Samuel Loomis
| Dr. Sam Loomis | |
|---|---|
| Halloween character | |
|
| |
| Portrayed by |
Original series: (1978–1995) Donald Pleasence Reimagined series: (2007–2009) Malcolm McDowell |
| Voiced by |
Tom Kane (Halloween H20: 20 Years Later) |
| Information | |
| Full name | Samuel Loomis |
| Occupation | Psychiatrist |
| Nationality | British |
Dr. Samuel "Sam" Loomis is a fictional character in the Halloween film series. One of the two main protagonists of the overall series (the other being Laurie Strode), he is the main protagonist of Halloween, Halloween II, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers and Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. Donald Pleasence plays the character in all five films. Throughout the Halloween franchise, he is depicted as the archenemy to the series' central character and primary antagonist, Michael Myers.
Malcolm McDowell portrays Dr. Loomis in the 2007 reimagining, Halloween and in its sequel Halloween II.
His name "Sam Loomis" is an allusion to a character in Robert Bloch's novel Psycho, played by John Gavin in the 1960 film of the same name.[1]
Fictional character biography
Tenure at Smith's Grove (1963–1978)
In November 1963, Loomis, a psychiatrist at the Smith's Grove sanitarium, receives the six-year-old Michael Audrey Myers under his care. For an initial six-month-period, Loomis is charged with spending four hours each day in therapy sessions with his patient. The mute and emotionless boy had murdered his 15-year-old sister Judith on Halloween night. Loomis is determined to find out what would cause a boy his age to commit such deadly violence. He soon becomes convinced that the boy is not insane, but evil.
On May 1, 1964, Loomis meets with two superior doctors in the sanitarium's forum chamber. Loomis suggests that his patient be confined in a maximum-security ward located at Litchfield, Illinois. The two doctors brush off Loomis' request declaring that Michael was merely "a catatonic" exhibiting "comatose behavior" who does not react to any of his surroundings. Loomis insists that his patient's blank behavior is an ingenious cover for his true nature. He also feels that the level of security at Smith's Grove is insufficient. He pleads that Michael be moved immediately to a maximum security facility and preclude him any future opportunity for legalized freedom. The Smith's Grove superiors decline the doctor's requests and issue an ultimatum that Loomis keep Michael as his patient or he will be looked after by someone else. Loomis knows that no one else can be trusted or even safe around Michael, so he agrees.
For the first eight years of Michael's psychiatric care and treatment, Loomis tries to get any form of response out of him. When that fails, he spends the following seven years trying to keep Michael incarcerated.
Halloween
Michael turns 21 on October 19. By law, he is to be presented to court on his birthday for trial, with the final verdict determining his freedom or further confinement. The trial date is pushed two weeks into the first week of November.
On the rainy night of Monday October 30, 1978, Loomis is accompanied by his friend and medical assistant Nurse Marion Chambers; they are charged with transferring Michael back to his home county for the trial. Loomis reveals to Marion that Thorazine will be used before Michael is presented to the judge. When the pair reach the gates of the sanitarium, they discover that many patients are wandering around the grounds. Loomis goes to the main gate to telephone the hospital, but Michael appears and nearly attacks Marion while she is waiting in the car. Myers escapes from the Illinois state hospital, hijacking the car meant for his court date transfer. Driving the 150 miles (241 km) to his destination, he arrives in Haddonfield in time for Halloween.
Loomis is on Michael's trail for the entire date of October 31. While en route to Haddonfield, Loomis stops along a rural highway in west central Illinois to call Haddonfield authorities. He has every reason to believe Michael will return home, so he urges that the police watch out for him. When he finally arrives in Michael's hometown, he seeks the help of Haddonfield Memorial Cemetery's grave keeper, a man in his sixties named Taylor. The pair discover that the headstone of Judith Myers had been dug up and is missing. This clue is enough to assure Loomis that his patient is in the city. That afternoon, Loomis enlists the help of Haddonfield's sheriff, Leigh Brackett. The pair later travel to the former Myers residence at 45 Lampkin Lane. Loomis is curious to know if Michael had returned to his childhood home. With the front door being broken into and the decaying carcass of a stray dog being indoors, these two clues reassure Loomis that Michael has indeed come home. Loomis tries convincing Sheriff Brackett that Michael is a human incarnation of pure evil, that he has returned to kill again, and that Haddonfield is not safe on this night until Michael is captured.
While Michael stalks Laurie Strode and her friends, Loomis waits and watches over the house, believing that Michael will return to his home. When he discovers the stolen car, he begins combing the streets where he finds the two children that Laurie was babysitting running frantically from a house. Loomis investigates and sees Michael attacking Laurie. When she pulls Michael's mask off, he stops to re-apply it, giving Loomis the opportunity to shoot him six times, knocking him to and off the balcony of the two-story house. After agreeing with Laurie that Michael was "the boogeyman", Loomis walks over to the balcony and looks down in horror to see that Michael is gone.
Halloween II
Picking up directly where the first film leaves off, the sequel continues with Laurie being taken to Haddonfield Memorial Hospital while Brackett accompanies Loomis in his search for Michael. Myers then heads to the hospital to kill Laurie, leaving several bodies in his wake. The governor of Illinois orders Loomis to leave Haddonfield so as to not create panic. Chambers arrives to convince Loomis to leave Haddonfield. She also reveals to that Michael Myers and Laurie Strode are brother and sister. After hearing this, Loomis hijacks the police car that is taking him away from Haddonfield and arrives at the hospital to stop Michael.
Loomis races to Laurie's aid and, once again, shoots Michael several times; once again, this does not stop him. Loomis and Laurie run to a nearby operating room where Loomis attempts to shoot Michael in the head. Loomis fires an empty chamber, and Michael stabs him in his stomach. Loomis recovers, however, and he and Laurie fill the room with oxygen and ether. As Laurie runs away, Loomis stays behind. He tells Michael that "it's time" and proceeds to blow them both up.
Upon the movie's end, it appears as if both Michael and Loomis had died with Laurie and the other people of Haddonfield possibly finding safety. This film was supposed to be the end of the franchise, but the ending of Halloween II is later retconned in the later sequels as a less destructive explosion.
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers
In 1980, Laurie Strode had a daughter named Jamie Lloyd. Shortly afterwards, Laurie supposedly died in a car crash. On October 30, 1988, Myers, who had been in a coma for 10 years, awakens in an ambulance when he hears that he has a niece. Coming upon the carnage resulting from a crash, Loomis unsuccessfully attempts to alert the police that Michael is now free. He then makes his way back to Haddonfield and Loomis once again pursues him. Arriving at a filling station, Loomis sees Michael and attempts to reason with him, offering himself to Michael as another victim and pleading with Michael to leave the Haddonfield citizens alone, but he quickly realizes that Michael is too violent and insane to listen to reason. He tries to shoot him, but Michael then disappears, and Loomis realizes that he was only seeing things. Loomis then sees Michael drive away in the attendant's massive tow-truck, scraping and igniting a gas tank and causing it to explode and destroy Loomis's car, while Loomis himself barely survives by diving behind a pile of barrels. He eventually manages to hitch a ride to Haddonfield, where he manages to convince the police that Michael has indeed returned.
While Michael slaughters many officers in the police station, a group emerges from a local bar, and they quickly form a lynch mob when Loomis, seeing no other defense for the town, tells them that Myers has returned, much to Sheriff Meeker's displeasure. Loomis joins with Meeker, Deputy Logan, Jamie's foster sister Rachel, Rachel's ex-boyfriend Brady, and Kelly (Brady's current girlfriend and Meeker's daughter), and they all work together to protect Jamie from her uncle, and they set up a makeshift fortress of the Sheriff's massive house. After many long, uneventful hours of waiting, Loomis leaves the house alone to try to find and stop Michael himself. Shortly afterwards, Michael does appear and attacks the house, killing a majority of the group. When Jamie runs into the streets for help, she is quickly grabbed by Loomis, who tells her that she will be safe with him. He then decides that the two of them should head to the one place he figures Michael will never think to look for them: the schoolhouse. However, shortly after arriving there, Michael does appear and quickly grabs Loomis from behind and throws him out a window. However, he is later seen to have recovered as he witnesses the sheriff, a few members of the town's lynch mob, and the state police repeatedly shoot Michael, sending him down an abandoned well, which they ignite and blow up, seeming to finally kill him.
At the end, Jamie and Rachel are brought back to their foster parents', the Carruthers' house. Loomis arrives with Sheriff Meeker and is finally convinced that "Michael Myers is in Hell, where he belongs." However, upon hearing a scream coming from the second floor, Loomis races halfway up the stairs before he stops dead in his tracks. He sees the horrific sight of Jamie, still in her clown costume (similar to what Michael wore when he killed his sister as a child) and holding a pair of bloody scissors that she just used to stab her stepmother. Loomis then starts screaming, "No!" over and over again, backing against the wall and raising his gun to shoot her. Sheriff Meeker stops Loomis and disarms him, taking the gun into his own hands before he, Mr. Carruthers, and Rachel also see the horror that Loomis saw. Loomis slowly sinks to the floor, sobbing, and appears to go mad by the thought that the evil that drove Jamie's uncle has now possessed her.
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers
One year later, Loomis is assigned to Jamie at the Haddonfield Children's Clinic. Aware that Michael is still alive, and discovering that Jamie is telepathically linked with him, Loomis constantly pressures her to inform him of Michael's whereabouts, but Jamie is too traumatized to tell him. When Michael returns, the police and Loomis set a trap for Myers at his house, involving the young niece to sit at the dressing table in Judith Myers's old bedroom. After the police receive calls linking Myers to be somewhere else, they all leave, leaving Loomis to say another famous line, "Now you'll come, won't you, Michael?" Michael arrives, and Loomis tries to reason with him, proposing that he fight his rage and redeem himself through a positive relationship with Jamie. Loomis' words seem to work at first, as Michael calmly listens to him and lowers his knife, but when Loomis reaches to take away Michael's knife, he slashes him across the abdomen and throws him through the banister in a frenzy. When Loomis awakens, he appears to turn on Jamie, grabbing her and shouting for Michael to take her, only to lure Michael into a trap; Loomis drops a metal link net over Michael, shoots him with a tranquilizer gun, and then violently beats him unconscious with a wooden plank.
Dr. Loomis suffered a stroke immediately after attacking Myers. After that, he retires and moves to a quiet hut on the outskirts of Haddonfield. There he lives a solitary, almost hermit lifestyle, choosing not to interact with other people.
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers
On October 30, 1995, Loomis is visited by his old colleague Dr. Terence Wynn, who is chief administrator at Smith's Grove Sanitarium. Wynn tries to persuade Loomis to return to Smith's Grove, but Loomis declines. At the same time they hear the voice of Jamie Lloyd on the radio begging Loomis to help her. It turns out that Jamie was impregnated by the leader of a druid cult that had kidnapped her and Michael six years earlier. However, she succeeds in escaping after giving birth to a baby boy. She takes the child with her, and stops at a bus station to contact the radio station being broadcast at the moment. Michael tracks her down and kills her, but cannot find the baby. Jamie had left her son in the bus stop bathroom, where he is found by Tommy Doyle, the boy whom Laurie Strode was baby-sitting in 1978. He names the child Steven.
The following morning Jamie's body is discovered, and Loomis is devastated. He thought she was the last of Michael's bloodline, but after being approached by Tommy Doyle at the hospital who tells him about his discovery of the baby. In all of this, it is revealed that Michael is under control of the curse of "Thorn", a power he has been cursed with by the druid cult since he was a young boy after hearing voices telling him to kill his family. This explains why Michael is evil and want to kill his family. In the meantime another six-year-old boy named Danny Strode, who is living with his family in the old Myers home is being taunted by the man in black to kill like Michael was years back. That Halloween night, Dr. Wynn reveals himself to be the "Man in Black". After this discovery, Loomis and Tommy are drugged and later follow Wynn to Smith's Grove who abducted Danny, his mother, Steven, and Michael with the help of his cult followers. Loomis confronts Wynn who wants him to join in on his conspiracy, and reveals that Jamie's baby represents a new cycle of Michael's evil that he kept secret from most of the cult who were focused on inflicting the curse onto a new child (Danny) to carry out a new trend of family sacrifices. Loomis calls Wynn out on his scheme and is knocked unconscious.
Later, Michael butchers Wynn's team of staff surgeons during a medical procedure and Wynn himself during a medical procedure with Danny and Steven sitting in a room next door. Tommy Doyle then joins forces with Kara Strode (Danny's mother and Laurie Strode's cousin) in order to protect Jamie's baby from Michael. They apparently succeed, and after regaining consciousness, Loomis helps them escape the hospital. After "stopping" Michael at the end of the movie, Tommy and Kara leave as Loomis walks back into the sanitarium to handle unfinished business. The final shot of the film shows Michael's mask lying on the floor, and Loomis is heard screaming in the background, implying that Michael struck him.
Producer's Cut
The original ending of the sixth film (which followed a different aspect of the plot involving Dr. Wynn and the whole cult keeping true to cult duties, planning Michael to sacrifice the baby to be relinquished from the curse that will be passed onto Danny after he sacrifices his mother), features Loomis walking back into the sanitarium to find a seemingly-defeated Michael lying on the floor of the main hallway after having his power drained from him by a circle of runes set by Tommy Doyle. Upon removing the mask telling him it was all over, the person is revealed to be Dr. Wynn, who was forced by Michael to switch outfits so that he could escape. With his dying breath, he grabs Loomis's hand and says, "It's your game now, Dr. Loomis." After Wynn dies, Loomis looks at the wrist of the hand Wynn had just grabbed, and the Thorn symbol appears on his wrist. Realizing now that Loomis himself is now to act as the leader of the cult, he screams in terror. This scream is used in the final ending. Notably, Donald Pleasence died nearly eight months before the film was released.
Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later
Loomis' legacy is explored in Halloween H20, where Myers attacks Loomis' retirement home and Marion Whittington, the nurse who cared for him in his final years.
Two investigators discuss what they know about Loomis' life in this alternate version of the series. Having survived the explosion in 1978, Loomis was under Marion's care at this house before dying, presumably from natural causes. However, even after nearly 20 years, Loomis refused to believe that Michael was dead, and devoted the rest of his life to studying all information about his former patient. The two investigators then enter his private study, completely untouched by Michael's burglary, and find that the walls are covered with photographs, sketches, and newspaper articles about Michael; from the murder of his sister Judith, to the stealing of her tombstone, to the murders in 1978, as well as articles on Laurie Strode, including her supposed death in an automobile accident (reference to Halloween 4).
During the prologue credits, the voice of Dr. Loomis is heard giving the same speech that he gave to Sheriff Brackett (Charles Cyphers) when they were inside Michael's abandoned childhood home in the original film. Audio clips from Halloween were initially considered when playing his monologue. However, instead of the voice of Donald Pleasence himself, sound-alike voice actor Tom Kane provides this voice-over:
"I met him fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding of even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, of good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six year old child with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and the blackest eyes, the Devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized that what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... evil."
An article done by Psychology Review briefly explained Loomis’ career:
| “ | World renown[ed] authority on deviant psychosocial behavior, sat down with PSYCHOLOGY REVIEW recently to discuss his thirty years of practice. Dr. Loomis gained international fame treating then six year old Michael Myers, the so-called "Halloween Killer." Myers was only one of the mass murderers that Dr. Loomis has treated over his distinguished career. | ” |
Rob Zombie films
In the 2007 remake, Dr. Samuel Loomis is first seen as a young child psychiatrist brought in by ten-year-old Michael Myers' school to speak with Michael's mother, Deborah. After seeing the various animals Michael has tortured and killed, he recommends that the boy get help. After Michael commits three murders on Halloween, he is put under Loomis' care at Smith's Grove Sanitarium. On some days the two talk peacefully, on others Michael expresses violent outbursts of emotion. Fifteen years later, Loomis writes a best-selling book based on Michael's treatment called "The Devil's Eyes". On his last day at Smith's Grove, Loomis tells Michael that he has tried but cannot help him anymore. He also tells Michael that he has become something like his best friend.
After Michael escapes, Loomis concludes that his former patient is going to Haddonfield. Once there, he enlists the help of Sheriff Lee Brackett, and also buys a gun. Loomis comes to believe that Michael has returned to find his little sister, Laurie, who Brackett helped get adopted by the Strodes after her mother committed suicide. Michael succeeds in tracking Laurie down, killing her friends and two police officers in the process. Loomis is alerted of Michael capturing Laurie by Tommy Doyle and Lyndsey Wallace, the children Laurie is babysitting, and sets off to the Myers house. There he confronts Michael as he approaches Laurie, begging Michael to stop, but as Michael ignores him and continues forward, Loomis is left with no choice but to shoot Michael. Loomis rescues Laurie, but Michael soon reawakens to continue the attack on his sister. Loomis again tries to reason with him at which point Michael lets Laurie go and begins to crush Loomis' head, and drags him into the Myers house before continuing his pursuit of Laurie. When Michael is in pursuit of Laurie through the house, Loomis grabs his foot to try and stop him, indicating that he survived Michael's attack. Michael shakes him off and Loomis loses consciousness.
In the film's original ending, Loomis is successful in convincing Michael to let go of Laurie as he is surrounded by police officers, telling Michael he "did the right thing". Despite Loomis' protests, however, Michael is killed shortly afterwards in a hail of gunfire, and the film ends with Loomis looking down sadly at his former patient's dead body.
In Rob Zombie's adaptation, Loomis seems not to have contempt for Michael (aside from referring to him as a "soulless killing machine" and briefly comparing him to the Antichrist in a conversation with Sheriff Brackett), and Michael does not truly see him as his nemesis. Their relationship is more of a tragic friendship.
In the sequel to the 2007 film, Loomis' character is revised; he is now seen as a greedy, arrogant mercenary who is profiting from the murders of the previous film. He does not believe Michael is alive and becomes annoyed and angry when asked about it. He goes on a tour to promote a new book, "The Devil Walks Among Us", while his assistant is shown to be disgusted with his campaign. In the climax of the film Loomis, after realizing Michael is still alive, realizes that he has changed for the worse and tries to save Laurie, this time unarmed. Michael ambushes Loomis and kills him by stabbing him in the face and chest. In the unrated version Michael tackles Loomis out of the shack and then stabs him in the stomach while Loomis is still trying to reason with him. With Loomis injured and unconscious (it is not revealed whether he lived or died), the police open fire on Michael, killing him. Laurie, now completely insane, left the shack, picked up Michael's knife and walked over to Loomis' unconscious body. Against Brackett's orders, the police opened fire on Laurie in panic, apparently killing her too.
References
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