Michael Myers manages to end up wearing the same - or similar - masks in every Halloween movie, and they don’t just appear out of thin air. First debuting in legendary director John Carpenter’s original 1978 classic, Michael Audrey Myers has gone on to cement himself as one of the scariest boogeymen in the history of horror. There will seemingly always be a place for him in the hearts of horror fans, as evidenced by the massive success of Blumhouse’s 2018 Halloween reboot.

Michael Myers’ trademark - outside of killing people with really big knives - is of course his emotionless white mask, which he wears for almost the entirety of his film career of date. It’s extremely well-known that Michael’s mask began life as a mask based on the face of William “Captain Kirk” Shatner, but has subsequently taken on a life of its own in the annals of pop culture. Anytime that mask enters frame, horror fans know things are about to get real.

So, without any further ado, let’s take a look at exactly how Michael Myers acquires his trademark mask in the first place, and then, how he manages to keep obtaining it in Halloween’s sequels, reboots, and remakes. After all, these masks don’t grow on trees.

Where Michael Myers Got His Masks From (All Movies)

In John Carpenter’s original Halloween movie, Michael Myers obtains his mask by robbing a hardware store in Haddonfield. According to Sheriff Brackett, all the perpetrator took “was some Halloween masks, a rope and a couple of knives.” 1981’s Halloween 2 took place the same night, so Michael’s mask was still on him, and the character didn’t appear outside of a quick TV cameo in 1982’s Halloween 3: Season of the Witch. In 1988’s Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, after awakening from his coma and heading back to Haddonfield, Michael procures a mask that looks much like his old one at Vincent Drug Store, presumably stealing it, as it’s doubtful he had money on him.

Halloween 4 ends with Michael being shot by a mob and falling down a mine shaft. 1989’s Halloween 5 reveals he stumbled upon an old hermit while barely alive, then slips into another coma. The hermit takes care of him for a year, and when Michael wakes up, he thanks the kindly man by murdering him. After doing so, he retrieves his mask from the wall of the hermit’s house. Oddly, it looks almost entirely different than before, but there are behind the scenes reasons why that is. Being sprung from jail by the mysterious Man in Black at the end of Halloween 5, Michael is presumably furnished with a new mask by the Cult of Thorn sometime before 1995’s Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers.

1998 reboot/sequel Halloween H20 didn’t reveal how Michael Myers came into possession of his mask, and neither did 2002’s Halloween: Resurrection. In Rob Zombie’s 2007 Halloween remake, Michael acquires his mask as a child, swiping it from his sister Judith’s boyfriend, then donning it before killing her. Later, after having escaped from Smith’s Grove as an adult, Michael returns to his old home and retrieves the mask from where he stashed it. He retains the same mask for 2009’s Halloween 2. Finally, in Blumhouse’s 2018 Halloween reboot/sequel, Michael recovers his mask after killing the two journalists who previously visited him with mask in hand at Smith’s Grove. Then he’s free to get back to Haddonfield proper.

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  • Halloween 2 Release Date: 2021-10-15 Halloween 3: Season of the Witch Release Date: 1982-10-22