The Shape Gazes Back “Jackson, Tyson, Jordan… Game 6”

“For key games, I used to play the Halloween theme over and over, it had to be Michael because the mask itself is void of emotion. That’s when you know you better run. It’s going to be a tough night.”- Kobe Bryant 

Most people throughout their development do have and maintain an imaginary friend. Men in particular use these imaginary figures as a common source of motivation and camaraderie, hence the fanaticism and idealizing of fictional characters, and symbols of hope as well as alter ego like “The Mamba Mentality”. It's only natural that the mantra that swept the nation is at least partially inspired by the ultimate masculine figure… our tautological figure, The Shape. To piggyback off of this, In “Halloween Kills'' it was subtly revealed that Myers has had its own alter ego, its own imaginary friend. Staring back at the young boy through the window was this idealization of the ultimate evil, the emptiness, the Shape. Myers has known all along that he was meant to take on this Shape and its sadistic and grandiose fantasies of dominance. This desire for carnage, this lust for vengeance, has silently driven it for decades. After all of those years failing to reach him, Loomis observed correctly that Michael is “The Evil”.

“Love lives today and Evil dies tonight” The events of the 2018 and subsequent Halloween movie sees a 60-year-old Michael Myers being broken out of a psychiatric institution on the day that he was meant to be transferred away from Haddonfield. Michael then goes on one of his classic murder sprees before being run over and taken directly to Laurie Strode’s residence, where he would eventually become trapped in the basement and burned alive. At the start of Halloween Kills, we see a savvy Myers (in his persona as the Shape) rise from the ashes of the Strode residence and emerge once more like the Phoenix reborn again. More important than even the Shape’s persona is its “Legend” in Haddonfield, the boogeyman clearly has the town in a chokehold to the point where all conversations around Halloween start and stop with The Shape. In a plot twist that is very subtle in H-2018 and very… unsubtle in Halloween Kills, it turns out that the main culprits behind Michael’s growing legacy are Laurie Strode herself, as well as her friends and acquaintances who have come face to face with “Evil”. Ironically, it has come to my attention that there are two distinct camps in both the movies themselves and two distinct camps between the audiences who are watching. There are the people who believe in the Boogeyman and either want to kill it, or run from it. And then there are the people who simply don’t and have the expectation that Michael Myers is just a “Crazed” individual running around in a mask looking to catch a bullet. Since a common take about the movie Halloween Kills is that it was a pointless entry that did not advance the plot, it is important that we all contextualize what the plot actually was, so get ready because I’m about to bluntly put it to you.

Laurie Strode’s influence: In the original movie it is established that Laurie Strode is a strong, mild-mannered, and caring figure who came from a good family. She was connected to the law enforcement through her friends and was a high honors student that would babysit as a side gig. On “The night he came home” Laurie Strode just found herself in then wrong place at the wrong time and The Shape as a 21-year-old fresh out of the institution set his sights on her looking to recreate the murder of his older sister. Laurie lost all of her friends that day as he prayed on her and even some of the kids that she baby sat with, leading to the future events. Tommy and Lindsay idolized Laurie as did many people in the town, and Tommy in particular made it his life mission to protect Laurie with the expectation being that the Shape would return again. Tommy even appears to take on many characteristics of Laurie Strode from the 2018 movie, being eccentric, strongly opinionated, angry, vengeful, and ultimately incapable of letting go of the past. This is a stark contrast to Laurie’s own daughter Karen who has done everything in her power to separate herself from her self-destructive, abusive, and alcoholic mother, who was so caught up in her vendetta that she ended up losing Karen at the age of 12 to the state. But Karen was ultimately trained to be a predator, a sheep in wolf's clothing, a trained child killer turned child psychologist, who now wears Christmas sweaters on Halloween in spite of the whole event. Tommy is able to organize a mob via fearmongering to enact vigilante justice on Myers, of course the dialogue of the characters ever so subtle per usual (besides the excessive chanting of EVIL DIES TONIGHT) reveals their true motivations.

“Evil dies tonight! And I’m going to be the one to kill him.”- Officer Hawkins, “I want to take his mask off and see the light leave his eyes”- Karen Strode 

If you watched this movie not understanding that this was about Evil vs. Evil then you watched incorrectly. An angry town of Haddonfield fed up with The Shape’s shenanigans were hell-bent on LYNCHING Michael Myers, a dichotomy between the opening moments of the movie where Officer Hawkins actually spares Michael Myers from being publicly executed in a continuation of the original (1978) movie's ending. The same officer Hawkins who scolded Laurie Strode in the 2018 movie for “Wishing every night that he would escape, so I could kill him”. These moments tend to fall on death ears when the Shape is rampaging through your town and killing off your colleagues. Speaking of the Shape…

Last time we left off with Michael, I was getting around to discussing his growth and his legacy. Up until the point where it is nearly burned to death, we see The Shape characterized as a stealthy predator, and a voyeuristic spree killer. Myers would simply handpick isolated targets who were home alone and vulnerable, ripe for the taking. I mentioned in the last chapter “Say Something” how Myers can be set apart from other slashers and real life killers but this was only fully realized in Halloween Kills. Previously whenever The Shape was confronted by an adversary that could actually harm it (I.E. anyone with a damn gun) it would freeze, immediately feigning a state of catatonia, but really these were acts of surrender and self preservation. In 2018 Myers has been exposed and this time it knows that there will be no surrender as Laurie Strode's family is actively trying to kill it and they won’t stop until the job is done. This is continued on in Halloween Kills where an angry Myers who had previously been ignoring Laurie and her family is still continuing to displace its anger onto other people whom the Shape begins to massacre. The Shape ultimately has two goals in mind, to head back home after a fulfilling night of murder and to eventually get what it has always wanted out of Laurie, to see her will broken, to see her submit, to see her determination dwindle as the life is choked out of her. Ironically the Shape wants from Laurie what the rest of the town wants out of it, and so the grudge match has quietly begun between two dominant forces. 

The Shape eventually carves its way through the neighborhoods of Haddonfield and eventually makes it back home where it dispatches of the married men who had taken residence there. In this scene we get another great moment for team “It was the Boogeyman” as The Shape’s targets become petrified by its mere presence, essentially freezing in terror and not even fighting back against what could be seen as a force of pure evil. At the same time camp “Evil Dies Tonight” have their pitchforks out and are terrorizing mentally ill patients at the town hospital, foolishly assuming that their hero Laurie Strode is being targeted, and even more foolishly assuming that Michael Myers is a Danny Devito look alike that would ever RUN away from them. As silly as it may seem this scene is important as it demonstrates not only how callous the mob has become, lost in their own groupthink, but more importantly it illustrates the fact that only the few who have actually seen Myers have any clue what the hell they’re about to get into. Even more so only the Strode family understands even an iota of what it would take to actually beat the Shape (mind you they failed to get the job done in their own home against a Michael that didn’t even realize what was going on until it was left helplessly staring back at Laurie from a burning cage.)

Killing the Shape is no easy task after taking back its home Myers is once again able to stare back at itself in its sisters window. Throughout the film people debate what Myers is looking at but a neat tidbit about this whole ordeal is that Myers was using the window as a mirror, the people in the town were staring through the window at Myers wondering what “he” was looking at… they were asking the wrong question. If they were looking at the window from the correct vantage point then they would have asked “What am I looking at?” because they were not looking at little Michael Myers, they were looking at a Shape, a Shape that was empty, pale, devoid of emotion. That is its true face, a face that would soon be stolen by Karen Strode in an ambush at Myers’s residence.

After Myers “Face” had been stolen he wanders around the streets knowing that he is in for a trap, the novelization states this verbatim so this is nothing groundbreaking. It describes a vulnerable Myers enraged at the feeling of coldness and the pain that starts to creep in, one that he can no longer ignore. Karen and Tommy plant the trap and Myers is given his face back transforming it into the Shape once again before being beaten to the ground. Shot, stabbed, curbstomped, bludgeoned, beaten, battered, spiked through the neck. After an already long day of being burned, run over, hosed, and everything in between the Shape’s breathing becomes heavy, its body begins to tremble. The Shape has been exposed and brutally beaten now lying critically injured with its own knife left in its spine. The town believes that it has won, maybe the boogeyman wasn’t so tough after all, Karen departs rushing back to Myers house to tend to her own daughter who helped ambush the Shape moments prior. All of Laurie’s friends and other random citizens of the town (at least 30 people) are ready to finish off Myers, they’re ready to see it submit, ready to blow its head off and finish their execution. As a man wielding a gun goes in for the killshot ready to blow Myers brains out, a confident Tommy stands just a few feet back brandishing his baseball bat, but in the brief moments between Karen’s departure and the build up to the much anticipated execution of Michael Myers. The Shape takes a deep breath, the pain it feels subsides, the rage that fuels it returns, its own fantasies will not be denied… It's game 6 and Evil refuses to die quietly. 

The first cut slashes the jugular of the gun wielder, the blood spatters over Tommy’s face forcing him to recoil,  he looks on in a state of disbelief. The Shape then carves up the strongest and bravest men first one at a time growing ever more confident as it reaches its feet. The crowd's own confidence wanes, their energy depleted, their guns emptied, their friends slowly being butchered. Now the Shape fully in control begins to torment and taunt, going from swift throat slashes to gory and brutal ear jams and dismemberments, its eyes lighting up in excitement. The entire crowd is massacred, Tommy of course is the last to go. One final standoff to avenge his friends and to give Laurie Strode the peace that she deserves. But Tommy had died decades ago, so had everyone else that encountered the Shape that night in 1978. Michael pierces Tommy in the heart tilting its head back and forth, twisting the knife round and around. As Tommy hits the ground he is forced to watch as the Shape grabs his baseball bat, and knocks him out of the park. The smashed bat then spears him once more in a clear act of vengeance and pettiness, a rare showing of emotion from Michael. Myers of course is not the only character who develops in this scene. While the carnage is happening Laurie Strode is shown in her hospital bed talking to officer Hawkins. Here she completes her character development and transforms… into the New Dr. Loomis! But we can talk about that at another time since Michael Myers is not done just yet.

The Shape then returns home to its window, with Karen staring out at it. Destined to meet her fate after succumbing to the demands of her mother. But her plight was made much worse by her insistence on antagonizing the Shape. Shooting it in the head, delivering a curb stomp, driving a pitchfork through its back, mocking Myers about Judith, and ultimately taking its “Face” in order to spring a SECOND trap. The Shape gets its revenge as it stabs Karen viciously and repeatedly in a frenzy. As Karen screams we see the fear and terror in her eyes as she cowers before the Shape, begging for her life to be spared. Ultimately allowing Myers to settle two scores at once. Myers is finally able to recreate the killing of Judith Myers, and as it gazes back through the window once more with its blood stained mask. All you can see is the illumination of a pale face crept next to its own. The Shape has finally reached fulfillment, it has transformed both as an individual entity and as a nightmare for the town. Haddonfield will never be the same again, a town that lost officers, an entire fire department, psychiatrists, whole generations. A town that will now be divided and torn apart by hatred and fear. You don’t believe in the Boogeyman? Well you should!