Considering Michael Myers is a violent and unrepentant insane murderer, why was he not executed?
Because there was no death penalty in the USA from 1972 to 1977 and for longer in many states. There were no executions in the state of Illinois from 1962 to 1990.
Because he is insane. And so are the people willing to continue letting him live.
Seriously though, according to this article, it states: "Yes. The Supreme Court has repeatedly declined to shield mentally ill people from the death penalty, saying only that people who are insane cannot be executed. But “the insane” is narrowly defined as “those who are unaware of the punishment they are about to suffer and why they are to suffer it” — a definition that excludes most people with severe mental illness."
If we take the theory presented again and again in the movies, that Myers goes beyond "normal" psychopathy and there is nothing else in his mind but evil and killing intent, then we are right into the old Evil Cannot Comprehend Good trope. Which means that he truly can't understand why he is being punished since he can't understand why his crimes are wrong, and thus going by the letter of the law he can't be tried as a normal criminal.
Michael has been institutionalised since he was 6 and hasn't communicated with anyone to prove otherwise that he is sane enough to stand trial or understand his crimes.
Even aside from that, he never speaks or seems to make any sort of reaction at all. So when they ask him if he understands the nature of his crimes and why he should be punished, he's virtually catatonic, and has been for forty years. Since he can't or won't assent to understanding when questioned, he surely qualifies as non compos mentis.
Bear in mind that the only people who could claim that Michael was not insane and fully aware of what he did and enjoyed it are Dr. Loomis, whose own sanity could be called into question for calling a 14-year-old pure evil, and Laurie, whose friends were killed by Michael and might not be taken seriously for it. Also, given the state of mental institutions in the 70’s, it is possible that they decided to simply lock him up.
It's extremely doubtful Loomis' sanity would be called into question given he was dead right about Michael and argued for stronger measures to contain him; it's also doubtful he would call for Michael's execution - there's a difference between shooting him to stop him murdering a girl and killing him when he's confined and secured. To me, it's more likely Loomis would press for even greater measures to keep Michael confined, particularly as this film's take does not follow the more hysterical characterisation that began to slip in with Halloween 2.
Loomis did call for his execution and for immediate destruction of the body by fire according to recordings held by Sartain.
That, plus Loomis being ready to kill him from the moment he escaped in the first Halloween movie. And it would not be "extremely doubtful" that his sanity would be questioned - any psychiatrist that has this sort of behavior toward their patient, no matter how deranged, in real life, would be at least separated from the patient, if not disbarred altogether. Sure, we know he's right and Michael is a force of pure evil, but you can't expect the in-universe legal system to agree - from their point of view, they're not even sure Michael is aware of his surroundings for decades at a time, and he hadn't tried escaping in 40 years. They'd feel no urgency to kill him or believe Loomis' words that they should.
In fact, the movie pulls a Fridge Brilliance as Michael is being transferred from a mental institution to a maximum security prison. Illinois also hasn't had the death penalty since 2011 so by the time Michael was determined competent to stand trial, he's no longer in danger of being executed.
And if his psychiatrist secretly wants him to go on a rampage just to watch then he's not going to be campaigning for his execution either.
Why does Karen go by her maiden name instead of Ray's last name?
Is this established in the movie? I didn't know if we ever heard Allyson or Karen's last name.
She doesn't in the movie. And she's credited as 'Karen Nelson', which is Ray's last name according to the cast list.
How in the world was Michael arrested?
It's noted that Hawkins was on the scene and arrested Michael. Given that Michael's a nigh-unstoppable psychopath who pays no heed to warnings from law enforcement, how did anyone manage to take him in? It's unlikely he would have given up at any point.
Michael was shot five times by Doctor Loomis, stabbed in the neck with a knitting needle, and stabbed in the eye by Laurie Strode with a wire coat hanger. It seems that was enough to weaken him. It seems likely he managed to hobble off camera and then collapse.
The reason could have to do with the randomness of Michael’s character. Maybe he just decided to stop as he was “satisfied” for that night.
Or just the fact that Michael's not suicidal. Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane touches aside, he doesn't have special powers that let him fight three cops on equal terms - at least not in this new continuity. It's quite possible that they cornered him, he was too injured to escape, so he simply... stopped.
If we accept the Cult of Thorn explanation for Michael's abilities then the constellation may have faded at the end of the night leaving him little choice but to surrender.
There was an opening that showed how he got arrested but it was deemed too complicated.
Halloween Kills finally shows the arrest. After killing Hawkins's partner in the Myers house, he simply... stops when surrounded by the police. The police and Loomis tried to execute him right then and there, but Hawkins stopped them in a brief moment of compassion. He has since come to regret that.
Dr. Ranbir Sartain speaking and sounding like Loomis
Is that the actor's real voice, or was he going for an evil counterpart of Dr. Loomis?
He studied under Loomis and seems to have picked up some of his inflections.
What non-cop guy in the real world would get out of his car in the middle of a night, knowing there are mentally ill patients on the loose? He saw them walking out of the bus. Neither the dad or kid locked the car doors (not that it would stop Michael). Why not drive somewhere safe and call the police?
I think it was a subverted Heartwarming Moment where he sees the otherwise harmless mental patients and goes out to see if he could help them. Tragically, it seems he was probably aware most mentally ill people are harmless and his good samaritan act gets him as well as his son killed.
Michael was the only patient out killing people. The rest of the patients just wandered around in a drugged daze or headed for familiar environs like the library. Michael happens to be the rather extreme exception and he very likely had Dr. Sartain aiding him in his escape.
Perhaps he also wanted to question the driver or the people in charge to get the name of the hospital they came from or where they were going - so he can phone them up and let them know there was an accident.
Why the Hell does Laurie stay in Haddonfield?
It's a cute town, but her friends were murdered and she nearly joined them in death thanks to the lunatic who became obsessed with her.
Given how she explicitly states in the film that she wants to kill Michael, I think that's the answer.
It seems to be a big part of her character that she wants Michael to break out and track her down. Since the panic room in her house is really a trap she wants him to easily find her. Which would be hard if she's living in a different state.
Additionally she might have lived other places in her previous marriages but chose to go back home after they failed. It happens.
Still, did it go through her head that raising a child a few miles from the place the most evil murderer in the Midwest, possibly the whole country, resides was a bad idea? I mean, she always knew Michael would get out, she even turned her own house into a fortress just in case that would happened!
Her intention is to specifically stay there so she can be there to kill Michael when he escapes again. This mission, coupled with her trauma, may have affected her mind when it came to decisions regarding where to raise Karen.
Also, she might have believed that Michael could find her anywhere. That's what happened in Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later. At least in Haddonfield she had a few allies that understood the depths of Michael's evil, like Hawkins and Sheriff Brackett. The police anywhere else would assume that Michael was just an ordinary man and not take his reappearance as seriously.
Something that bothers me is that Laurie's two ex-husbands, Karen's birth father and stepfather, didn't even bother to take Karen away from her mother, who despite doing all her anti-Michael crap out of fear for her and her daughter's safety, was clearly an unhealthy parent/guardian for Karen to be around.
Was it personal when Michael killed the journalists at the gas station?
Did Michael recognize them? There's no way he would know what they look like. His back was turned the entire time at the asylum. He didn't see the male journalist's face.
It was clearly personal, they had his mask which he went to the trouble of retrieving. How he tracked them down is unclear (he doesn't turn around, but he does subtly turn his head, perhaps enough to get a glimpse out of the corner of his eye).
He probably was able to find them by deducing where they'll go next. He knew they were doing a story on him, so he probably started going to places that would have interested them, like Judith's grave.
Plus the opening sequence abruptly ended in the middle of the journalists' attempt to coax an answer out of him. There's a non-zero chance that after it cut to the credits, Michael either finally turned around or one of them tried circling around to look Michael in the eye, giving him a good look at them.
Sartain specifically says "Make no mistake, he's aware. He was watching you as you arrived."
Does Michael kill for 'personal' reasons? His brutality might have been simply to recover the mask efficiently, but he killed 4 people just to get that mask back. Note when he holds it for the first time, there's certainly... something going on there. Perhaps the mask is what triggered his escape to begin with.
Also, note that when he recognized Laurie, he lost his previous stoic demeanor and viciously attempted to crush her through a door.
It is cleared up in an earlier scene somewhat, he goes to Haddonfield graveyard to visit his sister's grave or something (no idea why, maybe to psyche himself up to see the grave of his victim), and sees 3 people at his sister's grave, then 2 of them start speaking and he recognizes their voices, so he knows they have his mask and follows them to the gas station.
Michael's strength
People say that in the movie The Shape's supernatural abilities are ambiguous, but I am honestly not seeing. Correct me if I am wrong, but him smashing Dr. Not-Loomis' head in one stomp is the single biggest feat of strength shown through the franchise. There is no way for a normal human to accomplish that, certainly not one pushing his 60s as Michael is in the movie. Hell, if I recall correctly, in one of the Rob Zombie movies (featuring a much younger, larger, and more brutal Michael Myers), it takes him five tries to do something similar.
I feel the ambiguity of his supernatural nature comes from the fact that it's not outright stated that he's a supernatural being or not. He's described as unhuman by Dr. Loomis ("...the shape of a human being.") but aside of the Thorn Timeline's version of Michael, he's never truly revealed to be inhuman. Also, this version of Michael had been put of action for forty years, so during that time, he's become a myth of sorts in-universe, a scary story to frighten kids. Most of the characters in the film believe he's merely a psychotic man, not evil incarnate.
Why was Michael in gen pop?
Aside from Michael, most of the patients at the mental institution are not violent and don't end up posing a threat to anyone. So why on earth was he, an extremely dangerous spree killer, put in the general population with a bunch of nonviolent individuals? Why potentially put the other patients in harm's way?
Actually, Michael may not be the only evil bastard there, as there were other inmates in yellow squares just like him.
What is up with the Police reaction?
We have 24-hour news, Twitter, Facebook, and who knows how many other sources of always-on news. And we have an infamous serial killer (known for a Halloween night rampage targeting teenagers) escape a prison transport leaving a trail of bodies in his wake on his way back to his home town. In what world would there be a single trick-or-treater walking the streets? In what world would the high-school dance be allowed to happen? No police warning to the public, no press conference, no Amber Alert, no tweets, no Facebook updates? A full day passes between the escape and Halloween evening. For f***s sake, something like this would be national news within minutes and there would be thousands of law enforcement personnel swarming Haddonfield. Every light would be on, every door would be locked, and every gun within a hundred miles would would have a bullet chambered. Michael would literally be the one and only person walking around alone and certainly the only one with a mask on.
Except in-universe, Michael's not a Slasher Movie Supervillain, he's a 61-year-old man who killed just four people in 1978 and has been institutionalised ever since. They don't initially think it'll be that hard to track down an old man who's spent literally his entire life in an mental institution. Besides, after the first few murders, it seems the town is locked down when Julian escapes his house - witness how quiet the street was when Allyson and Oscar walk home. And Laurie mentions the school has been evacuated in the phone message Allyson never gets. (Also, you might be surprised at how much people simply wouldn't care, thinking "it'll never happen to me". Just look at public reaction to the Covid pandemic.)
This is explained directly in the film. Once upon a time, a man named Michael Myers killed 4 people in the late 70s; he was arrested and was never seen again, nor mentioned or even thought about for decades, save for a few people like Laurie and Hawkins. After The Shape's rampage, his only rampage that had a few amount of casualties, the world has had to deal with terrorism, crime, and other mass murderers' rampages that have lead to more bloodshed than what Michael had done that one Halloween night; it's not surprising that nobody would remember or give a flying fuck about Michael Myers. In addition to this apathy, the dipshit Sheriff Barker (who I personally hate with a silent fury for his callousness and unbelievable stupidity) doesn't take the news seriously that this man, Michael Audrey Myers, this guy who killed 5 people for no reason, has escaped and is very likely coming back to his town to indiscriminately wreak horrific violence upon the populace. Instead, he laughs off the idea of banning Halloween to help protect the townspeople from this one guy, covers up or purposely leaves out the fact that an insane killer is on the loose from the news, and ends up doing little to nothing when the bodies begin piling up. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this incompetent idiot was fired in the next movie.
We can give that there probably should be a press conference but as far as that stopping people from doing what they want, that's not reality. That would be wishful fantasies from the social science worldview.
Why was Laurie's attempt to kill Michael so shit?
She's been preparing for his return for twenty years, has been trained in guns, owns more than would really be necessary, and when she has him outside, doesn't think to just pepper him with bullets. Or barring that, get him in the trap room and pepper him with bullets, then cut his head off for good measure. She was shown as being unhinged already and it would have been a much better Catharsis Factor.
Not sure if it counts as an answer, but Jamie Lee Curtis is anti-gun and didn't want her character to shoot any at a living being, as not to make the impression possessing guns is reputable.
Except she does, repeatedly, fire or attempt to fire at Michael (and hits him twice). The conservative news media worked themselves into a lather over her supposed "anti-gun" attitude, but Curtis is actually in favour of common-sense gun control. Laurie's guns are all fully legal and licenced. She keeps her guns under lock and key in a secure place. She wears ear protection on her target range. She taught Karen proper gun use (though in fairness there's no indication Ray had a gun licence, she did choose to give him a revolver, which he also had the common-sense not to brandish around the place, only picking it up when he thinks he might use it.) She even practices good trigger discipline - notice she doesn't shoot Hawkins when he surprises her, and nor does Karen shoot her in the basement.
The key word there might well be 'unhinged' — it's entirely possible some deep part of her wanted him to suffer. (On a meta level, if he was Killed Off for Real there would be no way to have a sequel without resorting to the kind of increasingly ludicrous explanations for his survival that the previous films offered.)
If I had to guess, it would be they wanted something definitive enough if they never made another film, but with enough wiggle room for Michael to survive if they ended up getting the sequels. We're getting two sequels, it's likely Laurie will at some point mention that her plan wasn't good enough.
It's definitely because they wanted a sequel. To be honest, it doesn't make sense. Laurie wants Michael dead. She wouldn't be satisfied unless she watched him die, then made sure he was deader than Elvis. She wouldn't walk away just thinking No One Could Survive That!.
Why would Michael leave the other mental patients unharmed?
So after the accident, Michael and the other patients are free, most of them stay near the bus, ready to be his first victims in forty years, and from what is mentioned later, most if not all of them were harmless, and by consequence, defenseless. But it's also mentioned that all of them were recaptured, confirming that none of them were killed by Michael. Why would he leave them alone? Did he think they weren't worth killing for being too insane? And for that matter, how come he didn't kill Dr. Sartain, who was stuck inside the bus, an easy and (apparently) sane target?
So that law enforcement would be expending resources gathering them back up rather than just focusing on him.
, it states: "Yes. The Supreme Court has repeatedly declined to shield mentally ill people from the death penalty, saying only that people who are insane cannot be executed. But “the insane” is narrowly defined as “those who are unaware of the punishment they are about to suffer and why they are to suffer it” — a definition that excludes most people with severe mental illness."