The Halloween Kills teaser trailer revealed Laurie Strode's worst nightmare — Michael Myers survived the events of the Halloween sequel. But how exactly did he manage to survive a house fire? The 2018 horror movie offers a few clues as to how that happened.
Halloween introduces fans of the original movie to a hardened and traumatized Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis). Laurie never got over her near-death experience with Michael, so she lived out the rest of her days preparing for his return. She transformed her home into a weapon that could function both as a bunker and a trap. She also trained her daughter, Karen (Judy Greer), to be a soldier of sorts, which led to the destruction of their relationship.
As it turns out, Laurie's extreme measures were worth it in the long run. Michael broke out of the facility he was in and came back to Haddonfield, presumably for her, though possibly just to reprise his killing spree from 40 years earlier. The 2018 movie ends with Laurie, Karen, and her daughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) trap Michael in Laurie's house and set it ablaze. The three Strode women barely escape with their lives, unaware that Michael managed to do the same. It's all likely thanks to one poorly-placed door in Laurie's basement.
Halloween's Ending "Killed" Michael Myers
Depending on the circumstances, Laurie's house is rigged to both protect or trap someone inside it. Once Michael came for her, her daughter, and her granddaughter, Laurie made sure the house would be the end of Michael. The three women managed to trap him in the basement and pulled a switched that released bars in the stairwell, ensuring he could not come back up. She then deployed a mechanism that set the house on fire from the inside out. There should not have been any way Michael could have survived being burned alive, since he was (supposedly) trapped.
However, as the Halloween Kills trailer shows, he did. The footage released from the upcoming movie picks up immediately after the events of the previous film. The Strode women see emergency vehicles racing toward Laurie's house; they scream out in anguish, begging them to turn around. The teaser trailer ends with a shot of Michael Myers alive and well, but his mask is clearly burned. It's that little detail of the burned mask that acts as a huge hint about how he survived. The fire clearly injured him, but his mask is still in pretty good shape, all things considered. That means that Michael clearly found a way out of Laurie's house fairly quickly after the fire started.
Michael Myers Is Back (And It's The Same Michael)
The burn mark on Michael's mask also signifies that it is the very same Michael from the previous installment. There's no way a copycat could have found the mask and decided to wear it instead. Michael was trapped in a basement, meaning he likely couldn't have done something such as throwing his mask out of a window to keep it safe. He was also wearing the mask in the basement as it began to go up in flames. So, if it wasn't the real Michael who survived the fire, that mask should have been destroyed with the rest of the house.
Michael's survival perpetuates the larger-than-life status the horror series has bestowed upon him in the past. He's a figure who usually seems to evade death, as he as technically died in multiple Halloween movies. Despite that, he somehow always manages to rise from the dead. The burned mask he's wearing shows that he managed to do it again — this is part of why Michael has become such an iconic villain in the horror genre. Not only does he seem to hunt and kill without motive, but he is also nearly immortal himself. That makes him both terrifying and fascinating to watch.
Michael's Survival Can't Be Supernatural
Some of Michael's previous resurrections can be explained by the supernatural turn the Halloween series has taken over the years, particularly with the Cult of Thorn/Curse of Thorn storyline in movies four through six. The way Michael has survived some of his previous deaths is somewhat supernatural in itself. In Halloween 2, he gets shot in both eyes and blown up. He has also been hanged, electrocuted, and burned alive. The movie franchise has taken other supernatural twists and turns in addition to Michael's countless miraculous survivals. For example, in the timeline of the series where Laurie and Michael are siblings, Laurie has a different daughter named Jamie. She eventually learns of her murderous uncle's existence, and the two eventually develop a psychic connection that alerts Jamie whenever Michael is nearby.
The 2018 sequel ignores every event in the series after the original Halloween. Co-writer Danny McBride explained his conscious decision to ignore the sequels, as he thinks the movies lost their edge when Laurie and Michael were revealed to be brother and sister. He found the idea of Michael going after someone he doesn't know, completely unmotivated, to be much more compelling and scarier. The movie cements this new timeline when Allyson informs her friends that her grandmother and Michael being related was simply a rumor. John Carpenter's original movie was a completely grounded game of cat-and-mouse. Since the 2018 movie ignores the sequels and only acknowledges the first installment as canon, there are likely no more supernatural events in the series moving forward. Therefore, Michael's survival in Halloween Kills has to be the result of a natural, realistic event.
Halloween 2018 Secretly Hinted How Michael Survived
When the 2018 Halloween introduces Laurie's basement, a door is quickly shown within the room. This was likely the key to Michael's escape. Laurie rigged her basement so she could survive down there for months if needed, but she'd still need a bathroom. It's been commonly theorized that the mysterious door in Laurie's basement is, in fact, a bathroom. If there was a porcelain tub in the bathroom, Michael could have laid in it and protected himself from the flames.
If this is the case, it's a cruel twist of fate that Laurie will likely have to come to terms with in Halloween Kills. In the 40 years that passed since her first encounter with Michael, Laurie painstakingly designed every element of her life to ensure she'd be ready for round two. She willingly gave up her happiness and sanity in order to be prepared. Who could have predicted that the very necessary installation of a bathroom in her basement would lead to Michael's survival? The anger from that impossible oversight will likely lead to a thrilling rematch between the Strode women and Michael Myers in the next Halloween movie, which is slated for release in 2021, with the final movie in the trilogy, Halloween Ends, set for a 2022 release.
