Hello Internet! Welcome to Film Theory:
The show that was cursed by a cult
to kill everyone's childhood one theory at a time!
Today though we get to strike at one of fictional history's most prolific killers.
No, not him again.
He couldn't even kill a bunch of hobbits.
*stutters* What?!
Oh.
Yeah,
I guess he did kill a bunch of people.
Alright, so prolific might not be the right word.
Today we're gonna take a stab at one of cinema's most famous killers:
Michael Myers.
Michael, Michael Myers,
not Mike Myers.
Michael's insane, and inconsistent past has been covered in 10 Halloween movies.
Technically, there are 11 movies in the Halloween franchise,
but "Halloween III" had nothing to do with serial killers wearing a William Shatner masks.
So, not really important for consideration today.
And yet, despite it being the second longest-running horror franchise of all time, at 40 years,
no one, in that huge stretch of time, has figured out how to finish off the [shape] once and for all.
He is literally seemed to be unstoppable.
Being brought back in film, after film, despite whatever damage he took previously.
So, I got to wondering: if I were a babysitter on Halloween night in Haddonfield, Illinois,
the primary setting of the Halloween films,
what could I do to not only survive
but be the one to finally stop Michael Myers' reign of terror, once and for all.
Now, if you've never seen Halloween or its army of sequels,
then you're probably unfamiliar with its convoluted story.
And if you have seen the movies,
well then you're still probably unfamiliar with its convoluted story,
since the whole thing gets retconned. every time there's a new installment.
Basically, "Halloween" is a bildungsroman:
a coming-of-age story of a young man named named Michael Myers,
who in 1963 opens the series by killing his older sister, Judith.
He spends the next 15 years in mental asylum, under the care of the single worst mental health professional of all time, Dr. Loomis.
"Behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply, evil."
Good medical advice there, doc.
On Halloween night on 1978, Michael escapes,
and goes on a classic road trip adventure.
Despite, it's worth pointing out,
never learning to drive since, again, he was locked in an insane asylum since the age of 6.
Anyway, he does all your normal road trip stuff:
stealing your murdered sisters gravestone,
robbing hardware stores for Halloween masks,
and teaching young teens the benefits of abstinence.
And this kind remains his M.O. for the rest of time:
occasionally showing up always on Halloween night
to slowly walk from point A to point B,
in order to murder some sexually promiscuous teenagers,
long-lost members of his family,
and the occasional hermit.
"Hermit." "Hermit" not "Kermit,"
he's not murdering Muppets.
Halloween 6: "The Curse of Michael Myers,"
provides a deep and often
So some ancient gods a backstory that is immediately erased just one movie later in Halloween water wait
What Halloween? Yeah, that's what I said Halloween
h20 Oh
Halloween 20 years later
h20
That's stupid. That's a stupid name
And now the new 2018 installment takes it one step further by erasing
Literally everything but the very first Halloween movie
Thereby making the only currently Canon films and franchise to be Halloween and its new sequel
Halloween so stupid it's so stupid
So we know a story or at least as much as we can know about his story
But if we're gonna beat him
We need to know his power set and let me tell you what a power said it is he is
Slow and he tends to use a knife when he's presented with something like a gun
He also uses it as just a knife top tier killer ladies and gentlemen
some people seem to believe that he can teleport but
technically that's not true because when he's arrested at the end of Halloween five
he needs someone else to intervene and break him out of jail other people think that he's a
Cyborg because he bleeds yellow in Halloween six
But again, that's also not true because that yellow substance is just a chemical that had been injected with a few scenes earlier
So what makes this guy a murderer?
So threatening that I'm dedicating an episode to him well to put it simply he's unstoppable
Slap his face on a motivational poster because he is the embodiment of persistence
We've seen him shot and it doesn't work again again again
Geez, guys, stop trying to shoot him. It clearly doesn't work. He survives multiple stabbings long Falls
He survives burning with minimal damage
Beatings from lead pipes and even Busta Rhymes can't get the job done when he tries to crotch shock Michael to death
It is a high voltage wire right to the groin Oh
Likes so we know that shooting stabbing exploding electrifying and beating. Michael won't kill him
But he is human who see that he eats dogs in the first Halloween and were able to hear him breathing throughout the series
So when it comes down to it Michael has two things going for him super-strength
I mean just look at that one-armed pull-up and a healing factor
That is so strong that he's able to get his eyes shot out at the end of Halloween, too
But then have him back to full functioning during the next film
So how would you defeat Michael Myers my first thought was acid just like cell and Dragon Ball Z
You need to destroy every last particle of a regenerating creature
So nothing can grow back and with acid it would just keep burning away
No matter how much Michael regenerated however upon closer inspection in the series
This isn't the case at the end of the curse of michael myers.slc
Doesn't seem to be the way to go then I thought well maybe the most boring way possible old age, you know
It's lame, but cursor. No, he has clearly shown growing older and aging starting the series at age six in
1963 and then 15 years later proving himself to be a big strapping adult of age 21. Uh, uh,
23 did no one do the math here
but again
This is a no-go
The term death by old age is actually just a blanket statement for the death brought about by the failure of an organ via old
Dying cells, but Michael has these super healing cells
So the organs technically would never get old enough to fail and it seems like the movies know this
Considering Judith says right before Michaels carted off to prison National. God will take him to a maximum-security
Facility, but he'll stay till the day he dies never die
so
We need to attack the healing factor itself a healing factor that unlike what we see in Logan shows no real signs of failure
But we also need to remember that cult or no. Michael is at his core human. He was a kid he grows up
He's referred to as a human in the movies. He gets knocked unconscious like every other scene
We see him bleed so he can assume that at some level his body
Functions via basic human biology and basic human biology is all that we're gonna need to kill him
You see all humans have the biologic potential to heal regrow and even in some cases
regenerate parts of their body for instance if your liver gets
injured or you lose part of it or you donate part of it the rest of it will grow back on its own back to
Exactly the right size for your body
So what grants us our own albeit much slower regenerative abilities stem cells and progenitor cells
You've probably heard of stem cells the magic cells that start off as a blank slate
But can evolve into any type of cell in your body
They're most commonly seen in the growth of babies before they're born
But all of us walking around have our own adult stem cells sitting in our body waiting for their potential to be unlocked now stem
Cells have their cousins progenitor cells which are slightly more specific than stem cells
But can still grow up to become several different kinds of cell depending on what kind of progenitor they are
for instance
Your endothelial progenitor cells are the ones found under your skin or near your blood vessels when you get a cut or scrape
Those cells are the ones that are thought to
Mobilize in order to heal that wound and if that kind of special wound healing ability starts to give you some ideas
well
It should because that's where we come all the way back to our old pal, Michael
Myers how we're gonna finally clump him off for good
This Halloween to do the kind of wound healing we've seen Michael pull off in the movies his stem and progenitor
Cells have to be running out of control like sure we can all heal from some bumps and bruises
But Michael is literally bouncing back from having his eyes shut out
His stem cells are working
over time that makes our job in killing him really tough because as long as he has those stem and progenitor
Cells he can come back from literally any wound that we inflict on him
Theoretically even something as Extreme as chopping him in half wouldn't help because with the work of his stem cells
He could just regrow the missing half of his body and keep on truckin
No, there's only one way to completely wipe out his healing ability
And that's by getting rid of every single one of those regenerating stem cells. So how the heck do we do it one word?
irradiation
specifically total body irradiation
Or TBI TBI is a real medical procedure and it's been used for over 40 years to help cure very difficult diseases like leukemia
40 years the exact amount of time that Michael Myers has been stalking babysitters in Haddonfield
Coincidence. Yes, absolutely in leukemia
A patient produces the wrong kinds of blood cells those bad blood cells are created by stem cells deep inside the person's bone marrow
Which in case you didn't know is actually where all your new blood comes from to treat leukemia
One option is to get rid of all the stem cells in the patient's bone marrow so that there are no cells left to produce
The bad blood doctors do this by exposing the patient to radiation high enough radiation to literally kill off all the stem cells
Existing in the bone if it sounds scary
it is and if you know someone who's going through this give them tons of support because it is
Basically the bravest thing you can do and yes that includes
Facing down a goofy mask to serial killer now once there without their stem cells
They can't produce any new blood at all
Which is why patients receive a bone marrow transplant in a bone marrow transplant
Once the bad bone marrows been irradiated out new marrow from a donor is implanted
So the patient has a whole new crop of stem cells
Thereby ending the leukemia now in our case. We're not trying to cure Michael Myers
We're trying to get him done. But the principle is the same if we wipe out michael's stem cells
We wipe out his healing ability. Thereby making it possible to kill him without him coming back but to do that
we're gonna need a lot of radiation a really lethal dose which would be much higher than what's used in treatment for even the
system cancers basically we gotta snap in with everything we've got
Now lethal radiation doses are calculated based on the radiation level to which exposure would kill
50% of people within a week a lethal dose then is technically defined as one gray where gray is the unit for measuring radiation?
to put that in perspective
between flying on airplanes getting the
occasional x-ray and exposing our skin to the UV rays of the Sun a typical person is exposed to point zero zero to
Four gray of radiation per year's super high doses for bone marrow
transplant patients range from six to eight gray at the
Absolute most but what we need for Michael is to be so affected by radiation poisoning that he starts experiencing symptoms
Immediately to get that kind of effect. We need a total body irradiation dose of thirty gray
so we need to crank the dial all the way up and hit him with the total maximum dose and it is
Possible but to do it we have to be really really smart in order to expose Michael to radiation
We're first gonna need to lure him into a hospital easy. You simply kite him. Forgive me for using a gaming term
But kiting is the process of getting an enemy's attention and then running away as they chase
You usually well attacking the enemy Michael Myers is one of the slowest moving killers in cinematic history
So as long as your car is doing like one mile per hour you're gonna be fine
Maybe think about packing some books on tape next all that ammo once we've kite at him into the hospital
It's time to lure him into the radiation ring
Hospitals in the US are required to build in special radiation shielding in the floors and walls of any rooms that contain a major
Radiation producing machine. So as long as he's in and you're out which let's face it
You should be avoiding sharing a room with that guy in general
You'll avoid radiating yourself while Michaels busy cooking in his own personal microwave, which obviously leads the question
How do you get a hospital to let you a babysitter into their radiation group?
Well, the answer is simple Michael Myers as story is known in this universe
There's even a scene where people are watching the first Halloween movie the immortal classic
followed by the big giveaway
It's not just a horror movie over there. It's like a lifetime original feature based on a true story of heroism
And in the new Halloween movie people are actively trying to do a podcast with Michael Myers. His story is out there
anyway
Laurie Strode at this point has had 40 years to prep for his eventual attack plenty of time to get some doctors or law enforcement
Or both on her side. They even know what day is gonna attack spoiler alert. It's always Halloween
So if we managed to keep him in the room at max dose
He should start to show signs of acute radiation poisoning in minutes
Including nausea dizziness and shock and this is exactly where we want him because now it's time to go in and finish the job
That's right. After all this trouble. It's actually not gonna be the radiation that kills him
Remember the whole point of a radiating Michael was to deplete his stem cells preventing him from healing himself from there
we use any method available to shoot out his eyes again inject him with acid again chopping with an axe or for goodness sake just
Decapitate the right guy this time because now he's reeling with radiation poisoning and has no way to heal himself
We can finally finally rid the world of the terror
That is Michael Myers finishing off the Halloween movies once and for all or at least until they reboot them in another 10 years
but hey, that's just a theory a film theory and
guts
Hey, if you want more horror theories for this Halloween click the box to the left to see the true ghost stories behind the conjuring
Movies or click the box to the right to find out why the Blair Witch was the least of the filmmakers
problems when it came to the Blair Witch Project
And finally, make sure you subscribe for more creepy theories that happen not just on Halloween
But all year round. now if you'll excuse me, I need to go answer the door. There's some trick-or-treaters outside