NOVEL DIFFERENCES

DIFFERENCES IN NICHOLAS GRABOWSKY'S 1988 NOVEL

1. When Michael goes through the pictures in Jamie's shoebox, there was an additional photo missing-- that of Michael in his clown costume with his sister Judith, presumably from 1963.

2. Throughout the book, the last name Carruthers is spelled wrong as "Caruthers".

3. There was a scene in the novel not shown theatrically (and probably not filmed), where Dr. Hoffman chases Dr. Loomis out to his car after they heard of the ambulance accident. They argue a bit before Hoffman ultimately hops in the passenger's seat and tells Loomis he's going with him because, "if you're wrong, I don't want you starting panic". Loomis replies with, "And if I'm right?" Hoffman concludes with, "You won't be".

4. The scene of the ambulance accident was much more gory than what eventually made it onto the big screen. In it, Loomis and Hoffamn finds body parts strewn about the crash scene. Loomis also finds a decapitated human ear (with earring still attached) and picks it up with his cane to show Hoffman. It was then he delivered the line, "You're talking about him as if he were a human being. That part of him died years ago". He then leaves for Haddonfield, and the police officer nearby asks Dr. Hoffman, "What's his story?" Hoffman simply replies, "You don't want to know".

5. When Loomis arrives at the gas station, he somehow is able to fill his car up with gas without someone turning the pump on first.

6. The death of the mechanic was not described in real time in the novel. It took place prior to Loomis arriving, and when the doctor does finally find him, he is naked and hanging from the hook, describing how Michael managed to get his new coveralls.

7. The entire time Loomis was inside the gas station and cafe, Michael was playing a game of cat and mouse with him. Loomis eventually goes down the hallway of the cafe (where Michael stood in the movie), at which time Michael reveals himself back at the counter of the cafe, standing over the waitress' dead body. Loomis actually shoots Michael three times, but he manages to escape.

8. Loomis was actually more injured than what was shown theatrically. In the novel, Loomis is thrown through the air by the explosion at the gas pumps, and is nearly engulfed in flames again. While he is recovering, Loomis has a flashback to the end of 'Halloween II', where firemen are helping him from the scene of Haddonfield Memorial, and he tells them specifically, "Don't save him for chrissakes, don't".

9. In the novelization, the children's Halloween costumes were more ambiguous and less 80's pop-centric. They were described more as animals.

10. The kids that tease Jamie about the boogeyman do so out in the schoolyard, not in the hallway.

11. When Lyndsey and Rachel pick up Jamie and leave the school, Michael trails behind in the tow truck.

12. Dr. Hoffman is described in a scene back at his office trying to call ahead to warn the Haddonfield police about Loomis' pending arrival, but he can't get through because the lines are down. At that point, Hoffman says to himself, "Damn you, Loomis. Why did you have to be right?"

13. When Wade tries to hit on Kelly at the Discount Mart, she tells him, "Nice try, Wade" in the book instead of "F*ck off, Wade" like she did in the movie.

14. When Jamie encounters Michael at the Discount Mart, she refers to him as Uncle Michael.

15. After the episode at the Discount Mart, there was a scene where Jamie and Rachel are walking down the street eating ice cream. At that point, Jamie sees Michael standing by a tree and tells Rachel, who doesn't see him but goes to investigate. Jamie then drops her ice cream and goes after her, but is scared by a loose German Shepherd dog. Rachel suddenly re-appears and tells her, "No nightmare man. Just your imagination".

16. While Jamie is getting dressed for trick or treat, Michael sneaks into the house through the upstairs window and hides in the closet. He watches her as she leaves, and then kills Sunday, her dog in real-time when it tries to attack him in the closet. He breaks its neck and twists its head completely off.

17. When Jamie joins the other kids for trick or treating, Kyle, the main kid who was teasing her earlier in the day, apologizes to her for being a jerk and invites her to join them.

18. During one of his conversations with Dr. Loomis, Sheriff Meeker is revealed to have been one of Sheriff Brackett's deputies during Michael's original attack in 1978.

19. During the scene where Earl hears that Sheriff Meeker is ordering a curfew, the song playing in the background was Bruce Springsteen's 'Dancing In The Dark'. It was probably cut for budgetary reasons.

20. There was a subplot deleted from the film but left in the novelization that explains the reason why the Halloween party is "so important" to Mr. and Mrs. Carruthers is that Richard was in line for a promotion and the party was being hosted by Justin Fallbrook, his boss. In the movie, they just show up back home, but in reality, there was a scene showing them leaving the party, at which time Richard finds out he got the job.

21. In the novelization, there were 6 different Michaels that confused Meeker and Loomis in the street. In the movie, there were only 4. Loomis actually gets a shot off from his gun, but Meeker bumps into him on purpose, knocking it off course. At that point, realizing what he almost did, Loomis says, "I could've killed a child. What does that make me?"

22. When Meeker and Loomis arrive at the police station and find it destroyed, it was much more gory than what was shown theatrically. There were severed body parts found, including a hand stuck in a door jamb. Not long after, the dead body of Deputy Pierce falls down from the ceiling, right at Sheriff Meeker's feet. He looks down and sees his eyes rolled back in his head and his throat slit.

23. As Earl and the other townies show up at the station, Meeker comes out and tells Loomis that "the other two are in the back", presumably referring to his other two deputies.

24. After Earl and the townies find out they mistakenly shot Ted Hollister, he gets into it with Orrin and they trade punches and wrestle to the ground over it.

25. At Sheriff Meeker's house, Kelly mistakenly bumps into Deputy Logan, and playfully flirts with him, stroking the barrel of the shotgun suggestively. Logan simply tells her, "Back off, Kelly. I like my job". Kelly, ever the temptress, replies with, "I just wondered if it was loaded".

26. When Brady finds out that Michael is Jamie's uncle, he tells Rachel that he remembers being 7 years old and being at the scene, watching as Budd and Jimmy brought Laurie out in the gurney.

27. When Loomis leaves the Meeker house, he doesn't deliver the same line he does theatrically. Instead of telling Logan, "Maybe nobody knows how to stop him", he simply doesn't respond.

28. When Rachel and Kelly argue in the kitchen, Kelly tells Rachel "I have the right to do what's best for me". In the movie, Rachel replies with, "Don't you mean what you do best?" However, in the novel, her response is, "Future homewreckers of America, unite! Your future president has spoken".

29. When Sheriff Meeker hears about Ted Hollister on the radio, the chatter originally went, "Is he dead?" The reply was, "Yeah, he's dead". In the novel, the reply was, "Well, he sure ain't livin".

30. There was a small extension of the scene where Kelly finds Deputy Logan's body and is ultimately killed, too. Prior to leaving the kitchen, he stubs her toe. She then comes out of the kitchen and tries to be more seductive with Logan, but instead its Michael, who quickly dispatches her.

31. When Loomis rescues Jamie in the street and asks her where the schoolhouse is, she asks Loomis, "Is my uncle really the boogeyman?" Loomis' response is, "I'm sorry, Jamie. But your uncle is something far worse".

32. After Michael attacks Loomis at the schoolhouse, Jamie runs down the hallway and hides under the teacher's desk in a classroom. Michael ultimately finds her and stands on top of it (similar to what eventually happens in H20) and stabs down through the top of the desk. Jamie then slips out from under the desk and heads back out into the hallway, but runs right into the hall monitor's desk, not down the stairs like she did in the movie. Rachel then comes and saves the day with the fire extinguisher.

33. On their way to taking Jamie and Rachel out of town, Earl and the townies almost hit a deer in the fog, illustrating just how limited their vision was.

34. In the novel, Rachel rams Michael with the truck four different times, as opposed to just once in the movie. Before hitting him the first time, she yells, "NO MORE! NO MORE!" Then, after the third time, she yells what is shown theatrically, "Die, you son of a b*tch!" It was the fourth hit that put Michael near the mine shaft.

35. When Jamie takes Michael's hand near the mine shaft, she tells him, "I forgive you, Uncle Michael". She is then broken out of her trance by everyone else yelling for her to get out of there and get down.

36. When Darlene is preparing Jamie's bath water at the end of the film, she hums to the tune of 'I'm forever blowing bubbles'.


DIFFERENCES IN NICHOLAS GRABOWSKY'S 2003 EXPANDED NOVEL

1. In 2003, author Nicholas Grabowsky released a special edition re-release of his original novel, complete with additional, expanded scenes. Everything above was still included, but several additions were made. That is what follows.

2. The garage scene was much more elaborate, and the kills occurred in real-time. The mechanic was identified as Norman Dale, and his associate was the weed-toking Glen. While Norm was working on a Plymouth Belvedere in the garage, he actually spotted Michael lurking outside at the gas pumps and thought it was a mummy, some Halloween crazies. When he looked again, however, Michael was gone. He didn't think anything of it and went back to work. Not long after, Michael enters and kills him with an upward thrust of the steel rod. Glen, on the far side working on a station wagon, wheels out from under the car and suffers the same fate.

3. When Loomis is caught in the explosion at the gas station, he was impaled by some debris and burned more, in addition to what was described in the original novel.

4. When the high school kids play a prank on Loomis and don't pick him up on the highway, one of them pulls their pants down and moons him as they drive away laughing.

5. The role of the Reverend Jack Sayer was expanded greatly in the updated book. In this version, he plays a more prominent role with the following added scenes:

*Sayer drives Loomis all the way to the police station, then decides to stick around and parks in a back alley near a dumpster. Throughout their journey, their discussion continued about damnation and they consumed more of his corn whiskey.

*Sayer wakes up later after drinking the rest of his corn whiskey and finds a wind-up rubber rat stuck between his legs. He jumps at the sight of it, then notices a couple teenagers running away, shouting, "Trick or treat, old man!"

*Determined to find out what is going on, Sayer makes up a story about giving Loomis back his eyeglasses and goes into the police station to find him. There, he is greeted by Deputy Pierce, who tells him the town is in a state of emergency and that he should get a motel a quarter-mile down the road and wait if he wants to see Loomis that badly.

*Sayer actually comes face to face with Michael Myers just before he enters the police station for his "off-screen" massacre. It is assumed at that point that Michael kills him.

*Like a cockroach that never dies, Sayer surfaces later and interrupts Meeker and Loomis' confrontation with Earl and the town mob. He tells them, "You're all gonna die! I've beheld the face of the Apocalypse..and I can see no more". At that point, it is revealed that Sayer's eyes are gouged out and Meeker orders one of the townies to get him to the hospital. On his way out, Loomis calls him an old fool for lingering around. Sayer concludes with, "Christ is what you need now. May God have mercy on your souls".

6. At the schoolhouse, as Jamie is in hiding, she has a vision of her mother Laurie Strode in a nightgown. In it, Laurie tells her, "I want you to live for me. You're not going to give in and let him take you. Snap out of it. You must snap out of it and run. Go, run!" Jamie later tells Loomis about it, and he tells her she was merely in shock, and that "You were seeing what you wanted to see".


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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