We all remember our firsts (first girlfriend, first kiss, first car). The same can be said for many other things, including our experiences with Halloween and Michael Myers.
Unfortunately, I began my fanship with Halloween in the wrong order. The first Halloween movie I ever saw was Halloween H2O on VHS. I was in elementary school. I had already been a fan of the Scream series (admittedly, Neve Campbell was my first celebrity crush), so horror movies were not new to me. Given my obsessive boy-love with Scream’s heroine, and having spent a night of Trick or Treating as Ghostface, one could assume that I was a Ghostface fan-boy. Well, at the time, yes. To me, the Scream movies were the height of horror.
And then I saw H2O. I’ll tell on myself and say that as a small boy, I was easily terrified. H2O was darker, grittier, and scarier than Scream 1 and 2. The killer was a silent force of nature, immovable, unstoppable, and seemingly invincible. The death scenes were gruesome, and yet not over-the-top. The hero was likable - flawed, but likable. H2O, like Scream, gave the impression that no matter how much you try to retreat into your own sense of security, evil might be watching you just outside your bedroom window. The movie scared me, except for one thing: the killer was dead at the end. In my pre-adolescent logic: the only way to kill Michael Myers is to chop his head off, Jamie did that, so I’m safe. I re-watched H2O several times. I was enthralled by the movie, but I soon realized to myself, “Hey, this is a sequel. I need to see the original.”
Oh, how my elementary school self would wish that he never found the VHS of Halloween 1. From the opening strains of John Carpenter’s theme, the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up. I was scared, going on terrified, but I was still okay. What I didn’t realize was that this movie was a jack-in-the-box, and I was being wound up tighter and tighter until critical mass.
It was dark outside my house. My mother had left to go to a store. I’m trying to soldier through Halloween and finish the movie. I had stopped the movie several time to collect myself and calm down, but now I was in the heat of the movie. The music, the music! Each strain, each cue was working my heart into a conga against my chest. And then…
“Linda, you asshole!”
The closet is empty. Close the door. Turn around.
“Alright, come on out-” DON’T OPEN IT!
The jack-in-the-box burst open. The music strains were kicking my young cardiac system into overdrive. Michael had Bob pinned against the door. Close up of Michael’s face, feature-less and without mercy. The knife appears. BAM! Bob is dead. The music stops. Silence. I think I’m about to get relief.
Wrong.
Michael leans his head to one side… then to the other… then back again…
I can’t take it anymore. I rush to the TV and press the stop button on the VCR. In my mind, Michael’s white mask is looking at me from every window, from every shadowed corner. He’s waiting for me in the bathroom, he’s hiding in the coat closet. He’s grabbing a knife out of the kitchen, waiting for me to investigate a noise he would make. I grab the cordless phone and dial my mom’s cellphone number. I’m sobbing, hysterical. Mom picks up her phone. I beg, plead with her to come pick me up. She sounds confused, exasperated, perplexed. I beg again, over and over. Mom turns around in her car, angry but understanding. The next few days, I slept in Mom’s bed, scared of the Boogeyman, and wondering dimly if I would ever finish the movie.
It actually wasn’t as long after that seemingly traumatic experience as one would think where I would finish it. The VHS had remained hidden in a clothes drawer for several days. The hiding place had the purpose of keeping it away from my sister who would eventually want her VHS back, and keeping its offensive scariness in a trap to be let out when I was ready for it. It may have been a week or so after that night, but eventually my scaredy-cat self began to be berated by my awakening sense of needing to grow up. I had to finish it! I HAD to!
Eventually, I took the VHS out of the drawer, in the bright sunlight outside my bedroom window. With the resolve any elementary schooler could muster up to memorize times tables, I finished the movie.
The appreciation of the movie came later. I realized that the fact that I was so terrified was precisely why Halloween was such a great movie. Eventually, I would use my Dad’s movie pass at Blockbuster (see how far back we’re going here?) to rent the other sequels. Before I knew it, I was a fan. By middle school, I would have my first Michael Myers costume - the mass-produced store-bought costume that looked more like Michael Myers’ pajamas rather than his coveralls and the cheap-o Don Post mask. I didn’t care though. Even in the cheapest costume, even as a small middle schooler, I scared the pants off of people as Michael Myers.
One man from a trick or treat caravan came up to me, “Hey, you! Michael Myers! Can you come scare my kid for me? I love Halloween!”
In character, I didn’t respond, but I walked slowly to the trailer bed. The kid I thought was going to be an over-excitable teenager was actually a small boy, undeniably in elementary school. I raised my plastic knife and stared at him. The kid shrieked and began to cry, his mother laughing. I turned around, feeling silently reproachful to the parents for making me an instrument of such cruel amusement.
“Thanks, man! That made my night! I love that movie”
I walked away, thinking about the kid I just scared into hysterics. A small smile crossed my lips beneath my Don Post mask.
Trust me, kid. You’ll appreciate it later.
Halloween cons are a high point in this hobby, and the memories stay with you. Thanks for sharing this story. I can almost feel as if your living it again as you retell it. 
on another note every year we used to go to my grandparents house before trick or treating so they could take photos and what not, and they live right next to MARS chocolate factory, where my dad recently worked as a mechanic but left for a better paying job, anyway, and we would go there and two people from the factory dressed as M&M’s would hand out big Three Musketeers, Snickers, and Milky Ways. Some of my best memories are on Halloween 
