History Franchise / Halloween

* TimeSkip: The original film skips from 1963 to 1978, while both of Zombie's films open in Michael's childhood and then the Laurie storyline 17 years later. There is a second time jump in the sequel to two years AFTER the events of ''Halloween (2007)''.
* TooDumbToLive: Countless examples, though especially prevalent in Zombie's films when several people insult and strike Myers. This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that Myers in those films is A SEVEN FOOT TALL GIANT!!!
** Justified in-universe. It's implied in TheRemake that Michael took the janitor's words about about living in a world inside your own head to heart - aside from his mask-making and when they occasionally drag him out for probation hearings, he is functionally catatonic most of the time.
* TraumaticCSection: In a flashback sequence in ''Halloween: The First Death of Laurie Strode'', a young Michael Myers is shown daydreaming about cutting baby Laurie out of his mother during a meal.

* VaderBreath: Accompanies the shots from Michael's POV.
* VillainBasedFranchise: Played semi-straight, in that Dr. Loomis (the hero in the first movie) came back for every sequel until Donald Pleasence's death, with Laurie Strode (the original's final girl) appearing in the remainder of the sequels. Whilst Michael is the only character in every installment (barring the third one), he is always opposed by one of the survivors from the first movie.
* VillainExclusivityClause: Michael is the main antagonist in all the movies (well, all the movies he's in, ''Film/HalloweenIIISeasonOfTheWitch'' is generally not considered part of the series as a whole). Although in some of the movies other characters are manipulating him behind the curtain.

** In the original series Michael never spoke and only ever uttered generic noises like grunts, which themselves are barely audible in most cases. In the remake series Michael's shown to talk, but only as a child.

** Laurie didn't speak at all in ''Resurrection'' until her final confrontation with Michael. According to a nurse at the insane asylum she was being held, she hadn't "said a word in years".
* WeaponOfChoice: The knife. Also strangulation.

* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: Michael in the Zombie directed films.
* YouKillItYouBoughtIt: One of the Chaos! comics has Laurie taking Michael's place after killing him in ''H20''. This was ultimately rendered non-canonical by ''Resurrection'' though.
** The ending of ''Halloween II'' (2009) on the other hand ends with Laurie becoming as crazy, evil and twisted as Michael, even briefly putting on his mask, after killing him.
** Which itself becomes funny when Bill Mosley, the original actor, dropped out from playing the role. The reason why it's funny is because he had a victim role in the reshot scenes of the 2007 remake, appearing the theatrical cut of the film.
** ''Halloween III: Season of the Witch'' includes appearances by Nancy Loomis as Challis' ex-wife and (via voiceover) Jamie Lee Curtis as a telephone operator.

* TheSheriff: Leigh Brackett, in the first two films (and Rob Zombie's remakes); Ben Meeker, in ''4'' and ''5''. Sheriff Barker in the 2018 film, though he never comes into contact with Michael.

** Jamie takes the cake though. She gets mocked for being related to Michael, becomes mute due to a powerful connection with Michael, has all her friends, her sister, and her dogs killed, gets kidnapped by a cult and is forced to have sex with Michael, and she's finally impaled by farm equipment. Jamie is possibly the most depressing character in all of the horror genre.

* ShootingSuperman: In a non-superhero example, Michael Myers. This trope gets referenced in the commentary of ''Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers'' - in a scene where a cop clumsily shoots at Michael, one of the commentators mentions that, as a lifelong resident of Haddonfield, the guy should have realized shooting Michael just pisses him off.
* TheShrink: Loomis' official occupation, which he isn't shown doing until the Rob Zombie's films.
* SlashedThroat: Appears to be Michael's default method of killing.
* TheSociopath: Michael Myers, a SerialKiller who wants to slaughter his family and anybody who stands in his way for no apparent reason. While some continuities provide a supernatural explanation, most simply interpret him as pure, unrelenting evil.
* SomethingCompletelyDifferent: ''Halloween III: Season of the Witch''.
* StockSubtitle: Words "Return", "Revenge", "Curse" and "Resurrection" are among the most typical subtitles, and all get used in the franchise.

** The [[{{Film/Halloween1978}} original]] film and most of its sequels take place in sleepy Haddonfield, Illinois where kids walk to school by themselves and the biggest problem on our protagonist's mind is asking out a boy she likes. Haddonfield is of course, also the home of a boy who killed his sister at age six.

* ThematicSeries: As mentioned, the franchise was originally meant to be a series of horror movies centered around Halloween but poor reception of the third movie killed any chances of this idea being carried through.
* ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight: The Shape (aka Michael Myers), from the original ''Halloween'', is repeatedly compared to the boogeyman, apparently unkillable, and deeply enigmatic. He also seems to particularly target teenagers who are [[DeathBySex transgressive against social norms]]. In a subversion of this particular trope, he doesn't show much if any interest in actual children, with the major exception of his niece Jamie Lloyd.

* RasputinianDeath: Usually subverted. Each film, obviously save for the third one, has Michael taking a certain amount of abuse that would off a normal human instantly before being seemingly killed for good -- only to reveal he's, as mentioned above, Not Quite Dead.
** But then ''Halloween H20'' tries decapitation, only for it to [[spoiler:be retconned in ''Halloween: Resurrection'' as Laurie apparently didn't kill Michael, but a poor paramedic the real Michael made to pose as him]].

** For the original film's network television premiere in 1981, Carpenter -- in between shooting for ''Halloween II'' -- filmed twelve minutes worth of additional scenes detailing Michael's commitment to (and escape from) the Smith's Grove asylum, as well as another scene with Laurie, Annie, and Lynda, which aired in place of some of the original footage that was deemed too graphic for TV. The film is now occasionally shown with a third cut: the uncut original film with these scenes spliced in, known as the "extended cut". Both the theatrical and extended cuts are available on DVD.
** ''Halloween II'' also features an alternate TV cut, supervised by director Rick Rosenthal. Unlike the latter example however, the differences between the theatrical and TV cuts are larger and more specific here, and also feature ALTERNATE takes and scenes. This cut did finally end up on DVD as a bonus disc on the collector's edition DVD/Blu-ray, although it didn't lose the television censorship to the language, violence, and nudity.
* RunicMagic: Starting in the fifth film, Michael Myers is shown to have a tattoo of the thorn rune[[note]]a letter from older germanic languages standing for the "th" sound[[/note]] on his right wrist upon waking up from his year-long coma. The next film reveals that Michael was put under a curse by a cult of druids that compels him to wipe out his bloodline.

* SeriesContinuityError: At the end of the first film, Michael was stabbed in the eye with a hanger by Laurie, then in the scene where his face is revealed, you can see makeup around his actor's (Tony Moran) left eye signifying that his eye had been gouged. Despite this, the sequel depicts Michael being able to see from both eyes, and the left one clearly undamaged. Then, in that film, his eyes were ''shot out'' by Laurie. This extremely crippling injury and Michael being blown up afterwards was supposed to drive the point that Michael was dead, as John Carpenter intended, at the second's film end. But when Carpenter's anthology idea with the film series without Michael Myers tanked after the third film, Michael was brought back in the fourth film, with his eyes somehow back despite being replaced by lead bullets. This was sort of [[HandWave handwaved]] by the reveal of Michael being under a curse in the sixth film that gives him supernatural strength, immortality, and apparently, a healing factor. But when the series was partially rebooted with ''H20'', the 4-6 films were removed from its continuity and only the first and second films were canonical; this removed the explanation behind Michael's eyes healing since the ''H20'' continuity was mostly grounded in reality and had little, if none, supernatural elements. When the series was rebooted ''again'' in 2018, it rectified this error by keeping the first film canonical, but removing the second one from its continuity, including its infamous scene of Michael getting shot in the eyes, as well as Michael and Laurie's CainAndAbel [[UnrelatedInTheAdaptation relationship]], and kept Michael's eye scarred and blinded.

* TheMountainsOfIllinois: Literally
* NeckLift: Some of Michael's kills start with this as he's inhumanly strong.

* NotQuiteDead: Done again and again throughout the series, but used to full effect to justify ''Halloween: Resurrection'': [[spoiler:it turns out that Laurie had killed a paramedic instead of Michael at the end of ''[=H20=]''; Michael had attacked the paramedic, crushed his larynx, and switched places with him before "Michael's" body was carted out to the ambulance]].

** ''Film/HalloweenIIISeasonOfTheWitch'' is the only sequel to ''not'' feature Michael Myers, or any character from the first 2 movies and plays out more like a [[GenreShift supernatural detective thriller than a slasher movie]] as the idea was to transition the series into an anthology approach.
** Among the Myers sequels, ''[[Film/HalloweenH20TwentyYearsLater H20]]'' is the only one to not be set in Haddonfield, Illinois, it’s primarily in California the majority of the film (the opening is set in Langdon, Illinois though).

** Possibly justified; Michael seems to take joy in scaring people, not just killing them, so he may very well be running when they can't see him in order to invoke this trope.

* OrphanedSeries: The Thorn Trilogy appeared to be building up a MythArc, but was ignored by three different reboots.

* OurSlashersAreDifferent: Michael Meyers is inexplicable for the first movie in many of his abilities that shouldn't be possible for an ordinary escaped mental patient ([[RiddleForTheAges starting with the ability to drive a car]]). Doctor Loomis attributes them to being pure evil in some indefinable supernatural way. Later movies make it so Michael Meyers may be possessed of the spirit of Samhain but these have been retconned to CanonDiscontinuity.

* TheMountainsOfIllinois: Literally.

* LateArrivalSpoiler: Laurie Strode is (retconned into) Michael's sister--something that is spoiled on the ''Halloween II'' DVD cover.

* LivingEmotionalCrutch: Laurie to Michael, probably. Though especially in the remakes.

* MadeOfEvil: Dr Loomis believes that Michael is this....and he may be right.

* MaskOfPower: Especially in the first film; Michael doesn't kill anyone except when wearing a mask. In the intro he froze when his dad removed his clown mask, and later when Laurie knocks his mask off he takes the time to put it back on, giving her a better chance of escaping. First thing he does before starting his spree is steal the mask, but not for disguise since he never takes it off and few people would recognize him. In the sequel, he still wears the mask (getting an innocent lookalike killed) and is discovered to have scrawled ''Samhain'' (Halloween) on the wall of the mask store he robbed, suggesting he somehow links dressing up with murdering people; he ''becomes'' the Boogeyman. In the 2018 film, a sign of his increased malevolence in the 40 years after the original is that Michael is just as vicious and violent without his mask as he is with it; he almost doubles the original’s body count (five) before he dons his mask again (he kills nine by the time he regains his mask) [[note]]The prison bus driver, warden, a guard, Kevin and his father, a mechanic, cashier, Aaron and Dana [[/note]].

** On the other hand, both the [[Film/HalloweenH20TwentyYearsLater H20]] and the ''Film/Halloween2018'' timelines [[spoiler:keep Michael's background ambiguous although they slightly favor the more mundane interpretation.]]
** In an inverse of the Thorn movies, the Zombie remakes go for a purely mundane, "realistic" take. Granted, Michael still takes a Rasputinian amount of damage, but there's really nothing supernatural about it [[spoiler:and he's KilledOffForReal at the end of the second remake]].

** Completely averted in the 2018 timeline where Michael offs nearly anyone he encounters seemingly at random and Laurie is returned to not being his sister but just some girl he decided to stalk, as per the original film's story. The only victim to be a blood relative was his older sister Judith.

** Laurie Strode, original and zombie-verse versions.
** Jamie Lloyd in 4 through 6, a role she shared with her adopted sister Rachel [[spoiler:up until 5]].

** Allyson, her mother Karen and her grandmother, the OG herself Laurie; three generations of Strode women in ''Halloween 2018''.
* FirstPersonPerspective: In the original movie the opening sequence in which a young Michael Myers spies on then murders his older sister is done from his point of view.
* GeniusBruiser: Michael has proved that he ain't just a dumb brutish killing robot. He usually observes his victims closely, figures out their weaknesses, take advantage of it, kills their friends and family in order to make them weak mentally, cuts out all escape routes before he goes in for the kill and he knows when and who he can kill and when not. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking And last but not least]], he's able to drive a car despite never being behind the wheel until the present-day events of the first film.

* GreaterScopeVillain: The Man in Black in the Thorn Trilogy, who is really [[spoiler:Dr. Terrence Wynn]] the leader of the Cult of Thorn, [[spoiler:who placed the curse on Michael in the first place.]] They wish to aid or possibly control Michael.

* HorrorDoesntSettleForSimpleTuesday: Halloween was a trope codifier for this too.
* ImmuneToBullets: Michael Myers alternates between bullets hurting-but-not-killing him and bullets causing nothing more than a minor nuisance.

** And at the end of the fourth.

** Not only has he taken an axe, he's been stabbed and shot repeatedly in critical areas, electrocuted, impaled, hanged, set on fire, bludgeoned, fallen from great heights, crashed through a windshield, etc and yet somehow, Michael just keeps coming back for more.
** ''The Curse of Michael Myers'' explains this is because of the "Curse of Thorn" that imbues great, supernatural power on those inflicted.

* InstantExpert: As lampshaded in the original film, Michael immediately knows how to drive a car despite having spent most of his life in an insane asylum.

* ItIsDehumanizing: Loomis, as per his not-unjustified belief that Michael is nothing but pure evil, calls him an "it" on several occasions.
* {{Joisey}}: Averted. Michael Myers' hometown of Haddonfield is in Illinois. The real Haddonfield is actually located in New Jersey and was the hometown of ''Halloween'' co-creator Debra Hill.

* LampshadeHanging: How ''did'' Michael learn to drive?
* LateArrivalSpoiler: Laurie Strode is Michael's sister; something that is spoiled on the ''Halloween II'' DVD cover.

** This is especially prevalent in the Rob Zombie remakes where practically every character is a mean, brainless JerkAss whose scenes revolve around how awful they are. It seems to be Zombie's way of making the viewer sympathize with Myers, but it can make the scenes with almost any character who isn't Myers downright painful to watch. Exceptions in both films are Deborah Myers, Laurie, and all of Laurie's family, friends, and acquaintances. Exceptions in the first film are Loomis and Ismael. Exceptions in the second film are Nurse Daniels, Buddy, the werewolf kid with the van, Howard, Deputy Webb, Coroner Hooks, and the lady with the two hicks who beat down Michael in a field.
* DramaticIrony: Virtually the entire first film, and much of the later ones, is simply "Hey! There he is in the background! And the characters can't see him! [[OhCrap Crap!]]"
* DroppedABridgeOnHim: Sam Loomis dies offscreen at the end of the sixth movie due to Donald Pleasance's death.

* EvilMakesYouMonstrous: Michael Myers went from a [[SuperStrength super-strong]], [[TheSociopath sociopathic]] human with plans to kill his sister to a [[JokerImmunity completely unkillable supernatural being]] bent on massacring half of Haddonfield. And if you follow the sixth movie's canon, his power is making him grow bigger in each movie.

* FakingTheDead

** Completely averted in the 2018 timeline where Michael offs nearly anyone he encounters seemingly at random and Laurie isn't his sister, but just some girl he decided to stalk. The only victim to be a blood relative was his older sister Judith.

** The third film may or may not be ignored as well, considering that it has nothing to do the Michael Myers plot of the other movies, although clips from the first film appear on TV screens, as well as a commercial for it. Many a fan says it could be an in-universe made-for-TV movie, based on the events of the first two films.
** ''Halloween 2018'' takes a page from ''H20'' and ignores every single sequel, only canonizing the 1978 original, although Danny [=McBride=] says it is still going to reference them in some way.
* CassandraTruth: Dr Loomis's career in regards to Michael is this. No one ever listens to his warnings about the danger Michael poses to society...even after the dead bodies start piling up.

** In ''Halloween'' (2018) Laurie's PTSD and 40 years of waiting for Michael's inevitable (in her mind) escape, caused her to progress all the way to Main/CrazySurvivalist.
* ChaseScene: Lot of chasing will happen when Michael Myers makes himself properly known.

* DeathBySex: According to director John Carpenter, this was actually unintentional - in the first film, at least.
* {{Determinator}}: Michael spent fifteen years in a mental hospital, waiting for a chance to escape so that he could kill his sister. When he failed in killing her, he then spent the next ten years massacring everybody related to her. Then, depending on which canon you follow, he spent 10-20 years searching for his sister again.

** This is especially prevalent in the Rob Zombie remakes where practically every character is a mean, brainless JerkAss whose scenes revolve around how awful they are. It seems to be Zombie's way of making the viewer sympathize with Myers, but it makes the scenes with any character who isn't Myers downright painful to watch.

** ''Halloween: H20'', the seventh film in the franchise, completely ignores the fourth, fifth, and sixth films.
*** ''H20'' arguably ignores ''all'' of the sequels. A doctor at one point mentions that Michael Myers's body was "never found." This seems to follow the ending of the original film more than it does the second, since there is no mention of the hospital explosion in which both Loomis and Myers were killed. However, ''Halloween: Resurrection'', a direct sequel to ''H20'', establishes that ''Halloween II'' (1981) is canonical, as a TalkativeLoon briefly mentions Michael's victims at the hospital from the second movie. Also in ''H20'', Laurie's son, John, mentions the time she told him of when "she watched him burn", referencing the ending of the second movie. That, and Loomis was said to have survived the hospital explosion. Also, "Mr. Sandman" from The Chordettes is incorporated into the soundtracks for both ''II'' and ''H20'', at one point making Laurie uneasy when it comes on the radio (although it was never actually diegetic in ''II''). Also, ''H20'' was originally written as loosely, but blatantly acknowledging 4-6, but only one reference remained in the final film (Laurie faking her death, since it was too ingrained into ''H20'''s basic story and themes).

*** ''H20'' arguably ignores ''all'' of the sequels. A doctor at one point mentions that Michael Myers's body was "never found." This seems to follow the ending of the original film more than it does the second, since there is no mention of the hospital explosion in which both Loomis and Myers were killed. However, ''Halloween: Resurrection'', a direct sequel to ''H20'', establishes that ''Halloween II'' (1981) is canon, as a TalkativeLoon briefly mentions Michael's victims at the hospital from the second movie. Also in ''H20'', Laurie's son, John, mentions the time she told him of when "she watched him burn", referencing the ending of the second movie. That, and Loomis was said to have survived the hospital explosion. Also, "Mr. Sandman" from The Chordettes is incorporated into the soundtracks for both ''II'' and ''H20'', at one point making Laurie uneasy when it comes on the radio (although it was never actually diegetic in ''II''). Also, ''H20'' was originally written as loosely, but blatantly acknowledging 4-6, but only one reference remained in the final film (Laurie faking her death, since it was too ingrained into ''H20'''s basic story and themes).

* SeriesContinuityError: At the end of the first film, Michael was stabbed in the eye with a hanger by Laurie, then in the scene where his face is revealed, you can see makeup around his actor's (Tony Moran) left eye signifying that his eye had been gouged. Despite this, the sequel depicts Michael being able to see from both eyes, and the left one clearly undamaged. Then, in that film, his eyes were ''shot out'' by Laurie. This extremely crippling injury and Michael being blown up afterwards was supposed to drive the point that Michael was dead, as John Carpenter intended, at the second's film end. But when Carpenter's anthology idea with the film series without Michael Myers tanked after the third film, Michael was brought back in the fourth film, with his eyes somehow back despite being replaced by lead bullets. This was sort of [[HandWave handwaved]] by the reveal of Michael being under a curse in the sixth film that gives him supernatural strength, immortality, and apparently, a healing factor. But when the series was partially rebooted with ''H20'', the 4-6 films were removed from its continuity and only the first and second films were canon; this removed the explanation behind Michael's eyes healing since the ''H20'' continuity was mostly grounded in reality and had little, if none, supernatural elements. When the series was rebooted ''again'' in 2018, it rectified this error by keeping the first film canon, but removing the second one from its continuity, including its infamous scene of Michael getting shot in the eyes, as well as Michael and Laurie's CainAndAbel [[UnrelatedInTheAdaptation relationship]], and kept Michael's eye scarred and blinded.

** In [[AlternateContinuity one version]] of ''Halloween'' canon, Haddonfield is also home to a demonic cult.

* YouKillItYouBoughtIt: One of the Chaos! comics has Laurie taking Michael's place after killing him in ''H20''. This was ultimately rendered non-canon by ''Resurrection'' though.

* BreakoutCharacter: Michael Myers himself. After ''killing'' Michael Myers in the sequel, director John Carpenter wanted to transform the series into a yearly anthology of films centered around various aspects of Halloween. But Michael proved too popular and became synonymous with the Halloween franchise. When ''Film/HalloweenIIISeasonOfTheWitch'' was made without Myers, fans stayed home and the movie tanked. The next Halloween movie, ''Film/Halloween4TheReturnOfMichaelMyers'', would return the Michael Myers character and the anthology idea would be dropped.

%%* AxeBeforeEntering: Michael Myers likes this trope.
%%* BigBad: Michael Myers aka The Shape.
%%* BlackEyesOfEvil: See page quote.

-->'''Laurie:''' Was...was that the Boogeyman?\\
'''Dr. Loomis:''' ...as a matter of fact, it was.

* '''''Film/HalloweenTheCurseOfMichaelMyers''''' (1995) -- Years after the previous film, a group called the Cult of Thorn try to kidnap an adult Jamie's newborn baby, Steven, as part of a plan involving Michael (who keeps trying to kill his niece). The film also reveals the reason behind Michael's madness.

* '''''Film/HalloweenIIISeasonOfTheWitch''''' (1982) -- A toymaker uses rocks from Stonehenge to create masks that cause children's heads to rot into writhing piles of snakes and bugs if they watch certain Halloween commercials. This plan also involves robots and [[DeathRay lasers]].

* '''''Film/HalloweenIIISeasonOfTheWitch''''' (1982) -- A toymaker uses rocks from Stonehenge to create masks that cause children's heads to explode into writhing piles of snakes and bugs if they watch certain Halloween commercials. This plan also involves robots and [[DeathRay lasers]].

* '''''John Carpenter's Film/{{Halloween|1978}}''''' (1978) -- At the age of 6, Michael Myers stabbed his older sister Judith to death on Halloween night, 1963; this led to his incarceration at a mental hospital. Fifteen years later, Michael escapes from the asylum on the night before Halloween and returns to his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois in order to go back to his childhood home. Teenager Laurie Strode (Creator/JamieLeeCurtis) steps onto the Myers property and thereby incurs Michael's wrath, causing him to begin stalking her and her friends throughout the day and ensuing night until he finds his chance to begin murdering them one by one. Only Dr. Sam Loomis (Creator/DonaldPleasence), Michael's former psychiatrist, stands any chance of stopping him.

* '''''Film/{{Halloween II|1981}}''''' (1981) -- On the same night as the original film, [[FinalGirl Laurie]] gets taken to a hospital to recover from Michael Myers's attack, but the serial killer follows her there. The film [[TheReveal soon reveals/retcons the reason why Michael is stalking Laurie]].

* '''''Film/{{Halloween II|1981}}''''' (1981) -- On the same night as the original film, [[FinalGirl Laurie]] gets taken to a hospital to recover from Michael Myers' attack, but the serial killer follows her there. The film [[TheReveal soon reveals the reason why Michael is stalking Laurie]].

* '''''John Carpenter's Film/{{Halloween|1978}}''''' (1978) -- At the age of 6, Michael Myers stabbed his older sister Judith to death on Halloween night, 1963; this led to his incarceration at a mental hospital. Fifteen years later, Michael escapes from the asylum on the night before Halloween and returns to his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois to stalk teenager Laurie Strode (Creator/JamieLeeCurtis) and her friends. Only Dr. Sam Loomis (Creator/DonaldPleasence), Michael's former psychiatrist, stands any chance of stopping him.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: The idea behind Michael himself. Is he simply just an incredibly durable, super-strong, knife-wielding psychopath...or is there a truly supernatural aspect to him?
** [[Film/Halloween4TheReturnOfMichaelMyers The]] [[Film/Halloween5TheRevengeOfMichaelMyers Thorn]] [[Film/HalloweenTheCurseOfMichaelMyers Trilogy]] [[spoiler:explicitly make the supernatural explanation canonical. ''Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers'' specifically explains that it actually is magic, since Michael's superhuman qualities are the byproduct [[BlessedWithSuck of an ancient, mystical, Celtic curse]].]]

* '''''Film/{{Halloween Kills}}''''' (2021) -- The sequel to the 2018 film.

-->-- '''Dr. Samuel Loomis''', ''Halloween'' (1978).

* KnightOfCerebus: Michael Myers ''embodies'' this trope due to literally being [[MadeOfEvil nothing more than pure evil]]. He kills randomly, for which he has no motive and from which he gains no reward. Also, unlike other cinematic slasher villains such as [[Franchise/ANightMareOnElmStreet Freddy]] and [[Franchise/FridayThe13th Jason]], Michael Myers has no FreudianExcuse such as a tragic past or abusive parents. He's evil because he chooses to be, especially in the Final Timeline where he kills [[ForTheEvulz simply because he can]], due to the famicidial motive being retconned. He's even the page picture for this trope.

* VillainBasedFranchise: Played semi-straight, in that Dr. Loomis (the hero in the first movie) came back for every sequel until [[AuthorExistenceFailure Donald Pleasence's death]], with Laurie Strode (the original's final girl) appearing in the remainder of the sequels. Whilst Michael is the only character in every installment (barring the third one), he is always opposed by one of the survivors from the first movie.

* KnightOfCerebus: Michael Myers ''embodies'' this trope due to literally being [[MadeOfEvil nothing more than pure evil]]. He kills randomly, for which he has no motive and from which he gains no reward. Also, unlike other cinematic slasher villains such as [[Franchise/ANightMareOnElmStreet Freddy]] and [[Franchise/FridayThe13th Jason]], Michael Myers has no FreudianExcuse such as a tragic past or abusive parents. He's evil because he chooses to be, especially in the Final Timeline where he kills [[ForTheEvulz simply because he can]], due to the famicidial motive being retconned. He's even the page image for this trope.

* KnightOfCerebus: Michael Myers ''embodies'' this trope due to literally being [[MadeOfEvil nothing more than pure evil]]. He kills randomly, for which he has no motive and from which he gains no reward. Also, unlike other cinematic slasher villains such as [[Franchise/ANightMareOnElmStreet Freddy]] and [[Franchise/FridayThe13th Jason]], Michael Myers has no FreudianExcuse such as a tragic past or abusive parents. He's evil because he chooses to be, especially in the Final Timeline where he kills [[ForTheEvulz simply because he can]], due to the famicidial motive being retconned.

In 1978, writer/director Creator/JohnCarpenter and producer Debra Hill made ''Halloween'', a NoBudget, independent horror film. The film was a massive hit that effectively popularized the SlasherMovie genre and inspired other similar franchises such as ''Franchise/FridayThe13th'' - and it also turned the film into the first of a successful major horror film franchise. Since then, the original film, and the series overall, became a celebrated, iconic pop culture staple of horror.

* KnightOfCerebus: Michael Myers ''embodies'' this trope due to literally being [[MadeOfEvil nothing more than pure evil]]. He kills randomly, for which he has no motive and from which he gains no reward. Also, unlike other cinematic slasher villains such as [[Franchise/ANightMareOnElmStreet Freddy]] and [[Franchise/FridayThe13th Jason]], Michael Myers has no FreudianExcuse such as a tragic past or abusive parents. He's evil because he chooses to be, especially in the 2018 film where he kills [[ForTheEvulz simply because he can]], due to the famicidial motive being retconned.