In the end, there was always going to be a sequel to 1978’s “Halloween.” Co-writer/director John Carpenter and co-writer/producer Debra Hill also included a particularly prophetic line of dialogue in the story of Michael Myers, a supernaturally motivated maniac who terrorizes his hometown on Halloween night: ” You can’t kill him, bogeyman.” Thanks to the film’s massive success critically, commercially and culturally, “Halloween II” was practically an award winner.
While “Halloween” ends with the claim that Myers has not actually been killed yet, an intriguing question for Carpenter and Hill is what to do with the other surviving supporting characters. Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence) was established as the Van Helsing of Myers’ Dracula, so his return was quite natural. A bigger issue revolves around bringing back star Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode, the babysitter, who unfortunately crosses Myers’ path and becomes the center of his All Hallows’ Eve wrath. Not wanting to kill the character and lose Curtis as his star was rising in Hollywood, but also not wishing to explain why Myers kept pursuing one girl in particular, Carpenter famously Decided to make Laurie Michael’s secret sister.
That one (allegedly drunken) decision largely affected the rest of the stories in the “Halloween” franchise, leaving another 12 sequel/remake/reboot films to choose from whether Laurie and Michael K. Whether there was a blood relation between them or not as well as what that connection meant. Thus, the answer to whether or not Laurie Strode is Michael Myers’ sister is not a simple “yes” or “no”, but a vague “eh, it depends.” What follows is your handy guide to the Myers family tree, at least so you know where the evil is tonight!
From Halloween II to Halloween: Resurrection, Laurie Strode is Michael Myers’ sister
For much of the “Halloween” franchise, Laurie Strode is actually Michael Myers’ sister, as the two are considered blood-related from the second installment, 1981’s “Halloween II”, to the eighth, 2002’s “Halloween Resurrection”. (It should now be clarified that 1982’s “Halloween III: Season of the Witch” is a standalone sequel beyond the continuity with the Michael Myers films). However, in this run of films, Laurie only appears in three installments. Michael is portrayed by Jamie Lloyd (Daniel Harris in “4” and “5”) in “Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers,” “Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers,” and “Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers.” The chase is shown; JC in “Curse” Brandi, who is Laurie’s daughter, adopted by the Carruthers family after Laurie supposedly died in a car accident.
Jamie served a dual purpose in “Halloween 4”, giving the resurrected Michael a new familial goal to return to Haddonfield and possibly giving the series a new take with young Jamie inheriting his uncle’s evil (more on that in a bit). To move in the direction. , When that new direction was abandoned in favor of Michael returning again and again, Jamie remained in the role of a moving target for the slasher and found himself “cursing” his child (who might have been) in musical-chairs style. Was replaced by. It may not have been Michael’s imagination – don’t ask) who has been adopted by the Strode family’s youngest biological daughter, Kara (Marianne Hagen), Laurie’s cousin.
With “Halloween: H20,” the series either splits continuity for the first time (well, the second time, counting “Halloween III”) by directly following “Halloween II,” or, if you squint. , so this literally prevents Michael from moving forward with the now-deceased Dr. Loomis and the Lloyd family with the discovery that Laurie faked her own death and is trying to kill her now-teenage son. Is living in hiding in California with. After a rematch between estranged brother and sister ends tragically for Laurie, the woman loses her years-long battle with the evil to which she is linked. Michael claims her life and then goes back to his abandoned house in Haddonfield to stop some college kids from shooting a livestream show (the less said about the “resurrection”, the better).
In Rob Zombie’s Halloween and Halloween II, Laurie Strode and Michael Myers are related in more ways than one
When Rob Zombie was chosen to write and direct the remake of the original “Halloween” in 2007, he could have gone in any direction with the franchise and its characters. While some say he went too far and others say he didn’t stray far enough from Carpenter’s film, Zombie not only revisited the series’ mythos of characters by including Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton, the only other Decided to remain very loyal to. actress in addition to Curtis to play the character) but her relationship with Michael Myers (Tyler Maney) goes deeper than just being his biological sister. Where the original “Halloween” timeline featured Michael pursuing Laurie out of some evil impulse to get Shep to destroy his family, in Zombie’s “Halloween” Michael is driven by his twisted desire to bring his perfect family back together. Searches for Laurie as part of. Zombie attempted to portray Michael’s madness in “Halloween” and “Halloween II”, depicting his psychosis as something that causes him to see the world in a completely different, unrealistic way than others. Allows.
In Zombie’s “Halloween II”, this madness is revealed to be hereditary, as Laurie finds herself suffering from the same psychosis that her brother suffers from, triggered by her traumatic experiences in the first film. On paper, it might seem like Zombies makes Carpenter and Hill’s concept of vague evil too literal. It also seems like Zombies has picked up that fallen storyline from “Halloween 4” involving Jamie’s inherited evil. Yet the temptation of Michael and Laurie by anger in the zombie films is depicted here as something more supernatural, a power that he harnesses, as both Michael and Laurie are lured by a white horse (which may be a pale horse May or may not be related to dreams. Biblical fame). In any case, the relationship between Laurie and Michael is the strongest in the two Zombie films. Where in the original continuity Laurie-as-sister is someone who is good in spiritual opposition to Michael’s evil, in the zombie films Laurie and Michael are parts of a whole, people doomed to a dark destiny by their blood.
For David Gordon Green’s Halloween Trilogy, Laurie Strode and Michael Myers Aren’t Brother and Sister
As I said before, John Carpenter wasn’t a fan of making Laurie and Michael literally related to each other, so when David Gordon Green was handed the reins of the franchise in 2018, he decided to follow Carpenter’s suggestion and make Laurie and Michael Decided to isolate Michael. By completely resetting the continuity to the original film. While this means that the rest of the series is no longer canon for “Halloween” 2018, “Halloween Kills” and “Halloween Ends”, it doesn’t mean that Laurie and Michael don’t have a relationship. The main theme of “Halloween” 2018 involves a group of characters who – either from the universe or from Michael himself (James Jude Courtney) – insist on an explanation for Myers’ actions. The most deranged of these people, Myers’ new Doctor Surtain (Haluk Bilginer), arranges for Michael to escape from custody in order to prove his theory that Michael and Laurie (Curtis, back in the role for the last time) are really on to something. The types share a primitive, predator-prey relationship.
As for “Halloween”, Sartain’s hypothesis remains inconclusive; One could still explain Michael’s pursuit of Laurie as a random chance. Yet Green and his collaborators make their “Halloween” trilogy a thematic summary of the franchise to date, exploring the possible origins of good and evil through the people who inhabit the battlefield of Haddonfield, their recurrence and their relationships with each other. is searched for. So Laurie and Michael share a relationship, even though it is not made by their blood. It is believed that, just as Michael represents all evil, Laurie and her family represent good, and the two elemental forces are destined to fight for dominance of the spirit, whether it be the spirit of a city or an individual. . Getting rid of Laurie’s sister’s relationship with Michael makes this allusion clearer and stronger, and that’s why it’s best left out of Green’s trilogy.
In John Carpenter’s original Halloween, Laurie and Michael’s relationship depends on you
What’s most interesting is that all this changing relationship between Michael and his victim makes the original 1978 “Halloween” more ambiguous, not less. Where most horror sequels retroactively explain much about the monster’s origins and motivations, “Halloween” remains shrouded in mystery due to the “choose your own adventure” nature of the sequel’s changing continuity. Thus, one can watch “Halloween” with confidence that Michael escapes from Smith’s Grove Sanitarium when his secret sister Laurie is the same age as her sister Judith (Sandy Johnson) was when she found her. Was killed as a boy. This mentality further explains Michael’s pursuit of Laurie and her friends, with Shep following her fatal fate along with her siblings.
Yet you could also see “Halloween” as the story of a maniac who coincidentally comes across Laurie when she gives him the keys to the abandoned house in which he lived, thus marking her as a victim. The way a tiger or lion locks onto prey. In their natural habitats. This relationship may be coincidence or bad luck, or it may indicate a strange kind of elemental destiny that neither person knew they were carrying. In any case, just as there is no definitive “Halloween” continuity, just as there is no way to permanently kill the Bogeyman, there is also no clear answer to whether Laurie and Michael are brother and sister. So when it comes to “Halloween”, like the question of trick or treat, the answer is up to you.
