YOU’RE WRONG ABOUT JOHN CARPENTER’S HALLOWEEN (1978)

Everyone thinks they know John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978).

“The first slasher.”
“The birth of the genre.”
“The movie where evil always wins.”

But they’re wrong.

Halloween isn’t proof that evil is eternal. It’s proof that evil is fleeting — and that goodness endures.

It’s easy to see why the common view persists. The film has all the hallmarks people associate with the modern slasher: a faceless killer, teens picked off one by one, and the legendary “final girl” Laurie Strode. Michael Myers survives every assault — knitting needle, coat hanger, knife, six bullets — and still vanishes into the night. No wonder so many assume Carpenter was saying evil is indestructible.

But that interpretation misses the deeper story Carpenter put on screen. Halloween isn’t nihilism. It’s not a thesis about the permanence of evil. It’s a parable — a ghost story — about how goodness, perseverance, and courage overcome darkness.

The Common View

The standard take is simple: Myers is the embodiment of evil, and his survival at the end proves evil can’t be killed. He’s the boogeyman. The Shape. The idea that terror will always return.

But watch the film carefully. Carpenter isn’t filming Myers like a man at all. He’s filming him like a ghost.

Michael Myers: Not a Man, but a Haunting

Donald Pleasence’s Dr. Loomis insists Myers is “purely and simply evil.” But Carpenter pushes the abstraction even further. In the credits, Myers isn’t even named — he’s “The Shape.”

Technically, the film reinforces this spectral quality at every turn. Myers constantly appears and vanishes: behind a hedge, in a doorway, at a window. He never speaks. His silence, his mask, his heavy breathing all evoke a haunting rather than a human killer. Even his capabilities don’t add up — he drives a car despite being institutionalized since childhood; he smashes a car window with an open hand; he stalks Laurie with inexplicable omniscience.

And the imagery of his escape plays like a ghost story: inmates drifting through fog like apparitions, Myers appearing from nowhere with inhuman strength, tormenting his victims and then vanishing.

Even the ending — shot six times, falling from a balcony, only to disappear — doesn’t feel like a crime thriller. It feels like a haunting.

Carpenter himself described Myers as “the absence of character.” A void. A presence, not a person. That’s not the logic of a slasher villain. That’s the language of a ghost story.

But if Myers is a ghost — a personification of temporal evil — then Laurie Strode is his opposite.

Laurie Strode: Goodness Embodied

Laurie is more than the “final girl.” She’s the embodiment of goodness, responsibility, and resilience.

From the start, she’s contrasted with her carefree peers. They skip responsibilities, joke about sex, drink behind the wheel. Laurie is thoughtful, observant, and selfless. She cares for children. She takes responsibility seriously.

When Michael finally attacks, she isn’t paralyzed. She feels fear, yes, but she acts — grabbing knitting needles, a hanger, anything she can find. And crucially, her first instinct isn’t vengeance, but protection. She saves the children before she confronts Myers.

Even when neighbors ignore her desperate cries for help, Laurie adapts. Courage takes over. Her goodness fuels her resourcefulness. And though Myers rises again and again, Laurie overcomes him three times in one night — a symbolic number Carpenter surely knew would resonate.

Some argue she only survives because Loomis arrives at the end. But this misses the point: goodness attracts allies. Courage inspires courage. Loomis’ intervention doesn’t erase Laurie’s victory; it affirms it.

Laurie wins. She saves lives. She endures. And Myers? He vanishes. Beaten back into nothingness.

The Deeper Moral: Goodness Endures, Evil Fades

Here’s what most people miss:

If Laurie, the embodiment of temporal good, can overcome Myers, the embodiment of temporal evil, then the deeper truth is this — goodness endures where evil does not.

Michael seems omnipresent, inevitable, eternal. But he isn’t. He vanishes. He has to return in sequels precisely because he cannot endure. Evil reoccurs, yes, but it doesn’t last. Its immortality is an illusion.

Laurie shows the opposite. Goodness is real, tangible, and necessary. It saves, protects, and perseveres. Evil is fleeting. Goodness is what lasts.

This flips the “evil always wins” reading on its head. Halloween isn’t about despair. It’s about hope. It’s a story of how good, even when unprepared and outmatched, still overcomes darkness.

That’s why Laurie became the archetype — not just because she survived, but because she embodied goodness persevering.

Why Audiences Misread It

So why did so many people get Halloween wrong?

Because of what came after. Halloween II leaned into gore and body counts. The imitators — Friday the 13th, Scream — made the slasher about inventive kills and cheap shocks. Sequels reduced Myers to just another horror villain, and audiences trained themselves to believe the genre’s core message was “evil always wins.”

But Carpenter’s original isn’t built that way. Its DNA is closer to a ghost story than a slasher. A ghost story in the heroic tradition: good perseveres, evil fades.

The Truth About Halloween

Halloween isn’t the story of evil’s immortality. It’s the story of good’s endurance.

Michael Myers isn’t proof that evil is eternal. He’s proof that evil is temporary.
Laurie Strode isn’t just a survivor. She’s proof that goodness always perseveres.

That’s what Carpenter’s film actually leaves us with: not nihilism, but hope. Not terror without end, but courage that endures the night.

And that’s why everyone is wrong about Halloween (1978).

It isn’t about the immortality of evil.
It’s about the undefeatable necessity of good.