Halloween‘s definition of normality - that is, how normality is represented in the film - is depicted as being relatively care-free with only minor day-to-day inconveniences and annoyances to battle with (a friend speaking to your crush for you, a boyfriend getting grounded on a date night, getting harassed by bullies, etc.). It is an enclosed suburban world where evil does not reside, and the time of when it once did is considered a distant memory; a history that is acknowledged but not really known or given much, if any, attention. The horror inherent in this film is that this normality comes under threat by something completely unexpected that they could not have prepared for. Michael Myers is a threat that seeks to change the definition of normality in his world – that is, the world as seen through his eyes - and ends up also changing it for others.

This threat is even signified at the very outset of the film, during its opening credits sequence. It begins with a very slow zoom on an illuminated jack-o’-lantern in a blackened room, with eerie non-diegetic music being played. Though through this sequence there are no narrative elements, no set-ups of any plot points in the coming story, it works well to create a sense of dread that will ostensibly be placed upon a typical celebration of the holiday of Halloween. This is done purely through the segment’s symbolism. The lit jack-o’-lantern symbolizes, easily enough, the embodiment of the celebration of Halloween and the night of that celebration. It is carved very simply with a smile across its face, with no sinister expressions of any kind. It represents a happy Halloween in which childish fun runs amok and evil induced scares are nowhere to be found. The normality of the film’s celebration of Halloween is set up to be an enjoyable occasion that is seemingly worry-free. However, the slow zoom by the camera and steady rhythm of the music denote an encroaching threat upon this celebratory event. It is a threat that is given no tangible shape or form, but just merely inches closer and closer to the jack-o’-lantern until the illuminating flame inside of it is extinguished. The imposing threat, whatever it may be, has successfully taken the flame of life away from the innocent, happy, and normal celebration of Halloween night. While keeping in mind the previously mentioned claim that there are no narrative elements to be found in this sequence, it is an obvious precursor for what is to be soon seen in the following narrative of the film.

The narrative itself begins with a stalking and killing by its primary threat, Michael Myers (age six). It is shot in the point-of-view of Michael and serves to function as the initial tangible threat by him. As he peers in through a window from the outside of his house at his older sister while she is making out with her boyfriend/lover, Michael (and through POV, we) identify the narrative’s beginning definition of normalcy. As the film contests, what is normal is for a young teenage male and female to be alone together in a suburban house on Halloween night while the parents are out, presumably at a party, and any younger children are out trick-or-treating. The first obvious defiance of this is the simple fact that Michael is not out trick-or-treating but actually at home watching his sister make-out with her boyfriend/lover. One part of the normalcy equation is watching the other at work. Once the couple decides to go upstairs, this current defiance in normalcy (Michael’s watching) is put on hold. In order to regain the realization of his/our own personalized definition of normality he/we must travel through the house and up the stairs to resume watching, and resume satisfying his/our curiosity by allowing one part of the original normalcy equation to observe another. While traveling through the house he/we see the boyfriend/lover leaving the house after having sex with Judith, the sister. He/We missed the opportunity to witness the part of the normalcy equation in action. But now, with the original definition of normality long gone, and the defiant one initiated by Michael’s coming home to view his sister’s part in the equation not brought to complete fulfillment, what is left is chaos. The result is Michael’s/our killing of Judith, eliminating her involvement in any definition of normality henceforth and thus ridding any semblance of normality period. The threat has succeeded.

The Shape

Fast forward fifteen years in the narrative’s story. In the same town of Haddonfield, where Michael had successfully destroyed normality in his own home and family, he now seeks to destroy it in other homes and families. On Halloween of 1978 at his old house, Michael sees Laurie Strode trespass on the relic structure that symbolizes both his lost and personalized normalities. From then on, he chooses to observe her life and how its normality is defined so that he may destroy that definition and therefore the normalcy of her world. He follows her from his house to her school, where he leers at her through a classroom window. He then drives past her while she is walking home from school with her friends. Then while at her home, he gazes at her through her bedroom window. And finally, before embarking on his rampage, he follows her in his car while she is being given a ride by her friend Annie to her babysitting gig. By now, he has learned what constitutes normality in Laurie’s world on Halloween; her friends Annie and Lynda, and her position as a maternal figure for children. His mission then becomes the killing of Annie, Lynda, and Laurie. One can contest that Michael need not kill Laurie in order to rob her of her position as a maternal surrogate, as he could just as easily kill the children that she is charged with protecting. However, this plan would not destroy her ability to assume the maternal role, as she could find other children to baby-sit after the fact. Plus, as the trespasser of his house, which functions as a pseudo time capsule, she is marked – hence his stalking of her. Killing her rids her of her nurturing and protecting capabilities and serves as a celebratory reoccurrence of his last Halloween night as a six year old child; the reoccurrence perhaps being a sign of similitude, and therefore a step towards recreating/rebuilding his own personalized definition of normality.

Throughout the night of Halloween in 1978 Michael Myers stalks and kills Annie and Lynda first. Annie is strangled inside her car, and finished off with a knife slice to the neck. Lynda is also strangled but with a phone cord. The stalkings which precede these murders serve to shed light on Michael’s quest for regaining his privatized definition of normality. When looking at Annie undress herself through the kitchen window it reminds one of how he looked at his sister and her lover through the family room window, providing further impetus in Michael’s mind to kill her. This replaying of Michael looking through the family room window is done yet again when he sees Lynda and her lover Bob fooling around on the family room couch in the house that Annie is supposed to be babysitting at. When the two lovers move upstairs to have sex on the master bed, Michael is able to ready himself this time to witness the actual sexual act occurring; something which he could not do when he was six. He even, after killing Bob, invents an excuse to further gaze at, without obstruction, the naked female body by posing as Bob in a ghost outfit, finally fulfilling that goal he had as a child (before stabbing Judith’s naked body, she covered herself from Michael’s full view, preventing him from looking at his leisure). His killing of Lynda is then presumably another step toward materializing his new definition of normality, either as celebratory of his sister’s murder or the creation of similitude as stability in said definition. With Annie and Lynda now dead, the only part of Laurie’s normality yet to be destroyed is Laurie herself. So when she wanders over to the house where Michael killed Annie and Lynda, she provides herself as his victim and last step towards solidifying Michael’s developing definition of normality. But after warding him off several times in her escape from the house where Annie and Lynda were killed and her protection of the two children (Lindsey and Tommy) he is shot six times by his psychiatric doctor, Dr. Sam Loomis, which causes him to fall backwards off of a nearby balcony onto the front lawn. When Loomis sees that Michael has survived both the gunshots and the fall and is nowhere to be seen the film suggests that Michael’s efforts toward killing Laurie will continue, leaving the film’s ending to be inconclusive and its order not restored (that is, by “order”, Laurie’s original definition and/or perception of normality). So, even though Michael was not successful in killing Laurie he was still able to assure that she never returns to her previous form of normalcy simply by staying alive (and thus supplying a constant threat).

The film as a whole actually deals with normality on a scale outside of Laurie. In the grand scope of things within the diegesis of Haddonfield, Michael Myers in fact affects the town’s sense of normality. As being a place with rows upon rows of two-story houses, high schools, middle schools, et al, Haddonfield is in effect “Everytown USA.” It signifies everyday suburban life in America, which is, as defined, talked about, and represented, a place where peace is ubiquitous and crime never enters. Michael’s rampage through Haddonfield then stands as an assault against all suburbia, providing a rare sense of vulnerability to people (both in the diegesis or audience) who believed in suburbia’s definition of normality. And not only that, but Michael’s killings, and losses of family members (daughters, sons) force a redefining of normality in those families. In Halloween, normality is destroyed and redefined one home and family at a time.