John Carpenter

The nightmare isn`t over as unstoppable killer Michael Myers escapes from Laurie Strode`s trap. The Strode women and other survivors form a vigilante mob to hunt down Michael and stop him.

The story carves a new path from the events in the landmark 1978 film, as Laurie Strode, who comes to her final confrontation with Michael Myers, the masked figure who has haunted her since she narrowly escaped his killing spree on Halloween night four decades ago.

After being committed for 15 years, Michael Myers, now a grown man and still very dangerous, escapes from the mental institution and immediately returns to Haddonfield to find his baby sister, Laurie. The residents of Haddonfield don't know it yet... but death is coming to their small sleepy town. Sixteen years ago, a ten year old boy called Michael Myers brutally kills his step father, his elder sister and her boyfriend. Sixteen years later, he escapes from the mental institution and makes his way back to his hometown intent on a murderous rampage pursued by Dr Sam Loomis who is Michael's doctor and the only one who knows Michael's true evil. Elsewhere a shy teenager by the name of Laurie Strode is babysitting on the night Michael comes home... is it pure coincidence that she and her friends are being stalked by him? —TheSteph Haddonfield, Illinois, 1990. Having decimated his entire family, save for his baby sister Laurie Strode, ten-year-old psychopath Michael Myers is sent to rot in Smith's Grove Sanitarium. However, monitored by child psychologist Doctor Samuel Loomis, Michael shows no signs of improvement. And after seventeen long years of failed therapy sessions, Michael, now a hulking emotionless monster obsessed with wearing masks, escapes confinement. As the dark anniversary of the grisly murders approaches, Michael feels compelled to return to his old house, hell-bent on picking up where he left off. Now, teenage Laurie has nowhere to hide. Will Michael's sharp kitchen knife finish what he has started? —Nick Riganas Ten year old, Michael Myers brutally kills his mother's boyfriend, his older sister and her boyfriend and is found guilty and is admitted to Smith's Grove, a mental hospital. Sixteen years later, he escapes from the mental institution and makes his way back to his hometown on a murder spree and discovers Laurie Strode and her friends and stalks them to kill them.

Three years after the events of the previous film, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) had been sent to a psychiatric hospital after it is revealed that she had beheaded a paramedic instead of her brother Michael Myers (Brad Loree); the paramedic had located the body of Michael in the dining hall of Laurie's school, Hillcrest Academy, after the paramedic tried to grab his mask, Michael attacked him, and crushed his larynx so he wouldn't cry out and forcefully switched clothing and his mask. As Laurie drives the coroner's van out of the school, Myers in the paramedic's clothing walks out of the school grounds and goes into hiding for the next three years. On October 31, 2001, still in captivity, Laurie, pretending to be heavily medicated, prepares herself for the inevitable confrontation with Michael. Michael appears at the hospital and kills two security guards by decapitating one and slitting the throat of the other before going after Laurie. Laurie lures Michael into a trap, but as she attempts to kill him, she second guesses herself and goes to remove his mask to make sure that it is really her brother this time. Myers takes advantage, and stabs her in the back before sending her off the roof to her death. His mission is complete after more than 20 years of searching and tracking Laurie down. One year later. College students Bill Woodlake (Thomas Ian Nicholas), Donna Chang (Daisy McCrackin), Jen Danzig (Katee Sackhoff), Jim Morgan (Luke Kirby), Rudy Grimes (Sean Patrick Thomas), and Sara Moyer (Bianca Kajlich) win a competition to appear on an Internet reality show directed by Freddie Harris (Busta Rhymes) and his friend, Nora Winston (Tyra Banks), in which they have to spend a night in Michael's childhood home in order to figure out what led him to kill. On Halloween, each equipped with head-cameras as well as the cameras laid throughout the house, they start the show, searching the entire house for something that can provide a clue to Michael's past, and decide to separate into three groups to cover more areas. Sara's messaging friend Deckard (Ryan Merriman) watches the broadcast during a Halloween party. As the group searches the house, Donna and Jim begin getting intimate in the basement. Before anything can happen, a wall filled with corpses falls on them. Initially freaked out, upon closer inspection, Jim realizes the corpses are fake; the whole show is a setup. Jim leaves, but Donna notices a tunnel behind the fallen wall. After following it for a ways, she discovers she is being followed by Michael Myers. Myers chases her through the tunnels before impaling her on a spike on the wall. At the party, Deckard and other partygoers witness the murder. Deckard realizes that the murder was real, but the others believe it is an act. Meanwhile, Freddie goes through the house dressed as Michael, but is secretly followed by the real Michael Myers. Freddie, mistaking Michael for Charlie (a cameraman who had been killed earlier with a camera tripod leg through his throat), tells him to go to the garage and help Nora out. When Rudy, Sara, and Jim find Freddie in the Myers costume, he reveals the scheme to them and begs them to cooperate, telling them that he's set up a nice payday for all of them when it is done. When he leaves, the trio decides to gather up the other three and leave. But before they can, Jen discovers the body of Bill (who was stabbed in the head and vanished earlier) and is decapitated by the real Michael right in front of Rudy, Sara, and Jim. Rudy and Sara flee, but Jim stays to fend off Myers only to have his head crushed. Michael then kills Rudy by pinning him to the door with kitchen knives before chasing Sara upstairs. Locking herself in a bedroom, Sara begs for Deckard to help her. The other partiers begin realizing that the deaths have not been staged, and that everyone is, in fact, dead. With Deckard messaging her Myers' location, Sara manages to escape and is found by Freddie. Before they can leave, Michael finds and attacks them. Freddie is injured and Sara makes her way to the tunnels. She finds an exit near Donna's body and emerges in the garage, where she finds Nora dead. As Michael finds her, Freddie returns and begins fighting Michael hand-to-hand. Freddie electrocutes Michael, tangling him up in electrical wiring before carrying Sara out of the burning garage. Michael's body and the bodies of his victims taken to the morgue. As the medical examiner begins to examine the body, Michael's eyes open.... and the scene cuts to black.

200 years in the future, Mars has been colonized by a high-tech company. Melanie Ballard (Natasha Henstridge) arrives by train to a Mars mining camp which has cut all communication links with the company headquarters. She's not alone, as she is with a group of fellow police officers. They find the mining camp deserted except for a person in the prison, Desolation Williams (Ice Cube), who seems to laugh about them because they are all going to die. They were supposed to take Desolation to headquarters, but decide to explore first to find out what happened. They find a man inside an encapsulated mining car, who tells them not to open it. However, they do and he tries to kill them. One of the cops witnesses strange men with deep scarred and heavily tattooed faces killing the remaining survivors. The cops realise they need to leave the place fast. Desolation explains that the miners opened a kind of Martian construction in the soil which unleashed red dust. Those who breathed that dust became violent psychopaths who started to build weapons and kill the uninfected. They changed genetically, becoming distorted but much stronger. The cops and Desolation leave the prison with difficulty, and devise a plan to kill all the genetically modified ex-miners on the way out. However, the plan goes awry, and only Melanie and Desolation reach headquarters alive. Melanie realises that her bosses won't ever believe her. However, the red dust eventually arrives to headquarters, and Melanie and Desolation need to fight once again.

Jack Crow (James Woods) is a professional and Vatican-funded vampire slayer. He and his team of slayers have just rooted out a nest of nine vampires in the New Mexico desert but, disappointingly, the master vampire--Jan Valek--was not there. Still, the team is partying at the Sun God Motel, rejoicing in their victory. Unbeknown to the slayers, Valek (Thomas Ian Griffith) is in the adjoining room, seducing and biting Katrina (Sheryl Lee), a hooker hired for the party. Before Jack is even aware of Valek's presence, Valek has viciously slain his entire team as well as all the hookers. During the battle, Valek says Jack's name, which takes the slayer by surprise. Only Jack, Katrina, and Jack's partner Montoya (Daniel Baldwin) manage to escape. After beheading and burning the bodies of his team (to make sure they don't turn into vampires), Jack goes directly to Cardinal Alba (Maximilian Schell) for further instructions. Alba has more bad news. Their European team was also wiped out three days ago near Cologne, Germany, and a portrait of Jan Valek was found there. According to archivist, Father Adam Guiteau (Tim Guinee), Valek was a 14th century priest who turned against the church and was burned at the stake for heresy. After his death, however, Valek became a vampire, the first of his kind. The Vatican wants Jack to rebuild his team, and they give him Guiteau as his first replacement. Jack wants nothing to do with the milquetoast bookworm, especially because he suspects the team's slaying was a setup, and it could just as easily have been Guiteau as anyone else in the church. After physically abusing Guiteau a few times, Jack levels with him. He shows him a map of where nests of vampires have been killed in the Southwest since the 1800s. It shows a pattern of an ever-widening circle, and Jack thinks that they're searching for something. Furthermore, he thinks they might be searching for a black cross that he heard of when he was young. Meanwhile, Montoya and Katrina are holed up in a hotel. Katrina hasn't turned yet and, when she finds out that she's been bitten by a vampire. Montoya wants to keep her around because of her telepathic link to Valek. She tries to commit suicide by jumping off a ledge but Montoya manages to pull her back through the window, but he cuts his arm while doing so, and Katrina grabs it and starts sucking. Montoya knocks her out and then burns the bite with a lighter, hoping to sterilize it from the sickness that will convert him. When Katrina awakens, she starts having visions. The first one is of Valek in a church in San Miguel County. The next vision shows Valek looking at a map and then killing a priest. Guiteau offers to get a list of all the churches in the county, a clue that leads them to Father Molina, whose body was found decapitated and laying alongside a dirt road. After further brutal interrogation by Jack, Guiteau finally confesses that Molina was the only one in the world who knew the whereabouts of the black Bersier cross, an ancient relic from the Old World (Europe) that was used in the exorcism meant to drive the demons from Valek's body. Unfortunately, the exorcism resulted in turning him into a vampire was never completed, leaving Valek vulnerable to the sun. He needs the cross now to finish the ritual. If he succeeds, he will be able to live in the daytime. A master vampire able to walk in the sun would be unstoppable. It's sundown and Valek with a new group of vampires are rising from the ground where they sleep. Through her telepathic connection to Valek, Katrina can tell that he is accompanied by seven other master vampires. She can see them headed into a small Spanish mission. She can see the vampires brutally slaying the mission clerics. And she can see Valek taking down the black cross. "He's got it!" she smiles. The next day Katrina leads Jack and Montoya to the small, deserted town of Santiago where she says Valek is hiding in the best-constructed building in town -- the jailhouse. With only three slayers and as many as 30 vampires, Jack, Montoya, and Guiteau have their work cut out for them. As the day wears on, Guiteau lures out the vampires, Jack shoots stakes into their chests from his crossbow, and Montoya drives the winch that pulls the vampires out into the sun where they burn up. With the sun setting rapidly, it is time to end the day's work before the other vampires wake up. Montoya and Katrina escape in the jeep, Guiteau hides behind a counter in a restaurant, finding a shotgun, but Valek catches Jack and ties him up. Jack wonders why Valek just doesn't kill him. Suddenly, Cardinal Alba steps out of the shadows. Admitting he was the one who betrayed the slayers, he says he's struck a deal with Valek to give him immortality for finishing the ritual that will complete Valek's transformation. Meanwhile, Katrina has completed her change. She bites Montoya's neck, drinks some of his blood, and then leaves him for dead in the jeep and rejoins Valek and his vampires. Montoya shoots off a few rounds with his gun and then places the hot barrel to his neck, hoping to sterilize the bite. The ceremony is beginning, and Jack discovers that he is to part of it, because the ceremony requires a ritual sacrifice by crucifixion of a slayer at the moment of dawn. The vampires tie Jack to a cross and Alba begins by slicing Jack's leg, collecting the blood, and passing it to Valek to drink. As the sun begins to rise, Guiteau (who has been listening to everything from his hiding place in the restaurant) shoots Alba. With no priest to finish the ritual, Valek tries to force Guiteau to do it, but Guiteau turns the gun on himself. Just when it looks like Guiteau might have to shoot himself, Montoya appears in the jeep. He fires a stake into the cross and, using the winch, pulls it down. Guiteau leaps forward and cuts Jack free. As the sun continues to rise, the vampires run for cover, with Jack and Guiteau following. They trap Valek, who leaps at Jack. Jack holds up the Bersier cross and Valek lands on it, impaling himself. As Valek attempts to pull out the cross, Jack pulls down the dilapidated ceiling. The sunlight streams in, and Valek bursts into flames. In the final scene, knowing that they have more vampires to kill, Montoya finally admits to Jack that he's been bitten twice by Katrina, who is lying in the back of the truck in order to stay out of the sun. He also says that he can no longer function as a slayer and that he intends to take Katrina south where he can take care of her. Guiteau tries to kill Montoya, but Jack steps between them. Knowing that Montoya was first bitten two days ago but still saved his life in the fight with the vampires, Jack figures he owes Montoya two days. However, he promises that, when those two days are up, he will hunt down Montoya and Katrina and kill both of them. The soon-to-be-turned vamp Montoya and the vampire Katrina drive away while Jack and Guiteau stay behind to clean up the town of the surviving vampires before pursing them. [Original Synopsis by bj_kuehl.]

Marion Whittington (Nancy Stephens)--formerly Marion Chambers--returns home to find that her house has been broken into. She goes to her neighbors and phones the police, but her teenage neighbor insists on investigating her house. After getting the all-clear, Marion goes in and finds that her office has been ransacked; she was responsible for taking care of Dr. Sam Loomis, now deceased, and she discovers that the file she kept on Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) has been stolen. Marion feels as if she's not alone in the house. Rushing next door, she finds her teenage neighbors murdered, and Michael Myers appears, wearing a trademark white mask. Michael stalks and kills Marion, then gets into a car and drives off just as the police arrive to investigate the break-in, discovering the bodies. Laurie has relocated to California. She is now known as Keri Tate, headmistress of a small private prep school. Laurie has a teenage son named John (Josh Hartnett), and the two of them live on campus with the rest of the students. Laurie still struggles with the events of Halloween night 1978, when Michael Myers stalked her and killed those around her. As a means to escape her past, she faked her death and has been living under her assumed identity of Keri ever since. Her past trauma, as well as the stress of living under false pretense, has turned her into a functioning alcoholic. She is also heavily dependent on medication for her emotional condition. Laurie has a secretary named Norma (Janet Leigh) who dotes on her like a parent, and notices how Laurie gets particularly shaken around Halloween. Laurie's boyfriend, Will Brennan (Adam Arkin) is a guidance counselor at the school, and the two of them share a semi-discreet relationship. But Laurie's relationship with John is becoming strained; she is overprotective of him and refuses to allow him much freedom. He is to stay within the locked school grounds at all times, and she denies him the right to attend an annual school camping trip to Yosemite, which is on Halloween. John's girlfriend Molly (Michelle Williams) also stays behind due to some problems with her tuition. Their friends Charlie (Adam Hann-Byrd) and Sarah (Jodi Lyn O'Keefe) also fabricate reasons to stay behind so that the four of them can celebrate Halloween together on the near-deserted campus. John and Charlie convince the school's security guard, Ronny (LL Cool J) to open the gate and let them out so that they can walk into town and shoplift a bottle of wine for their party. Laurie meets Will for lunch in town and opens up to him a little, acknowledging that she's been unable to deal with something in her past. While he's in the men's room, Laurie chugs her glass of wine and orders another, hurrying the waiter so that Will won't realize she's had two instead of just one. On her way back to the school, Laurie sees John and Charlie walking down the street and becomes enraged that John has left the school grounds. John also gets angry at Laurie, asserting himself and telling Laurie that she needs to accept the fact that Michael Myers is dead. Laurie drives Charlie and John back to school and scolds Ronny for allowing the boys to get out. Meanwhile, Michael Myers has arrived at the school. He follows Laurie downtown and lurks outside the school later, staring in at Molly as she sits in Laurie's literature class. Laurie addresses the students before they leave for Yosemite and lectures them to be on their best behavior. Afterwards she surprises John by telling him she's changed her mind and she will allow him to go with the others. Since he has already made plans with Molly, Charlie and Sarah, he stays behind anyway without Laurie's knowledge. That night, Michael Myers slips onto the grounds of the school by distracting Ronny at the gate. Ronny is unharmed but knows something is wrong. John and his friends get ready to eat dinner together when Charlie goes off in search of a corkscrew. Sarah follows him, and they are both murdered by Michael Myers. Will and Laurie carve a pumpkin together and Laurie tells him that she is not Keri Tate and that her real name is Laurie Strode. Will thinks she is joking when she tells him that her brother killed her sister with a kitchen knife, and that years later he came after her. Will eventually realizes she's telling the truth and wonders how old Laurie was at the time. She tells him she was 17, then suddenly realizes that John has just turned 17 as well. Her sense of panic sets in and she tries to call John; the phones are dead. She immediately goes to her bedroom and retrieves a gun, discovering John's camping gear in his closet; she now knows John never left for Yosemite. Ronny appears at the front door and tells them that there is a strange car parked in the driveway. They decide to search for John and the others. Meanwhile, John and Molly get restless and search for Charlie and Sarah, finding Sarah's body hanging from a light fixture. Michael Myers appears and gives chase, and they flee back to John's residence. Myers corners them in a doorway blocked by a gate. Laurie and Will open the door and let the kids inside just barely in time before Myers can get inside the gate; Laurie and Michael stare at each other momentarily through the door's tiny window. Before Laurie can get her gun, Myers disappears. Laurie puts John and Molly in a room and locks it, while she and Will look for Myers in the hallway. Will sees a shadow and thinks it is Myers, grabbing Laurie's gun and shooting. It is really Ronny; Will has shot him in the head. As they panic about the mistake, Myers appears and stabs Will to death, chasing Laurie down the hallway. She hits him over the head with a fire extinguisher and runs off with John and Molly. They make it to their vehicle and Laurie drives off to the front gate. Before she drives off, Laurie has a sudden moment of revelation. Instead of running, she sends John and Molly off and closes the gate behind them, breaking the mechanism that opens it. She then grabs a fire axe and sets out looking for Michael. She finds him back in the school and the two of them stalk each other, wounding each other with the axe and various knives. Finally Laurie stabs Michael several times in the chest, sending him hurtling over a balcony into the mess hall. He seems dead, but Laurie knows better. Help arrives at the school; John and Molly have sent the police. Ronny is alive, the bullet having just grazed his head. Laurie's wounds have been bandaged, and she sees the coroner carrying Michael's body on a stretcher. She knows ultimately he will return, and that she must make sure he's dead once and for all, so she steals a policeman's gun and forces the medics at gunpoint to load Michael into a nearby van. Laurie takes off at high speed. While she drives down the mountainous road, Myers begins to reanimate and pulls himself out of the body bag. Laurie slams on the brakes and sends him through the windshield, driving into him with the van. The van plunges over the hillside and both Laurie and Michael are thrown from it. Michael gets the worst of the deal; the van slams into his body and pins it against a fallen tree. Laurie finds the fire axe and approaches Michael, who is still alive, but helpless. She calls to him and he looks up at her, mute but seemingly asking her for help. Laurie reaches out for him, their fingertips touching briefly, and she feels pity for Michael. Suddenly her rage wells up inside her, and she decapitates Michael with a single blow.

On August 23, 2000, an earthquake reaching 9.6 magnitude hits the city of Los Angeles, causing it to be separated from the continental mainland by flooding the San Fernando Valley (now called the "San Fernando Sea") and turning it into an island from Malibu to Anaheim. Just prior to this, an American presidential candidate (an obscure reference to Jerry Falwell; played by Cliff Robertson), who is also an out-spoken, Christian theocracist, had made a doomsday prediction of the disaster during his campaign, saying L.A. was a "city of sin", and that; "Like the mighty hand of God, waters will rise up and separate this sinful, sinful city, from our country." In the chaos that followed, the candidate is elected as the new President and a new constitutional amendment appoints him for life in office. This President declares that all people not conforming to the new "Moral America" laws he sets for the country (banning such things as smoking, alcoholic beverages, red meat, owning firearms, profanity, non-Christian religions (including atheism), and non-marital sex) will lose their citizenship and be deported to Los Angeles Island. Like New York City in Escape from New York, Los Angeles is turned into a penal colony of sorts. A containment wall is built around the shores of the mainland, armed guards and watchtowers are posted everywhere and those sent to the island are exiled permanently. In 2013, Cuervo Jones (Georges Corraface), a Che Guevara-like Shining Path Peruvian Revolutionary, seduces the President's daughter, Utopia (A.J. Langer), via a holographic internet system and brainwashes her into stealing her father's remote control to the "Sword of Damocles" super weapon a series of high-tech satellites capable of destroying electronics anywhere on the planet using a focused electromagnetic pulse. The President had threatened to use the system to render enemies of America "unable to function", and eventually dominate the world. Utopia gets away in an escape pod from Air Force Three and lands on L.A. Island to be with Cuervo. With the satellites under his control, Cuervo promises to take back America with the assistance of an allied invasion force of Latin American nations that are standing by for his signal to attack. Cuervo threatens that if the President tries to stop him, he'll "pull the plug" on the country and demonstrates his power by blacking out the capital (which has been moved to the President's hometown of Lynchburg, Virginia, also the real-life hometown of Jerry Falwell). Cuervo also knows the secret "world code", (which is 666), that can activate all the satellites and knock out power for the entire planet. Meanwhile, Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell), is captured for another series of crimes. The Duty Sergeant (Peter Jason) welcomes Snake to the deportation area, but he instead escorts Snake and leaves him in a vacant room. A minute later, the President, the police base camp commander Malloy (Stacey Keech Jr.) and his aide Brazen (Michelle Forbes) arrive and offer him a deal: Snake will go to the island as an exile to retrieve the remote device. The President says he will give Snake a full pardon for all the crimes he has ever committed if he is successful. The President indicates he doesn't care if Utopia is returned or not, saying she is a traitor and "dead to me". Initially, Snake refuses to get involved, but to ensure his compliance, Malloy tells Snake that he was secretly infected minutes earlier with the man-made Plutoxin 7 virus which will kill him in 10 hours. If he completes the mission, Snake will be given the antidote. Snake is given a sub-machine gun, a personal holographic projector, a thermal-camouflage overcoat, and a countdown clock for how long he has to live. The virus works fast, and Snake is given a device to records the minutes counting down from 10 hours to find the device and get out before he dies. Like New York, Los Angeles is now in ruins, and a hot-bed of crime. Snake sneaks into the city with a nuclear-powered mini submarine which he soon loses when the unsturdy platform it landed on crumbles, causing the sub to sink into the ocean. Making his way across the island, Snake meets an array of characters. One of them is 'Map to the Stars' Eddie (Steve Buscemi), a swindler who makes a living selling interactive tours of L.A.. Next, Snake runs into, a knife-wielding skinhead (Robert Carradine) who uses corpses for target practice. Snake also passes by Pipeline (Peter Fonda), a hippie surfer who surfs the frequent tidal waves that frequent the coastline. Snake then meets a young woman (Valeria Golino) whom directs him to the location of Cuervo Jones camp, but they both get captured by a group of mutant people and held in the former Beverly Hills hospital where they are threatened by the insane and deformed "Surgeon General of Beverly Hills" (Bruce Campbell). Snake uses a knockout dart hidden in his clothing to subdue the Surgeon General and forces his people to release him and the young woman. Snake and the woman escape to a nearby junkyard where after, she reveals her romantic feelings for Snake, she is killed in the cross fire of a gangland shooting. Snake has a run-in with 'Map to the Stars' Eddie again who tries to lead him to Cuervo's camp, only to betray him and Snake is captured. An increasingly sick Snake is brought to the former L.A. arena where he is forced to play basketball by trying to get five two-point basket shots within 10 seconds of each other. Snake manages to defeat the basket shots and earns praise and recogniton from the crowd (similar to in New York when he defeated a rival in a boxing ring). Snake escapes from the arena during another aftershock earthquake and gets away with a little help from Pipeline who shows him how to surf the tsunami waves that wash over the area. Snake hides out on board the former Queen Mary cruise ship located in former Long Beach where he meets local gang leader Hershe Las Palmas (Pam Grier) whom was formerly Bill 'Carjack' Malone, a transsexual and former accomplice of Snake from Cleveland, Ohio, who after hearing about his mission to find the black box remote control device, tells him the Plutoxin virus is a propagandized lie and won't kill him. She agrees to help Snake attack Cuervo Jones main camp to get the remote control device and escape from the island. Snake and Hershe's men commandeer hand gliders and fly to Cuervo's staging area. Snake and Hershe's men land at the former amusement park, Happy Kingdom by the Sea, and in a climatic gun battle, defeats Cuervo by gunning down most of his men and claiming the remote control device. Eddie appears again and offers his help to Snake, despite being a double agent playing both sides. Snake commandeers a police helicopter that lands and grabs Utopia with him as they, along with Eddie, Hersche and her few surviving men, board the helicopter to fly away. But then Cuervo fires a rocket at the helicopter, damaging it and killing Hershe and her men. Eddie manages to shoot and kill Cuervo, but he falls out of the helicopter. Eddie lands on the ground unharmed, but is now facing several of Cuervo's armed and angry men. Snake manages to fly the damaged chopper to the mainland where he and Utopia abandon the helicopter before it crashes. Just then, Commander Malloy, Brazen, and the President appear with a platoon of soldiers. Snake then hands off the wrong remote to the President (similar to what Snake did to Hauk in 'New York') while Utopia is taken to the electric chair for execution, despite her pleas for forgiveness. Snake is relieved, but only more angry then ever when the timer for his life runs out and he learns that the Plutoxin 7 virus was indeed to be nothing more than a fast, hard hitting case of the flu virus, not in the least bit lethal to Snake. Thinking he has control of the satellites, the President tries to use it to stop a Cuban invasion force threatening Florida. Activating the remote, the President hears only Eddie's "Map to the Stars" intro over 'I Love L.A.' instead. In anger, the President orders Snake to be executed, but Snake had activated his hologram projector and the Snake that gets shot is an illusion. Snake activates the device, entering the world code (666), against pleas to stop. All over the world, the satellites activate their EMP weapons at the world, thus shutting down every electrical device, and turning the world back into the Dark Ages. At the deportation center, Utopia praises Snake for "turning off the world", and saving her. The illusory Snake disappears, since he has "turned off the Earth". In the final shot, Snake is a few hundred yards away from the President and his soldiers, who are now looking for him, where he finds a pack of cigarettes on the ground and lights one up. The cigarette box is labeled "American Spirit." As Snake walks off into the woods as dawn is starting to break, he then says to himself: "Welcome to the human race."

The quiet coastal town of Midwich, California is invaded by an unseen force which leaves ten women mysteriously pregnant. Nine months later, the babies are born simultaneously on one night, except for one which is stillborn. At first, they all appear to be normal, but it does not take the parents long to realize that their children are anything but normal. As they grow older, the children are shown to have pale skin, platinum-white hair, fierce intellect and steely, cobalt eyes. The emotionless children display eerie psychic abilities and remarkable powers, which they use with deadly consequences, unleashing a reign of terror. When they actively use their mind-controlled powers, their irises or their entire eyes glow in different colours, mostly reddish-orange, but also green, yellow, violet, blue or pure white. There are some story differences from the earlier adaptation. In this version, the children "paired off", but one of the children, David (Thomas Dekker), loses his partner after she dies at birth. As a result, he shows human compassion while still resembling the other children and retaining some degree of psychic powers. This leads to him not fitting in well with the children. Their ruthless leader, Mara (Lindsey Haun) ("daughter" of a local doctor, Dr. Alan Chaffee (Christopher Reeve); her mother, Barbara (Karen Kahn), commits suicide by walking off an ocean cliff), considers him less important due to his expression of emotions. Because of his childhood loss, he understands what the other children do not: pain. He and his mother (Linda Kozlowski) (the local school principal) share a brief conversation about the meaning of the word "empathy", with David beginning to understand that if he feels pain, he can understand others' pain as well. When the other children experience pain, they simply use their powers to inflict the same pain on the adult responsible for the pain, for example forcing one of the mothers to put one of her arms in a pot full of boiling water, or forcing the local optometrist making herself blind with a painful liquid. Soon, the other colonies of psychic children in foreign countries are eliminated because of their danger. The scientific team at Midwich quickly flees the town to escape the chaos. However, the lead government scientist, Dr. Susan Verner (Kirstie Alley), is killed by the children after being forced to show them David's partner, the baby that was stillborn. Susan has secretly kept it so that she could perform an autopsy on it and study it. A mob of angry townspeople attempt to stop the children, but the latter use their powers to kill the leader of the mob causing the other townspeople to flee quickly. The State Police and the National Guards are then sent out to kill the children, who instead hypnotize them into shooting each other in a chaotic gun battle. In order to rid the town of the children, Alan devises a plan; to detonate a briefcase of explosives inside the children's classroom. By thinking of a brick wall, he is able to create a mental barrier and keep the presence of the bomb a secret from the children. Jill begs him to save David (because he is not like the others), and Alan agrees. He attempts to do this by asking David to leave the classroom to get his books from his car. Finally, Jill shows up, but the children stop her. David, angered by this, rushes to her defense and knocks Mara over. The children turn on David, but Jill rushes him from the building. At last, the children break through Alan's defenses, but the explosives detonate, destroying the barn and killing everyone, including Alan. Jill and David survive the massacre; she says that they would both move to a place where nobody knows them. The last scene is of David, riding in his mother's car, looking off into the distance.

On October 31, 1989, Michael Myers and his niece Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris) have been abducted by a mysterious stranger in black at the Haddonfield Police Station. Six years later, teenage Jamie (J. C. Brandy) has been impregnated and her baby is born on Halloween Eve. The baby is taken away by the "Man in Black" who appears to be the leader of a Druid-like cult. Later, a midwife (Susan Swift) helps Jamie escape with her baby and is soon killed by Michael (George P. Wilbur). Jamie and her baby flee in a stolen pickup. Stopping briefly at a deserted bus station, Jamie makes a call to a Haddonfield radio station to warn them that Michael is about to return home, only to be ignored by the radio D.J. Barry Simms (Leo Geter) who is doing a broadcast on the Haddonfield murders. Meanwhile, a frail Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence), now retired and recovering from a stroke, is visited by his friend Dr. Terence Wynn (Mitch Ryan), the chief administrator of Smith's Grove Sanitarium where Michael had been incarcerated as a boy, who asks Loomis to return to Smith's Grove. During their conversation they overhear Jamie's plea for help on a local radio station. Later, Jamie drives back on the road followed by Michael, who causes her to crash into an old barn. Michael kills Jamie by impaling her on a corn thresher, but finds that Jamie's baby is not in the truck. Back in Haddonfield, Tommy Doyle (Paul Rudd), whom Laurie Strode babysat in the first film, now lives in a boarding house run by Mrs. Blankenship (Janice Knickrehm), a mysterious old woman. The family living in the Myers house across the street are relatives of the Strode family: Kara Strode (Marianne Hagan), her six-year-old son Danny (Devin Gardner), her teenage brother, Tim (Keith Bogart), caring mother Debra (Kim Darby) and abusive father John (Bradford English). Ever since seeing Michael Myers as a child, Tommy has been obsessed with finding the truth behind his motives. He finds Jamie's baby at the bus station, takes him into his care and names him Stephen. Tommy runs into Dr. Loomis and tells him that the Strode family living in the Myers house. The two believe Michael has returned to Haddonfield. After Dr. Loomis tells her that she is living in Michael's home, Debra calls John to tell him she wants to leave Haddonfield but is killed by Michael. Later, Kara returns home to find Danny in his room with Tommy, whom he had met while on his way home. The three go to the boarding house, where Tommy reveals that he believes Michael has been inflicted with the curse of Thorn by a Druid-inspired cult. Thorn is an ancient Druid symbol that represented a demon that spread sickness and caused destruction. To prevent this, one child from each tribe was chosen to bear the curse of Thorn to offer a blood sacrifice of its next of kin on the night of Samhain (Halloween). When the corresponding Thorn constellation appears, Michael appears. The curse explains why Michael is out to kill his family and also accounts for his superhuman abilities. Tommy believes that Steven will be Michael's final sacrifice. While Tommy goes out to look for Dr. Loomis at a party at the Haddonfield Junior College, Mrs. Blankenship reveals to Kara that she was babysitting Michael the night he killed his sister, and that Danny hears the "voice" (from the "Man in Black") telling him to kill just like Michael did, indicating that Danny also possesses the power of Thorn. Meanwhile, Michael kills John and Tim Strode, Tim's girlfriend Beth (Mariah O'Brien), and Barry Simms. After Tommy returns home with Dr. Loomis, the "Man in Black" finally reveals himself to be Dr. Wynn. The "Cult of Thorn" take Kara, Danny, Steven, and Michael to Smith's Grove. There, Loomis confronts Dr. Wynn who credits Loomis for first recognizing the evil power of Thorn inside Michael, which Wynn wants to control and study, and that Jamie's baby represents the dawn of a new age. Loomis is then knocked unconscious by a staff member. Tommy finds Kara locked in a room in the maximum security ward and frees her. In one of the main hallways, they see Wynn and a team of scientists walk into an operating room to perform an unknown procedure. Tommy and Kara sneak into the adjoining room where they find Danny and Steven. Michael, angry at being exploited by Wynn and his staff, walks into the operating room with a surgical machete and murders them all. Tommy, Kara, and the kids run with Michael in hot pursuit, and hide in a high-tech laboratory. Inside the lab, Kara notices tanks containing human fetuses with a chart of runes and scientific letter codes connected together by the Thorn symbol, suggesting that the cult of scientists have been exploiting the evil power of Thorn for the benefit of medical science. It is implied that they have been trying to clone pure evil using the desired genes that Michael possess by impregnating their female patients to replicate Thorn in its most powerful form. Steven is the result of this experiment tested on Jamie. Michael breaks into the room. Tommy injects him with a corrosive liquid and beats him into unconsciousness with a lead pipe. As Dr. Loomis, Tommy, Kara, Danny, and Steven are about to escape, Loomis tells them to go on without him because he has "a little business" to attend to. Back inside the building, Michael's mask is found lying on the floor of the lab room as the screams of Dr. Loomis can be heard in the background, leaving his fate ambiguous.

They influence our decisions without us knowing it. They numb our senses without us feeling it. They control our lives without us realizing it. They live. Nada, a down-on-his-luck construction worker, discovers a pair of special sunglasses. Wearing them, he is able to see the world as it really is: people being bombarded by media and government with messages like "Stay Asleep," "No Imagination," "Submit to Authority." Even scarier is that he is able to see that some usually normal-looking people are in fact ugly aliens in charge of the massive campaign to keep humans subdued. —Melissa Portell <mportell@s-cwis.unomaha.edu> John Carpenter's slow and deliberate immersion of the daunting and worrying fable of the corrupt, deceiving and indifferent economic, social and political society, that has wrapped itself around its people and who in turn have blindly accepted their fate. Multicultural in more forms than anticipated, are the leading and upwardly mobile alien race who have gelled themselves into the Human psyche and exploited it to its full potential. This is the story of an everyman, a no one, a Nada who stumbles upon their secret, via an underground movement, whose mission is to sabotage their plans and awaken the world to its sinister plans. With the help of a pair of sunglasses, that shows the world as it really is, not in color, but a black and white parallel world that the sub-conscious has chosen to ignore. With subliminal messages as "OBEY," "CONFORM," "MARRY AND REPRODUCE," "CONSUME," "WATCH TELEVISION" and "SLEEP." It is through this thought control that the aliens have this world tied up and neatly packaged for its own manipulative uses, to further themselves at the expense of the meek, mild and the lowly sufferers of a job less and hungry world. This is the battle of self-awareness and one mans struggle with a reality check that has these alien beings staging war against the up-rising and rebellious armies from the gutters and streets. They Live You Sleep; where will your consciousness take you when the sleep is washed from your eyes. Welcome to the real world. —Cinema_Fan They influence our decisions without us knowing it. They numb our senses without us feeling it. They control our lives without us realizing it. They live. Horror master John Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing) directs this heart-pounding thriller. Aliens are systematically gaining control of the earth by masquerading as humans and lulling the public into submission. Humanity's last chance lies with a lone drifter who stumbles upon a harrowing discovery - a unique pair of sunglasses that reveal the terrifying and deadly truth. —Anonymous John Nada is a man without job who walks around a big American city trying to find something to do. He finally finds a job as a worker and a place to spend the nights, but one day something terrible happens to him. John discovers a pair of sun-glasses through which he can see the true face of people. Many persons in this city are in fact aliens (from the Andromeda) and most of them are important members of our society. They keep humans in ignorance and they rule our world as they like. Nada must find the rest of the men that know what's happening (those who made the strange sun-glasses) and join them in the fight against the aliens. —Chris Makrozahopoulos <makzax@hotmail.com>

In 1977, the Voyager 2 deep space probe was launched containing a gold, phonographic disk with messages of peace embedded within it and inviting visitors to come to the planet Earth. The Voyager probe is intercepted by an alien space ship which sends a small observational scout vessel in response to the invitation in order to establish first contact with Earth. However, instead of being greeted by its human hosts, the spacecraft is promptly shot down by the US government. The ship crashes in Chequamegon Bay, Wisconsin and the alien, a blue ball of energy, emerges from the wreckage. It stumbles upon the house of recently widowed Jenny Hayden (Karen Allen). There, it finds a lock of hair belonging to Jenny's deceased husband Scott in a photo album and uses it to clone a new body. The depressed Jenny watches stunned as the alien takes on Scott's form. The Starman (Jeff Bridges) possesses seven small silver spheres which he turns into pure energy to perform miraculous feats. He uses the first one to send a message to his people that his craft has been destroyed, that the environment is hostile, and that he will rendezvous with them at "Landing Area One" in three days, located in Arizona. He then uses the second one to create a holographic map of the United States in order to compel the dumbstruck Jenny to help him get to Arizona. However, Jenny is frightened of the Starman and reacts with hostility towards him, doing what she can to avoid traveling with him. After repeatedly and unsuccessfully attempting to escape, she finally implores the Starman to shoot her with her pistol. Instead, the Starman releases the pistol's magazine and tells her he means her no harm. As they continue on their journey the Starman, who developed a rough understanding of English syntax from the Voyager 2 disk, learns to communicate exactly who he is and what his purpose is to Jenny while she tries to teach the Starman that humanity is not completely savage. The Starman explains to Jenny that he has three days to get to the rendezvous point, Arizona's Barringer Crater, or he will die. She teaches him how to drive a car and use credit cards, intending to leave him self sufficient enough to continue the journey alone. However, while they are stopped at a small diner, they connect on a more emotional level with Jenny attempting to explain to him what love is. She also witnesses the Starman revive a dead deer that had been tied to the front of a hunter's (Ted White) car. Deeply moved, she resolves to help him. Meanwhile, the US army, after discovering the crash site of the Starman's ship, is tracking the couple's trail to Arizona. The army battalion is led by the cold-blooded NSA Chief George Fox (Richard Jaeckel) who is reluctantly assisted by SETI scientist, Mark Shermin (Charles Martin Smith). Shermin is clearly a more understanding and empathic man and, after he finds the Voyager 2 disk in the Starman's ship, Shermin deduces that the Starman was invited to Earth peacefully and discovers that the alien has taken the form of Scott Hayden through collected pieces of evidence around Jenny's house. Once news of the fugitives becomes publicized, a couple of cops (Dirk Blocker, M.C. Gainey) intent on becoming local heroes, discover Jenny and Starman residing at a motel. They decide to hold position outside until the government arrives but, when Jenny and Starman attempt to escape, despite employing a distraction, the cops pursue them by car and one shoots Jenny. Starman crashes their vehicle into an overturned gas tanker, protecting himself and Jenny from the ensuing explosion with one of his spheres. Under cover of the chaos, he seeks refuge in a mobile home being transported on a trailer bed. Jenny never regains consciousness but Starman, down to his last two spheres, uses one to revive her, gently kissing her as her wounds heal. He then leaves her and attempts to reach the Crater alone; afraid she will be hurt again. Jenny regains consciousness and heads off to find him, aware that they were being pursued by the government. Meanwhile, the Starman hitches a ride with a local truck driver, telling him that his name is Scott and he's headed for Arizona. A large traffic jam awaits them. Several miles back, Jenny manages to hitch a ride with another truck diver and, after a while, are met by the same traffic jam. Police have barricaded the road and are interrogating people. When she locates Starman standing anonymously within the crowd, and knowing it's only a matter of time before he's revealed, Jenny employs the truck driver to stage a distraction for her. He explodes a gas can which incites the police to chase after him, enabling Jenny to reach Starman. They escape in the panic and continue their journey, stowing away on a train boxcar. En route, they become close and consummate their feelings for one another. Starman tells Jenny that he gave her a baby, despite Jenny's insistence that she is infertile. Starman assures her to believe what he says and tells her that the child will be the son of her husband, since he is a clone of Scott. He explains that the child will know all that Starman knows and will grow up to be a teacher. However, he gives her the option of taking it back but Jenny refuses, joyfully accepting his gift. The couple mistakenly travel too far on the train and arrive in Las Vegas and, to make matters worse, Jenny has lost her wallet. The Starman uses their last quarters in a slot machine which he manipulates with his powers in order to win a $500,000 jackpot. The couple use their winnings to buy a new car to complete the drive to Winslow, Arizona, which is near Barringer Crater. Meanwhile, Fox has received information from NORAD that the trajectory of The Starman's Observation Craft, prior to it being shot down, was to Barringer Crater, and concludes that the Starman, along with Jenny Hayden would be in that general vicinity within the next 24 hours of that determination. Near the end of the journey, the Starman, growing weaker, and Jenny are confronted in a cafe in Winslow, where Mark Shermin interviews the dying Starman. The Starman explains to him that his people had previously visited Earth and are interested in humans because, out of all the many savage intelligent races in the universe, humans are at their best when things are at their worst. Confronted with this, Shermin decides to ruin his career to help the Starman and Jenny escape. The couple reach the crater as Army helicopters buzz them. Suddenly, the aliens' large, spherical mothership appears in the sky and descends into the crater. A blue light surrounds the couple and the Starman is instantly restored to health. He tells Jenny he will never see her again. Jenny confesses her love and begs him to take her with him but he says she would die on his world. He then gives her his last silver sphere, telling her that her son will know what to do with it before asking Jenny to tell her son about him. He asks her to tell him how to say goodbye and they kiss one last time before the Starman walks away into the beam. As Jenny watches in silence, the mothership rises, carrying the Starman away.

It's 1958 in Detroit. We are inside a car factory where numerous Plymouth Fury's are being assembled. Among the rather plain-colored vehicles, one of them stands out: a bright-red one. During the process, this particular red car is being fussed about by one factory worker who has his hand injured when the vehicle's hood comes down on it. Another factory worker takes a seat inside the vehicle; he will be found dead afterwords. Present day, September 16, 1978 in Northern California. Arnie Cunningham (Keith Gordon) is a meek teenager who spends his weekends playing Scrabble with his parents (Christine Belford and Richard Darnell), who still treat him as a child. Arnie and his best friend Dennis Guilder (John Stockwell) are going to their school, as usual. Arnie is clumsy, and his black-rimmed glasses characterize him as being nerdy. Dennis is a football player, who still befriends Arnie and tries to stand up for him. During shop class, Arnie is bullied by several students led by Buddy Repperton (William Ostrander). Dennis tries to stop the bullies, but he can't be all the time checking on weak Arnie. Today, Buddy stamps on Arnie's sack-lunch and also breaks his glasses. When both Arnie and Dennis tell the shop teacher that Buddy had a switchblade in his possession when he teased Arnie, it looks that the only consequence will be bad for Arnie, as Boddy announces he will take his own back pretty soon. Arnie and Dennis start their way back to their homes. Arnie notices a used Plymouth Fury with a placard announcing "SOLD". Supposedly, this is the same vehicle that we saw on the Detroit assembly line... only now it's dirty, gritty, broken, with pieces peeling off or falling apart. In spite of everything, Arnie falls in love with this car. He immediately wants to buy it. The owner, George LeBay, tells the story of the car: he inherited it from his dead brother, Roland. The current owner also tells Arnie that the car has a name: Christine. Arnie drives Dennis home in his new car. Once at home, Arnie's overprotective parents angrily start pestering him for having spent his money on a car without consulting them, and especially one in Christine's wrecked condition. Arnie angrily shouts back that throughout his life, they haven't allowed him to have something he truly wants, and that he is dead-set on keeping Christine. However, his parents refuse to have it parked in their driveway. Arnie decides to take it to a local junkyard garage run by an irritable middle-aged man named Will Darnell (Robert Prosky) for storage. Over the next several weeks, Arnie begins working on Christine whenever he has a bit of free time after school. He also starts to help Mr. Darnell around his garage. This was the first time when Arnie stood up to his parents. However, it's not only about being against parental control. Dennis also notices a subtle change in Arnie, as he seems to be more assertive. Weirdly enough, Arnie has stopped using his eye glasses. During a football game, Dennis is shocked to see Arnie arrive in Christine, now fully-restored into a shining beautiful red car, but also along for the ride is the new student, Leigh Cabot (Alexandra Paul). The sight of the two of them together causes Dennis to make a mistake on the field as he's tackled hard. This puts an end to Dennis' football career - and to his ambitions for the future-, so he ends up recuperating in hospital, surrounded by medical paraphernalia. Meanwhile, Arnie continues to date Leigh. One night, he takes her to see a film at the drive-in; and there, Leigh confesses to Arnie that she thinks he's moving too fast in their relationship. She also claims she feels unsettled when she is around Christine. During the movie, one of Christine's windshield wipers becomes stuck, and Arnie gets out to fix it. As he does so, Leigh chokes on a hamburger and immediately, the door latches lock themselves! Arnie tries to get back into the car unsuccessfully. Basically, Leigh has to save herself when she manages to unlock the passenger door, and a nearby viewer who saw her struggling performs the Heimlich maneuver on her. Arnie then drives Leigh home. At her doorstep, she tells him that she won't go anywhere in Christine again. There are weird things about the car, she says, like when only old songs can be reached through the radio aerial, but none of the local radio stations can be heard. Arnie then returns Christine to Darnell's garage. After Arnie's departure, Buddy Repperton and his thugs arrive, and they proceed to systematically destroy the car. Arnie sees the wreck done to Christine the following day and is shocked that all the work he had put into restoring the car has evaporated. Arnie suspects that Leigh was somehow responsible for the wreck. He is getting into trouble as home as well, as his temper is radically changed. His parents notice the acute change in him and they comment that they want the old Arnie to come back. The long Scrabble nights are over, and Arnie has one big row with his father. But more and more, Arnie can only think of one matter: he wants to restore Christine to its full beauty again. Next day, first thing he does is going to the salvage garage to re-start work on Christine. Determined, he looks for his tools. Turning his back on Christine, he hears the crinkling of metal behind him. Arnie looks at Christine startled, and he realizes that, part of her engine is now repaired as if by magic. Arnie doesn't look startled anymore, and he encourages Christine to restore herself in front of him. The car flicks her headlights on, and obediently, there is suddenly mayhem: pieces are moving to their original position, the hood dusts itself off, the aerial strengthens up, buttons and seats start mending themselves and end up being shiny as brand new. The living malevolent car has the power to regenerate. A more-determined Arnie goes back to high school life. Nobody dares to touch him now. At night, Christine comes to life by herself and she seeks out and gruesomely kills each gang member who took part in destroying her. He runs after them. Eventually, Christine arrives at a gas station, spilling gasoline, setting it on fire so that the building becomes debris and ashes. Christine catches fire herself, but that doesn't stop her, as she still goes after Buddy. He tries to run away the scene, terrified because he has seen an unexplainable thing happened. The following morning, Chrisitne becomes the quiet, shiny, brand-new red car of the cover painting. Christine also kills grumply Will Darnell, by the slow method of crushing him in the front seat against the steering wheel. Christine has to deform herself in order to do this, but the following morning, she is in perfect condition. Some weeks later in December, Dennis catches Leigh in high school between classes and he talks to her about Arnie and his car. Dennis and Arnie are not best pals anymore, and Leigh had realised that, in spite of not having broken up verbally with Arnie, there is no place in his life for her. Holidays approach, and New Year's Eve is close. Dennis and Leigh talk about the supernatural element in Christine, knowing that they can only talk to each other about that, as nobody else would believe them. They know they will have to kill Christine. Dennis decides to call on his old buddy at his home, but Leigh advises him to take caution. After she leaves, it's Arnie who calls on Dennis instead. Arnie arrives in Christine and invites Dennis over. Arnie drives Dennis to the former's. Dennis realises about Arnie's dazzled eyes, even before Arnie starts doing things he would have never done before, during his nerd phase: he drinks beer in Homer Simpson-quantities, he terrorizes other drivers and even copies the "without-hands" motorbike stunt. Dennis watches how Christine's mile counter moves backwards, having less miles instead of more. Arnie tires to explain to Dennis how wonderful, strong and fulfilled he feels when he is driving Christine; Arnie's words increasingly become those of a starry-eyed lover. When Dennis leaves Christine, he is more unsettled than ever. Dennis is determined that the nightmare has to stop. He thinks that killing Christine is the only way of returning Arnie to normal. Dennis and Leigh may be having a thing going on between them, but it also may be that each one is the only safe rock of the other. They are worried about Arnie, especially Dennis, who really misses his best friend. Next morning, Dennis goes to the school parking lot and scratches "Darnell's Tonight" into Christine's hood, and drives off with Leigh. They go to Darnell's scrapyard and they wait for Arnie and Christine inside a bulldozer. Night falls down, and Dennis devises a plan. He tells Leigh to wait in the office. The plan is that she will shut door on Christine after her arrival, trapping the vehicle inside the office. Leigh leaves to do so. While she is on her way there, the car's lights suddenly break the night: she was hiding under a pile of garbage. Christine drives towards Leigh trying to run over her, but crashes on to one of the office walls instead. Arnie gets ejected through Christine's windshield and is impaled on a shard of glass, fatally wounding him. Arnie is bloodied, but in his last breath, he just caresses Christine's front bumper for the last time. In his own way, he dies happy. Enraged, Christine attacks Leigh once again. Dennis drives the bulldozer and he fights Christine, who is playing Pledging My Love at top volume on her radio. Christine is still set on dealing with Leigh first, so she approaches her top speed to run over her. However, Dennis drives the bulldozer up on to the car's back, stopping her and crashing her. Leigh climbs in to the cab of the bulldozer and embraces Dennis. Meanwhile, Christine returns back to life and begins to heal herself over again. So, Dennis has to drive the bulldozer over Christine, crashing her onto a thin layer of metal and glass materials, until her headlights flicker and then go out for good. Dennis compacts the red car onto a cube. The ordeal is over. However, later on, within that scrape-yard cube, a metallic stick starts to slowly move and straighten up...

Scientists at an arctic research station discover an alien, unaware that it can assume any human form. Before long, the scientists can`t tell who`s real and who`s a deadly threat.

In northern California, on the night of Saturday, October 23, we see a man running down a semi-rural road as the movie opens. Obviously being pursued, the man Harry Grimbridge (Al Berry) runs into a junkyard to try to hide or find help. Then we see his pursuers coming down the road in a car and entering the junkyard. The man tries to hide, to no avail; a well-dressed man who is stronger than he looks confronts him and begins choking him. The resourceful man saves himself by pulling a chock out from under a junked car, which rolls forward and pins his attacker against another car, allowing him to break free. Another well-dressed man with gray-silver colored hair (Dick Warlock) gets out of the car, but the pursued man flees across the junkyard on foot to dubious safety. A short distance away, as a storm begins to pass through, a gas station attendant named Walter Jones (Essex Smith) is passing time watching a news report about Stonehenge. The reporter is talking about an unsolved theft from some nine months earlier; someone had stolen a stone weighing several tons from the Stonehenge ruins in England and the local police are baffled. The TV cuts to a commercial for Silver Shamrock masks before the storm knocks out the power. Just then, the man from the junkyard bursts into the gas station, clutching a Silver Shamrock pumpkin Halloween mask, begging for help. The attendant, clearly disturbed, takes the man to the hospital. Meanwhile, not too far away, the recently divorced Dr. Dan Challis (Tom Atkins) stops off at home to see his ex-wife Linda (Nancy Kyes) and their two children. He's late arriving, a not uncommon occurrence with him. He has brought the kids some masks for the upcoming Halloween, but they are disappointed, saying "Mom already got us masks". They were Silver Shamrock masks. While Dan and his ex are talking, the kids turn on the TV and see another Silver Shamrock commercial, which they seem to enjoy immensely. Dan's beeper goes off - he is needed at the hospital. After promising to pick up the kids next weekend, he leaves. At the hospital, Dan meets the guy from the junkyard and talks briefly to the gas station attendant who drove him in. The guy wakes up when he hears yet another Silver Shamrock commercial on a hospital TV, gasping out "They're going to kill us! All of us!!!!" while still clutching his mask. Feeling the man is deranged, Dan has him sedated and put in a hospital bed to recover. There being no further patients at the moment, Dan, making the most of having been recently divorced, goes off to flirt with the nurses, drink some beer, and take a nap in the doctors' lounge. Not long after, a car arrives at the hospital, and another silent, well-dressed man steps out and enters the building. He walks to the junkyard guy's room, where he is sleeping. The man clamps one of his hands over the guy's mouth (waking him up), and uses his other hand to poke his fingers in the guy's eye sockets and pull his skull apart. He is much stronger than he appears. A nurse walks in just then and confronts him; the man just walks away. Seconds later, the nurse sees what just happened and screams. Dan Challis, woken from his nap, comes running, just in time to see the man walk back to the parking lot. Dan runs out to confront him, but the man is already getting back into his car. Rather than drive away, he drenches himself with gasoline and lights himself on fire, causing an explosion that destroys both himself and the car. In the morning, the police are investigating, while Dan is arguing with his ex-wife over the phone. A dark-haired girl (Stacey Nelkin) walks into the room, the daughter of the man who was killed. Her name is Ellie Grimbridge, and we then learn the dead guy's name was Harry Grimbridge. Dan and the police try to comfort Ellie as best they can after she identifies the body. Both Dan and the police are bewildered by the event. After hearing the description, the police thought the well-dressed murderer was on drugs, but Dan, the doctor, said it appeared the man was in complete control of himself. In the middle of the week, Dan goes to see the assistant coroner, a woman named Teddy (Wendy Wessberg), and asks her what she has discovered. The answer is not much, the guy was just ashes. She will be looking at the remains of the burned car for clues for a while yet. Dan asks her to keep him posted. He is still clearly rattled by the event and wants some answers. On Friday, two days before Halloween, Ellie finds Dan alone in a bar, where he had been drinking and watching TV. One of the nurses had told her she would probably find him there. She thanked him for attending her father's funeral and asked him if he had seen anything that might help her figure out what had happened. Dan, still wanting to know what had happened, told her about the mask and her father's last words - "They're going to kill us!" Dan and Ellie go to the late Harry's store downtown. It had been a distressed toy store before Harry's death; now it was "closed until further notice". The new shopping malls had siphoned off a lot of his business, but the town's children had been keeping the store afloat. There, Ellie showed Dan her own investigations. Harry had kept meticulous records at his business, and everything checked out until October 20, when he had gone to pick up more masks - Silver Shamrock masks, which were selling well. Dan remarked that Harry had been holding a Silver Shamrock mask when he was killed. Harry had never made it to his appointments on the 21st. Ellie wanted to go to the Silver Shamrock factory to investigate further, and Dan, intrigued by the mystery (and attracted to Ellie), went along with her. Just before driving out of town in Ellie's car with only a cooler for luggage, Dan calls his ex-wife to back out of his promise to pick up the kids the next afternoon, promising to pick them up on Halloween instead. As Dan and Ellie drive away, we see some TVs in a store window showing yet another Silver Shamrock commercial. In the weeks leading up to Halloween, Silver Shamrock had undertaken a major advertising blitz, saturating the airwaves with a catchy but obnoxious commercial for its Halloween masks, counting down the days until Halloween to the tune of "London Bridge". The announcer in the commercial said that Silver Shamrock would be sponsoring the airing of the movie Halloween (1978) on Halloween night, to be followed immediately (at 9 p.m.) by a "big giveaway" - for which all the children were supposed to wear their masks and watch the TV closely. On Friday afternoon, Dan and Ellie arrive in Santa Mira, home of Silver Shamrock, a small town that seems to give off some weird vibes (a reference to Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), set in a small town of the exact same name). It was founded in 1887 by Irish immigrants, and the principal (almost the only) industry was the Silver Shamrock factory, started after World War II by a man named Conal Cochran. They drive past the factory, which looks like the only major industry there. The townspeople stare at them, making them both uncomfortable. They see loudspeakers and moving video cameras on top of the utility poles. Not knowing exactly what to do next, they go to a cheap motel and rent a room, where they can talk strategy in privacy. While the motel keeper Rafferty (Michael Currie) is showing Ellie the room, Dan goes off to the office, ostensibly to pay the bill, but he checks the register while he was there. Harry Grimbridge's name was on the register. Ellie sees Cochran's car drive past, although she can't see inside the darkened windows. On his way back from the office, Dan meets another motel guest, Buddy Kupfer (Ralph Strait), a Silver Shamrock salesman; and his wife Betty (Jadeen Barbor) and their bratty son "Little Buddy" (Brad Schacter). He also meets Marge (Garn Stephens), a department store owner who sold, among other things, Silver Shamrock masks at her store in San Francisco. Buddy seems to be enjoying the trip, but Marge is put out at having to come all the way to "this dump" because the factory messed up an order. Ellie wants to go to the factory right away and investigate further, but Dan convinces her to hold off for a while. After a moment of awkwardness, in which time Dan isn't sure how well an advance would be received, Ellie gives him a clear opening, and he pounces on it. Outside, late afternoon is moving towards sunset, and at 6 P.M., the loudspeakers announce that the town is under curfew for the night. After dark, Dan goes out to the liquor store (which is open in spite of the curfew); on the way back, he meets Starker (Jonathan Terry as Jon Terry), a local drunk and homeless man who begs a drink from the bottle off of him. Dan, seizing an opportunity to collect information, asks Starker about Cochran and Silver Shamrock, and he has nothing good to say about him. Starker tells Dan that he had applied for a job there years before, but had been turned away; in fact, all of Cochran's workers had been brought in from outside Santa Mira. In contrast to the motel keeper who had praised Cochran, Starker points out the video cameras and curses Cochran. He then says that he hoped to burn down Cochran's factory someday. Dan gives him a tip for his information and goes back to the motel. However, a few minutes later, the silver-haired well-dressed assassin shows up with another accomplice. Starker tries to back away from his drunken statements, but the men are unmoved, and while one of them restrains him, the silver-haired man pulls his head off of his shoulders with his bare hands. Back at the motel, Ellie meets Marge, and they talk briefly about the factory and the masks. Marge notices that the quality has suffered a little bit - the trademark tag fell off one of the masks. Marge returns to her room, where she accidentally knocks the tag onto the floor, where it falls upside down revealing a small microchip - but she doesn't notice right away, sitting in bed reading. Meanwhile, Dan arrives back at the motel and stops at the office to call Teddy. Teddy's investigation has gone nowhere - she found no human remains and had to assume that someone had mixed up the envelopes, and she had wasted two days examining burnt car parts. Dan returns to the room, where he and Ellie have a drink. While they are enjoying themselves, Marge decides she's had enough reading for the night and gets ready to sleep, but sees the trademark and the microchip on the floor and, being curious, starts to examine it and poke at it with a hairpin. Suddenly, a lightning bolt shoots out of the trademark at Marge's head, burning it almost beyond recognition. A single bug crawls from her mouth as she dies. Dan and Ellie are woken by yet another disturbance outside. It's a van, not an ambulance come to pick up Marge. The men from the van ignore Dan's offer of help, despite the fact that he is a doctor. As the van leaves, Conal Cochran (Dan O'Herlihy) pulls up and we meet him for the first time. Dan overhears the motel keeper telling Cochran that Marge had been hit by a "misfire." (What could that mean?) The next morning is Saturday the 30th. Dan calls Teddy at work again. Teddy has examined all the ashes but has not found a single trace of human remains, and she is wondering if someone has been tampering with the evidence. Dan asks her to investigate Cochran. However, after Dan hangs up, we see that the telephone is bugged. Dan and Ellie go to the factory in the morning, but learn nothing except Harry had picked up his masks and left. They are ready to go, but they meet Buddy Kupfer on their way in for a tour of the factory. Cochran comes out to meet them, and Buddy convinces Cochran to have them along on the tour. They see the workers making the masks. After seeing the masks, Cochran takes them to another room where there are some other Silver Shamrock products besides masks - mostly toys and novelties. Cochran gives Buddy Jr. a mask that has been through "final processing" - but he remains evasive about what final processing entails. He invites the Kupfer family to breakfast the next morning, asking for Buddy's opinion about some more sales materials. While Cochran and Buddy are talking, Dan's attention wanders, and he spots several of the well-dressed guards. While he is telling Ellie in a low voice about it, Ellie spots Harry's car in one of the buildings. She runs forward to check it out, but several more of the well-dressed men step out from their posts and block her path. Dan and Ellie return to the motel room and go over what they know as it gets dark outside. They decide to leave the town and call the police. Dan goes to the office, but he cannot reach anyone on the telephone. No matter what number he dials, he gets a recorded message that the call cannot be completed. Returning to the motel room, he discovers Ellie is gone. She has been kidnapped by a group of well-dressed guards. The well-dressed guards surround him in the parking lot and approach him. Dan runs back to his room and escapes out the bathroom window and gets away from the guards, who are also driving up and down the streets looking for him. Dan tries to use a pay phone, but he gets the same recorded message there, too. Hoping to rescue Ellie, he goes to the factory, sneaks onto the grounds, and breaks into the building. At first, he sees no one, but after a brief search, he finds an old woman knitting. When he confronts her, he finds that the old woman is actually an elaborate machine! Then the silver-haired well-dressed guard finds him. Dan fights him, but he seems to be unaffected by his punches. After Dan punches him again, the guard goes limp, Dan pulls wires out of the guard's stomach and oil flows from his mouth. The guard was a far more elaborate machine! Two more android guards come up behind Dan and capture him. He had trouble beating one, and he has no chance against two. Cochran comes to see them before the guards take Dan to wherever he is to spend the night. On Sunday, Halloween morning, Cochran and several of the well-dressed android guards accompany Dan to the "final processing" room. On the way there, Cochran brags about how realistic his guards and other workers were. Once in the final processing room, Dan sees several workers on a scaffold chipping tiny pieces out of a large rock... the stolen stone from Stonehenge! There are some workstations and TVs arranged in a circle in front of the rock. The workers take a tiny particle of the rock and put it in the microchips on the back of each trademark on the masks. Cochran shows Dan on the video monitors Ellie tied up in one room, Marge's corpse in another room, and then, the room into which the guards are escorting the Kupfer family. The room is ominously labeled "Test Room A". The room is made up to look like an ordinary living room. At Cochran's order, one of the guards pushes the buttons to make a video play on the TV in the test room, where Little Buddy is trying to watch TV. It is the video that will be played later that night - the "big giveaway" video. It opens like any other Silver Shamrock commercial, but as the announcer exhorts his audience to watch, the video gives way to a jack-o-lantern flashing on the screen. After a few seconds, the rapt Little Buddy grasps his head and collapses. Multitudes of bugs and snakes crawl out of the mask. Betty faints; Buddy Sr. freaks out and tries to escape from the locked room, but he is attacked and killed by the snakes. The flashing jack-o-lantern and sounds from the commercial trigger the particle of rock in the microchip - now we see how the death of Marge was an accident, it had gone off when it wasn't supposed to. After a couple of minutes, the entire Kupfer family is dead, and Cochran cuts the video and has the guards lead Dan away. Next, we see children in cities all over the country hearing the commercial reminding them to watch the big giveaway at 9:00 pm, buying Silver Shamrock masks, and trick-or-treating. Challis's own kids are anxious to watch the big giveaway while wearing their masks. In the evening, Teddy is still trying to make sense of the autopsy and tries to reach Dan in Santa Mira, but she gets the same recorded message that Dan heard. She tries the chief coroner instead, realizing that a lot of the things she has found in the ashes didn't look like car parts. Suddenly realizing something, she reaches for the phone once more to call the police, but one of the well-dressed android guards from Silver Shamrock sneaks up behind her and kills her with a power drill to her head. At 7:30 p.m., Cochran leaves Dan tied up in a room in front of a TV playing John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) - to be followed by the big giveaway. Dan asks him why. Cochran explains that the "good" reason is that it's all a great joke, but the "real" reason is he is carrying on an ancient Celtic tradition of ritual sacrifice. Cochran puts one of his masks over Dan's head and wishes him a happy Halloween just before he leaves. Once he has left, Dan looks at the clock and sets to work trying to escape. He manages to scoot his chair over toward the TV, then kicks the screen in. At least the flashing jack-o-lantern can't come on now. Using a piece of broken glass from the TV, he cuts the straps that bind him, removes the mask, and throws it over the video camera watching the room. The room is locked, but Dan escapes through the ventilation ducts. It's after 8 p.m. now and time is running out. An android notices that Dan is no longer in the room, and they set about looking for him. He has, by this time, escaped to the roof of the building, and finds another way back in. He has to play hide-and-seek with the well-dressed android guards again. Then he finds a phone, tries it, and it works - Cochran had cut off the town's access to outside lines, but not from within the factory itself. He calls his ex-wife and desperately tries to convince her to get rid of the Silver Shamrock masks, but she refuses. She is angry that Dan has once again broken his promise (this time to pick the kids up on Halloween and take them trick-or-treating), accuses him of being drunk, and/or jealous that the kids liked the masks better than the ones Dan picked out. She tells him to go to hell and hangs up. He can't try calling her again or someone else because the guards are coming back. Dan searches the building some more and finds the room where Ellie is being held. He releases her, but the guards can now see him on the video cameras and know where he is. He manages to escape them for the time being, coming to the back of the final processing/control room. There he finds a box of the microchips - ready to be installed on the masks. An idea comes to mind. He takes a box of the micro-chipped trademarks, sneaks over to the computers, and pushes the buttons he saw the guard push that morning - the ones that start playing the big giveaway video. This time, it starts playing on all the TVs in the control room. He runs back to the edge of the room and climbs onto a catwalk overhead and dumps the box onto the floor below. The microchips activate as they get near the TV's playing the flashing jack-o-lantern, "killing" the worker-androids - but not Cochran, who looks up at them, unaffected, and applauds. The flashing TVs, forming a circle, and the rock from Stonehenge, start to glow; something supernatural is taking place. Lightning bolts shoot out of both towards Cochran, who is transformed to stone and disappears. Then sparks fly from the stone and everything in the room starts to catch fire. Soon, the entire factory is burning - Starker got his wish posthumously. Dan and Ellie run from the factory, get into Ellie's car still at the motel, and with Dan driving this time they drive away. Dan and Ellie escape from Santa Mira, but the commercial is still set to go on the air at 9 p.m., which is only about 15 minutes away now. Dan asks Ellie if she can think of anything, then notices how strangely passive she has been and... how she hasn't spoken a single word since her rescue. When Ellie turns her head and attacks him, he realizes that the Ellie he rescued was another android, with a new skin to look exactly like the real Ellie (the real one presumably having been killed by the well-dressed guards or perished in the fire). Dan wrecks the car trying to fight off the 'Ellie-bot'. The crash rips one of robot Ellie's arms off, and Dan has little trouble dispatching the rest of her with a tire iron by decapitating her, but now he is without transportation and takes off running on foot. It's about 8:50 p.m. The 'Ellie-bot' continues to function. Panting and desperate to find a phone, he arrives at a gas station.... the same one where Harry took refuge eight days earlier. The attendant, Walter, recognizes Dan from the hospital: "Hey, don't I know you?" It's straight up 9:00 when Dan pleads with the technician at the TV station over the phone to take the commercial off the air, saying that everyone watching will die if it is allowed to air. Walter looks at him kind of funny as he shouts into the phone. Two children run inside to watch the commercial on TV at the gas station. Finally, the technician accedes to Dan's desperate request, and a "technical difficulties" sign appears on that TV station. The children switch to another station playing the commercial - it too goes off the air. They switch to a third station, and this time the commercial continues to play. The flashing jack-o-lantern appears, and Dan continues to beg the technician to take the commercial off the air. Dan becomes ever more hysterical and screams to stop the commercial, as the commercial on the third station continues to run... and the movie suddenly ends on this cliffhanger.

In a voice-over we learn that the story is set in a dystopian 1997. World War III is nearing an end, both the United States and the still-existing Soviet Union suffered greatly in the conflict and both are looking for a peaceful resolution. The island of Manhattan has been turned into a maximum security prison in 1988 because of a nationwide crime increase of 400% in the United States due to a gas attack by the Soviets at the start of the war in which New York was worst hit. Surrounded by a 50-foot (15 m) containment wall, all inmates are sentenced to life imprisonment, and have formed gangs which rule over the crumbling, garbage-strewn city. The opening scene shows the dark skyline of Manhattan as two men in a makeshift raft attempt to paddle away from the island when the raft they are in is blown to pieces by a hovering helicopter gunship. The chopper returns to its base on Liberty Island where the overland entrance to the prison is located and the command center of the US police force surrounding the island. Traveling to a three-way summit between the United States, the Soviet Union and China, Air Force One, the plane of the President of the United States, is hijacked by a sole member of a revolutionary organization opposed to the government; a woman impersonating a stewardess (Nancy Stephens) kills the pilots and takes control of the plane. The nameless militant female anarchist crashes the plane in a suicide mission into a Manhattan skyscraper but the unnamed President (Donald Pleasence) is safely sealed in an escape pod and survives. The United States Police Force Commissioner Bob Hauk (Lee Van Cleef) arrives at the Liberty Island command center where he and the chief of security Remy (Tom Atkins) witness the crash on monitors in their control center. Hauk assembles a platoon of soldiers and they travel to the crash site in a fleet of helicopters. When they arrive, they find the escape pod empty, indicating that the President has been taken hostage. An emissary of the inmates, named Romero (Frank Doubleday), appears and tells Hauk and the soldiers that they have the President and if they do not leave the island in 30 seconds, the President will be killed. Romero offers them one of the President's severed fingers as evidence. With no other choice, Hauk orders his men to return to the helicopters and they fly back to Liberty Island. In his office, Hauk meets with the recently arrived Secretary of State (Charles Cypress) who puts him in telephone contact with the Vice President in Washington DC where Hauk asks for authorization of a rescue attempt and accepts it. In his office, Hauk offers a deal to a newly arrived prisoner, a scruffy, one-eyed, famous special-forces-soldier-turned-armed-robber named S.D. "Snake" Plissken (Kurt Russell). Plissken prefers to be called "Snake", growling his demand whenever Hauk refers to him by his surname. If Snake rescues the President, and retrieves a cassette tape that contains important information on nuclear fusion, Hauk will give him a full pardon. However, Snake Plissken must complete his mission before the international summit that the President was due to attend, which begins in 24 hours. After Snake Plissken reluctantly agrees to the rescue plan, Hauk secretly has him injected with microscopic explosives that will blow open his carotid arteries in 24 hours. The explosives cannot be defused until the last 15 minutes before they go off, as a way of ensuring that Snake does not abandon his mission and escape, nor find another way to remove them. If he returns with the President and the tape in time for the summit, Hauk will save him by having the charges in his neck neutralized with X-rays. A furious Snake gruffly promises to kill Hauk when he returns. Snake covertly lands atop the World Trade Center in a Gulfire glider similar to the one he piloted in a daring covert operations action over Leningrad, USSR, and then locates the hijacked plane wreckage and the escape pod, but the President is gone. Snake tracks the President's life-monitor bracelet signal to the basement of an abandoned theater, only to find it on the wrist of an incoherent old coot (George "Buck" Flower). At the theater, Snake meets a friendly inmate nicknamed "Cabbie" (Ernest Borgnine), who offers to help. After wandering the dark streets, Snake is accosted by the 'Crazies', a subterranean gang that hunts the streets at night. Snake first seeks refuge in an abandoned Chock Full O' Nuts diner where he meets a seductive young woman (Season Hubley), who asks to take her away to freedom. But the Crazies soon attack the diner, and Snake is forced to run, leaving the nameless young woman to her fate at the hands of the Crazies. After a chase down a back alley, Cabbie shows up in his taxi and rescues Snake, fighting the Crazies off with a Molotov cocktail. Snake demands Cabbie tell him where the President is being held. Cabbie tells him that Brain (Harry Dean Stanton), a savvy and well-educated inmate, knows. Cabbie takes Snake to the New York Public Library where Brain lives, a place he's turned into a veritable fortress. It is here that Snake identifies Brain as a former accomplice of his named Harold Helman, from some heists they did in the past. Forced at gunpoint, Brain tells Snake that a powerful gang leader, the self-proclaimed "Duke of New York" (Isaac Hayes), and the leader of the Gypsies, the largest and most powerful gang in the city, has the President and plans to lead a mass escape across the mined and heavily guarded 69th Street Bridge (the real Queensboro Bridge is the 59th Street Bridge), using the President as a human shield and hostage. When the Duke unexpectedly arrives with a large convoy of henchmen to get a diagram of the bridge's land mines, Snake forces Brain and his girlfriend Maggie (Adrienne Barbeau) to lead him back to The Duke's compound. After stealing a car from one of the Duke's henchmen, Snake, Brain, and Maggie drive through Skulls gang territory along Broadway, barely escaping. Snake finds the President who is being held in an abandoned railroad car in what was the Grand Central Train Station, but his rescue fails and he is captured after Brain betrays Snake. The next day, Snake is forced to fight with a giant power-house brute (Ox Baker). At the same time, Brain and Maggie trick Romero and the Duke's men into letting them have access to the President. After killing Romero and the guards, they free the President and flee to Snake's glider hoping to escape with the President. Meanwhile, Snake defeats his huge opponent, impressing the crowd. When the Duke learns the President has escaped with Brain, he is furious, and he rounds up his gang to chase them down. In the confusion, Snake slips away and manages to catch up with Brain, Maggie and the President at the glider, but during their attempted getaway, a gang of inmates, the Indians, push it off the building. Snake and the others soon find Cabbie, and Snake takes the wheel of his cab, heading for the bridge. When Cabbie reveals that he has the nuclear fusion tape (traded to him from Romero who guarded the President), the President demands it, but Snake takes it for insurance. With the Duke chasing them in his Cadillac, Snake and the others drive over the mine-strewn bridge. After the cab hits a land mine, the cab is destroyed and Cabbie is killed. As the others flee on foot, Brain is killed by a mine and Maggie refuses to leave him. She attempts to hold off the Duke's car by firing at him with a handgun, and she succeeds in forcing Duke's car (a distinctive vehicle with ornate chandeliers mounted on either side of the car's hood) to crash, but he crashes into her, killing her, and he continues his pursuit on foot. Snake and the President reach the containment wall, and the guards raise the President on a cable and harness. The Duke then attacks Snake, but the President shoots the Duke with a sub-machine gun, killing him out of revenge for torturing him during his confinement. Snake is then lifted to safety, and the mini-explosives implanted in his neck are deactivated with X-rays with seconds to spare. At Liberty Island, as the President prepares for a televised speech, he distractedly thanks Snake for saving him. Snake asks him how he feels about the numerous men and women who died saving his life, but the President only offers half-hearted regret that visibly disgusts Snake as he sees the President, a trembling and helpless captive, revert back to his self-assured personality. After Snake is pardoned, he decides he will not kill Hauk at this time and leaves the prison. Hauk thanks him for the rescue, and offers the incredulous anti-hero a job of working for the government in other top secret missions. Snake, alienated with the nation he once served with honor, refuses. Hauk tells Snake to think about the offer and notes: "We make quite a team! Huh, Snake?" In complete contrast to Snake earlier and frequently reminding Hauk to call him by his first name, Snake angrily rebuffs Hauk by replying: "The name's Plissken!" The President's speech commences and he offers the content of the cassette to the summit. To the President's embarrassment, the tape has been switched for a cassette of the swing song "Bandstand Boogie" (the theme from American Bandstand), Cabbie's favorite song. Snake had apparently switched tapes during the chase across the bridge. In the distance unnoticed just outside the Liberty Island prison gate, Snake is seen casually unwinding and tearing apart the all-important nuclear fusion cassette tape (the only thing to save mankind from nuclear war) and smiling while puffing on a cigarette as he walks off alone into the night. On that cynical note, 'Escape from New York' comes to a close.