Halloween (1978)

On Halloween night in 1963, in Haddonfield, Illinois, six-year-old Michael Myers stabs his older sister Judith to death in their home. He is sent to Smith's Grove Sanitarium.

On 30 October 1978, Michael escapes as his psychiatrist, Dr. Sam Loomis, arrives to escort him to a court hearing. Michael steals Loomis's car and heads home. Loomis, who believes Michael is pure evil, follows him to Haddonfield.

On Halloween day, high school student Laurie Strode drops off a key at the old Myers house. Michael, now wearing a white mask and overalls, begins stalking her and her friends Annie and Lynda. Laurie keeps glimpsing him, but no one believes her. That night, Laurie babysits young Tommy Doyle, while Annie babysits Lindsey Wallace across the street.

Annie drops Lindsey off at the Doyle house so she can pick up her boyfriend, and Michael strangles her and cuts her throat in her car. Lynda and her boyfriend Bob arrive at the Wallace house. Michael kills Bob, pinning him to the wall with a knife, then strangles Lynda with a phone cord while she is calling Laurie.

Laurie goes across the street to investigate and discovers the bodies, arranged around Judith Myers's headstone. Michael attacks her. Laurie escapes back to the Doyle house and fights him off with a knitting needle, a coat hanger and his own knife, while getting the children out. Loomis, who has seen Michael's stolen car, hears the children scream, rushes in and shoots Michael six times. Michael falls from the balcony to the lawn below.

When Loomis looks over the balcony, Michael's body is gone. Laurie sobs as Michael's breathing is heard over shots of the empty rooms and streets of Haddonfield.

How does Michael survive? The film does not explain it. Loomis shoots him six times and he falls from the balcony, but his body has vanished. Carpenter wanted Michael to feel like an unstoppable force of evil, the "boogeyman".

Why does Michael kill? The original film gives no reason. Loomis says there is nothing human left in him, just "pure and simple evil". The idea that Laurie is his sister was added in Halloween II (1981).

What does the final breathing mean? The shots of empty places in Haddonfield, with Michael's breathing on the soundtrack, suggest he could be anywhere. Evil has not been stopped.

Is Laurie Michael's sister? Not in this film. That twist came in Halloween II (1981). The 2018 sequel removed it again.

How many Halloween movies are there? Thirteen films, including sequels, Rob Zombie's 2007 remake and its 2009 sequel, and the 2018 to 2022 trilogy that follows on directly from the 1978 original.