Is ’Halloween’s Michael Myers Inspired By a Real Person?

Fans of the Halloween movie franchise may be wondering if serial killer Michael Myers is based on a true story. Well, as if the fictional character wasn’t creepy enough, we have even more eerie details for you.

Myers has become one of the most recognizable masked killers in horror history, sharing the spotlight with villains such as Ghostface in Scream, who was inspired by the real-life serial killer the “Gainesville Ripper,” and Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, who was supposedly based on the “Butcher of Plainfield.”

But is babysitter-hunter Mike Myers’ character real?

According to Esquire, the original 1978 film’s director and co-writer John Carpenter (who also co-wrote 1981’s Halloween II along with his frequent collaborator Debra Hill) describes a creepy encounter he had while attending Western Kentucky University as inspiration for the fictional murderer.

“I had a class—psychology or something—and we visited a mental institution,” he says in the 2003 Divimax DVD documentary A Cut Above the Rest. “We visited the most serious, mentally ill patients. And there was this kid, he must have been 12 or 13 and he literally had this look.”

“This blank, pale emotionless face. Blackest eyes. The devil’s eyes,” he added. “I spent eight years trying to reach him and then another seven trying to keep him locked up, because I realized what was living behind that boys’ eyes was purely and simply evil.”

When Carpenter was approached by film producer Irwin Yablans with the idea to create a horror movie set on Halloween night “about babysitters stalked by this psychotic killer,” he thought back to the boy he saw at the institution with the “real evil stare,”

“It was unsettling to me, it was like the creepiest thing I’d ever seen as a stranger. It was completely insane.”

Once Carpenter and Yablans took to the drawing board to develop the character, they had some ideas on how to make him timeless.

“Make him human, yes, but almost like a force…that will never stop. That can’t be denied,” Carpenter says in A Cut Above the Rest.

David Gordon Green, director of the 2018 reprise, told the L.A. Times that “Michael Myers hasn’t evolved as a character in any way, shape or form [since 1978]; he’s the essence of evil.”

“He has no character. He has no personality. He has no interests. He never has. He’s someone that is moving forward and reacting to the world around him, but not with any sort of conscious objective. And how the world around him reacts to his behavior is where our story comes to life.”

Oh, and also, for some reason our readers want to know how tall Mike Myers is. Well, that all depends on who is portraying him, but at his shortest, he’s 5′10 (Nick Castle) and at his tallest around 6′9 (Tyler Mane).

The latest installment, Halloween Kills, was just released on NBC’s Peacock in time for Halloween 2021. Read our full review of Halloween Kills and check out the official trailer below.

Michael is a music and television junkie keen on most things that are not a complete and total bore. You can follow him on Twitter — @Tweetskoor

Stream Halloween Kills on Peacock