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With over forty years of kills under his belt, it’s no surprise that Michael Myers has played host to some of the most brutal murders in slasher history. But while the majority of Halloween‘s sequels upped the ante on Michael’s violence, John Carpenter’s original film captured audience nightmares with a slow build of eerie suspense. With viewers dreadfully aware of Michael’s presence and anxiously awaiting the moment the masked psycho will strike, the soon-to-be-victims go about their youthful lives blissfully unaware. And when Michael finally does reveal himself, there’s a disturbingly clever playfulness to his approach – posing as Lynda’s boyfriend under a bed sheet and methodically laying out the bodies of Laurie’s friends painted Michael as a kind of demented scare artist. Unfortunately, this unique personality trait was ditched in the many subsequent sequels. However, in what may be the best Halloween sequel few fans are even aware of, Michael’s trickster persona was horrifyingly returned – most notably in one unforgettably disturbing scene.
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Halloween: Nightdance by Stefan Hutchinson and Tim Seeley is a four-issue comic book miniseries that introduces a new batch of characters from Haddonfield’s neighboring small town, Russellville. The story follows Lisa Thomas, a teenager still dealing with the traumatic scars from an encounter she had with The Shape some years back. But the scene in question features Lisa’s friend, Nikki. After a buildup of Michael making his presence known to Lisa by sending her gruesome crayon drawings of mutilated bodies, the focus is turned to Nikki as she carves a jack-o-lantern alone in her home.
What makes this scene exceptionally difficult to watch is how well it humanizes Nikki just one page before her death. Hutchinson expertly utilizes the comic book medium by allowing the reader a glimpse into Nikki’s thoughts, unveiling an angst-filled and self-critical teenage girl. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me…do I bug people?… nobody seems to see me.” And then, there’s a knock at the front door.
Michael attacks Nikki the moment he’s revealed on the porch. He chokes her until she passes out and wakes up injured and paralyzed by fear on the floor. Even more heartbreaking, her inner thoughts are still on display. As Nikki tries to grasp the situation, she sees The Shape walk into the kitchen. There’s a slight shred of hope – maybe he won’t return. But it’s a false comfort. Michael comes back with an apple, forces it into Nikki’s mouth and uses her lipstick to paint a smile over the apple and her mouth as tears pour down her face. Nikki’s final thoughts before Michael stabs his knife into her are pleas for forgiveness, feeling as though she let everyone in her life down. Michael then takes Nikki’s corpse away and puts it on horrendous display for another of Nikki’s friends to discover before also joining her in death.
Make no mistake, Nightdance is a macabre horror story. But its viciousness is utilized to accentuate themes that only the horror genre can confront. Just as in Carpenter’s original, the existential dread that accompanies the passage from childhood to adulthood is the metaphor being explored. Michael Myers is the representation of death and the dreadful thoughts that come with its ever-waiting presence. So much of what makes Nikki’s end so frightening is the appalling idea that life can conclude so quickly and unfairly, with all thought and meaning evaporating in an instant. The painting of a smile on Nikki’s otherwise tormented face only further displays the cosmic joke of it all. While not for the faint of heart, Nightdance is a phenomenal Halloween sequel with a truly unforgettable death scene.
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