Is Laurie Strode Michael Myers' sister?

In retrospect, 1978's “Halloween” was always destined to have a sequel. Co-writer/director John Carpenter and co-producer/producer Debra Hill even included a particularly prophetic line of dialogue in their tale of supernaturally charged maniac Michael Myers terrorizing his hometown on Halloween night: “You can't kill a bugger.” With the film's massive critical, commercial and cultural success, “Halloween II” was practically a given.

Although “Halloween” ends with the statement that Myers has indeed not been killed yet, the more difficult question for Carpenter and Hill was what to do with the other surviving supporting characters. Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleas) was established as the Van Helsing to Myers' Dracula, so his return was quite natural. The bigger issue revolved around the return of star Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode, the babysitter who unfortunately crosses Myers' path and becomes the focus of his All-Halloween frenzy. Not wanting to kill off the character and lose Curtis when her star rises in Hollywood, but also not wanting to accidentally explain why Myers kept chasing one particular girl, Carpenter decided to retroactively make Lori Michaels' secret sister.

That one (probably drunken) decision led to much of the rest the lesson of the “Halloween” franchiseleaving the other 12 sequels/remakes/reboots that followed to choose whether Laurie and Michael were related by blood, and what that connection meant. So the answer to whether or not Laurie Strode is Michael Myers' sister isn't a simple yes or no, but a vague “uh, it depends.” Here's a handy guide to the Myers family tree so at least you know where the baddies are tonight!

For most of the Halloween franchise, Laurie Strode is actually Michael Myers' sister, as the two are believed to be related by blood from the second installment, 1981's Halloween II, to the eighth installment, 2002's Halloween Resurrection. (now it should be clarified that 1982's “Halloween III: Season of the Witch” is a separate sequel from the continuity with the Michael Myers films). However, Lori appears in only three parts in this series of films. “Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers,” “Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers” and “Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers” include Michael chasing Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris in “4” and “5”; J .K. Brandy in “The Curse”), who is Laurie's daughter, who is adopted by the Carruthers after Laurie supposedly dies in a car. an accident.

Jamie in “Halloween 4” served a dual purpose, giving a revived Michael a new family purpose to return to Haddonfield, and potentially taking the series in a new direction, with young Jamie seemingly inheriting her uncle's evil (more on that in a bit). . When that new direction was ditched in favor of Michael himself coming back again and again, Jamie was left in a moving target slasher role and she was replaced Curse musical chairs style with her child (who may or may not have been taken by Michael – don't ask). who is adopted by the youngest biological daughter of the Strode family, Kara (Marianne Hagan), Lori's cousin.

With “Halloween: H20,” the series either splits continuity for the first time (well, second, counting “Halloween III”), directly following “Halloween II,” or, if you look closely, Michael is literally stepping away from the sequel. pursue the now-deceased Dr. Lum and Lloyd's bloodline, discovering that Laurie has faked her death and been living in hiding in California with her now-teenage son. After a fateful estranged sibling battle ends tragically for Laurie, the woman loses her years-long battle with the Evil she's bound to. Michael takes her life and then returns to his abandoned house in Haddonfield to cut up some college kids who are filming a live broadcast (the less said about “Resurrection” the better).

When Rob Zombie was brought in to write and direct remake of the original “Halloween” in 2007he could have gone in many directions with the franchise and its characters. While some say he went too far and others say he's not far enough from Carpenter's film, Zombie chose to stay very true to the letter of the series' mythos, not only including Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton, the only other actress besides Curtis to play the character), but making her relationship with Michael Myers (Tyler Menet) deeper than just being his biological sister. While the original “Halloween” timeline depicted Michael pursuing Lori out of some evil impulse that Shape was supposed to destroy his family, in the zombie movie “Halloween” Michael seeks out Lori as part of his own desire to reunite his idealized family. Zombie tries to capture Michael's insanity in “Halloween” and “Halloween II” by portraying his psychosis as something that allows him to see the world in a completely different, surreal way than others.

In the zombie film Halloween II, it is revealed that this insanity is innate, as Lori succumbs to the same psychosis her brother suffers from, thanks to her traumatic experience in the first film that caused it. On paper, this may sound like Zombie is taking the ambiguous concept of Evil of Carpenter and Hill too literally. It also feels like Zombie is picking up that dropped storyline involving Jamie's legacy of evil from “Halloween 4.” However, Michael and Lori's seduction with anger in the Zombie films is portrayed here as something more supernatural, a power they have harnessed, as both Michael and Lori suffer from visions involving a white horse (which may or may not be the Pale Horse). the glory of the Bible). Either way, the bond between Lori and Michael is the strongest of the two Zombie movies. If Lori as a sister in the original succession is a Good in metaphysical contrast to Michael's evil, Lori and Michael in the Zombie films are part of a whole, people whose blood is destined to a dark destiny.

As I said before, John Carpenter didn't respect Laurie and Michael being literally connected to each other, so when David Gordon Green was put in charge of the franchise in 2018, he decided to follow Carpenter's advice and disconnect Laurie and Michael. resetting the continuity all the way back to the original film. While this means that the rest of the series is no longer canon to Halloween 2018, Halloween Kills, and Halloween Ends, it doesn't necessarily mean that Laurie and Michael aren't related. The central theme of Halloween 2018 is a group of characters who insist — either from the universe or from Michael himself (James Jude Courtney) — that Myers' actions are explained. The most insane of these people, Myers' new doctor, Sarten (Haluk Bilginer), arranges Michael's escape from custody to prove his theory that Michael and Lori (Curtis, again for the last time in the role) actually have some sort of firstborn, hunter-prey relationship.

Because Sartain's hypothesis is “Halloween,” it is not conclusive; one could still explain Michael's pursuit of Lori as a random chance. However, Greene and his collaborators make their “Halloween” trilogy a thematic summation of the franchise so far, exploring the possible origins of good and evil, their recurrence, and their relationship to each other through the people living on the battlefield of Haddonfield. Therefore, Lori and Michael share a relationship, even though it is not literally expressed by their blood. There is a sense that just as Michael represents all that is evil, Lori and her family represent all that is good, and the two elemental forces are destined to battle for soul dominance, whether it is the soul of a city or a person. Getting rid of Laurie's sister's relationship with Michael makes this allusion cleaner and stronger, and for that reason it's best left out of Greene's trilogy.

Most interestingly, all this changing relationship between Michael and his victim makes the original 1978 “Halloween” more ambiguous, not less so. Where most retrograde horror sequels overexplain the monster's origins and motivations, “Halloween” remains shrouded in mystery thanks to the variable continuity nature of the choose-your-own-adventure sequels. Thus, one can watch “Halloween” with the confidence that Michael escapes Smith's Grove Sanatorium once his secret sister Laurie is the same age as his sister Judith (Sandy Johnson) when he killed her as a boy. This mindset makes Michael's pursuit of Laurie and her friends that much more accurate as Shape follows his deadly fate with his sibling.

However, you can also look at “Halloween” as the story of a maniac who happens upon Laurie when she hands over the key to the abandoned house he used to live in, thus marking him as prey, the way a tiger or a lion latches onto its prey. in their natural habitats. This relationship could be accidental or unfortunate, or it could be a sign of a strange elemental destiny that no one knew they were approaching. In any case, just as there is no set “Halloween” continuity, just as there is no way to permanently kill the Bogeyman, there is no clear answer to the question of whether Lori and Michael are brother and sister. So when it comes to “Halloween”, just like the question of trick or treating, the answer is up to you.