sinisterly ("Ghost Street"), nor as deterrent as Jason, an undead strong man with a machete and a height of more than 2 meters ("Friday the Thirteenth").
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
Michael Myers in most cases, giving people a quiet feeling, either snooping from behind the tree from a distance, or staring at the corpse for a long time, some mysterious and slightly dull, coupled with an expressionless mask, not quite in line with the "curiosity" attribute of horror movies.
Because of this, there are more mysteries surrounding Myers - after experiencing car crashes, shootings, fires, and explosions, how can you not die, is this thing a person or a ghost? What was his motive for killing? What special skills does he have? Why is it so popular?
So you need to dig a little deeper. Unfold 13 "Moonlight Panic" movies (hereinafter referred to as "Moon Panic") to dissect this unprecedented "festival" madman - Michael Myers.
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
Introduction, born simple, complex life
As I previously said in the article "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", Chainsaw Face is the one with the most movie versions in the "Big Four". In fact, Myers is not far behind, this one has the largest number of movies, a total of 13.
Compared to the leather face changing its name and origin every time it is restarted/new, Myles' origin is always the same, but his motivation and development process are different in the subsequent films, and even repeatedly jump between mortals and monsters.
So much so that later creators have the habit of "killing the predecessor", and they do not recognize the former's story, only praising the first - "Moonlight Panic" directed by John Carpenter in 1978.
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
This led to the fact that in the 13 "Moon Panic" movies, except for the complete restart of the 07 version, the remaining two "soft restarts" are basically a continuation of the events on Halloween night in 1978.
That is to say, the "Moon Panic" series is a parallel universe story centered on one (or two) works, each extending (refer to the picture above), let's say it one by one.
"Feline" hunters
Michael Myers was born in the town of Haddonfield in 1957, and on Halloween 1963, 6-year-old Michael killed his 10-something sister with a kitchen knife.
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
When his parents found him, he was staring straight at the sky with the bloody knife in his hand, and Michael was sent to a mental hospital to do the same - just sit, staring at the sky, not saying a word, for 15 years.
Psychiatrist Samuel Loomis has been working on Myers for 15 years and finally concluded that the thing was inherently evil and incurable, and could only lock him up permanently.
But Myers escaped on the way to his testimony appearance, killed an electrician halfway to change into his overalls, stole a kitchen knife, rope and an expressionless mask at the hardware store, and returned to the town of Haddenfield "fully armed", which happened to be the eve of Halloween on October 30...
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
This is the origin of "Moon Panic" in '78, a very simple story, director John Carpenter took inspiration from Hitchcock's "Psycho" (lens style) and Bob Clark's "Black Christmas" (story structure), a small-budget "exploitation movie", accidentally became the originator of hack-and-shoot movies.
More simple than the simplicity of the story is Myers himself. The above is all his personality, the choreographer did not think too much about his motives and the result of the murder, but because of the shooting method and creative inspiration, Miles unintentionally shaped three characteristics.
★ Death gaze
Myers' famous scene is that he is standing somewhere - either across the road, behind a tree, or outside your window, looking at you so quietly and "expressionlessly" from a distance, and then he disappears as soon as you shake ...
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
One of John Carpenter's motivations for making the film was "The Legend of the Daredevil", also known as "Boogeyman". The word in the movie is Miles' nickname. By the way, it is also the nickname of John Wick in "Fast Pursuit".
"Night Devil" is a basic legend in every community in the West, that is, an old man who eats children lives in a broken house, and murderers roam in the community, etc., are pranks spread by children, but Carpenter was particularly afraid when he was a child, and he did not dare to look out the window at night, for fear of seeing a person standing outside the window.
Later, during Carpenter's internship in a mental hospital in Kentucky during college, he witnessed some very serious images of mental patients, and the most chilling thing for him was one of the 12- and 13-year-old teenage patients, who stared at him expressionlessly, which made Carpenter feel creepy.
He combined the above experiences into Michael Myers' death gaze scene.
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
★ Brake with static
Myers has the "walking teleportation + hiding into the house" buff, he always walks slowly (never running), without a sound, walks through the house freely, can sneak into anyone's house without being discovered. Until inadvertently appear behind someone's back and raise a knife ...
The thriller of the 78 version of "Moon Panic" is a reference to Hitchcock's "Psycho", especially the subjective shots in the film have the style of a Theon movie - Myers approaches the victim lightly and slowly, accompanied by the sound of heavy breathing under the mask and the gradually tense BGM, and then kills with one blow.
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
It can be said that the style of the movie defines Miles' murder mode and carries it forward.
In "New Moon Panic" in 18 years, a long shot of the third-person follow-up perspective behind "Resident Evil 4" was used to show Miles' function:
Miles stared at a house across the street, standing by the window of the target, and then he quietly crossed the bustling road, swaggered into the house, and crossed the living room to the target... During this period, no one noticed him... It's even louder than the invisible. ”
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
★ Ritual effect
Myers pays great attention to the sense of ceremony, and after doing the work, he will always dress up the victim carefully, either making his head into a pumpkin lantern, or nailing the other party to the wall with a knife, or hanging it on the tree with a colored lamp, and then he looks at the lump in front of him so quietly, as if admiring his "works", and it seems to be a show-off exhibition.
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
This special sense of ritual is entirely for the cinematic effect.
Because Uncle Mai's sneak attack way of doing things is very monotonous, it is basically to come to you and give you a shot, and the impact is not strong. The weapons are also not very powerful, in addition to the small kitchen knife, he also used clubs, wires, forage forks and other props. Therefore, he can only highlight the function after the fact, let him arrange the victim's body into various creative shapes to strengthen the sense of curiosity.
It is worth mentioning that Uncle Mai's above three characteristics are connected in series, this is not what felines like to do, it is difficult not to doubt whether cat lover John Carpenter, in the process of creating Michael Myers, refers to his own kittens.
Therefore, in the last few movies of "Moon Panic", especially the new version of the trilogy, Myers also developed the function of playing with prey - after KO, he will not kill with a knife, but watch the prey scream and crawl on the sidelines, wanting to capture the reason several times and then wait for the opportunity to get rid of it.
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
More like a cat.
PS, if Michael Myers is compared to a cat, then "Texas Chainsaw" holding a chainsaw and chasing people's leather faces is a dog. Especially the famous buff of Leather Face - as soon as you start running, Leather Face will immediately teleport behind you and chase you with a chainsaw.
The above three characteristics have become the symbol of Michael Myers throughout the "Moon Panic" series, no matter how many times it is restarted, what Myers has become, none of these indicators have been lost.
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
Of course, the most obvious feature is that this guy has never spoken.
Killer Origin
The 78 version of "Moon Panic" is a small-budget independent film, Syrian-born producer Mustafa Akkad and John Carpenter collaborated on the 76 version of "Police Station 13", Akkad wanted the old card to make a horror film with the theme of neurological patients, so Carpenter and screenwriter Debra Hill finished the script in 10 days, and didn't think so much at all.
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
So the following two items roughly belong to the 78 version of the limited, or director Carpenter's direct positioning of Myers, but because it is too vague, in the subsequent series, more or less ran through, was transformed beyond recognition, or abandoned.
★ Primitive evil
John Carpenter's motivation for portraying Myers is simply how he felt when he met the teenage patient who stared at him in a Kentucky mental hospital.
The empty eyes could not see any emotion, which was restless and creepy, and Carpenter understood that the other party was severely mentally ill, but in the eyes of this teenager, he felt "pure evil".
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
This characteristic became Michael Myers's motive for the murder - no reason, no motive, no difference.
Lomis, the psychiatrist who has been tracking Myers in the movie, is the embodiment of Carpenter himself, and the director uses this role to say his views and positioning of Myers:
"I met this six-year-old boy with a pale face and no emotion, his pupils large and completely black, those were demonic eyes... I realized that what was behind the boy's eyes was purely... Evil. ”
★ Non-human and non-ghost
At the end of the movie, Loomis found Myers and fired six shots, who fell from the second-floor balcony of the house with six shots, and when Loomis came out the window, he found that there was only one human form on the grass, and Myers disappeared.
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
This ending is director Carpenter's stroke of God, and he also hopes to use this open-ended ending to give the audience room to imagine and let everyone guess what Myers is:
"He is neither human nor a ghost, probably supernatural, but also does not prove this claim. He was shot but not dead, he could not be destroyed, he represented pure evil, because evil can never go away and is everywhere..."
And the director also believes that this ending can maintain the mystery of Myers, which is more attractive to the audience than "cursed, manipulated" and other words, the implication, too clear, is not interesting.
At this point, you can understand why the "Moon Panic" series has gone all the way off. Because the character created by the director for Myers is only enough to support the volume of a movie.
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
No one expected that the first movie was so successful, with a final box office of $70 million at a cost of 300,000, plus you have an open-ended ending that it will be filmed later. You have to dig up Myers' life and motive for killing, you have to fill in some content, otherwise you can't shoot it at all.
The Blood Curse: The Mutation of Old Wheat
After the success of the 78th version of "Moon Panic", the first to be launched was a movie novel. The novel of the same name came out in 79, from the authorization + story of the director and screenwriter.
★ Celtic curse
For the first time, Myers is linked to the curse of the Celtic Druids.
PS, Halloween was formerly known as the Celtic Samhain, November 1 is the Celtic New Year, October 31 is a day to celebrate the harvest of the past year, welcome the new winter, and also remember the deceased on this day, one of the ways for the Celts to comfort the ghosts who still haunt the world is to leave food at their doorstep.
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
The first movie set Myers on Halloween to commit a crime, but director Carpenter rubbed the holiday hotspots. I didn't think about anything else at all, but in the end, in order to expand the follow-up, I really didn't have a move, so I came up with this one:
A long time ago, a disfigured Kelta teenager Enda courted Princess Druid, and after being rejected, took revenge and killed the Princess Druid. After Enda was captured, the king ordered the shaman to put a curse on him: let Enda's soul wander the world forever and repeat his sins forever...
It's a bit like reincarnation, but is this a curse on him, or a curse on us?!
The book describes Miles' life more:
Myers' great-grandfather, who killed two men at a Halloween ball in the 1890s, dreamed of young Enda the night before, representing the activation of the bloodline. Then after three generations, the curse of Enda came, on Myles.
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
As a child, Myers showed a lot of worrying extreme behavior; In the mental hospital, Loomis was surprised to find that he could effortlessly "manipulate or influence" the minds of staff. Then when Miles was chasing Laurie, this one also had an erection...
The film novel has expanded a lot of content than the original version of the movie, and it is no exaggeration to say that all subsequent films of "Moon Panic" have been frantically nourished by this novel, constantly enriching the character of Michael Myers.
★ Brother and sister relationship
"Moon Panic 2" in 81, the story follows the 78th version, describing the story of the first Halloween in the middle of the night, Dr. Loomis continues to track Myers... In one night, two episodes were filmed, which also opened up the narrative characteristics of the "Long Night" series of "Moon Panic", all plots focus on events overnight.
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
"Moonlight 2" director Carpenter retired to the executive producer + screenwriter, but in his words, he did not want to participate in the film at all, but the second part had the intervention of Universal Pictures ("they gave too much"), and the new boss also gave Carpenter's new film "Ghost Fog" the green light, and in order to return the favor, he had to continue to compile a sequel.
PS, Lao Ka only directed the first "Moon Panic", and producer Akkad participated in the next 7 films, even if the production company changed, he was still a producer until his death in 05, which can be described as a long-term love (long-term meal ticket).
The strong twisted melon is not sweet, Carpenter has no inspiration, and can only use a lot of alcohol anesthesia, and finally complete a "I don't know what I wrote" script.
In the film, Myers' character development continues to be played by Loomis as the "mouth replacement", expressing that Myers' "behavior" comes from Celtic customs, including death gaze, ritual sense, etc., explaining some of the behaviors of the previous work Myers.
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
And the concept of "Celtic Fire Sacrifice" was introduced, which echoes the ending of Myers' "buried in the sea of fire" at the end of the movie, which is actually forced to rely on helplessness.
Carpenter only enriched the character with the Celtic elements in the novel (which also first appeared in the movie), and did not use other concepts such as curses and manipulation in the novel, at least in "Moon Panic 2", Myers is still a mask killer full of mystery.
After all, "Moon Panic 2" is the same as the plus version of the first part, with better production, richer characters, and more terrifying scenes, but the story is almost identical.
But the setting that has the greatest influence on the "Moon Panic" series also appears in this work - Laurie is Michael Myers' sister.
This is Carpenter's most regrettable setting, because there was really no rut at the time, and he wanted to make up a motive for Miles to commit the murder - why did he have to chase Laurie? That's why I made such a show. In fact, in the first episode, Laurie didn't even know who the masked man was, let alone that his name was Michael Myers. All this is the plot added in the second episode.
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
Unexpectedly, all subsequent movies will enlarge this setting and become Miles' motive for the murder.
Carpenter said that he was forced to make up this "stupid" setting, which broke Miles' "unprovoked" personality and made him no longer terrible. He is no longer the embodiment of pure evil who kills indiscriminately, but becomes a family killer.
The follow-up movie also revised the Celtic curse in the novel, so that the cursed person would commit murder according to his own blood - as long as there was still a blood relative in the world, he would have to rush to thousands of mountains and rivers...
Therefore, in 2018, "New Moon Panic", as a direct sequel to the 78 version of "Moon Panic", borrowed Laurie's female Alison in the movie and refuted the concept that Laurie and Myers are brother and sister, because "it's just something people make up", directly negating all sequels including "Moon Panic 2".
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
PS, witch season
'82 "Moon Panic 3: Witch Season" is an inexplicable work and the last time Carpenter participated in the series.
Lao Ka believes that in order to continue the series, he must start anew. That is, each sequel revolves around the theme of "Halloween", with a brand new story and a new character.
So Michael Myers does not appear in this film (only in TV commercials), but expands witchcraft and even science fiction elements based on Celtic legends.
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
But it also offended Myers' fans, and the movie failed miserably at the box office and word of mouth, making the film the most alternative in the "Moon Panic" series.
The (been) cursed trilogy
After the failure of "Witch Season", the new work in the series did not appear until 6 years later. That is, the tenth anniversary of the series - 1988's "Moon Panic 4: The Return of Myers", the "loved" old Mai returned.
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
Creator Carpenter no longer participated, but handed over the copyright to producer Akkad, who found a new producer and a new director, each with their own wishful thinking, resulting in Myers in the subsequent works of "Moon Panic", described as mistracking + overturning, which is not exaggerated, it is just like a fan work.
★ Morbid mortals
"Moon Panic 4" takes place ten years after the second episode, following the setting of Miles chasing and killing his own family, due to Jamie Lee Curtis's refusal to return, the story begins with the setting of Laurie dying in a car accident, and the protagonist is Laurie's surviving daughter Jamie.
Every time the little girl dreams that a masked man (uncle) wants to kill her, until on Halloween Eve, Myers suddenly recovers after 10 years in a coma and returns to the town of Hadfield, with whom he is accompanied by his old friend Dr. Loomis.
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
The story of the film is similar, director Dwight Little overthrows the original character in this film, he believes that Myers is not a supernatural force, nor does it represent pure evil (since he began to hunt down his family, this setting basically exists in name only), but "sick".
To put it bluntly, Myers in this film is a mortal with mental illness. The explosion at the end of "Moon Panic 2" did not burn him to death, but he was seriously injured.
His faltering appearance in this film, as well as the burn marks that can be seen everywhere around him, clearly express that this is a person who has been seriously injured and has not yet recovered.
And this "sickness" is inherited in families, at the end Miles was first hit by a car and flew, and then "shot to death" by the townspeople, but this pathology was inherited to his niece Jamie, who killed her adoptive mother with a pair of scissors, and a new "Michael Myles" was born (echoing the opening scene of the first part).
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
PS, the biggest contribution of this film is the "small town panic" caused by Miles' return, after all, the events 10 years ago were too famous, so the town and the survivors of the year spontaneously formed a convoy to hunt down Myers, during which not only killed the wrong person, but also caused a new round of panic in the town. It was the first time in the series that "Folk Action in the Small-Town of Haddenfield" was added to the film.
And this bridge was also completely copied by "New Moon Panic: Killing" in 21.
★Telepathy.
It's a pity that the setting of "Moon Panic 4" was overturned a year later. Because the main line of the original script is the story of the evil Loli Jamie resurrecting Myers, but the producer believes that "there can only be one Myles in the world", so he fired all the original cast and replaced them with new ones.
How to round the end of the previous one, the new team thought of the 79-year movie novel, Miles controlled the staff's bridge, so 89's "Moon Panic 5" overturned the setting of the successor of the previous work New Myers, and changed it to "mind control", which was Myers manipulating his niece to commit murder.
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
This also makes Miles return to the identity of supernatural monsters. It's just that the screenwriter + director of this film, Dominique Osenin-Girard, also has his own ideas.
He wants Myers to be more human, so that he has certain emotions: "Even demons will have times of inner contradictions".
The story of "Moon Panic 5" takes place a year after the previous film, and Jamie suffers from aphasia because of her "unconscious" behavior. In order to highlight the humanity of Myers, the film sets that Myers and his niece Jamie can be "telepathic".
Every time Miles committed a murder, Jamie can feel it, and the same induction is two-way, and Jamie's heart will also affect Miles, so there are also many bridges in the movie that make fans feel outrageous:
Dr. Loomis instructed in front of Myers to put down the butcher knife and become a Buddha, who listened with relish, but the next second it seemed as if the power was cut off, and he stormed away again... Myers raised the butcher knife at Jamie, but looking at his crying niece, he suddenly stopped, took off his mask, and shed tears...
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
The director also hinted that Myers was emotional and his behavior was manipulated.
For example, the man in black who picked up Myers from the prison at the end, the deleted clip also shows that the man in black healed Myers, and the room is full of runes... All this is to express that Myers' Celtic curse was imposed on him, but in order not to destroy the integrity of the story, these contents are saved for the next work.
★ Evil group + pervert
Due to the box office failure of "Moon Panic 5", "Lunar Panic 6: The Curse" did not come out until 6 years later, 95 years later. At this time, the copyright of "Moon Panic" has been acquired by the famous independent film company Miramax, and its Dimen Film is responsible for production.
"Lunar Panic 6" chooses to amplify the concept of curses, and brings to light the mysterious organization behind Myers, the evil druid sect, and greatly subverts the worldview and personality.
At the age of six, Myers was manipulated by the organization, killed his sister, and was imprisoned in Smith Forest Mental Hospital. No one thought that all this was planned by the organization. Because the leader of the organization is the director of the mental hospital. In 1978, Myers, who had been secretly trained by the organization for many years (learned driving and killing techniques, explained why Myers could drive) successfully came out of the mountain and sacrificed the demons with the blood of his own relatives.
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
After being cursed, a thorn symbol will appear on the wrist and have an immortal body.
In the movie, the 15-year-old niece Jamie is captured by the organization and killed by Myers after giving birth to a baby. This baby is a Myers clone, the new embodiment of evil.
The protagonist of this film, Tommy, the little boy who Laurie took care of when she was a nanny in 78, witnessed Miles hunting down Laurie when he was a child, so he devoted himself to Myers' research when he grew up.
By the way, the role is played by "Ant-Man" Paul Luther.
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
There are a lot of "ridiculous" plots in the movie:
When Miles committed the murder, Danny, the son of Laurie's distant relative, also heard the summoning (spell), so he also had Myers' abilities...
Tommy used his own blood to draw a spell on the ground, and he could seal Myles and make the other party motionless, which was more powerful than Monkey King's fixation method...
Dr. Loomis, who had been kept in the dark by the deans for so many years, stormed out after learning the truth and wanted to kill the other party, but because he was too extreme, he was also cursed, and a thorn symbol appeared on his wrist...
"Moon Panic 6" also has one of the most outrageous settings, Michael Myers is a pervert.
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
Due to the many welfare plots in the "Moon Panic" series, every time the little couple ran an errand, Myers would appear and kill them. It was originally a gimmick of a horror film, but this film also found a reason for this.
When Myers was six years old, when his sister was running an errand with her boyfriend, he was jealous to kill them (matching the source of the curse in the movie novel), after which he felt that he would repeat this (killing) behavior, so he had to find someone similar to his sister, of course, his sister Laurie.
Only in this way can Lao Mai get satisfaction, so he is committed to taking out the little couple, and it is also the source of "Xiu'en Love Dies Fast" (not).
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
It is understandable that with such an outrageous setting, the movie failed miserably and was scolded by fans blocking the door.
Later, the director also admitted that he had gone too far in explaining Michael Myers' motives, and even he regretted it.
The fiasco of "Moon Panic 6" also represents the complete end of the "Curse Trilogy" of "Moon Panic 4-6", the series will also open a new chapter, and then usher in the soft, hard, new three stages, 20 years of restart, will Michael Myers usher in the second spring of his career? We'll talk about it in the next issue!
PS, goodbye doctor
The film is the last time actor Donald Pleasence played Dr. Lomis, and before the film was released, the old man died.
But it is said that the actor himself likes the script very much, but it is a pity that the cursed ending of Dr. Loomis in the film made this doctor who has been tracking Myers tirelessly for nearly 20 years not get a good end.
But this is not the last time he "appeared" in "Moon Panic", in "Moon Panic 7" his voice exists, in "New Moon Panic: Killing" in 21, CGI technology even "resurrected" the old man and remade the end of the first part.
Moonlight panicked! Halloween mask killer, the Michael Myers you don't know
