Now, this is good acting!

In this scene from the original Halloween, Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) attempts, as best he can, to explain the unexplainable.  I’ve always felt that Pleasence’s performance in the first film is extremely underrated.  People always tend to concentrate on the scenes where he gets angry and yells or the later films where an obviously fragile Pleasence was clearly doing the best he could with poorly written material.  But, to me, the heart of Pleasence’s performance (and the film itself) is to be found in this beautifully delivered and haunting monologue.

In this scene, we see that Dr. Loomis is himself a victim of Michael Myers.  Spending the last fifteen years with Michael has left Loomis shaken and obviously doubting everything that he once believed.  Whenever I watch both Halloween and its sequel, I always feel very bad for Dr. Loomis.  Not only did he have to spend 15 years with a soulless psychopath but, once Michael escapes, he has to deal with everyone blaming him for it.  Dr. Loomis was literally the only person who saw Michael for what he was.