Halloween: Why Michael Myers Doesn’t Kill Children

Halloween’s Michael Myers has become one of the most popular killers from the slasher subgenre, and while he sometimes seems to kill at random (depending on which timeline you watch), he has never killed a child – but why? The horror genre went through its best time in the 1980s, and it has a lot to thank Halloween for. Directed by John Carpenter and released in 1978, Halloween introduced the audience to a new serial killer in Michael Myers and a new final girl in Laurie Strode, and while initially it wasn’t well-received, it’s now considered one of the greatest and most influential horror movies ever made.

Halloween tells the story of Michael Myers, who on Halloween night 1963, murdered his sister when he was just six years old. As a result, Michael was sent to Smith’s Grove Sanitarium, where he stayed for years and never spoke a single word. Fifteen years later, on October 30, 1978, Michael escaped and returned to his hometown Haddonfield, Illinois, where he began to stalk Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her friends on Halloween night. Laurie became the only survivor of Michael’s killing spree and continued to be his main target, and when she died in the first timeline, Michael turned his attention to her daughter, Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris). However, he didn’t kill Jamie nor did he hurt her (physically, at least) when she was a child, and on his long killing list, you won’t find any children.

Although Laurie and Jamie have been Michael’s main targets throughout the Halloween franchise, Michael has also gotten rid of any and all people on his way, even if he didn’t have anything personal against them, as were Laurie’s friends in Halloween. Kids have also crossed his path sometimes, more so as he chose a holiday where children are all over the streets, but he always spares them, even when he has been close to them, as happened with Tommy Doyle, Lindsey Wallace, and a baby in the 2018 reboot. While none of the movies have explained why Michael never goes after children, viewers have come up with their own explanations and interpretations on this different side of Michael Myers.

Many Halloween fans believe that Michael Myers doesn’t really care about children so he sees no point in killing them even if they are in his way, as many have throughout the franchise, while others have gone a bit deeper. A fan of Halloween and Carpenter explained that the filmmaker once expanded on the two kinds of evil in an interview for the TV series Screamography. In it, Carpenter explained that one exists as a physical and external force that threatens the well-being of a group, and the other one is the evil that lives inside a person, similar to an infection. Michael would fit into the first category, so with that in mind, he doesn’t kill children because they are no threat to him, as he is a form of external evil and thus can’t be fought physically by a child – but a teenager can, hence why he killed his sister and many others.

Some fans have argued that Michael did kill a child once, in the 2018 reboot. During his escape in the first act of the movie, he came across a father and a son on their truck. Michael killed the father, and the son took a rifle to defend himself but ran back to the truck to try to escape, only to be caught and killed by Michael. Now, some argue that Michael killed him as the kid represented an obstacle (mostly because of the weapon), while others considered that he was actually more of a teenager already, and so he fit into Michael’s targets. Still, it’s not Michael Myers’ style to murder children, showing that there’s still an ethical side to him and perhaps even a sensitive side as well, which can say a lot about his troubled psyche, and it’s to be seen if this will continue in Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends or if he will bend and break his own rules.

Next: Halloween Theory: The Real Reason Michael Myers Kills People