Michael Myers will return for Halloween Kills, and a new still from the movie may explain how he managed to escape from Laurie Strode's basement. First appearing in John Carpenter's 1978 watershed horror film, Halloween, Michael Myers (also referred to as The Shape) is a preternaturally powerful serial killer distinguished by his iconic bone-white mask and dark jumpsuit. The original movie was extremely successful and followed by many sequels, only the second of which, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, followed Carpenter's initial plan of focusing on a different antagonist in each installment.
Directed by David Gordon Green, the 2018 reboot ignores all but the first Halloween film and follows Laurie Strode, 40 years later, as she, along with her daughter and granddaughter, finally contends with both Michael Myers and the trauma that he caused. After a characteristically brutal rampage, Myers ends the film trapped in the basement of Strode's heavily fortified cabin as the structure goes up in flames.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Michael Myers survived this predicament, living to see another sequel. In a new image from Halloween Kills released by Empire, Myers is shown standing menacingly in the doorway of the still-flaming home. Notably, he is also carrying a tool known as a Halligan bar. Invented by a New York firefighter in the 1940s, the tool is distinguished by its combination of a pick, a blade, and a claw. Although it has various uses, it is most often applied to breaching doors and destroying barriers, making it the perfect device to enable Myers' escape from the basement.
The source of this instrument remains up to speculation. Given how extremely well equipped Laurie Strode is shown as being in the reboot, it certainly wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for her to have had a Halligan bar in her cabin which Michael Myers somehow finds and uses to escape. However, as the image depicts Myers walking out of a visibly burning building with the tool, it's quite possible that an early kill in the sequel may show him dispatching a firefighter sent to deal with the blaze and taking the Halligan bar from them. If this is the case, it could easily be a further inciting incident for the formation of the mob being led by Laurie Strode against The Shape in Halloween Kills.
Practically speaking, the Halligan bar's underutilization in cinema would make Myers' use of it novel, and its versatility could be applied to scares and set pieces in a number of interesting ways. It is also simply an effectively scary tool for a slasher villain to wield because, beyond its threat as a weapon, its use in forced entry, although traditionally valiant in firefighting, becomes much more sinister when applied to horror. Whether the Halligan bar's strong association with a particular, much-respected profession will be incorporated into the plot of Halloween Kills remains to be seen, but it already looks to have fulfilled its main purpose: keeping Michael Myers lumbering silently ever onward.
