Halloween: Everything You Need To Know About Michael Myers

Ever since his debut in John Carpenter's breakout classic, Halloween, Michael has been a near omnipresent force in pop culture. From his big 'ole butcher knife, to his pale emotionless face, to the blackness of his eyes, Michael's appearance has become an iconic visual and made him a star in his own right. But what goes on behind the mask has always been a bit more elusive, and decidedly hard to nail down.

Now, after spending nearly a decade away from the big screen, (which is the longest absence fans of the franchise have ever had to endure) Michael is returning to haunt the nightmares of audiences everywhere once more this October. But considering that David Gordon Green's new Halloween film will be the eleventh instalment in the long-running franchise that has already had more than its fair share of retcons and reboots, it can all feel a bit overwhelming.

But don't worry, that's what we're here for. Breaking down forty years of cinema, ten different films, and about six different timelines, this is everything you need to know about Michael Myers.

While the Michael Myers and Halloween franchise mythos may have seemed relatively straightforward from the start, things have gotten decidedly more complicated over the years. Canonically speaking, Michael Myers now actually exists across a selection of different universes, all set within the Halloween multiverse.

The first of these is the first two films, both of which tell the story of October 31, 1978, the night Michael returned to Haddonfield, killed a host of folks in the name of slaughtering his long-lost sister Laurie, and was then killed in an explosion alongside Dr. Loomis.

The second of these begins with Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, and while it is essentially the same universe as the first, Loomis and Michael both survived the explosion at the end of Halloween II and Laurie Strode died off-screen in a car accident, leaving her daughter Jamie behind to fend for herself. This timeline carries through to the sixth film, before it is completely cast aside.

The third is started by Halloween: H20 which completely disregards the events of 4-6, with Laurie Strode still alive, no mention of a daughter, and with the film treating Michael's appearance as if its the first time he's been spotted since 1978.

Then there's Rob Zombie's remake universe, which is a whole other version of the events, and now there's the Halloween 2018 universe, which ignores the events of every film except the original. And lastly, there's Halloween III, which has Michael cameo in the form of a television broadcast of the original film.