


Myers is also far more psychologically interesting than Jason or any of the myriad copycats that followed in his wake for him, it's mostly about family. This particular abyss just happens to have a thing for butcher knives. As imagined by John Carpenter and brilliantly played by stuntman Nick Castle, Myers - aka The Shape, aka The Haddonfield Hacker (ok, we made that one up) - is the literal embodiment of pure evil, an unstoppable, glassy-eyed abyss staring right back at us. But otherwise, he's just a blank, remorseless, mute killing machine like Jason Voorhees, slaughtering transgressive teens in their dozens, right? Well, wrong. Yes, he wears an inside-out, dyed William Shatner mask. Yes, he shares a name with Austin Powers. 6 - Frankenstein's MonsterĪt first glance, there's precious little that's interesting about Michael Myers. Of course, this being the 1950s, we never see Dracula seal the deal, so to speak, but we like to think it involves at least one verse of The Impossible Dream. Lee's Dracula is a rampant sex fiend, using that stare to make buxom ladies everywhere come over a little faint. He's hypnotic, physically powerful, well-spoken, but Lee also understood - crucially - that an important layer from Bram Stoker's novel had been missing from Lugosi's performance: sexuality. Lee's Dracula is a force of nature: red-eyed, blood dripping from fangs, often in the grip of rage. Lee was in his mid-30s when he bagged the role that would come to define his career, and he understood from the off that his vampire would have to differ substantially from previous incumbent Bela Lugosi. Tall, domineering and genuinely aristocratic, Christopher Lee was a far better fit for Count Dracula's cape than he was for the rags of Frankenstein's creature. Pleasance, here starting a fruitful relationship with John Carpenter, is brilliant: part Basil Exposition, part hero, never unafraid to show that Loomis is utterly bricking it and, perhaps more importantly, that prolonged exposure to those blackest eyes, the devil's eyes, has driven Loomis more than a little bit mad himself. Sam Loomis is, of course, the only person who knows how dangerous Michael Myers can be, and so tracks him all the way from his escape from the lunatic asylum to Haddonfield, where he's fairly sure Michael is going to go loco once more. Later on, he blows Myers himself out of the window with six shots from a revolver, and hippocratic oath be damned. evil." With that one statement, Donald Pleasance's psychiatrist, the man charged with finding out just what the hell is wrong with impassive killer Michael Myers, blows doctor-patient confidentiality out of the window. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized that what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply. "I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and the blackest eyes.
