The Halloween series has been going on for over forty years, and has eleven installments all together. But if you plan to binge watch the series finally this spooky season, you might want to buckle up for the wildest continuity ride in movie history. After John Carpenter’s original 1978 classic, the franchise goes off in wild timeline tangents. There are several mini continuities within the series, and it’s all very confusing to say the least. 2018’s reboot basically ignores all those sequels, saying only the first movie “happened.”
Blumhouse / Universal Pictures
But what if the sequels, with all their contradicting timelines, actually matter still? What if they are all different urban legends that have formed the foundation for conspiracy theories which exist within the continuity of Halloween 2018 (and its two upcoming sequels), the only “true” continuations? In this day and age, there are wild conspiracies about just about everything on the internet, but especially surrounding famous crimes. Most of which can be found on reddit and YouTube.
Here’s how we think each of the Halloween sequel plotlines would be presented in the internet world of the new films, each as different conspiracy theories based on local urban legends.
Halloween II (1981)
Universal Pictures
All the conspiracy theories and urban myths surrounding the 1978 “Halloween Night Babysitter Murders” start right here. In this long standing theory, the body count is much higher than originally reported by authorities. It isn’t just four people Michael Myers murders on October 31, 1978. Myers kills an additional ten people at Haddonfield General Hospital that very same night, when he goes there to kill Laurie Strode.
This theory also hinges on the fact that Laurie Strode is, in fact, Michael’s long lost secret sister. The details of the hospital killings are classified by various nefarious government agencies. They have been covering up not only the much larger body count and their collective police failure, but also the blood link between Strode and Myers. Almost all other Michael Myers conspiracy theories originate from this one, which first began life as a local urban legend in mid-80s Illinois.
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988) and Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)
Trancas International
In this often-shared online conspiracy, Laurie Strode died in a car accident, but leaves behind a 7 year old daughter named Jamie Lloyd. A badly injured Michael Myers is kept alive in an off-the-books facility. He returns to Haddonfield intent on killing his young niece after learning of her existence. Nineteen additional murders happen in or around Haddonfield in 1988, all attributed to outside parties. In truth, they were all the work of an escaped Myers. 20 other people die by Myers’ hands the following year, including seven police officers. The local government continues to hide what really happened in Haddonfield during this two-year stretch, in an attempt to cover up their failures.
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)
Dimension Films
This urban legend is the most out there, Illuminati-style conspiracy theory surrounding Michael Myers. Even the most hardcore Myers true-crime conspiracy buffs on the internet have a hard time swallowing this one. But it has a loyal core of ardent believers who make lots of YouTube videos and have sub-reddits devoted to it. So it continues to gain traction among the most easily gullible among us.
According to this theory, Michael Myers isn’t just a garden variety psychopath with seemingly high levels of resistance to bullet wounds. He’s actually the product of a Pagan society known as the Cult of Thorn, who have been operating behind the scenes in Haddonfield, Il for decades. It’s all very complex, something to do with a child killing their siblings every Halloween night and fulfilling a prophecy. Their plans all came to fruition on Halloween night, 1995.
Halloween: H20 (1998)
Dimension Films
This theory posits that all the Pagan cult stuff is just a massive misinformation campaign, as well as Laurie having a daughter. An elaborate ruse to hide the real story. Laurie Strode concocts this misdirection herself, because she never actually died in any crash. However, she did fake her own death in a car accident, in order to live out a new new life under the alias of Keri Tate in California. The hope was that her brother would never be able to find her under this new forged identity. But find her he did, resulting in a slaughter at a posh California boarding school where Strode worked in 1998. Laurie Strode finally kills Myers for good during this incident, when she beheads him with an ax.
Halloween: Resurrection (2002)
Dimension Films
This is a far less popular theory, but stems from the popular Keri Tate theory. Evidence suggests that the person that Laurie Strode decapitates in 1998 is not Myers, but an innocent ambulance worker who he switched places with at the last minute. Strode suffers an emotional and mental collapse as a result, requiring her to be institutionalized. It is in that hospital that Michael finally found her, and killed her. For reasons unknown, he then went on to slaughter a group of twenty somethings who were doing a live webcam feed from his childhood home. It has been suggested that famed rapper Busta Rhymes was a witness. He has never gone on record.
Halloween III: Season of the Witch famously has nothing to do with the Myers storylines, so it doesn’t have any online conspiracy theories surrounding it. But we’d like to think that the Rob Zombie remakes exist within the world of Halloween 2018, as over-the-top and inaccurate representations of the events of 1978. The real Laurie Strode did not participate in these films, and gets no royalty checks for them. So she hates these the most. If all these conspiracies exist in the world of the new films online, I hope we meet the fans obsessed with them in the sequels. And we hope Laurie tells them they’re all wasting their lives away.
Featured Image: Blumhouse / Universal Pictures