NOVEL DIFFERENCES

DIFFERENCES IN CURTIS RICHARDS' 1979 NOVEL

1. The opening to the novel gives a whole background on the history of the druid festival of Samhain, celebrated annually on October 31st. In it, Ireland's King Gwynwyll has betrothed his daughter Deirdre to the very capable Cullain. However, Enda, a deformed teenager who thinks he is in love with Deirdre, also wishes to win her hand. Deirdre, wanting nothing to do with Enda, rejects him soundly. Enda, not able to process this rejection, slits Cullain's throat with a butcher knife and stabs Deirdre in the chest. The whole tribe, enraged at his actions, gains their revenge by having the village shaman curse his bloodline for eternity, then tearing his body apart limb from limb. Just to be safe, they buried his head and heart in separate graves so that no one will ever be affected by his evil ever again. It is said that this is the bloodline that somehow still survived the generations and was passed down to Michael Myers.

2. Prior to the opening scene of the film, there was a scene with Michael Myers (age six) and his grandmother (very much in the vein of Mrs. Blankenship from Halloween 6), in which she tells him about the boogeyman, a mythological figure who beheaded chickens and burned down barns and other houses in the early 1900s. Michael then reveals that he is hearing voices in his head telling him to hate people. Recognizing it as a sign from the past, Grandma Myers warns Michael's parents, Donald and Edith, about his great-grandfather Nordstrom, who heard the same voices two generations prior. They agree to have Michael see a psychiatrist.

3. That night, before Michael kills Judith, he is out trick-or-treating in his clown costume. He comes to Judith's door, who is surprised that trick-or-treaters are still coming. She asks, "what if I don't give you a treat?" To which Michael replies, "then we'll kill you". Judith threatens to tell their parents as they all leave.

4. In the novel, Judith's boyfriend Steve was actually named Danny and he came over and carved a pumpkin with Judith before they got frisky. He even scared her wearing a Frankenstein mask before they sneak off to bump uglies (This was very reminiscent of what Steve did to Judith in Rob Zombie's Halloween, when he tried to scare her with the mask that ultimately became Michael's).

5. There was much more describing the voices in Michael's head telling him to kill Judith the entire time he lurked in the shadows.

6. After Michael kills Judith, Judge Christopher did not know what to do with him, so he was remanded to Smith's Grove in the care of Dr. Loomis, who would attempt to rehabilitate him so they could release him back into the public. Loomis was instructed to report on his condition every six months.

7. Over the course of his treatment, Michael was said to become a big man on campus, so to speak. Loomis described to Judge Christopher that the staff and inmates became terrified of Michael, and allowed him to the rule the roost. He described a case where an inmate named Gilden played an initiation prank on Michael by rigging the salt shaker, much to the delight of the rest of the inmates. Michael's response? He gave Gilden food poisoning. In addition to that, a nurse who quarreled with Michael later "fell" down a staircase and fractured her pelvis, and another inmate, who turned down the volume on a TV Michael was watching, ended up scalded in the shower. However, despite all that, no one could place Michael at the scene of any of it, so Judge Christopher felt compelled to release him. Loomis begged and pleaded, and added a story of a boy who borrowed a game from him and forgot to return it. That boy later ended up with a rash so bad he was in the infirmary for a month. It was during this time that Loomis became more and more scared of what Michael might do in the general public and helped form his opinion of him as his most dangeous patient ever.

8. Hoping to catch Michael in the act so he wouldn't be released, Loomis permitted Michael to host a Halloween party on campus. Everything went off without a hitch, until a young girl named Sophie beat Michael at a game of musical chairs. Not long after, the lights went out and Sophie nearly drowned while bobbing for apples. Loomis was able to revive her, but again, could not prove it was Michael who was responsible. Michael, hiding off in the corner, smiled at Loomis and never got a drop of water on him.

9. On Halloween Eve, Judge Christopher had a heart attack and died, and thus was not able to order Michael's release. Loomis was able to convince his successor to keep Michael locked up until his 21st birthday, when he would be brought back before the court and tried as an adult for the murder of his sister.

10. In the novel, Marion Chambers' last name was Treadwell.

11. In Michael's grand escape plan, all of the inmates of Smith's Grove escaped and were dancing around in the rain outside the main gates. As Loomis and Marion pulled up to retrieve Michael, Loomis, seeing the scene before him, got out of the car and was immediately greeted by an escaped inmate, who asked him if he could help find his purple lawnmower. Then, as he continued celebrating, he told Loomis,"It's all right now. He's gone. The evil is gone".

12. When Loomis ran up the main gate to call for help, he found a guard dead with a broken neck, presumably how Michael was able to get the gate open.

13. When Michael attacks Marion to steal the car, the encounter lasts a lot longer, and features Marion biting his finger and struggling to drive the car across the lot, hoping to throw Michael off. When it doesn't work, she ends up crashing into a curb at 40 mph. Michael then proceeds to throw her out of the car into an embankment and steal the car and leave.

14. In the novel, Laurie's father was named Chester Strode, not Mason.

15. Unlike the film, Michael watches Laurie and Tommy from inside the house the entire time. After Laurie drops off the key, Michael goes upstairs and watches from what used to be Judith's bedroom window.

16. When Tommy Doyle is tripped by the bullies at school, it is Tommy who runs into Michael. Tommy says "hi" to him, but then takes off running as Michael takes a step toward him. This would then explain why Michael continues to follow him.

17. Lynda's name was spelled "Linda" in the novel.

18. Laurie's "one good scare" encounter with Sheriff Brackett went much different in the novel than in the film. In the novel, Laurie, thinking he was an attacker, kicks Brackett in the groin and tries to fight him off. Brackett, unphased by this, gives her a quick lesson in how to defend herself using leverage as a way to take down her attacker.

19. In the novel, it was revealed Dr. Loomis had a wife and a teenage son. This would support Rob Zombie's version of Loomis, who told Michael he treated him "twice as long as his first marriage".

20. Michael broke a window to get into the hardware store and steal the rope, mask, etc.

21. Unlike the film, Laurie was paranoid about the boogeyman and death of Judith Myers the entire day, wondering just how it could have happened in their small little town.

22. When Annie and Laurie were driving to babysit, Annie noticed Michael following them in the rear-view mirror, but never said anything to Laurie because she didn't want to freak her out (this goes back to the fact that Laurie was freaked out about the boogeyman all day).

23. The address of the Myers House was listed as Peecher Street (not Lampkin Lane).

24. When Dr. Loomis shows up at the hardware store, he has a long chat with Sheriff Brackett that never made it to the film. In it, Brackett tells Loomis about Michael's great-grandfather Nordstrom, who heard voices in his head in 1898, and shot two people at the Halloween Harvest Dance. Nordstrom was subsequently hanged. Later, when Michael was caught after killing Judith, Edith Myers told the authorities, "It's come back". All of this was news to Loomis, who had no idea about Michael's genetic history, and he begins to put the pieces together.

25. On the evening of Halloween, when Michael is watching Annie, he didn't intentionally knock down the hanging basket. Instead, he walked into it by accident, and he was described as having a rapid heartbeat and being aroused throughout the evening as he stalked his prey.

26. Before Annie goes out to the garage to get the car to pick up Paul, Sheriff Brackett calls her at the Wallace House to warn her to be careful. She shrugs it off and retrieves her laundry. She then spends more time putting make-up on before finally heading out to the garage. When Michael kills her, he does not slit her throat. Instead, he chokes her and stabs her in the stomach with his knife.

27. When Tommy sees Michael carrying Annie's body back into the house, it was 'Creature From The Black Lagoon' playing on the TV, and not 'The Thing'. I would imagine the rights fees to use that film were probably a lot more, and being on a tight budget, unattainable.

28. Prior to their encounter with Dr. Loomis at the Myers House, town bullies Lonnie, Keith, and Richie scare a family down the street by soaping their windows.

29. Lynda's boyfriend Bob was described as a scholar and likely valedictorian. Funny how that never made it to the film.

30. When Lynda and Bob arrive at the house and find it empty, Bob looks upstairs and sees an orange glow around the bedroom door. But before he can say anything, Lynda pulls him to the living room, where they proceed to make out, and he forgets about it.

30. When Bob leaves Lynda in the bedroom, he gathers beer and snacks from the kitchen before he is ultimately killed by Michael. He put up a good fight, however, and managed to punch Michael in the head before being overpowered.

31. When Michael opens the door wearing the sheet over his body, Lynda, thinking its Bob, performs a striptease for him (and the jack-o-lantern nearby).

32. After being disappointed by the ghost, Lynda watches him out of the corner of her eye as she calls Laurie.

33. When Laurie goes through the "find the dead friends" routine, Annie is naked and gutted on the bed near Judith's tombstone, and Lynda was naked and gutted in the closet.

34. When Michael initially attacks Laurie, she sees him coming and ducks out of the way. She then dives over the balcony to avoid him.

35. Instead of sneaking into the Doyle House through the window, Michael got in through the side door.

36. Before Laurie strikes Michael with the needle, he reaches down and chokes her, but is unable to stab her.

37. Tommy and Lindsey hide in the bathroom, not the closet. This is actually what ultimately ends up happening in Rob Zombie's version, as Laurie hides with them in the bathroom.

38. While trapped in the closet, Laurie throws a perfume atomizer at Michael and pokes him in the eye with a coat hanger to temporarily blind him so she can get his knife and stab him. Later on, when Michael is unmasked, his eye shows the damage done by the coat hanger.

39. After Tommy and Lindsey run out of the house to Dr. Loomis, a familiar scene plays out. In it, the next door neighbor comes out and asks Loomis what is going on, and that he'd been "trick or treated to death tonight". Of course, Loomis says, "you don't know what death is!" This was, of course, later added to the beginning of 'Halloween II'.

40. After Loomis saves Laurie, he tells her he's a friend. She replies, "a friend with a gun". Loomis then re-loads and tells her it "heightens my sense of security", a line which is added to 'Halloween II' when he talks to Officer Hunt.

41. When Loomis exits the house and finds Michael gone, Laurie goes with him. It is at that point that she asks him if it was the boogeyman, and he replies, "as a matter of fact, it was".


Know any differences that I don't have here? E-mail them to us at: lairofhorror@yahoo.com and you will get credit for them.



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