The Bogey Man Will Get You:
Origins of Evil in the Films of John Carpenter
Halloween is a time for the celebration of evil. Its origins are traceable
to the ancient religion of the Celts, who separated the end of summer and the
harvest from the beginning of winter, a time associated with darkness and death.
They believed that at this point, the boundary between the realms of the living and
the dead became blurred; on October 31, they observed Samhain, when they felt
that the ghosts of the departed returned to Earth. Although in its modem form,
the holiday has come to include the Christian notions of All Saints’ Day and All
Hallows’ Eve, Halloween is still largely associated with ghosts, witches, demons,
and other such forms of potential evil (History Channel Exhibits).
Ideas about the existence and nature of evil are at the very heart of
religious doctrine, some of which maintain that evil exists only as the absence of
moral goodness, taking the form of bad actions or negative choices of human
beings who are exercising free will. This concept of “moral” evil is sometimes
contrasted with “natural” evil, which is defined by such inevitable processes as
earthquakes, fires, and floods. Optimists, especially those among the religious,
may see the first category as something less than inevitable, something to be
struggled against (“Satan, get behind me”) but virtually everyone acknowledges
the existence of the dark side in some form or other.
It seems very appropriate that John Carpenter’s best-known film carries
the title Halloween, because his works have consistently echoed evil as a
fundamental concept, originating from an interesting variety of sources. Films
directed by Carpenter seem to reflect the general existence of evil as an absolute,
an arbitrary and mindless force, taking many forms, and entering into our lives in
sudden and unexpected ways. To Carpenter, the collective efforts of church,
government, military, psychiatry, science, and technology to stave off and combat
the cold reality of evil are all in vain as such entities may in fact be its source.
Evil exists in the world and in the universe and will continue to rear its dark head
forever. Only the extraordinary efforts of a select few individuals can make a
difference, and this will result in only temporary relief. For Carpenter, the Bogey
Man is out there, waiting.
Michael Myers in Halloween really is the Bogey Man. “Michael is not
just conventionally, or even unconventionally, sick, but is the embodiment of pure
evil” (Cumbow 51). At the age of six, he stabbed his older sister with a butcher
knife and escaped 15 years later from a mental hospital. The psychologist, Dr.
Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence), described Myers:
I met him 15 years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No
reason, no conscience, no understanding . . . I met this six-yearold child with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and the