Michael Myers is a fictional character from the Halloween series of slasher films. Michael Myers is characterized as pure evil, both directly in the films, by the filmmakers who created and developed the character over nine films. The mask Michael Myers wears is a Captain Kirk mask which was painted white.
Michael Myers first appears in John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) as a young boy who murders his sister, Judith Myers, and then, fifteen years later, returns home to murder more teenagers. In the original Halloween, the adult Michael Myers, referred to as The Shape in the closing credits, was portrayed by Nick Castle for most of the film, with Tony Moran and Tommy Lee Wallace substituting in the final scenes.
The character is the primary antagonist in the Halloween film series, except Halloween III: Season of the Witch, which is not connected in continuity to the rest of the films. Michael returns in the sequel, Halloween II (1981). The film picks up directly where the original ends, with Dr. Loomis still looking for Michael. Michael follows Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) to the local hospital, where he wanders the halls in search of her, killing security guards, doctors, and nurses that get in his way. Loomis learns that Laurie is Michael's younger sister, and rushes to the hospital to find them. He causes an explosion in the operating theater, allowing Laurie to escape as he and Michael are engulfed by the flames. Since Castle, Moran, and Wallace put on the mask in the original film, six people have stepped into the same role. Tyler Mane is the only actor to have portrayed Michael Myers in consecutive films, and one of three actors to portray the character more than once.
Michael Myers made his first appearance in the original 1978 film, Halloween, although the masked character is credited as "The Shape" in the first two films. In the beginning of Halloween, a 6-year-old Michael murders his teenage sister Judith on Halloween, 1963. Fifteen years later, Michael escapes Smith's Grove Sanitarium and returns to his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois. He stalks teenage babysitter Laurie Strode (Curtis) on Halloween, while his psychiatrist Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence) attempts to track him down. Murdering her friends, Michael finally attacks Laurie, but she manages to fend him off long enough for Loomis to save her. Loomis shoots Michael six times, knocking him over the house's second-story balcony ledge; when Loomis goes to check Michael's body, he finds it missing.
John Carpenter has described the character as "almost a supernatural force - a force of nature. An evil force that's loose," a force that is "unkillable". Nicholas Rogers elaborates, "Myers is depicted as a mythic, elusive bogeyman, one of superhuman strength who cannot be killed by bullets, stab wounds, or fire." The ending scene of Michael being shot six times, and then disappearing from the ground outside the house, was meant to terrify the imagination of the audience. Carpenter tried to keep the audience guessing as to who Michael Myers really is—he is gone, and everywhere at the same time; he is more than human; he may be supernatural, and no one knows how he got that way. To Carpenter, keeping the audience guessing was better than explaining away the character with "he's cursed by some..."