Halloween (1978) - Loomis

Dr. Loomis wanting Michael locked up for good—or as he called him, “it” or “purely, simply EVIL—and seemingly never able to do so has been debated by many of my peers. Was he such a failure of a clinical psychiatrist that Michael perhaps should have been studied and helped by someone else other than Loomis? And when THE EVIL ESCAPES, Loomis argues with a hospital suit who shrugs his aggravated shoulders and tries to pass the blame. Whether or not Michael received driving lessons by a janitor or some hospital employee will always be up for debate. How Michael orchestrated the escape will always be up for debate. How Michael could drive from Smiths Grove to Haddonfield is up for debate. There is this setup by Carpenter where Loomis stops off by a phone booth located in this offbeat place in Illinois near a train tracks that always fascinated me. The convenience of Loomis finding this phone booth, the left behind gown, and the truck of a victim Michael took a uniform from (the body left in some weeds where Loomis couldn’t see it), not to mention, the Rabbit in Red matchbook, can be forgiven because it is such an effectively chilling reminder of The Shape’s danger to anyone in “its” way. I never fail to dig Carpenter’s clever setpiece where two separate characters linked to Michael just miss, Laurie, in the car with Annie when they come across the department store as Sheriff Brackett, and Dr. Loomis who arrives in Haddonfield to discuss Michael. The store was robbed by Michael (the mask and knives), Loomis arrives too late, waiting at Sheriff Brackett’s request while his police investigate the crime while the Smiths Grove car is just behind making a turn to follow Annie and Laurie to their different babysitting gigs. So close was Michael, yet Loomis just missed him. Instead, The Shape slips away to stalk and stab.

The Halloween series always wisely kept Loomis and Michael apart for dramatic purposes. Loomis staying behind at the Myers House to see if The Shape would return, eventually scaring kids away with a smile on his face before Brackett jolted him from behind accidentally…it is a decision that allows Michael ample time to kill some kids. Loomis eventually ditches the house, finds the Smiths Grove car, finds screaming kids crossing the street and Laurie nearly strangled by Michael before his gunfire interrupts almost certain death. What we get is the classic Loomis concern inside the Myers house and outside when Brackett confronted him about Haddonfield’s “quiet night”, his assurances that “death has come to town” and that no matter how long Michael was in the sanitarium, Halloween night in 1978, “home”, was where he always planned to return. Michael was “inhumanly” patient for Halloween night in Haddonfield. And Annie, Lynda, and Bob are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, “victims of fate”. And Laurie would certainly agree even if she lived: Victims, aren’t we all.