A Strangely Convincing Theory About The 'Halloween' Series

The new Halloween movie (also titled Halloween, because who the hell wants to get their Amazon order right the first time) ignores most of the other films in the franchise. And by "most," I mean every single one of them except the first. And while this slash/burn campaign on the series' continuity sounds a little unnecessary to some, I totally get it.

That's because, as I'm sure the writers of the new Halloween figured out, after the first three films, Michael Myers is absolutely replaced by a cyborg. If you think I'm joking, know that I'm about to make a hell of a compelling case. You're about to feel like a fool for doubting me. A fool.

For those with a lackluster taste in cinema, I'll bring you up to speed: Michael Myers' first killing spree comes to an end in Halloween II, after a showdown with his sister Laurie Strode and failed psychiatrist Samuel Loomis. Laurie manages to shoot Michael in both of his eyes, which means that Halloween III should logically deal with her trying out for the Olympics.

And then, for good measure, Loomis causes the room to explode, leaving Michael engulfed in fire. Though he somehow learned to drive at the sanitarium he'd been in since childhood, he apparently never learned to stop, drop, and roll. Despite there being several more movies featuring the character, due to evidence outlined below, I believe that this is the last time we see the real Michael Myers in action.

Next up on the AMC marathon is Halloween III: Season Of The Witch, a film that doesn't feature any of the original characters and was apparently made despite an executive screaming, "NO, YOU IDIOT. THAT'S NOT HOW FRANCHISES WORK. MY MILLLIOOOONNNNS!" and crumbling into dust. What I'm trying to say is that Halloween III has nothing to do with Michael Myers. Or does it?

Related: A Brief History Of Michael Myers' Mask From 'Halloween'

The film starts off with a guy being slowly stalked by creepy emotionless men with superhuman strength -- beings that are very comparable to a certain Shatner-masked psychopath. However, these creeps turn out to be lifelike android assassins created by the Silver Shamrock Company to help carry out their plan of killing children with microchipped Halloween masks, for reasons that are surely self-evident.

As it turns out, the head droid is played by Dick Warlock, who also played Michael in Halloween II. That is, until he "dies" and weird yellow stuff starts gushing out of his mouth ...

You know, because he's a robot. So that's ... robot fluid? Lubricant? Whatever, the point is that Michael Myers starts leaking similar stuff after Paul Rudd beats his face in with a pipe at the end of Halloween: The Curse Of Michael Myers (the sixth one). Look:

That can't be a random choice, right? If this was still the real Michael, wouldn't he bleed, ya know, blood, like he did when he lost his eyes in Halloween II? Who replaced his bodily fluids with Nickelodeon slime? You honestly want me to believe they didn't have any fake blood on set they could have used?

Oh, and Silver Shamrock also makes androids that look exactly like real people. That would explain how Michael is able to continue engaging in his favorite pastime in Halloween 4: The Return Of Michael Myers, in which he has perfect eyesight and, oh yeah, barely any burn scars. Remember how his entire body was engulfed in flame? Either he's been replaced by a cyborg or he has the healing powers of Wolverine.

But why? What interest does Silver Shamrock have in a psychopath stockpiling teenage corpses? The simple answer would be the same interest they have in melting the faces off innocent children (boredom?). But it goes deeper than that. Remember Mrs. Blankenship from The Curse Of Michael Myers? Of course you do, you're awesome like that. She's otherwise known as that old crackpot who lets Paul Rudd live in her house and looks like this:

Blankenship is revealed to not only have been doing a horrible job of babysitting Michael the night he killed his sister Judith in 1963, but also a member of the cult which put a curse on Michael as a child. I realize this will start to sound like nonsense if you gave up on the series after the first movie. The point is, the cult believes that as long as Michael is out there turning horny teenagers into charcuterie, they won't die.

Related: The Overarching Plot Of The 'Halloween' Movies Is Crazy AF

And it's a problem when your main source of longevity is burnt to a crisp and has bullets for eyes. So as a large, mysterious cult, maybe you put a call in to some other crazy bastards who know a thing or two about human replication?

One of the characters in Halloween III, Harry Grimbridge, has a run-in with these slow-walking androids, and later gets his eyes gouged out. And who was Harry on his way to meet with? Minnie Blankenship. It's treated like a simple namedrop, but in truth it establishes that the cult and Silver Shamrock exist in the same universe.

Alright, so now that virtually every person reading this is in absolute agreement with this theory, the next question is this: When exactly was the real Michael traded in for cyborg Michael?

Well, at the beginning of Halloween 4, Michael is to be transferred from Ridgemont Sanitarium to nearby Smith's Grove -- which is where, according to the movies, the cultists originally got ahold of Michael to make him all stabby. You'd like to think the hospital would have noticed their patient had microchips for brains prior to that, so it seems like the process of taking him out of his room and getting him into the ambulance (which would have required unstrapping him from his hospital bed) would have been the perfect time to make the switch.

What happened to the original Michael? I don't know, they threw him in the trash or something. The point is, the thing aboard that ambulance is an android, and this being the fourth installment of the Halloween series, that ambulance ends up toppled over and the guy inside gets a classic Haddonfield Lobotomy:

In addition to all this, Dr. Loomis, Michael's fucking doctor, was suspiciously not informed of the transfer. When Loomis goes to investigate, he gets told "It's over, leave it alone" by another doctor. But Michael's a savage murderer. You can't just "leave it alone." Also, the #1 way to become a subject of suspicion is to be the one who says "Eh, forget it" when multiple homicides have been committed.

Related: The 8 Most Brilliant Kills In Famous Slasher Movies

By now, a few straggling skeptics are no doubt wondering about the beginning of Halloween 5, in which a random hermit takes care of Michael after he gets shot a bunch and falls into a coma. How would a robot fall into a coma? Well, if you haven't repressed every other memory you have of that movie, chances are you'll also remember that "Michael" took an unintended swim down a stream before he ended up at the hermit's shack:

Ask any owner of a killer robot, and they'll tell you that dunking one in water will play havoc with its inner parts. And that kind of explains the "coma" which surprisingly ends when the next Halloween rolls around. No need to expend any energy if you only have to be activated for one day a year.

Somehow, we're still not done. The android evidence continues to pile on by the time we get to Halloween H20. Take, for example, this ridiculous ninja shit he pulls on Laurie during their first get-together in 20 years:

That's a far cry from the original Michael's patented maneuver of "Wait in the nearest closet and hope beyond hope that a high schooler walks by." His eyes are also on full display -- as they definitely should not be, considering they were blown out of his skull by bullets:

In fact, H20 seems to imply that there could be multiple android Michaels running amok out there. He does get around pretty quick for a guy who refuses to do anything that even resembles running, and at the very least, the idea of an additional android would clear up any confusion as to why his mask has a tendency to sprout cheeks from one scene to another:

Also, in the event that you lack precision pausing skills (I've been training for this for years), it's possible that you also overlooked that Michael's wrist tattoo from the previous two movies is nowhere to be found here:

There's also the matter of how a charred-up blind person took a road trip from Illinois to Northern California (where H20 is mostly set) without causing a single batted eyelash. Since the Shamrock headquarters also happens to be in Northern California, and the cult is in Illinois, it makes more sense that they had one android commit the murders that take place in Haddonfield and get people looking there before shipping him over to Cali to meet up with another android so they can tag-team and rack up a real body count.

Related: 5 Terrifying Implications Of Surviving A Horror Movie

At this point, perhaps a single remaining skeptic is out there saying: "Doesn't a trailer for the original Halloween play in Halloween III, implying that Michael Myers is just a movie character in that universe?"

But keep in mind that Michael Myers was a prolific mass murderer who killed as if he was trying to win style points. Hollywood could barely wait 29 days before they released a movie about the Titanic sinking, and only a few years before they jumped on dramatizations of 9/11. Surely, in that universe, there would be a film series based on the (real to them) killings.

After all, quickly capitalizing on tragedies is kind of Hollywood's MO, along with running a horror franchise into the ground so hard that you have to turn the lead character into a robot for any of it to make sense.

Tony Alpsen also writes silly shit in webcomic form at Yingandyan.com.

Heck, might as well pick up a beginner's guide to Celtx and write your own Halloween sequel, if we're gonna have robots and all.

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