In one world, Jamie Lloyd violently stabbed her foster mother, just as her uncle had did his sister on Halloween Night in 1963. In that same world, things would play out differently in universe than what was intended behind the camera. Instead of an evil Jamie taking on the mask and knife of her dreaded uncle Michael Myers, she became a mute with a psychic connection to him.
If the die was cast as originally set, however, how would things have played out? How would things have gone if Michael Myers had died and Jamie Lloyd had become the killer of the Halloween franchise.
We begin from where Halloween 4 leaves off. Jamie Lloyd has, out of nowhere, stabbed Darlene Carruthers multiple times. Sheriff Ben Meeker prevents Michael's former psychiatrist Doctor Samuel Loomis from firing on the girl as she stands motionless at the top of the stairs. Soon, the remnants of Haddonfield PD are able to take Jamie into custody and Darlene is rushed to Haddonfield Memorial Hospital, where she unfortunately dies from the wounds that Jamie inflicted on her.
Jamie is sent to Smith's Grove, but Loomis is barred from working on her case by Dr. Wynn, claiming to not want to repeat the same mistakes that were made with Michael as well as noting that Loomis is far, far too close to this case for his own comfort. He puts Loomis on suspension, with pay, and leaves it at that. The Carruthers family tries to move on from the ordeal, though it becomes clear that there's no reconciliation as Jamie will speak to no one, again much in the same way that Michael acted upon his first murder.
Nineteen years have passed and it is now 2007. Jamie has been in the isolation ward as Smith's Grove for years and even Loomis has passed away by now. All seems to be well, or as well as it can be given the situation. Her psychiatrist is one Doctor David Loomis, the estranged son of Samuel who ended up taking up his father's position at Smith's Grove. Having gotten into psychiatry to follow his father, David does not subscribe to his father's theories on the ultimate evil that Michael Myers was and believes that Jamie is no different. Unfortunately, like the original Loomis did for Michael, David has been on Jamie's case for fifteen years and has made no progress. The board at Smith's Grove has decided that it's time to move Jamie to a different lower security facility. David attempts to argue against this, but their mind is made up and he relents.
Jamie is transferred, mute as ever, and - as you might expect - she manages to escape custody.
On the other side of the country, Richard Carruthers has passed away in the nineteen years since the events of Halloween 4 and Rachel has married a man named Jacob and has had two children - Samantha and Adrian, who are 18 and 16, respectively. Rachel has been going to therapy, still haunted by the murder of her mother by her adoptive little sister, who she hasn't seen since that night. Much like Laurie Strode in a certain Halloween film that may or may not have to do with water, Rachel has taken to pills and alcohol where therapy has failed.
Needless to say, it's a bad rap all around.
News of Jamie's escape reaches David's desk and he confronts the head of the Smith's Grove Board, Dr. Sartain about not telling him. Sartain re-iterates that the decision of the Board was unanimous and that this isn't his case anymore. More to the point, the police in Haddonfield have been alerted to keep an eye out for her despite the astronomical odds that she could have even gotten that far. David points out that Rachel and her father no longer live in town and that Jamie has no possible way of knowing where they've moved to. When David returns to his office, he finds the folder on Jamie having been opened and quickly looks through to find the information on Rachel has been removed. He grabs his keys and heads out to go and warn her.
Rachel and her family have settled in a small town in Connecticut, where she has one child going to high school (Adrian) and one (Samantha) coming back from their first semester at Yale. While Rachel does the therapy and works at the records office at city hall, her husband Jacob is a sheriff's deputy much like her old man was also an officer of the law. We get a gender swapped version of the scene from the original Halloween where Laurie sees Michael outside the window of the classroom, instead it being Adrian seeing Jamie in one of her few unmasked appearances given what's going to happen later. Adrian thinks it's odd, but he looks away to answer a question and when he looks back, she's gone.
A short time later, Jacob answers a call about a break in at a costume shop. There's a tense scene where he goes through and we're expecting an attack, but none occurs. There has been some costuming taken, in particular a white mask with brown hair, evidenced by the cardboard hangar that has been left on the floor after being torn away from said mask.
That night, Samantha is heading out to a Halloween party hosted by some of her friends from high school and Adrian is tagging along much to her chagrin. Said party is a lively rave in an open field that is being watched over by the cops - including the Sheriff. It is here, however many minutes in, that we have our first actual death. A teen/young adult separates from the group to go pee behind a barn and Jamie snaps his neck. Samantha sneaks off with her ex-boyfriend while Adrian tries to make a pass at the popular girl from school... and fails miserably, heading off on his own in the woods.
At the family home, Rachel and her husband are having a quiet night in as Rachel is clearly dealing with the issues of the evening. She gets some flashbacks to the events of Halloween 4, Jacob holding her as the memories become a bit too much for a while. This is further compounded with the arrival of David Loomis at their door, who asks to be let in so that they can talk.
Two bullies show up to pick on Adrian, knocking him down and making fun of him to add insult to injury over him getting spurned by the popular girl. When they leave him there, they meet Jamie, who executes them both swiftly - a knife to the throat for one and then a tree branch to the face for the other. Adrian finds this awesome until he realizes that they're dead... and then starts running with an injured leg through the woods back toward the party while Jamie pursues with the knife in hand.
David has spoken to Jacob and Rachel about the situation. While Rachel is in denial about it, Jacob agrees to speak to the sheriff about what's going on. David goes back out to his car to get a phone charger, finding his father's revolver in the glove box. He considers picking it up, but changes his mind and closes it again.
Adrian runs back into the rave, his voice drowned out by the music and the party goers as he desperately tries to find his sister. Jamie, meanwhile, has picked a new target. The sheriff goes to check a barn and chases Samantha and her ex-boyfriend (in mid coitus, no less!) out. When he returns to his car, the deputy he was riding with is slumped onto the dashboard, his head having been slammed into it with considerable force. Jamie slams a knife into the man's back multiple times, taking him out.
Jacob and David arrive in the squad car to find the party dispersing, only a few stragglers remaining. They find Samantha and Jacob death glares her ex-boyfriend away. They find Adrian, having been beaten up and talking about the masked man in the woods he saw kill two teenagers. Jacob goes and finds the bodies of the sheriff and his deputy, high-tailing it back to the car. David, meanwhile, sees the masked Jamie at the treeline and has left Samantha and Adrian to go and try and track her. He heads into the darkness, speaking out loud even though he's lost sight of her, fairly certain that she can hear him. No reply comes, and David leaves the woods without incident.
Taking the kids back to the house to a very upset Rachel, Jacob decides to go to the police station to call in some reinforcements. David goes to his car, retrieving the gun after a long moment of deliberation, loading the six bullets into it in preparation for battle.
At the house, Rachel has locked the doors and is nervously looking out. As Adrian is on the mend for his leg, Samantha is lamenting her ruined night thanks to the sheriff's interference. However, her ex has made his way up to her bedroom window and knocks to be let in, the two making love in her room. Jamie, meanwhile, slips in through the window while the two are too preoccupied with each other and stalks through the house.
Adrian tells Rachel about the man he saw in the woods, but Rachel tells him that it wasn't a man. She tells him about why she left her hometown, why she doesn't talk about her home much at all, basically recapping the events of Halloween 4. Adrian is terrified, but Rachel (not at all convincingly) tells him that they're going to be safe. She punctuates this by shakily taking one of Jacob's shotguns from the gun cabinet.
Jacob and David arrive at the police department, able to gather together a few deputies. Jacob sends them out to get an APB and roadblocks established as best they can. With that, Jacob and David decide to take to the streets.
Upstairs, as Samantha's ex-boyfriend leaves her following a bit of the ol' in-out-in-out and pervs on some of Rachel's undergarments. Jamie takes him out with a knife through at least one of the vital organs in the abdomen, covering his mouth to cover his gasps and screams before death takes him. Samantha hears the struggle and, putting on a nightgown, heads out into the hallway and soon finds her ex splayed out on the bed, blood leaking out onto the mattress. Jamie takes a swipe at her arm, causing her to scream out and stumble out toward the staircase. She takes a tumble down as Jamie approaches, Rachel running to the foot of the stairs with the shotgun in hand.
She hesitates, and we hear Loomis' screams of "NO! NO! NO! NO!" echoing in her mind. Unlike Sam Loomis, however, there is no Sheriff Meeker here to stop Rachel and - once Samantha is out of the way - she opens fire on Jamie. The killer is thrown back onto the staircase, collapsing in a heap on the ground. Rachel keeps the gun trained on Jamie and tells the kids to go call their father. It is then, however, that the power is cut. They're freaking out, and the group unfortunately take their eyes off of Jamie long enough for her to disappear from view when they look back to where she has fallen.
Jamie comes out of the darkness, stabbing Adrian in the leg and starting to drag him away toward the fireplace. Another shot from Rachel shatters a glass jar on the mantle and gets Jamie to let go of Adrian as she falls back into the flue, set ablaze. Rachel yells for her children to get out, shooting Jamie once more as she starts to rise in that creepy Myers-esque manner. She starts backing out of the house as the flames start moving across the house, Jamie doing the slow walk to follow them.
Jacob and David see the smoke and roll up to the house to find the smoke billowing from it and Rachel, Adrian, and Samantha on the lawn. Though Rachel is out of shotgun shells, David and Jacob definitely aren't. David pulls out the six-shooter and fires six shots into Jamie, the last shot finally knocking her down, Jacob grabbing an extinguishing blanket from his car to throw it over Jamie's motionless body. As David mutters "He was right. He was right. He was right.", Rachel nudges her husband aside and raises the shotgun to bash Jamie's brain in with before Jacob starts pulling her away.
Soon enough, more cops and a pair of ambulances arrive to tend to the wounds of the injured and to haul the body of Jamie away. Despite Rachel's misgivings, Jamie is indeed taken away. At the morgue, the body is hauled up onto a table for dissection. The coroner begins his examination before being called out for an important phone call. When he returns, he is confused as the body on the table appears to have changed, instead being a familiar-looking overweight older man rather than a burned woman in coveralls.
For reasons unknown to us, Dr. Sartain is lying dead on that morgue gurney and Jamie has escaped. Skin burned and blood still dripping from her, she has left the morgue... and from a distance, she's being watched by a mysterious man in black...
...and that's where we'll end this What if?! And I bet you thought I was going to ignore the Thorn Cult stuff, didn't you? Where will this exciting What If? take us? No idea, maybe we'll find out on another Halloween! Next time, we'll be taking a look back into the world where Freddy Krueger slugged it out with Pinhead and lost big time, but was that the end of the story? I think not, given the cliffhanger. What to see what happens next? Keep your eyes peeled for next week...
What If... Freddy Krueger had never resurrected Jason Voorhees? (Part 2)
Be there!
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