Halloween 4 Almost Turned Michael Myers Into a Ghost

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers brought back Haddonfield’s boogeyman after a seven-year absence, but the movie almost made him a ghost. John Carpenter’s original 1978 Halloween is of course one of the most beloved, and most profitable at that, horror films of all time. Naturally, that led to a sequel, 1981’s Halloween 2, even though Carpenter wasn’t exactly thrilled by the idea of turning his film into a franchise. Halloween 2 ended with both Michael Myers and Dr. Loomis seemingly dying in an explosion, and this was no accident, as Carpenter wanted to conclude their story.

Carpenter then tried to turn Halloween into an anthology series, with each new film telling a different horror story set during the titular holiday. While Halloween 3: Season of the Witch is a cult classic today, it certainly wasn’t when it came out. Fans were mad that Michael Myers was no longer the star, and loudly made it known that they wanted more of him, and the established Halloween universe.

Carpenter and producing partner Debra Hill weren’t deaf to these cries, and indeed planned to bring Michael back for Halloween 4. The thing was, the way they wanted to do that would’ve been quite unconventional.

Halloween 4 Almost Turned Michael Myers Into a Ghost

When it came to write the original script for Halloween 4, John Carpenter and Debra Hill turned to Dennis Etchison, who had previously written novelizations of Halloween 2 and Halloween 3. Etchison’s Halloween 4 centered on Tommy Doyle and Lindsey Wallace, the kids Laurie Strode was babysitting ten years earlier when Michael Myers first came home. Haddonfield had banned Halloween following Michael’s rampage, however, a decade of fear bubbling under the surface and repression of all things Halloween has led to his seeming return. Only this time Michael, or rather The Shape, is a ghostly apparition, brought to life and powered by the town’s fear, with Tommy and Lindsey caught in the middle.

Unfortunately for Etchison, while Carpenter and Hill loved his script, franchise executive producer Moustapha Akkad hated it, and insisted be brought back for real, not as a ghost. Akkad ended up winning out when Carpenter and Hill agreed to sell their interest in the franchise to him for a large sum. As Etchison tells it, Hill called him after the sale completed and informed him that Akkad now fully controlled the franchise, and that Etchison’s Halloween 4 script wasn’t part of their deal. Ouch. Still, considering that ghost Michael Myers would’ve at one point grown to 10-feet tall as police shot at him, maybe what happened was for the best. Notably, Haddonfield banning Halloween ended up making it into Halloween 6, and Tommy and Lindsey return in 2020’s Halloween Kills.

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