The Barbeardian

 

The Halloween Series (1978-2002)

Last week, I took the liberty of watching every Halloween movie ever made (not including Season of the Witch and the Rob Zombie ones) because, y'know, why the hell not? It was an odd experience, to say the least. There were eight in the original series, spanning from 1978 to 2002, with mostly different writers and directors making each movie. When you watch them all together, you start to realize that only one person really cared about the series as a whole. It wasn't John Carpenter. It certainly wasn't Jamie Lee Curtis, who accepted a small role in the final film only so the producer would stop asking her to appear in the sequels.

It was Donald Pleasence.


Before I continue on that note, here's a bit of backstory for the uneducated.
On Halloween night, 1963, six year old Michael Myers stabs his sister Judith to death because...well, nobody really knows why. Kind of. Anyway, he spends the next 15 years locked up in Smith's Grove, a mental institution in rural Illinois. Not saying a word to anyone. Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence) is his psychologist, and was the first person to realize something wasn't quite right about the boy. Not just, "He killed his sister, of course he's messed up." More like, "This kid is fucking pure evil in human form."

"I met him 15 years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding, not even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, of good or evil, right or wrong. I met this 6-year-old child with this blank, pale, emotionless face and the blackest eyes. The devil's eyes. I spent 8 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...evil." - Loomis

On October 30th, 1978, Myers escapes from Smith's Grove, steals a nurse's car, and drives to his hometown: Haddonfield, IL. The next day, he steals a white mask (really just an altered William Shatner mask) and some knives, and proceeds to go trick-or-treating. Loomis, realizing "the evil" has escaped, is hot on the trail, warning law enforcement and basically anyone that'll listen that Myers is going to massacre anyone that gets in his way. He's the only one that realizes just how dangerous Myers is, and that makes him almost AS dangerous. He's a gun-toting ("It hightens my sense of security."), almost psychotically driven doctor who blames himself for Myers' escape and will stop at nothing to put him down for good.

Look at that goddamn knife.

Everything from then on (aside from Loomis) is fairly standard slasher fare. Michael Myers walks slowly, kills people brutally, and escapes from hairy situations numerous times--of course, part of this is due to the fact that he simply CANNOT DIE. People think he's dead, he's not, he kills more people. Wash, rinse, repeat. There's also some bullshit curse involved and some other things that don't make a whole lot of sense, but I'm going to ignore all that.

Back to Loomis. I wouldn't call him the protagonist in any of the films. He's more of a character that's just always around, doing something or other to stop Myers. Over the course of the series, he just gets crazier and crazier, pulling more and more shit to destroy the evil that he let out.

Here's a quick rundown of Loomis' antics:

Halloween - Shoots Michael six times (once in the face).

Halloween 2 - Shoots him a few more times, accidentally causes the explosive death of a high school boy, holds a US Marshal hostage, destroys an entire hospital wing.

Halloween 4 - Attempts to shoot a little girl, fearing she'll turn out like Myers.

Halloween 5 - Uses that same little girl in a trap to catch Myers before shooting him with tranqualizers and beating him senseless with a 2x4.

Halloween 6 - Accidentally leads a cult to the location of the protagonists, heads into Smith's Grove alone to confront Michael one last time (keep in mind, he's an old man by this time).

Unfortunately, Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers was Donald Pleasence's final film. I say "unfortunately" because the movie is awful and ends with his death.

"A curse? Who writes this shit?"

Now, Pleasence was an amazing actor and John Carpenter's first pick to play Sam Loomis in the original Halloween. The catch: Halloween was a low-budget, completely independent film, cast with nobodies and filled with teenagers getting stabbed and strangled. Pleasence was used to playing Bond villains and badasses. Of course, Carpenter never thought he'd actually agree to the role. But he did. And then he signed on for the second movie. And then three more. This, my fellow Barbeardians, is called dedication. Especially when you consider the degradation in script quality as the series progressed.

But Donald Pleasence wasn't just a badass in front of the camera.

From Wikipedia:

During World War II Pleasence was initially a conscientious objector, but later changed his stance and was commissioned into the Royal Air Force, serving with 166 Squadron, RAF Bomber Command. His Avro Lancaster was shot down on August 31, 1944 during a raid on Agenville. He was taken prisoner and placed in a German prisoner-of-war camp, where he produced and acted in plays. He would later play Flight Lt. Colin Blythe in The Great Escape where much of the story takes place inside a German POW camp.

That's right--his plane got shot down, and his response? "You guys need some real theatre in this shithole."

As you're enjoying your Halloween plans tonight, remember one thing: if a crazy masked killer starts ruining your fun, have no fear. Dr. Sam Loomis is out on the prowl.