The Haddonfield, Illinois, rivalry between the last girl, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), and the masked killer, Michael Myers, or The Shape, has served as the court of honor for horror movies for a little more than 40 years. But it remains one of the most cryptic and divisive aspects of the lore surrounding these two: how indeed are Michael Myers and Laurie Strode related?”
In simple terms: it basically depends on which Halloween movie you choose to watch.
Timeline 1: The Sibling Connection (1981–2002)
Laurie Strode being Michael Myers’s sister was not in John Carpenter’s plans for the original 1978 film. In that seminal first film, Laurie was just a random babysitter who happened to cross pathways with pure Evil.
Now the question of how Michael Myers and Laurie Strode are connected was definitively answered in the latter part of the 1981 sequel, Halloween II. Co-writer John Carpenter was a legend for retroactively making Laurie Michael’s sister to give a driving motivation for The Shape’s unrelenting pursuit-and also to ensure the return of Jamie Lee Curtis.
This blood tie has been in the canon for over 20 years, going on through projects such as Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and culminating in Halloween: Resurrection. In this universe, Michael was chasing the bloodline of his family to extend his terror into Laurie’s daughter, Jamie Lloyd.
Timeline 2: Hereditary Evil (Rob Zombie’s Remakes)
The original sibling relationship found in the 2007 remake and the follow-up Halloween II (2009) by Rob Zombie Director also maintained the sibling affiliation in this darker, more psychologically grounded continuity which raises the concern of how Michael Myers and Laurie Strode were half-siblings by asking of psychosis shared.
In Zombie’s version, Michael goes after Laurie actively to eliminate her, not with that only but to reunite his “idealized family.” This somehow makes their link transcend mere blood; they share a hereditary “Evil” and even see similar visions as brother-and-sister pairings.
Timeline 3: Hunter and Prey (The H40 Trilogy)
With Halloween in 2018 having heralded a successful trilogy by director David Gordon Green, the last words for a modern-day audience will be spoken.
Green and co basically decided to wipe the slate clean with a reset of time to make it a direct sequel to the original 1978 film. In this continuity (including Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends), Laurie Strode and Michael Myers are not brother and sister.
By removing the blood tie, the trilogy reverted to Carpenter’s original ambiguity, making Michael’s pursuit of Laurie a matter of mere chance which evolved into a fundamental, elemental struggle between Good and Evil. Laurie is his victim and his nemesis, but they are not family.
Therefore, the final answer to the burning question of the franchise is choice: If you want a motivated, familial stalker, they are siblings. If you want a fight against pure, random, elemental Evil, they are strangers locked in a destined battle.
