Samuel J. Loomis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Halloween character | |
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| Samuel J. Loomis | |
| Gender: | Male |
| Ethnicity: | England |
| Location: |  United Kingdom |
| Family: | Unknown |
| Appearances: | Halloween Halloween II Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers Halloween |
| Status: | Deceased {Donald Pleasance) Alive (Malcolm McDowell} |
| Portrayed by: | Donald Pleasence Malcolm McDowell |
Dr. Samuel J. Loomis (1919 - 1995) was a fictional character in the Halloween film series. He was a protagonist in Halloween (1978), Halloween II (1981), Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988), Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989) and Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995). He was portrayed by Donald Pleasance in all five films. In the upcoming remake of the first Halloween (2007) film he will be played by Malcolm McDowell.
The name "Sam Loomis" was inspired by that of the boyfriend in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.
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[edit] Early Years
Samuel J. Loomis was born in the United Kingdom and he had served in World War II. He could no longer fight in combat after some significant injuries. He soon afterward began studying medicine and moved to the United States. He had some minor successes in medical practice but specialized in child psychiatry. With help from his American medical colleague and friend Dr. Terence Wynn, he was placed on staff at Smith's Grove - Warren County Sanitarium, located in Smith's Grove, Illinois. During his time as a resident psychiatrist at the newly-completed sanitarium, his first patient would be the most significant of the Smith's Grove sanitarium.
[edit] Tenure at Smith's Grove, 1963 - 1978
In November 1963, Loomis received the six-year-old Michael Audrey Myers under his care. For an initial six-month-period, Loomis was charged with spending four hours each day in therapy sessions with his patient. The mute and motionless boy had murdered his seventeen-year-old sister Judith Myers on Halloween night. Loomis was determined to find out what would cause a boy his age to commit murder and how and why he had knowledge of violence in the first place.
On May 1, 1964, Dr. Loomis met with two superior doctors in the sanitarium's forum chamber. Loomis suggested that his patient be confined in a maximum-security ward located at Litchfield, Illinois. The two doctors brushed off Loomis' request declaring that Michael was merely "a catatonic" exhibiting "comatose behavior" who did not react to any of his surroundings. Loomis insisted he be taken seriously because he felt with conviction that his patient's blank behavior was an ingenious cover of his true, dark nature. He also felt the level of security at Smith's Grove was insufficient. He pleaded to the point of begging that Michael be moved immediately to a facility where any possible escape or legalized freedom was difficult or never possible. The Smith's Grove superiors declined the doctor's passionate requests and issued an ultimatum- Loomis should keep Michael as his patient or he will be looked after by someone else. Loomis knew to his core that no one else could be trusted or even safe around Michael, so he agreed to look after him from then on.
For the first eight years of Michael's psychiatric care and treatment, Loomis tried to get any form of response out of him. He finally had convinced himself that Michael was truly evil. So, for the following seven years, he desperately tried to keep him in total incarceration indefinitely.
[edit] Halloween
Unbeknownst to Loomis, Myers was awaiting the time that his younger sister Laurie Strode would turn age seventeen. Because of failed attempts to genuinely rehabilitate and treat his only patient, Loomis convinced himself that Michael was indeed a psychopath.
Michael had turned age twenty-one on October 19th. By law, he was to be presented to court on his birthday for trial. The final verdict would determine his freedom or further confinement. The trial date was pushed two weeks into the first week of November.
On the rainy night of Monday October 30, 1978, Loomis was accompanied by his friend and medical assistant Nurse Marion Chambers; they were charged with transferring Michael back to his home county for the trial. Loomis revealed to Marion that Thorazine would be used before Michael is presented to the judge.
When the pair reached the gates of the sanitarium, they discovered that many patients were wandering around the grounds. Loomis went to the main gate to telephone the hospital, but Michael had appeared and nearly attacked Marion while she was waiting in the car.
Myers escaped from the Illinois state hospital hijacking the car meant for his court date transfer. His plan was to return to his hometown of Haddonfield and locate his last surviving sibling. Driving the 150 miles to his destination, he arrived in Haddonfield in time for Halloween.
Loomis was on Michael's trail for the entire date of October 31st. While en route to Haddonfield, Loomis had stopped along a rural highway in west central Illinois to call Haddonfield authorities. He had every reason to believe Michael would return home, so he urged that the police watch out for him.
When the psychiatrist finally arrived in Michael's hometown, he sought the help of Haddonfield Memorial Cemetery's grave keeper, a man in his sixties named Taylor. The pair discovered that the headstone of Judith Myers had been dug up and is missing. This clue was enough to assure that his patient was physically in the city. That afternoon, Loomis enlisted the help of Haddonfield's sheriff, Leigh Brackett. The pair later traveled to the former Myers residence at 45 Lampkin Lane. Loomis was 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 reassured Loomis that Michael had indeed come home. Loomis tried convincing Sheriff Brackett that Michael was a human incarnation of pure evil, that he has returned to kill again, and that Haddonfield was not safe on this night until Michael was captured.
During the day, Myers had located and stalked his younger sister, Laurie Strode and her two high school friends, Annie Brackett and Lynda van der Klok. Later on in the early evening, he succeeded in killing her two friends and Lynda's boyfriend Bob Simms. While Laurie had been baby-sitting, she received a strange phone call from across the street. She thought her friends were playing pranks on her, so she went to investigate the house across the street. She found that all three of her friends had been killed and were propped in an unusual fashion in an upstairs bedroom. Michael continued his reign of terror by trying to kill Laurie.
When Loomis saw the stolen car up the street from the Myers residence, he went on a stroll awaiting any strangeness to occur. He soon after saw two children run frantically from a house. He knew that Michael was nearby. He went into the house to find his patient trying to strangle a helpless teenage girl. He shot Michael six times at point-blank range causing him to fall from a second-story balcony. Loomis agreed with the innocent Laurie at his side that Michael was in fact the boogeyman. Shooting the deranged twenty-one-year-old, Loomis persuaded himself that there was no way Michael could survive injuries that severe. He walked over to the balcony thinking that once he looked over, Myers would still be where he had fallen. When he did look over, he saw that Myers' body was no where in sight- he somehow mysteriously vanished. Loomis was initially shocked to see Michael gone, but somehow knew it would happen.
[edit] Halloween II
Laurie was taken to Haddonfield Memorial Hospital. Dr. Loomis accompanied by Sheriff Brackett, began searching the town for Myers. Myers then headed to the hospital to kill Laurie, leaving several bodies in his wake. Dr. Loomis was ordered to leave Haddonfield by the state governer so as to not create panic. His assistant Nurse Marion Chambers had arrived to try convincing Loomis to leave Haddonfield. She also revealed him one horrifying fact-Michael Myers is the brother of Laurie Strode. After hearing this, Loomis hijacked the police car that was taking him away from Haddonfield using his gun and arrived at the hospital to stop Myers.
Loomis and Myers fought each other in the basement until Myers won, wounding his former doctor. However, Loomis recovered, and he and Laurie filled the room with oxygen and ether. Strode then ran away and Loomis blew up with Myers, saying his famous sentence: "It's time Michael." This was supposed to be the end of the franchise, but the ending of Halloween 2 was ret conned as a less destructive explosion.
Surprisingly, Loomis survived, but was horribly burned, sustaining permanent damage to his leg. In 1980, Laurie and Jimmy Lloyd had a daughter named Jamie. Shortly afterwards, it was thought the couple died in a car crash.
[edit] Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers
On October 31, 1988, Myers, who had been in a coma for 10 years, awoke in an ambulance when he heard that he had a niece. He then went back to Haddonfield and Loomis once again pursued him. He went to the police, but they didn't believe him and thought that he had gone insane. However, Myers started to stalk Jamie Lloyd and her surrogate sister Rachel Carruthers and kill off their friends. A mob of residents formed to kill Myers, and they saved Jamie and Rachel, and decided to drive them to the center of the State Police using a truck. However, Myers killed off the mob riding in the truck, but was hit by Rachel, who continued driving the truck once the lynch mob was killed. The police then arrived with Loomis and shot him, sending him falling into a mine. The police then threw a dynamite to finish him off. After this horrifying night, Loomis brought Jamie and Rachel safely home, only to see Jamie attack her foster mother just like Michael killed his sister as a boy.
[edit] Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers
The following year, Myers, who had once again been in a coma despite having escaped the explosion, awoke at a hut and killed the owner, who had taken care of him. He then headed to Haddonfield to kill off his niece Jamie, first stalking and killing her surrogate sister Rachel. He then went on to kill her friends. Jamie tried to save Rachel's friend Tina who was kind to her, but failed. Loomis then arrived at the scene and proposed a deal to Myers: to go to his house and be presented with Jamie Lloyd. The police and Loomis set a trap for Myers at his house, but the police had a call and they all left, leaving Loomis to say another famous line, "Now you'll come, won't you Michael?" Myers went to his house and met Loomis who calmed him, even tried to reason with the little humanity that was still left in Myers. But, when Loomis reached to take away Michael's knife, he seriously wounded him. When Loomis awoke, he caught Myers in a net and assaulted him with a large piece of wood that was leaning against the wall. Myers was put in jail, but then freed by a Man in Black from his Druidic cult, who stalked Loomis throughout the movie. The man in black also kidnapped Jamie Lloyd the same night from the burning jail.
Dr Loomis suffered a heart attack immediately after attacking Myers. After that, he retired and moved to a quiet hut on the outskirts of Haddonfield. There he lived a solitary, almost hermit lifestyle, choosing not to interact with other people.
[edit] Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers
However, in 1995 the nightmare started all over again. It was a cold and stormy night when someone knocked on Sam's door. It was Dr. Terence Wynn, his old colleague, who had come to persuade Loomis to return to Smith's Grove. Sam declined. While the two were arguing about that, they heard the voice of Jamie Lloyd on the radio. She was begging Dr. Loomis to help her.
It turns out that Jamie was impregnated by the same cult that kidnapped her in 1989. However, she succeeded in escaping after giving birth to a baby boy. She took the child with her, and stopped at a bus station to call Dr. Loomis. However, Michael tracked her down and killed her. But he could not find the baby.
Jamie had left Steven in the bus stop bathroom. There he was found by Tommy Doyle; the boy whom Laurie Strode was baby-sitting in 1978. Tommy had become a deranged adult bent in destroying Michael Myers.
The following morning Jamie's body was discovered, and Loomis was devastated. He had thought that the last of Michael's bloodline was killed that night. But after being approached by Tommy Doyle who told him about his discovery of the baby, Loomis knew he had to fight his nemesis one last time in order to save the infant.
During the following day it is revealed that Dr. Terence Wynn, Sam's old colleague is actually the "man in black." After that discovery Loomis goes after Wynn, while Tommy Doyle joins forces with Kara Strode, a young woman whose family has taken residence in the Myers home, in order to protect baby Steven from Michael. They apparently succeed, after a bloody battle in the Smith's Grove sanitarium.
After "stopping" Michael and Wynn at the end of the movie, Tommy and Kara start their car and as they are about to leave, Loomis informs them that he has to stay behind, because "he has some business to attend to", back in the sanitarium. And as they leave, a loud scream can be heard from the building in which Myers and Loomis were last seen in, suggesting that Myers had finally killed his doctor.
However, in the unreleased cut of the film, the reason Loomis screamed was because he found out that the Michael he was following was just Dr. Wynn in Michael's clothes. Wynn then passes on the duty of watching Michael on to Loomis, and Loomis receives the Thorn symbol on his right wrist.
[edit] Halloween: Twenty Years Later
For the remaining years of his life, Sam Loomis was cared for by his medical assistant and friend Nurse Marion Chambers. He died while living at Marion’s Langdon, Illinois home never knowing why Michael Myers was so violent and disturbed. For many years, he had hoped to reform his longtime patient, but gave up any genuine treatment when he realized that Myers was filled and influenced by demonic forces, if not enforced by the Devil himself. The septuagenarian Loomis died of natural causes in his comfortable bedchamber and office. His distinguished career as a medical doctor and later a psychiatrist was chronicled on the walls of his room. Key events witnessed by him or having been involved directly or indirectly were in the form of newspaper articles and hospital files. Although Some Files proclaim that the the Doctor was Brutally Slashed by Michael Himself, At the End of Halloween The Curse of Michael Myers, you can hear him screaming in the backround and then a Knife Slash
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.
On Thursday October 29, 1998, Nurse Marion Wittington arrives at her Langdon home to find that her front door lamp fixture has been broken. This unusual clue of a possible break-in makes her hesitant to enter her own house alone. She first enlists the help of her teenage next-door neighbor Jimmy Howell, accompanied by his friend Tony Allegre. He telephones the police explaining the situation and they agree to arrive in about fifteen minutes. Jimmy feels the desire to inspect Marion’s house himself. Marion warns that all three of them should just wait for the police. Jimmy does inspect her house while Marion and Tony wait outside on the front walk. Jimmy reveals to his concerned neighbor that whoever had been in her house "did a real number" on her office.
Tired of waiting for the police to finally arrive, Marion enters her house. She briefly inspects the main rooms and then sees for herself what Jimmy had described. Her private office had been broken into and the room was in great disarray. Because electricity was off in her house, she had to make her way in the dark with a flashlight. Even though her file room was in chaos, a black-and-white photograph of her late friend and colleague Dr. Loomis was still intact. [This photograph is the only pictorial evidence seen in this Halloween installment of the series’ famous protagonist].
During the prologue credits, the voice of Dr. Loomis is heard as he is explaining the evil that is Michael Myers. Audio clips from Halloween were initially considered when playing his famous monologue. Instead of the voice of actor Donald Pleasence, 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 and 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."
[edit] Rob Zombie's Halloween
In June of 2006 it was announced that musician/filmmaker Rob Zombie would write and direct a remake of the original Halloween, with a tentative release date of August 31, 2007.
In an interview with MTV, Zombie confirmed the presence of Dr. Loomis in his script for the Halloween remake, as well as his plans to "beef up" the role: "I felt the character of Dr. Loomis just popped in and out when they needed somebody to say something dramatic... I wanted his story to feel more intertwined with Michael in a way that means something, which they did in the original, but sometimes it feels like he disappears for a long period and then just pops up to go, 'He's evil!,' and then he disappears again for a while."[1]
It has been confirmed by Rob Zombie on the official Halloween Remake MySpace that Malcolm McDowell will be playing the role of Dr. Loomis.
