Film / Halloween Kills

"Evil dies tonight!"

"Michael Myers is flesh and blood, but a man couldn’t have survived that fire. The more he kills, the more he transcends. He’s the essence of evil."

— Laurie Strode

Halloween Kills is the twelfth film in the Halloween franchise and the direct sequel to Halloween (2018), once again produced by Blumhouse Productions and Miramax Films and distributed by Universal Pictures. David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express) returns as director and co-writer alongside Danny McBride, with John Carpenter returning as executive producer and composer.

Picking up immediately from where the last film left off, Michael Myers manages to escape from Laurie Strode’s burning cabin thanks to an unwitting team of firefighters, allowing him to continue his killing spree, and forcing Laurie, her daughter Karen, and granddaughter Allyson to once again spring into action in order to put a stop to the Shape. But this time they’re not alone, as the town of Haddonfield, including several figures from Michael’s past, also want him dead once and for all.

As for the cast, Jamie Lee Curtis returns as Laurie alongside Judy Greer and Andi Matichak as the second and third generations of the Strode family, respectively. James Jude Courtney also returns as Myers. Other members of the cast include Anthony Michael Hall as Tommy Doyle and Kyle Richards returning as Lindsey Wallace.

The film premiered at the 2021 Venice Film Festival on September 8 and was released October 15, 2021, both in theaters and on Peacock (the latter for a 60-day period).

A sequel (Halloween Ends) was released on October 14, 2022, and concludes the Halloween revival trilogy. According to the director, the story is set a few years after the events of this film.

Previews: Teaser 1, Teaser 2, Trailer 1, Final Trailer.

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Halloween Kills contains examples of:

• The '70s: Portions of the prologue take place on Halloween night, 1978.
• Abstract Apotheosis: Discussed. Laurie believes that the more Michael kills, the less human and more unstoppable he becomes, considering his ultimate form to be "the essence of evil."
• Accidental Murder: As his partner was being strangled by Michael, Hawkins shot him in the neck in an attempt to hit Michael, causing his death every bit as much as the Shape did.
• Accidental Suicide: Vanessa - the woman in the nurse costume - is approaching and shooting at Michael when the latter kicks a car door into her, causing her to accidentally shoot herself.
• Actor Allusion: Jim Cummings plays a less-than-competent sheriff's deputy, a role he'd written for himself in his two previous films.
• Adaptational Badass: In previous Halloween films, Michael almost always avoided confronting large, equipped groups, preferring his usual ambushes and attacks on single people (Halloween 4's offstage massacre of the police being a rare exception). Here, he doesn't hesitate to face off with groups many times his number head-on and proves strong and efficient enough to easily win twice.
• All There in the Manual: The novelisation goes into some of the characters' backstories and mindsets, giving more context to their actions in the film.
  • While the film strongly implies it, the novelisation confirms Tommy has severe PTSD from Michael's original spree, being in and out of therapy for years afterwards. By his own admission, he develops severe overaggression as a first response to anything that could hurt him, explaining his poor judgment calls here.
  • After his own encounter, Lonnie also became fixated on Michael, other famous murderers and the supernatural, researching everything to do with The Shape and penning the definitive account of the 1978 killings. However, it came at the cost of his reputation in Haddonfield and marriage, possibly explaining why Cameron thinks Michael's infected his family as well.
  • The second patient is called Anthony Tivoli, and he was institutionalized for killing his parents after they abused him with a rope as a child, where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He's only in Vanessa's car because he'd stolen a pizza, was looking for a quiet place to eat and rest, found it open then fell asleep in it.
• And This Is for...: Marion Chambers tells Michael "This is for Dr. Loomis" when she has him dead to rights with her gun. Unfortunately, she's out of bullets after firing at him earlier, and he swiftly stabs her to death.
• Anthropic Principle: Apparently, in the whole town of Haddonfield, there is no weapon or tool that can cause damage more severe than a superficial puncture/slash wound, let alone a person who is able to use such weapons. So no matter how much prep time the citizens of Haddonfield have to fight Michael Myers, at best they will arm themselves with a small-caliber pistol that can inflict only superficial wounds.
• Arc Words:
  • "Evil dies tonight!" It starts off as a powerful refrain from a Rousing Speech by Tommy and then becomes a Survival Mantra for the town. However, it twists into a Madness Mantra as it becomes evident that the town's desire for justice has crossed over into bloodthirsty mob-mentality scapegoating.
  • "It/He needs to die." First heard in Loomis's recorded statement advocating Michael's execution in the previous film, it's repeated several times by Laurie and Hawkins, who recognize that Haddonfield will never be safe from Michael until he's dead.
• Artistic License:
  • The firefighters perform a full smoke dive to the burning building at the start of the film, in spite of it already being up in flames and without knowledge of any survivors trapped inside. Normally, fire brigades don't endanger their people needlessly in such situations and focus only on preventing the fire from spreading to the surrounding area.
  • When Michael charges the fire brigade outside, the one holding the hose tries spraying him with it, which doesn't phase him because it seems to only be a little stronger than a garden hose. In real life, firehoses have such high pressure that getting blasted with one is something that can seriously injure regular people, and even someone as inhumanly tough as Michael Myers would probably at least be taken off his feet.
• Ascended Extra:
  • A couple wearing a doctor and nurse costume appear briefly in the previous film. Here, Marcus and Vanessa play larger roles in helping to hunt down Michael, though neither of them survives when they actually encounter him.
  • Lance Tivoli, another mental patient, appeared briefly in the previous film's opening scene as the weird guy with the umbrella. Here, a whole subplot revolves around him being mistaken for Michael and getting chased by an angry mob.
• The Atoner: Cameron. Despite his asshole behavior in the last movie, he expresses clear guilt and remorse for how he acted towards Allyson, makes a genuine effort to help her and her family out and joins the mob to stop Michael.
• A-Team Firing: Lots of people with firearms have an unusually hard time trying to shoot Michael in this movie, including trained professionals like police officers.
• Back for the Dead:
  • Leigh Brackett, Tommy Doyle, Marion Chambers, and Lonnie Elam show up again (in the case of the latter for the first time in any capacity since the 1978 film). By the end of this film, all four are dead.
  • In a more minor case, Sondra, the woman who showed luckless podcasters Aaron and Dana to Judith Myers's grave in the 2018 film, returns briefly here. One of Laurie's neighbors, she and her husband become victims of Michael's renewed killing spree after he escapes the burning house. However, the following film reveals that Sondra survived her stabbing, although she is now unable to speak and in a wheelchair while her husband did not survive.
• The Bad Guy Wins: It's Michael's most triumphant moment, with only four main characters (Laurie, Allyson, Lindsey, and Deputy Hawkins) still alive after his slaughter.
• Bait the Dog: Michael is seemingly ready to kill Lonnie as a child, cowering in fear. Just as Lonnie (and the audience) expects an attack, two cops show up and comfort him, Michael having seemingly disappeared Behind the Black. A viewer who forgot the events of the previous film might be fooled into thinking that killing kids is a line that Michael won't cross, but the 2018 movie already established that Myers murders a 12-year-old kid 40 years after his initial killing spree in Haddonfield, and he kills another child (offscreen) in Kills.
• Batter Up!: Once Tommy Doyle hears Michael is back, he grabs a bar owner's trusted baseball bat said owner has been saving for Michael if he ever returned. Michael kills Tommy with it toward the end of the film.
• Big "NO!":
  • Laurie lets out multiple when she sees fire trucks heading in the direction of her house.
    Laurie: NO! NO, NO! OH, LET IT BURN! LET IT BURN!
  • Allyson lets out multiple as she watches Michael brutally murder Cameron.
• Big "WHAT?!": Allyson's furious response to learning that Michael is still alive.
• Bloodier and Gorier: While the first film had its bloodier moments, this film ramps up the gore to Rob Zombie levels.
• Bloodless Carnage: Averted by the movie as a whole, but in the 1978 sequence, Michael is neither bleeding nor are his clothes damaged from the stab or gunshots wounds he sustained at most, an hour before, though this is consistent with how the seemingly dead Michael looked at the end of the original film.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Not as prominent as the prior film, but still present as the motivation behind the Shape's actions continue to be a source of speculation. Allyson and Hawkins confirm that he wasn't after Laurie in the last film until Sartain forced the issue, the latter speculates that Michael wishes to return home once more, and Laurie believes that all the death he inflicts has helped him transcend whatever humanity he had left; again, however, only Michael knows for sure, and he's still not talking.
• Book Ends:
  • The 1978 sequence ends with Michael attacking a cop in his sister Judith's old bedroom. The film itself ends with Michael killing Karen in the very same room.
  • Michael ends up against large groups at both the beginning and climax of the story. He wins both quite handily.
  • Michael's first-ever murder was his sister Judith, in her bedroom. His last kill in this film is Karen, in the very same room, with the way Karen's death is shot even hearkening back to Judith's murder.
• Bring It: A non-verbal one from Michael. As Tommy and his lynch mob bear down on him, Michael wordlessly puts on his mask and faces them with the intent to take them all on. And he does.
• Broad Strokes: Even though this continuity ignores Halloween II, brief archive footage from that film is shown of Brackett viewing Annie's body. We don't see Loomis's part in that scene so it doesn't contradict the 1978 flashback story.
• Bury Your Gays: Downplayed, as there is a gay couple that is killed, but their deaths owe more to them living in the old Myers household — and not getting the hell out of dodge after finding a bloody handprint on their backdoor.
• The Bus Came Back: Several characters return for the first time in the revival continuity. Tommy Doyle, Marion Chambers, and Lindsey Wallace are some examples, but the biggest one is Lonnie Elam, who was not seen in any previous sequels or reboots since the 1978 film.
• Call-Back:
  • To the original film:
    • In the original, Michael's first stop upon arriving back in Haddonfield was to return to his childhood home (Laurie briefly stopped there is where he first saw and started stalking her). This movie shows that he did the same thing after being shot by Loomis, being apprehended on the front lawn of the Myers house, and in the present day, Lonnie correctly ascertains that he's been making his way back there since coming back to town.
    • Lindsey believes that as a kid, Lonnie was the only kid brave enough to have gone nosing around in the Myers house, something he confesses is untrue. We actually saw Dr. Loomis scare him and his friends off when they tried this in the original film.
    • Michael attacks Nurse Chambers in her car by slamming his hand against the window, just like in the first movie.
    • Hawkins notes he didn't make the moves on Laurie because "you only liked Ben Tramer," a character alluded to in the original Halloween.
    • When Loomis attempts to kill Michael in the flashback, he utters "purely and simply evil" under his breath, as if to justify murder with his philosophy explained earlier that night.
    • Just like in the first movie, someone tries to rip off Michael's mask while struggling with him.
    • Before the Haddonfield citizens and Michael square off, Brackett repeats one of his lines from the 1978 film: "You know it's Halloween. I guess everyone’s entitled to one good scare."
    • Karen briefly sees the specter of Michael as a little boy staring out his sister's window, clad in the same clown outfit he wore the night he murdered Judith.
    • In a flashback scene, Michael attacks the deputy with a rope, which is one of the items Sheriff Bracket mentioned was stolen in a hardware store in the original Halloween.
    • The 1978 film ended with a shot of the Myers house. This film reveals that that's where Michael went after surviving being shot by Loomis and where he was finally captured.
  • As in Halloween (2018), Karen's triumphant "Gotcha!" signifies Michael being lured into a trap. This time, it doesn't end so well for her.
• Chainsaw Good: A firefighter attempts to use a buzzsaw against Michael — only to have the saw redirected into his face.
• Chekhov's Gun: Big John calls attention to the pitchfork in his Halloween display and even flicks it to make a metallic tone so the audience knows that it's real. It gets used in the final act.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: Any time Michael is surrounded and has the means to fight back, his opponents always come at him one at a time and Michael manages to kill all of them. His fight against the firefighters in the beginning is a shining example.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Several of Michael's victims from the previous movie are shown in the condition he left them in, and the news report that Tommy sees in the bar mentions both the bus crash and his house-to-house rampage.
  • In the previous movie, it was mentioned that Hawkins had stopped Loomis from killing Michael in 1978; this event is shown in Kills during a flashback, and Hawkins feels intense guilt over his actions.
• Crowbar Combatant: A variation. Michael is seen using a halligan bar (a combination of a crowbar, pike, and adze in one tool) against the firefighters who arrive at Laurie’s house.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Most of the deaths qualify, with Michael putting unlucky characters through such delightful experiences as being stabbed through the neck with a broken fluorescent light bulb (although Halloween Ends confirms that this character actually survived, albeit having become mute and wheelchair-bound) and having knives stabbed into their back one after the other like a pincushion.
• Cruel Twist Ending: A whole group gangs up on Michael, complete with Karen knifing him in the back. Soon afterward, he takes the knife to kill everyone...including Karen, who by then had retreated to the old Myers household.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Michael's ability to do this is particularly pronounced here. While we've seen him do this to numerous individuals and occasionally seen the aftermath of a group slaughter (like the police station massacre in the fourth film), here we actually see him take on large groups of people (some specifically prepared for him) and win.
  • The firefighters in the opening try to take on Michael. The Shape makes short work out of all of them despite their best efforts and them being armed.
  • Goes both ways near the end. Tommy and the mob are able to deliver a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to Michael, leaving him as beaten and helpless as he's ever looked...but once Michael gets up and fights back, he takes them all out easily despite the number and weapon advantages they have over him.
• Darker and Edgier: While the first film was pretty dark, it had hopeful elements and at least ended somewhat happily. This film, on the other hand, is much meaner in its tone and has an overall feeling of hopelessness. Michael is the angriest and cruelest he’s ever been, the violence is far more vicious and on-screen, and most of the characters are dead by the end, with Michael triumphant.
• Demoted to Extra: Laurie is still recovering from her wounds received in the previous film, so she is out of the fighting for the duration of the film, only appearing in scenes set at the Haddonfield hospital.
• Dented Iron: Downplayed; Michael, as usual, shrugs off or ignores just about all the damage he sustains throughout the movie, but his first stop after escaping Laurie's burning house is to raid one of her neighbors' homes for gauze to wrap up his maimed left hand.
• Didn't Think This Through: Tommy only realizes that creating a mob to kill Michael, then letting it get out of control, is a bad idea after they drive another escaped mental patient (an innocent one) to kill himself rather than be torn apart by the raging hordes. He has a major My God, What Have I Done? moment with Karen afterward.
• Disney Death: Hawkins survived being stabbed and run over in the previous movie, albeit left in serious condition requiring hospitalization, only surviving because Cameron stumbled on him in time to provide basic first aid to stabilize him and call an ambulance.
• Distant Prologue: After a scene of Cameron finding Hawkins in 2018, the rest of the extended pre-title sequence is set in 1978, showing what happened after Michael fled from Laurie and Loomis in the original film. Further details are shown later in the movie.
• The Dog Bites Back: The Strode family (sans Laurie, who remains hospitalized), and seemingly everyone else in Haddonfield, decides to hunt down Michael to end his killing spree.
• Downer Ending: A lot more people die, and it's on a much more bitter note. Michael survives the beating he’s given, proceeds to kill Brackett, Tommy, and even Karen, and is presumably still free.
• Dramatic Ammo Depletion: After attempting to shoot Michael various times, Marion readies a shot with a dramatic Pre-Mortem One-Liner...only to pull the trigger on an empty chamber. With no backup plan, she quickly becomes Michael's next victim.
• Dramatic Irony: For a good portion of the movie, Laurie was under the impression that Michael was finally gone, with Karen being unable to tell her the truth. It isn't until Tommy comes into her hospital room that she finds out.
• Driven to Suicide: An angry mob decides another mental patient who escaped Michael's bus is Michael himself when he shows up at the hospital seeking medical help and gives him chase. They only realize that it's the wrong person after the poor man jumps from a window.
• Epic Fail: Near the film's climax, Karen lures Michael into a trap whereupon he's surrounded by about a dozen angry residents of Haddonfield, all armed to the teeth. He still manages to overpower and kill every single one of them using nothing but a kitchen knife.
• Extreme Mêlée Revenge: The film's climax involves various residents of Haddonfield, including Tommy Doyle and Leigh Brackett, circling Michael and beating the crap out of him with whatever they can find. He's shot a few times for good measure, not that any of this does much good.
• Eye Scream: Three of them — Michael shoving a halligan bar in a firefighter's eye (from the victim's point of view!), later shoving a knife up into the eye of someone who tries to strangle him, and finally brutally gouging out the eyes of Big John with his thumbs.
• Failed a Spot Check: When news first comes in of the killings, Tommy's in the bar when the TV shows Michael's face (blurred out in the background, of course), but he's lost in his inner thoughts. Later, one of the reasons things escalate so badly in the hospital is because Tommy doesn't know what Michael looks like under the mask, leading to the wrongful death of the other mental patient when Tommy doesn't listen to Laurie and Karen trying to tell him it's not Michael.
• The Farmer and the Viper: Once the firefighters break Michael out from Laurie's basement, he repays them by savagely hacking them apart with their own tools.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Implied. In the original film, Lonnie's most prominent scene was being a bullying dick to Tommy. This film shows he had his own encounter with Michael in 1978, and by the present, the two have bonded over their experiences that night.
• Forced to Watch: Towards the end of the film, Michael makes Allyson watch as he kills her boyfriend Cameron. Violently. And slowly.
• Foregone Conclusion: Given there's at least one more movie coming out after this, it was pretty much a given that Michael was going to survive this one. Although he seems to come very close to dying.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Near the end of the movie, before Lonnie goes into the Myers house to confront Michael, he says to Cameron, "I'll see you at the finish line." Both end up being killed by Michael not too long after.
  • When the mob starts to organize in response to Michael, an emotional Tommy grabs the baseball bat at Kelly's and vows to go down swinging when they find him. Come the end of the movie, that's exactly what happens.
  • To taunt Michael (and lure him into a trap), Karen compares herself to his sister. The movie ends with Michael killing Karen in the same room and the same way that he killed Judith.
  • During one attack, Lindsey manages to dislodge Michael's mask, giving her a chance to escape as he puts it back on. Later Karen rips off his mask and uses it as bait, knowing he'll prioritize putting it back on above anything else.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Big John and Little John apparently own a real estate business, with signs for it being seen both around Haddonfield and in their home. This is likely how they wound up living in the Myers house- they probably got a rock-bottom deal on it.
• Genre Throwback: The 1978 scenes deliberately use more simplistic and grainier cinematography in order to recreate the feel of the original film. The musical score also exclusively relies on recreations of the original's soundtrack as it sounded rather than using any of the newer, cleaner themes created for this film and the 2018 movie.
• Happy Ending Override: Although Michael being sealed in Laurie's burning house at the end of the 2018 film was depicted as a triumph for the Strode women, he escapes from certain death thanks to the intervention of the Fire Department.
• Hoist by Their Own Petard: Thrice near the end of the film.
  • Tommy spends most of the film with a baseball bat as his weapon of choice, vowing to kill Michael with it. Michael kills him with it near the end.
  • The firefighters in the opening try to kill Michael with their equipment; Michael kills them with those very tools.
  • Even more so with Karen. When the mob downs Michael, Tommy tells her to go be with her daughter, but Karen stabs the defenseless Michael in the back once more after all he's done to her family. A few minutes later, Michael's able to grab the knife and not only wipe out the attendant mob with it, but return unseen to the Myers house and kill Karen herself with it.
• Hope Spot: Karen lures Michael toward Tommy and his mob of Haddonfield citizens, who proceed to beat Michael within an inch of his life, and Brackett goes to finish the job...when Michael gets his second wind and proceeds to butcher every last one of them.
• Immediate Sequel: While it takes a while to actually continue from the previous movie's ending (before the credits it shows the immediate proceedings of Michael's capture in 1978, and after them other people during Halloween night in 2018), it ultimately comes down to the Fire Department unwittingly heading off to Michael's rescue.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Many characters are shown missing their shots, mostly with justifiable circumstances.
  • A young Frank Hawkins shoots at Michael from a distance and barely misses, and then accidentally kills his own partner trying to save him from Michael.
  • Vanessa is a relatively inexperienced shooter who tries shooting at Michael in the dark while moving, and misses each shot, but gets visibly close multiple times.
  • Marion just fires her gun all over the place in the car without nearly any caution, enough that even Marcus and Vanessa call her out on it.
• Improvised Weapon: Michael at one point removes a fluorescent tube from its light fixture, breaks it, and stabs an old lady in the throat with it.
• Incendiary Exponent: The opening credits culminate in a jack-o-lantern on fire, representing how Michael ended the previous movie in a burning house.
• Insane Equals Violent: Once again averted, staying in-line with the reality that The Mentally Disturbed are more likely to have violence enacted upon them than they are to be violent. The asylum escapee that's just trying to get help is speculated to be Michael Myers by the angry mob, which doesn't end well for him.
• Invincible Villain: While Michael's always had shades of this, compared to his Dented Iron portrayal in the previous film it's really played up in the last ten minutes or so here. He's stabbed repeatedly by Allyson and Karen (including getting a pitchfork in the back), shot several times at close range, and beaten extensively with fists, Tommy's baseball bat, and two-by-fours, looking utterly beaten for once...then he rises up and No Sells all of it, not only killing virtually every last one of the mob that downed him, but ambushing and killing Karen too. It's speculated on in-universe, with Laurie wondering if he gets stronger and more inhuman the more he kills.
• Ironic Echo: After getting Laurie to the hospital, Karen attempts to console her daughter over Ray's death, telling her he'll always be with them, even if they can't see him. Near the end of the film, a traumatized Allyson says much the same thing to her mother, only this time she's referring to Michael and the effect he's had on both them and the town.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: Laurie refers to Michael as an "it" again. Very notable when she and Hawkins talk about the need to kill Michael, where she refers to "it" and Hawkins still says "he".
• It's All My Fault: Hawkins blames himself for Michael's continued rampage because he was the one to stop Loomis from finishing him off.
• It's Personal: While it's as hard to fathom what's going on inside Michael's head as ever, it's implied that Michael now recognizes Allyson after her role in his defeat last film. He seems to go out of his way to make her suffer with Cameron's extremely brutal death; he actually checks if she's watching at one point.
• I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: Oddly weaponized by Michael Myers when he kicks open the car door into Vanessa's arm, causing her to accidentally aim her gun at herself and fire. Amusingly lampshaded in the novelisation where the text notes Michael has no idea how astonishingly lucky the sequence of events that killed Vanessa were — nor does he care, as he moves on to kill even more people.
• Jerkass: The kids who fake eating razor blades are rude to just about everyone they meet, on top of stealing candy from the couple they tricked into thinking they had given them candy filled with razor blades.
• Kick the Dog: Michael seems to prolong Cameron's death just to make Allyson suffer.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: As unrelenting as Michael is, in the prologue flashback, it's shown that when faced with the entire Haddonfield P.D. armed and ready to shoot, he simply stopped. Averted to hell and back later on when faced with a mob of angry townsfolk, although only a couple of them have guns while the rest have melee weapons. Too much firepower seems to be Michael's limit.
• Let Them Die Happy: With Laurie's condition still being very touch-and-go, Karen decides to let her believe she succeeded in killing Michael. When Laurie comes to, she is not happy about the lie.
• Made of Iron: While Michael has always been this, it is taken to absurd heights here. Not only is he alive and well after the many injuries that are often fatal that he endured in the previous two films of the timeline, but here, on top of all that, he also survives being burned alive, and beaten, stabbed and shot repeatedly by a mob. When he seems to finally be defeated, he gets a second wind and kills most of the mob. Though, his injuries finally catch up to him in the following film, Halloween Ends, where he is weak enough for Laurie to give him a Curb-Stomp Battle, and finally kill him.
• Mama Bear: Karen puts a goddamn pitchfork in Michael's back when she finds him about to kill Allyson.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": The mob collectively shrinks in terror when the seemingly dead Michael springs back to life, slashes Brackett's throat, and rises to slaughter the rest of them.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • During the 1978 sequence, Hawkins is devastated to have accidentally killed his partner while shooting at Michael. This guilt prompts him to make the understandable, but misguided move of preventing Loomis from executing Michael, not wanting to see anyone else die, not even the Shape.
  • Tommy has this reaction when he realizes he and the mob led an innocent mental patient to kill himself. The mob itself collectively has a similarly horrified reaction once they calm down.
• My Greatest Failure: Hawkins reveals to Laurie in the hospital his regrets that, as shown in the film's prologue, he could've killed Michael before the police arrested him in 1978, but repeatedly missed his shots. Not only that, but it's shown he stopped Loomis from shooting Michael in the head after the rest of the police arrived at the scene.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The official teaser opens up on a rotted jack-o-lantern carved to resemble the one featured in the opening credits for the second film. The next teaser has another jack-o-lantern, but a normal one.
  • The victims Michael leaves in a playground are wearing the three Silver Shamrock masks from Halloween III: Season of the Witch.
  • The premise of Haddonfield citizens banding together against Michael Myers is similar to the (seemingly smaller) Vigilante Militia that also forms against him to protect Jamie Lloyd in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. In both cases, they end up taking out an innocent before they get anywhere near Michael.
  • Laurie spends most of the film in Haddonfield Memorial Hospital, the location of much of Halloween II (1981). Karen insists to the hospital staff that Michael is headed for the hospital to kill Laurie, similar to that film; however, that's not actually the case.
  • When musing on how Michael seemingly becomes more powerful the more fear he instills, Laurie uses the phrase “the real curse of Michael,” evoking Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers.
  • Similar to the theatrical cut of Curse, Michael gets a dose of Extreme Mêlée Revenge from Tommy Doyle. It’s not as effective here.
  • As in the fifth film, Michael's involvement in a brutal pitchfork stabbing scene - only this time it's the Shape on the receiving end.
  • Nancy Stephens again returns as an older Marion Chambers, as she did in Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later. In both cases, she’s Back for the Dead, though she makes it a little further into Kills.
  • Like in Halloween II, a child is shown to be a victim of Razor Apples — except this time, they're faking it in a ploy to steal a household's candy.
  • Michael once again stops to put his mask back on when his victim dislodges it, allowing them to escape, much like his confrontation with Laurie at the climax of the original film.
  • A novelisation-only one, but Lonnie reveals while musing on Tommy's many issues that he's actually got a Thorn rune tattoo — which was, of course, a major plot point in his other appearance as an adult in the franchise.
• Neck Snap: How Michael finishes off Cameron.
• Never Trust a Trailer: The trailers made it appear that Laurie would learn about Michael's survival early on and take point in hunting him down. In fact, she doesn't find out until about halfway through, and her injuries from the previous movie mean that she's too weak to leave the hospital and join the hunt.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Michael is able to escape Laurie's burning compound thanks to the arrival of firefighters. As her, Karen and Allyson watch firetrucks go past them on the highway, Laurie even futilely yells at them to let it burn.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:
  • The firefighters are rewarded for their efforts in hosing down Laurie's burning house with a series of brutal murders from Michael Myers, who resumes his rampage from earlier that night.
  • Hawkins saving Michael from execution in 1978 has been repaid 40 years later with dozens of deaths.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: All of Haddonfield delivers this to Michael at the end of the movie. Moments later, Michael returns the favor.
• No One Could Survive That!: Laurie notes that nothing human should have been able to survive the fire she trapped Michael in. And then there's the movie's ending, where a mob beats, stabs, and shoots Michael enough to kill him ten times over, only for him to get back up and kill them all with an ease that indicates he's not even in pain.
• Non-Indicative Name: Big John is smaller than Little John, though he's the more Manly Gay of the pair.
• Offscreen Teleportation: Michael does this twice in the 1978 Flashback.
  • Hawkins chases Michael down an alleyway and tries to arrest him, only for Michael to ignore him and go down a side route. By the time, Hawkins reaches the pathway, Michael is mysteriously gone.
  • A young Lonnie has an encounter with Michael, who then disappears a while later. It's justified here since Lonnie was cowering in fear of Michael's presence and didn't have a good look at Michael's position.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • The Strode women's reaction at the start when they hear the fire engines going towards Laurie's house, meaning that the firefighters are about to save Michael.
  • Also the reaction of two children in the playground, once they notice Michael is holding the mask worn by a friend they're waiting for.
• One-Man Army: An entire posse of Haddonfield citizens is not able to stop Michael's continuous rampage, with him ending up killing most of those fighting him, and despite the group that ambushes Michael in the film's climax outnumbering him at least 10 to 1, he still is able to kill them all.
• Outliving One's Offspring:
  • Leigh Brackett, father of Annie from the 1978 film, explicitly wants to take revenge against Michael for killing his daughter.
  • Oscar's mother comes to the hospital, unsure of what's happened to her missing son, desperately seeking information. She's not being told by an overworked staff as they try and deal with a slew of more dead and wounded coming in, and is clearly left to contemplate the worst as she sees the aftereffects right in front of her. Later, she catches a glimpse through the back as the mob bursts into the hospital's private areas - and there's her son's mutilated corpse.
  • At the end of the film, Laurie experiences this when Michael manages to kill Karen, though she doesn't know it yet.
• Out of the Inferno: Once the firefighters open a way for Michael to leave Laurie's basement, he walks out of the burning house and stands before it just prior to laying waste to them.
• Papa Wolf: A postmortem example. Leigh Brackett, the father of Annie from the 1978 film, helps organize the largest of the Vigilante Militia examples in the film to try to finally kill the man who killed his daughter.
• Plot Armor: Michael has to survive until the next movie, Halloween Ends. Because of that, he easily wins fights even when he's outnumbered, he is not crippled or even bothered by attacks that would kill a normal person, and none of the other characters in the movie manage to deliver a killing blow to him, even when they have the opportunity.
• Police Are Useless:
  • Even more so in the present than the previous film, as the police are utterly unable to stop Tommy whipping the town into a mob, or the hospital rampage that sees the other escaped person commit suicide as the only means of escaping them (the sheriff is seen sitting despondently on the stairs after the latter). The only ones to come off positively are the badly injured Hawkins and the one deputy who helps out the Strodes at several points. It is implied that this is because Michael’s rampage is by this point a mass-casualty disaster that’s simply too large for them to handle - Barker mentions calling other police departments for assistance because his own is overwhelmed.
  • Averted in the 1978 flashbacks. While Hawkins makes a grievous error in accidentally shooting his partner, the police are shown competently warning people off the streets, methodically searching for Michael, and eventually tracking him down before he can cause any more damage.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: "It's Halloween. Everyone's entitled to one good scare."
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Subverted. Marion readies a gun to shoot at Michael with the line "Hey, Michael! This is for Dr. Loomis." She pulls the trigger, only to be greeted with an empty click; as she had no plan B prepared, Michael makes quick work of her.
• Rasputinian Death: Michael stabs, beats, and gives repeated neck damage to Cameron, if only to make Allyson suffer as she watches him being brutalized.
• "Ray of Hope" Ending: Michael survives the mob's beatdown, kills them all, then returns to his childhood home where Karen has apparently decided is a good place to relax and kills her as well. However, Laurie, Allyson, Lindsey, and Hawkins are all still alive and determined to put an end to Michael once and for all.
• Razor Apples: A group of trick-or-treaters shows Little John and Big John that one of the candies they provided contained a blade that cut through one of the kids' mouths, complete with a pile of vomit containing the razor. It's only a cruel prank, so when the couple goes to check, another youngster enters the house behind them and steals all the candy they have left. Guess they decided on "trick" and "treat".
• The Reveal: After decades of musing it over, Hawkins and Laurie conclude that rather than looking out of the window at something only he could see, Michael was actually just gazing at his reflection in an attempt to understand himself and his urges.
• Scare Chord: Michael's cameo at the end of the teaser introduces him with a three-note scare chord.
• Shout-Out:
  • One of the kids that menaces Lonnie at the start bears a strong resemblance to Chucky from the Child's Play series.
  • A shot of Lindsey hiding underneath the roots of a tree while Michael searches for her is framed very similarly to Frodo and his friends hiding from the Ringwraith in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, albeit mirrored.
  • Scenes from the John Cassavetes counter-culture romantic comedy Minnie And Moskowitz are shown on various televisions.
• Sickening "Crunch!": Allyson's ankle breaking at the bottom of the stairs Michael throws her down.
• Super-Persistent Predator: Subverted. Despite everyone believing he'd come for her, it's ultimately revealed that Michael isn't obsessed with hunting down Laurie, with Hawkins outright confirming to her Michael only attacked her in the previous film thanks to Dr. Sartain bringing Michael directly to her.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • After trapping Michael in the burning house in the previous film, the Happy Ending Override occurs when the Strodes realize too late that setting a house on fire would naturally get a response from the fire department, thus providing Michael the opportunity to escape.
  • Being an Immediate Sequel, the film shows the realistic results of a killing spree of the proportions shown in the previous film. When Tommy Doyle learns of Michael's escape, he assembles the entire town on Torches and Pitchforks mode to hunt down Michael.
  • Although Tommy's rallying of Haddonfield is initially a heroic and inspiring moment, these angry and scared people quickly lose all reason and succumb to a chaotic mob mentality. It gets to the point where they burst into a riot at the hospital when they mistake another inmate for Michael, and it's only seeing this man's dead body that causes the crowd to stop and realize that Michael is indirectly turning them into monsters themselves.
  • Because Michael, both in-universe and in real life, is synonymous with his iconic mask, very few people have seen or remember what he looks like without it. When another escaped inmate from the same mental hospital comes looking for help, some of the younger citizens mistake him for Michael and the rest of the crowd blindly attack and chase him. Scared and backed into a corner, the inmate jumps out of a window to his death to escape the mob, and finally seeing his mangled corpse up close causes them to realize all too late that this man wasn't Michael.
  • Laurie is in no shape to go out and continue going after Michael due to having just gotten surgery for her stab wound, and during the hospital riot, she ends up pulling her stitches. Injecting herself with painkillers only takes her so far before her body reaches its physical limits.
  • Allyson and Cameron's entry of the Myers house and subsequent encounter with Michael shows just how in over their heads they are. Two teenagers with little to no proficiency in firearms stand little to no chance against a nigh-unstoppable force like Michael.
  • Vanessa takes Marcus's gun from him, knowing that he's never even fired one before. Even so, Vanessa is only a doctor, and though she uses a somewhat more proper form than most people, she's clearly not skilled with it. Her lack of skill gets her killed when Michael pushes the car door against her gun, discharging it in her face.
  • The Immediate Sequel nature also has a drastic effect on the story. Most of Haddonfield is unaware of Michael's escape and return to the town, and some of the only ones who escaped him don't know who he is, and the police haven't had a chance to announce to the general population that he's on the loose. As a result, the only residents who realize that it is Michael are the ones who are in the bar with Tommy Doyle, who immediately suspects that the deaths are because of Michael Myers. This means two kids in the park don't realize that a man seemingly playing "peekaboo" with them is actually Michael until they see him with their friend's bloody mask, and a gay couple living in Michael's old house who know of Michael have no idea that he's actually on the loose and may be their home intruder.
• Take My Hand!: One of the firemen who arrives to the scene of Laurie's burning compound holds his hand out over a hole in the floor where another had fallen through into the basement, shouting for him to take it. Unbeknownst to him, the only person alive down there at the moment is Michael, and he does take the fireman's hand. We don't see what happens next, but nothing good is insinuated.
• Too Dumb to Live: Many of the residents of Haddonfield are guilty of this.
  • One of Michael’s victims tries to strangle Michael with a stethoscope. Michael even looks at him as if he’s thinking about how dumb that is, and rewards the man with a knife through the eye.
  • Lonnie goes into the Myers house alone, knowing that Michael is in there, without calling in any other backup.
  • A firefighter stands motionless as Michael advances on him, spraying Michael with his firehose to no appreciable effect. While real-life firehoses can have enough water pressure to knock a man off his feet, the stream hitting Michael's chest would barely inconvenience a dog.
  • When Michael attacks the car, the old nurse keeps snap-firing at random targets rather than wait until she sees something to shoot at, quickly using up her limited ammo and thus ruining the one true shot she lines up. She ends up dragging Marcus and Vanessa with her to death, as she locks them all in Lindsey's car, which prevents them from escaping the car before Michael can get in.
  • Vanessa gets too close to Michael and chooses to fire one-handed when she does so. He just kicks the car door on the gun, causing her to discharge it into her own face and kill herself.
  • Big John and Little John, who live in the old Myers house and know full well that Michael has escaped before on Halloween night, decide to hunt down a bleeding home intruder by arming themselves with cheese knives and splitting up rather than outright fleeing, calling the cops, or at least sticking together. It goes about as well as you'd expect.
  • Despite it being proven multiple times that Michael can withstand what would otherwise be life-threatening injuries to a normal person, both Karen and the vigilante mob stop hitting Michael the moment he stops moving rather than delivering a coup de grace. You'd think they'd be eager to flatten his head into a pancake.
• Took a Level in Kindness:
  • Lonnie Elam has mellowed considerably since the original, having grown from a Jerkass bully to being friends with Tommy, Lindsey, and Marion due to their shared experiences with Michael. He later reminisces with Allyson about her father, clearly trying to soften the blow a little for her.
  • Lonnie's son Cameron has also cleaned up his act after cheating on Allyson and destroying her phone in the previous movie. Here, he's much more concerned with Allyson's well-being and even joins her and his father in taking up arms against Michael.
• Total Party Kill: By the end of the film, Allyson and Lindsey are the only survivors of the mob organized to hunt Michael down.
• Toyota Tripwire: A variant, as Michael kicks an open car door on an assailant with a handgun, flipping the gun around and making her accidentally shoot herself dead.
• Trauma Conga Line: All of Haddonfield is now suffering at Michael's hands. In the course of a single night, Michael escapes his imprisonment and kills 18 people before then escaping the death trap specifically designed to kill him, whereupon he goes on another murder spree. Among the dead are kids: a young boy on a hunting trip, and a prankster trick-or-treater. Then, when Haddonfield is riled into a mob, they end up being responsible for the death of an innocent man. Finally...they ambush Michael, only for him to get up and murder them all. By the end, Michael has murdered around 50 people in total and remains at large.
• Two-Faced: As seen in the page image above, Michael's mask now looks like this, with its left side burned and blackened by fire. As seen for just a moment during the final conflict between Michael and the mob led by Tommy, his face is likewise now damaged with fresh burn wounds.
• The Unreveal: Karen takes off Michael's mask to lure him away to a trap — but all frontal shots of him unmasked are distant and with his face unfocused. It's to the extent that the mob allow him to re-mask before giving him a brutal beatdown, as his unmasked face would presumably have been much harder to hide during a major fight sequence. Even an earlier shot of Michael unmasked on the news, as one of the patients who is unaccounted for, is out of focus so you can't see his face.
• Vigilante Injustice: The citizens of Haddonfield form a vigilante mob intent on tracking down and killing Michael Myers once and for all. Unfortunately, when a huge, disorganized group of untrained civilians try to help stop a killer, they end up causing more of a panic, overrunning the local hospital and they cause the death of a mentally ill man by mistake. Though they manage to lure the Shape into an ambush, he ends up getting the upper hand and ruthlessly slaughters all of them.
• Vigilante Militia: The civilians of Haddonfield ultimately decide to hunt down Michael. He ends up killing nearly every single member of said mob.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Tommy Doyle and the mob of people he gathers. For all the chaos they cause, they're just trying to stop Michael Myers once and for all.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Laurie berates Karen for keeping Michael's survival from her when she finds out.
  • Karen calls out Tommy for inciting the mob, which leads to an innocent mental patient's death when he's mistaken for Michael.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Karen winds up ambushing Michael and impaling him with a pitchfork. She could easily finish him off while he's incapacitated but instead decides to wait for him to get up so she can lure him into a crowd of Haddonfield citizens ready to ambush him. After the resulting beatdown, Brackett is about to finish things with a pointblank headshot — but they wait too long and Michael springs back to life, massacring them all.
• Would Hurt a Child: Michael is heavily implied to have murdered the young boy with the skull mask. We never actually see the attack or the body, but Michael has the boy's blood-sodden mask in one hand and a bloody knife in the other. Given that he killed a child in the previous film, this seems likely.
  • Confirmed in the Blu-Ray extras' "kill count" section.

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♫ Though my memories are faded, they
Come back to haunt me once again
And though my mind is somewhat jaded now
It's time for me to strike again
Tonight...
It's a hunter's moon! ♫

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