Like everyone here… I have been a die hard Halloween (the movies and the holiday) fan for years. A fan of Halloween Myers for like 25 years. After all these years, I was thinking yesterday about what exactly is it and where does this continuing obsession come from. If you are a Myers fan, you understand that this is not like any other aspects of horror obsessions, collecting, living etc… Ya, people love zombies, people like Jason, Freddy and Leatherface…but it is just something about that expressionless, converted mask from the mid 70’s that over shadows everything. Also the feeling you get when you watch a Halloween movie. It can be anytime of year and just watching the films puts you into Fall and Halloween mode. I mean, you have seen the movies probably 30 times… Yet, when it coems on tv, it’s like you are watching it with new enthusiasm.
I mean, this movie has changed peoples lives…from the houses they build, to the collections they keep, to the enormous amounts of money paid for merchandise…For artists to duplicate that exact copy of the mask.
Maybe some it can’t be explained, but man, I am sure glad that John Carpneter brought his vision to life.
In my opinion, the obsession is easy to explain to like minded individuals.
The film is a stand out horror, that although was spawned from Hitchcocks grandaddy of em all “psycho”, managed to redefine the slasher and create a new type of villain…the unstoppable one.
The film itself was so simple, but so atmospheric and the iconic boogeyman it created has been copied but never surpassed.
Great topic.
musci and atmosphere. and Nostalgia(sp?) thats the reson for everything, lol i collect posters and now mask, i can look of at my Disciple and remember the first time i seen H6, or the watching them, remember that feeling of kid grabbing it up on movie rental fridays… back when posters and vhs art mattered. the days of lightning vid and mom& pop stores, going ToT and seeing all the masks. sorry mine is a littel OT, but not trying to philosphy life, but mainly all these collectors just want to be a kid, no worries, plus if you are like me, all reasons above.
ya, I remember, before everthing became mainstream…Everything open on Sundays, Holidays and when there were not 3 Halloween sesonal stores within a 20-30 mile radius…I would look for that ma and pa costume store hoping to find a great Myers mask etc… Great or not, I used to buy what they had. This is going back close to 20 years ago. Around that time, I used to wonder why there was so much variation with the mask. Also, why some looked better than others. Back then, most of the Myers masks eveyrwhere had a Halloween 4 look to them. Which is better than what we have today. With the exception of course being TOT’s freakin awesome H2 mask.
I think Steven brings up a good point about the nostalgia factor. It not only reminds us Halloweens that have past, but how much simpler things were.
Funny thing would be if you could go back in time to see what would of happened if this mask was never born… If the alternate clown mask or other mask was used.
Also, I know that horror icon Christopher Lee was offered the part of Loomis… I wonder how that would have turned out. Although Christopher Lee is one of the bigegst horror icons. It is hard to imagine anyone else as Dr. Loomis.
As a kid I always loved watching slasher flicks, and dressing up for Halloween. I liked being scared, so I thrust myself into the macabre. I guess I just never grew out of that.
Actually I don’t think that it is true that this obsession is limited to us Myers fans, I know plenty of Jason, Freddy, leatherface and pinhead fans who are just as obsessive as us…ok almost as obsessive as us. I think it all comes down to the simple fact that We have an annual holiday as a reminder of the evil that took hold of us and never let go. I saw Halloween in re-release in 1980 when I was 7 years old. I practically begged my older sister to take me, and then a year later she took me along to see Halloween 2. I Have been a devotee of the Halloween franchise ever since, and every year when the leaves start to turn and there is a slight chill to the air I feel a deep desire to not only watch the movies, but to put on that mask one more time…to walk in the cool air of night and watch and wait…and to have a helluva good time scaring people and enjoying the holiday that brings us Halloween freaks together.
People like things that make em feel good and Child hood felt good, Halloween feels good the weather change it,s the start of something new and exciting. Halloween captured that feeling perfectly! Some have mentioned boring well I disagree but it had to B slow since he was capturing a feeling and it feels pretty damn good And it,s just in a completely different ballpark as far as subject and acting. Friday the 13th gives me a feeling of youth as well though and I saw part 2 at like 7 years old at the theater and it warped me badly! Say No 2 Drugs though they never feel good 4 long See that dude,s on drugs look at his eyes
I have always been a horror movie fan. I have watched almost every kind of horror film type there is and for the longest I was a Friday The 13TH fan and loved to act like and dress up as Jason on Halloween and thru-out the year as well. Then one day i was thinking to myself about the way Jason drowns most of the time and is reanimated by electricity of some sort and said wow. Then I thought about how Jason drowned as a little boy but came back after his mom was killed as a grown man and said to myself this is just way too far fetched and then I thought about a movie I had seen before a few times called Halloween and BOOM it was over. I am not bashing Jason or Friday films or fans and I still watch them myself and plan on collecting some of that stuff as well but I will pass him up for Myers any day. The Shape was human but had a evil side that drove him to keep going and even though he does get hurt he hasn’t been killed and had to be reanimated just to make a sequel so this is someone that truly can strike fear in others without the extra gore the Friday films dished out. I loved the films but didn’t start the collecting to much later. I still remember and have my very first Myers mask. It is a 2003 Don Post and it is the one i am wearing in the knife reflection in my avatar.
And it,s just in a completely different ballpark as far as subject and acting. Friday the 13th gives me a feeling of youth as well though and I saw part 2 at like 7 years old at the theater and it warped me badly! Say No 2 Drugs though they never feel good 4 long 
See that dude,s on drugs look at his eyes