The Untold Truth Of Halloween's Michael Myers

If there were a Mount Rushmore of horror icons, Michael Myers would certainly be up there. He is one of the original slasher movie mascots and has survived multiple decades' worth of evolution, retcons, and complete reinvention. His mask, his name, and his brutal methods are synonymous with the horror genre, and it doesn't seem like he'll be leaving the public consciousness anytime soon.

The character's backstory (murdering his older sister on Halloween night), the mythology surrounding him (the boogeyman, an embodiment of pure evil), and his supernatural ability to just keep killing have all become legends within the horror community and the wider audience as a whole. So, there's very little more to say regarding the character within the world of the "Halloween" franchise. 

Instead, we'll be taking a look at little behind-the-scenes facts regarding the character that aren't as widely discussed. From his real-life inspiration to unfulfilled plotlines, this is the untold truth of Halloween's Michael Myers.

By now, it's fairly common knowledge that Michael Myers' iconic mask was actually an augmented William Shatner mask. According to filmmaker Tommy Lee Wallace, who worked behind-the-scenes on the original "Halloween," the script contained no description of what Michael Myers' mask actually looked like. While on a panel, Wallace explained, "The script asked for a blank-faced mask." He went on to elaborate that they never referred to the killer as Michael Myers — he was always "The Shape," and he required a "blank-faced mask that makes you feel eerie."

With no specific instructions from John Carpenter, Wallace went to a costume shop on Hollywood Boulevard looking for the perfect mask. He could have gone with Richard Nixon or Gerald Ford, but they looked too much like cartoons. The William Shatner mask just looked like a human face. As a backup, he also purchased a mask based on the Emmett Kelly clown character Weary Willie, because it also struck him as eerie.

While they ultimately picked the Shatner mask, young Michael does wear a clown mask when murdering his sister, and Tommy Lee Wallace did get to bring an eerie clown to the screen when he directed the 1990 TV adaptation of Stephen King's "It."

The antagonistic relationship between Dr. Loomis and Michael Myers provides the franchise's mythic undertones. Loomis' determination to end Michael's reign of evil is similar to Abraham Van Helsing hunting down Dracula or Captain Ahab obsessing over the white whale who took his leg. The two characters have a long history together as it was Loomis who tried to treat Michael following the original murder. No one knows Michael better than Loomis.

That connection runs even deeper when you realize that the actor who played Loomis, Donald Pleasence, worked with Dick Warlock (Michael from the original "Halloween II") on the 1975 Disney film "Escape to Witch Mountain." Warlock did stunt work on the film, and he described what it was like to work with Pleasence while talking to the website Halloween Daily News. He said, "I found him to be a gentleman. People have said that he had a sense of humor, but I never saw it. When he came on set, he was ready to work, he knew your dialogue and mine. He was the consummate professional. You couldn't find anybody who was better to work with. Never had a complaint, was always ready when they were ready. The rest is history."

Another fun "Escape to Witch Mountain" and "Halloween" connection: The co-star of that film was Kim Richards, older sister of Kyle Richards, who played Lindsey Wallace in both "Halloween" and "Halloween Kills."

One of the few actors to play Michael Myers more than once is George P. Wilbur, who portrayed The Shape in "Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers" and "Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers." The stuntman/actor behind the mask for those two installments credits John Wayne with his career in show business. While talking to Racks & Razors, George detailed his first job in the film business.

After serving in the navy, Wilbur got a job at a dude ranch in Tucson. "They were filming the movie 'El Dorado' nearby, so I went to the set and got a job as an extra and a stand-in for John Wayne," he said. "Shortly afterward, I moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a stuntman."

That career certainly paid off as he went on to add over 100 credits to his name and got to play The Shape not once but twice, all thanks to John Wayne.

The first attempt to reboot the "Halloween" franchise by ignoring a bunch of sequels came in 1998, 20 years following the original film. The idea of picking up Laurie's story came from Jamie Lee Curtis herself, as she explains in this Q&A from 2012. The film resulting film is  "Halloween H2O: 20 Years Later." It ignored everything after "Halloween II" and was supposed to depict Laurie taking down Michael once and for all.

As the project continued, however, Curtis was reading scripts that left Michael's demise to be ambiguous. She demanded to know what was going on because they had agreed to definitively kill Michael at the end of the film. That's when she learned that producer Moustapha Al Akkad, who had control over the character, included a clause in the contract that said Michael Myers cannot be killed.

A compromise was made, and a new ending with Laurie chopping off Michael's head was produced. The idea was it would make the audience feel like Michael is finally, officially dead, but they could easily explain it away in the following film. Indeed, its successor revealed that Michael had crushed a man's larynx and dressed him in his clothes, allowing the killer a chance to escape, thus robbing the audience of a thoroughly satisfying ending to "Halloween H2O."

The 2007 remake of "Halloween," directed by Rob Zombie, is a darker, more brutal, and more excessive movie than the original. Other than a few moments here and there, a young person could watch John Carpenter's "Halloween" and walk away relatively unscathed. The reboot, however, is so violent and crude that not even the actor who portrayed Michael Myers as a child was allowed to read the entire script.

During an interview with Movieweb to promote the film, actor Daeg Faerch told him his mother only let him read the first act of the script. "I only read my part," the actor said. "And then my mom read it and said, 'You're not gonna read that." Once the film was finished, he still wasn't allowed to see it. Regarding the approaching premiere, he said, "I am going to be kept away, even for the premiere. I'm gonna watch probably the first 10 or 15 minutes where there's no killing, it's just like still kind of horror, but no killing. And then go out and do something else."

Given the film's onslaught of profanity, grotesque violence (including rape), and grisly murders, it's easy to agree with Tyler Mane's assessment from the same interview that it was probably a good idea to keep Faerch away.

While it's safe to say that every Michael Myers actor is appreciative of their fans, one story from "Halloween H2O" actor Chris Durand about his love of the fans really stands out. During a conversation with Halloween Daily News, the actor described an experience he had promoting the 1998 film at a haunted house attraction in Tennessee shortly after its release.

"I went to Tennessee and the setup there was that they'd bring you out, this was kind of a flat fee thing, and they'd set you up on the line going into the house," he said. "And you would just sign for like two hours." He explained that after the signing, he spent some time with the people in charge of the haunted house and was told that a fan in a wheelchair had been hoping to meet him but was now about to leave.

"I said, 'Is he still here?'" Durand continued. "And we sprinted to the parking lot, and we caught him. They were just loading him into the van. I spent 45 minutes just hanging out talking with the kid. I made sure we brought the extra stuff that we had and signed a bunch of stuff for him. You could see the dad's just in tears."

At least the actors playing Michael are capable of compassion and empathy, even if the character isn't.