When John Carpenter made Halloween back in 1979, there’s no way he could’ve known what it would become.
That a white-painted William Shatner mask adorned by his fictional killer, Michael Myers, would become one of the most iconic things in horror movie history.
Though Carpenter never made another Halloween film, the franchise went on without him. To say there were some hits and misses along the way would be putting it kindly. Anyone who’s seen Halloween: Resurrection should probably be part of a class-action
lawsuit. It’s an hour and 30 minutes none of us will ever get back.
But Carpenter did have a role as an executive producer in the latest trilogy, which was made by comedian Danny McBride and his longtime collaborator, writer/director David Gordon Green.
And that’s where our story begins.
Sixers rookie Labaron Philon Jr. grew up watching horror movies with his dad growing up in Mobile, Alabama. He remembered the first time seeing one of the iterations of the Halloween franchise and being thrown off by Myers’ mask.
“I think the first one I saw was when he had like the messed-up mask,” he told Liberty Ballers. “That one was like the old, old ones.”
Do you remember what it looked like in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers or Halloween H20: 20 Years Later? Who could blame him?
(And forgive him for the “old, old ones” comment. He’s 20 and was like 12 when the franchise rebooted in 2018.)
So, when Philon saw the newer movies as a teenager, it changed his perspective on The Shape.
Philon has an impressive array of tattoos, but one that sticks out is an image of Myers above the Myers’ family home etched onto the inside of his left forearm. He had an image of Myers standing menacingly in the doorway of the home burned in his brain.
The young guard said he got it a couple of years ago after a movie marathon.
“I had one day I had watched like three Halloween movies, and then I was like, ‘Yeah, I want to get it,’” he said.
It serves as a bit of motivation for him when he takes the floor.
“Really, just like every time you step on the court, trying to be a killer, trying to be an assassin,” he said. “Really, that’s something that Michael does, but just transforming it over to the basketball side, really just trying to have that killer mindset every time you get a chance, every time you step on the floor.”
Scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis would go on to become a star, but the biggest-billed actor on Carpenter’s original was Donald Pleasence. The late English actor played Dr. Samuel Loomis, the psychiatrist who worked with Michael Myers as a child. Loomis was then forced into action when his patient escaped a mental institution as an adult to return to the town of Haddonfield, Illinois, where Myers killed his older sister 15 years earlier.
At one point, Loomis describes Myers as “inhumanly patient.” If you watch Philon play, he never looks rushed. He gets to his spots and attacks.
Not unlike a certain jumpsuit-laden, knife-wielding character.
“He’s kind of patient,” Philon said, “but still got that mindset that if he want it, he gonna go get it.”
