Samuel Loomis

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Dr. Samuel Loomis
Halloween character
Top: Donald Pleasence as Dr. Samuel Loomis Bottom: Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Samuel Loomis
First appearance	Halloween (1978)
Last appearance	Halloween Kills (2021)
Portrayed by	Donald Pleasence (1978–95) Malcolm McDowell (2007–9)
Voiced by	Tom Kane (Halloween H20: 20 Years Later) Colin Mahan (Halloween, 2018)
In-universe information
Full name	Samuel J. Loomis
Occupation	Psychiatrist
Nationality	British

Dr. Samuel "Sam" J. Loomis is a fictional character in the Halloween franchise. One of the two main protagonists of the overall series (the other being Laurie Strode), he appears in seven of the eleven Halloween films, first appearing in John Carpenter's original 1978 film. Donald Pleasence plays the character in five films and Malcolm McDowell portrays him in the 2007 reimagining, Halloween and its sequel Halloween II. Throughout the Halloween franchise, he is depicted as the archenemy to the series' central character and primary antagonist, Michael Myers. Although a main character in the franchise, the role of Dr Loomis is that of grit, determination and an unwavering desire to take down evil.

Dr. Loomis's name was derived from Sam Loomis, played by John Gavin in the 1960 film Psycho.^[1][2]

Appearances[]

Films[]

Original series: (1978–1995)[]

Dr. Samuel Loomis first appears in the original Halloween (1978). He is a psychiatrist and his patient is Michael Myers. He and his colleague Marion Chambers drive to Warren County Smith's Grove Sanitarium to escort Michael to court. Loomis reveals to Marion that Thorazine will be used before Michael is presented to the judge, as he wants Michael to have no chance to be released back to society. As they approach the main gate at the sanitarium, they notice that the patients are wandering about, and Loomis gets out of the car to investigate, allowing Michael, who has escaped, to steal Loomis's car, nearly attacking Marion. Loomis goes to Haddonfield, Illinois after Michael escapes from Smith's Grove Sanitarium. Once in Haddonfield, he goes to the local cemetery and discovers that Judith Myers' tombstone is missing, thus confirming his suspicion that Michael returned home. He meets with Sheriff Leigh Brackett, and the two begin their search at Michael's former home, where Loomis attempts to warn the skeptical sheriff about the danger Michael poses for the residents of Haddonfield, explaining that Michael is pure evil and capable of further violence, despite having previously remained in a seemingly catatonic state for fifteen years. Sheriff Brackett patrols the streets while Loomis waits and watches the house, expecting Michael to return there. Loomis discovers the stolen car, and begins searching the streets when he sees Tommy Doyle and Lindsey Wallace running frantically from a house. Loomis investigates and sees Michael attacking Laurie Strode. Loomis draws his revolver and shoots Michael six times, knocking him off the balcony; when Loomis goes to check Michael's body, he finds it missing. An unsurprised Loomis stares off into the night, while Laurie begins sobbing in terror. Halloween II (1981) picks up directly after the first film, with Laurie being taken to Haddonfield Memorial Hospital while Brackett accompanies Loomis in his search for Michael. Loomis mistakes teenager Ben Tramer for Michael, when Ben gets hit by a squad car which pins him to another vehicle that bursts into flames, leading to his death. Sheriff Brackett learns his daughter Annie was killed by Michael. Blaming Loomis for her murder, a grieving Brackett leaves the manhunt to inform his wife, leaving Deputy Gary Hunt in charge to help Loomis. Loomis is informed that Michael broke into the local elementary school. As he investigates, he discovers clues connecting Michael to Samhain and the occult which might explain his seeming indestructibility, but Marion arrives to escort him back to Smith's Grove on the governor's orders under the enforcement of a US Marshal. Along the way, Marion tells Loomis that Laurie is Michael's sister; Laurie was put up for adoption after the death of Michael's parents, with the records sealed to protect the family. With the realization that Michael is after Laurie, and being told that she was taken to Haddonfield Memorial, Loomis forces the Marshal to drive back to Haddonfield. Loomis, Marion, and the Marshal reach the hospital just in time to save Laurie. As Marion attempts to contact the police, Michael kills the Marshal and chases Loomis and Laurie into an operating theater. Michael stabs Loomis in the stomach, wounding him, but Laurie shoots Michael in the eyes, blinding him. Loomis and Laurie fill the room with oxygen and ether. Loomis orders Laurie to run and tells Michael that "it's time" and proceeds to cause an explosion, blowing up the operating room with him and Michael inside, immolating them both in the fire. Michael, engulfed in flames, stumbles out of the room before finally falling dead.

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988) picks the story up ten years after the events of Halloween II. Michael has been in a comatose state since the explosion, and awakes when he learns Laurie Strode has died in a car accident, but has a daughter, Jamie Lloyd. Loomis goes to Haddonfield after learning that Michael has escaped. He follows Michael to a gas station, where he has killed a mechanic for his clothes, along with a clerk and disabled the phones. Michael then escapes in a tow truck and causes an explosion, destroying Loomis's car in the process. Loomis is then forced to catch a ride to Haddonfield. Loomis warns the new sheriff, Ben Meeker, that Michael has returned. Michael attacks the police station and kills all of the officers. A lynch mob is formed by the town's men to kill Michael once Loomis reveals he's returned, refusing to let a repeat of ten years ago occur again. Loomis goes to protect Jamie Lloyd from her uncle. After Michael Myers is shot and falls down a mine shaft. 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, Loomis hears Mrs. Carruthers' scream, and sees Jamie standing at the top of the stairs, wearing a clown mask, holding a pair of scissors in her hand, with her costume stained with blood, similar to Michael when he killed his older sister Judith. Sheriff Meeker prevents Loomis from shooting her and both men, Mr. Carruthers, and Rachel watch in horror, realizing that Jamie is following in Michael's footsteps. Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989), taking place a year later, has Loomis assigned to Jamie at the Haddonfield Children's Clinic, treating her for attacking her foster mother under Michael's influence. 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, Loomis sets a trap for Myers at his house, which involves Jamie recreating an eerie recreation of Judith Myers' final moments before her murder. 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's 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 subdues him. When Loomis awakens, he uses Jamie as bait, and lures Michael into a trap to weaken him with a tranquilizer gun. After beating Michael unconscious with a wooden plank, Loomis suffers a stroke and collapses. In Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995), Loomis has retired and moved to a hut on the outskirts of Haddonfield, where he lives as a hermit. He 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 a druid cult, with Michael's DNA, 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 leader of the cult. After this discovery, Loomis and Tommy are drugged and later follow Wynn to Smith's Grove who abducted Danny, his mother, and Steven 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 then joins forces with Kara Strode (Danny's mother and Laurie Strode's cousin) in order to protect Jamie's baby from Michael. They succeed, and after regaining consciousness, Loomis helps them escape the hospital. Michael is finally subdued by Tommy, who injects him with large quantities of tranquilizers inside the Smith's Grove Sanitarium. As Tommy, Kara, Danny, and Steven leave, Loomis refuses to come with them as he has "a little business to attend to". Back inside the building, Michael's mask is seen lying on the floor of the lab room, and Loomis is heard screaming in the background, leaving the fate of both men unknown. In the original cut of the film, after telling the others he has got "a little business to attend to", Loomis walks back into the sanitarium to find a seemingly-defeated Michael lying on the floor of the main hallway, after being stopped by Tommy, who used runes. Upon removing the mask, Loomis finds Dr. Wynn, who was forced by Michael to switch outfits so he could escape. With his dying breath, Wynn grabs Loomis's hand and says, "It's your game now, Dr. Loomis." After Wynn dies, the Thorn symbol appears on Loomis's wrist; realizing now that he himself is now to act as the leader of the cult, Loomis screams in terror and despair (this scream is heard as ambient noise in the final frame of the theatrical cut).

Ignoring the events of the previous three films, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) establishes that Michael Myers has been missing for twenty years since the explosion in 1978. He kills Marion Chambers at Loomis's retirement house. Two investigators discuss what they know about Loomis's life in this alternate version of the series, following the events of the first two films. Having survived the explosion in 1978, Loomis was under Marion's care at this house in his final years before dying. 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 enter his private study, and find that the walls are covered with photographs, sketches, and newspaper articles about Michael.

Reboot series: (2007–2009)[]

A new version of Dr. Samuel Loomis appears in the remake (2007). In the film, Dr. Loomis seems not to have contempt for Michael, and Michael doesn't truly see him as his nemesis. Their relationship with one another is more of a tragic friendship. Loomis does not immediately shoot Michael, but tries to reason with him. Loomis is first seen as a 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's care at Smith's Grove Sanitarium. On some days the two talk peacefully, on others Michael has outbursts of violent rage. 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 subdues Loomis. In the unrated version of the film, when Michael is in pursuit of Laurie through the house, Loomis grabs his foot to try and stop him. Michael shakes him off and Loomis blacks out. 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's 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 corpse.

In the sequel (2009), Loomis's 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 slashing his face and stabbing him in the 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, leaves the shack, picks up Michael's knife and walks over to Loomis's unconscious body. Against Brackett's orders, the police open fire on Laurie, apparently killing her too.

2018 film[]

Halloween (2018) ignored all of the previous sequels in the franchise and served as a direct sequel to the 1978 film, taking place forty years later, and establishing that Michael was arrested following his killing spree in 1978, and spent forty years back in Smith's Grove Sanitarium. Loomis is presented as having died an unspecified time ago prior to the film's events, with the role of protagonist taken up by Laurie Strode. Loomis appears in a sketch of him testifying at a court hearing, seemingly Michael's trial for the 1978 murders, and gives a statement about Michael in a 1979 interview which also refers to Michael as his former patient, suggesting Loomis stopped treating Michael after the 1978 murders. It is also revealed that when Michael was arrested in 1978, Loomis was prevented from killing him by Deputy Frank Hawkins, who arrested Michael. Michael's new psychiatrist, Dr. Ranbir Sartain (Haluk Bilginer), although established as a former student of Loomis's, is mainly interested in Michael out of a desire to "understand" his psychology as opposed to Loomis arguing that Michael be kept contained and executed while adhering to all legal requirements. This contrast comes to a head when Sartain not only contributes to Michael's escape during a bus crash, but actually kills Hawkins when he tries to kill Michael. Sartain briefly wearing Michael's mask before taking him to Laurie Strode's house so that he can observe them both in action. Sartain is subsequently killed when Michael crushes his skull by stomping on it.

Literature[]

Samuel Loomis's first literary appearance was in October 1979, in Curtis Richards' novelization of Halloween, which largely follows the events of the film.^[3] He also appeared in the 1981 adaptation of Halloween II written by Jack Martin; it was published alongside the first film sequel, with the novel following the film events, with an additional victim, a reporter, added to the novel.^[4] The final novelization to feature Loomis was Halloween IV, released October 1988. The novel was written by Nicholas Grabowsky, and like the previous adaptations, follows the events of Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers.^[5]

Loomis appears in the online short story Halloween: Sam, focusing on what happened to his character in the H20 timeline after Halloween II.^[6] Written by Hutchinson and featuring illustrations from Autopsis' Marcus Smith, Sam is a prose short story available exclusively for download at the website HalloweenComics.com. It explores the life of Dr. Loomis, including his backstory and relationship with Elizabeth Worthington, a journalist he met during World War II. In 1995, Michael Myers visits the ailing Dr. Loomis in a hospital and murders Elizabeth in front of him. Loomis attempts to stop him, but dies of a coronary failure.^[7]

In the comic Halloween: One Good Scare. Loomis is revealed to have a son, David Loomis, who like him, is a doctor at Smith's Grove Sanitarium. Although continuing his father's work, David is careful not to inherit his obsession with Michael Myers. However, when Lindsey Wallace is admitted to Smith's Grove claiming that Michael is stalking her, he finds history repeating itself. David neglects his other patients to interview Lindsey, investigates Michael's history, and even visits his childhood home in Haddonfield. However, on Halloween night in 2003, Michael arrives at Smith's Grove, murdering his way through the staff to get to Lindsey. David tries to protect her, but his fear gets the better of him and he hides as Michael drags Lindsey away to her death. Michael is sure to leave a cracked picture frame containing a photograph of David and his father, a message that he plans to return for him. David is also mentioned in the comic Halloween: Sam, set in 1995, when Marion tells Sheriff Brackett that he has not visited his ailing father. The character's name and appearance was actually derived from the 1998 fan-film Halloween: Inferno.

Casting[]

The role of Dr. Loomis was originally intended for Peter Cushing, who had appeared as Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars (1977); Cushing's agent rejected Carpenter's offer due to the low salary.^[8] Christopher Lee was also approached for the role; he too turned it down, although the actor would later tell Carpenter and Hill that declining the role was the biggest mistake he made during his career.^[9] Yablans then suggested Pleasence, who agreed to star because his daughter Lucy, a guitarist, had enjoyed Assault on Precinct 13 for Carpenter's score.^[10]

In 1998's Halloween H20, the voice of Dr. Loomis is heard giving the same speech that he gave to Sheriff Brackett when they were inside Michael's abandoned childhood home in the original film. Audio clips from Halloween were initially considered when playing his monologue.^{[citation needed]} However, instead of the voice of Donald Pleasence himself, sound-alike voice actor Tom Kane provides this voice-over. He reprised the role of Loomis in a few Halloween fan films, such as Halloween: Awakening and The Last Halloween: The Death of Michael Myers. Loomis is featured in a vocal cameo in 2018's Halloween, in which a pair of journalists studying Michael for a podcast listen to a recording of Loomis, made on January 22, 1979, three months after the events of the original film, where Loomis advises that Michael be executed, to the point that he requested that he be allowed to actually confirm that Michael's heart had stopped beating for himself and then witness as the body was cremated, claiming that Michael needed to be killed because there was no point in keeping evil alive.^[11] Loomis is voiced by sound-alike comedian Colin Mahan.^[12]

References[]