- "Say something!"
- ―Dr. Sartain to Michael Myers, his final words[src]
Dr. Ranbir Sartain is a character in 2018's Halloween, played by Haluk Bilginer.
Dr. Sartain is the second psychiatrist of Michael Myers following Dr. Samuel Loomis' death. Initially, Dr. Sartain is seen as a supporting protagonist, only to be revealed as the secondary antagonist of the film.
Biography[]
At some point after Michael Myers was captured and sent back to Smith's Grove Sanitarium, Dr. Sartain, then a student of Dr. Sam Loomis, became fascinated with Michael's case. He studied the case files and eventually took over Michael's treatment after Loomis passed away. He would continue to try and reach Michael to understand his motives, but all his attempts were fruitless.[1]
Shortly before Michael is scheduled to be transferred to another facility, Dr. Sartain is contacted by two podcasters who wished to visit Michael and try to interview him. He hesitantly agrees to the offer and meets both Aaron Korey and Dana Haines, taking them to the outdoor common area where Michael is chained up. Advising them to not underestimate Michael or any of the other patients there, Sartain observes Aaron approaching Michael and shows him his old mask. That night, as the prisoners are loaded up into the bus, Sartain insists that he goes along with the security guards escorting Michael and the other prisoners. At some point during the journey, the bus crashes, knocking Sartain out and allowing Michael to escape. When a young boy approaches the crashed bus, Sartain startles him and gets shot in the shoulder. Due to the injuries sustained, he is taken to Haddonfield Memorial Hospital by Officer Frank Hawkins.[1]
Later that night, Sartain would awaken and leave the hospital in an attempt to help the sheriff and deputies track down Michael, insisting that Michael is taken in alive if possible. Taken by Hawkins to the murder scene of two teenagers, he recognizes Laurie Strode and agrees to help track down her missing granddaughter Allyson Nelson. The two manage to find Allyson after she discovered the body of her friend and escaping from Michael herself. While driving, Michael is spotted walking down the street by Allyson; despite Sartain insisting they keep him alive, Hawkins runs over Michael with his squad car. The two exit the vehicle to check on Michael, with Sartain checking his pulse and declaring him dead. However, Hawkins insists on shooting Michael just to be sure; at this point, it's revealed Sartain falsely accused Michael of being deceased and pulls out a stiletto blade hidden in his pen, stabbing Hawkins.[1]
Consumed by his desire to understand Michael, Sartain puts on the mask and drags Michael's body back to the squad car. After putting Michael with Allyson in the backseat, he removes the mask and mutters to himself if this is what Michael felt like while committing the murders. Fueled by his belief that both Laurie and Michael are alive due to their desire to kill the other, he drives them towards Laurie's house. While driving, he hears Allyson remark that Michael spoke to her earlier; caught by surprise by this, Sartain asks what Michael said. Allyson stalls for time and finally, Michael recovers and kicks through the metal grating, knocking Sartain into the airbag. The cruiser comes to a stop and Allyson flees, with Sartain being knocked to the ground. He looks up to see Michael standing over him and weakly asks Michael to say something. Sartain gets no response as Michael slams his foot against Sartain's head, crushing it against the ground and killing him.[1]
He was later seen dead in a morgue at the hospital.[2]
Legacy[]
Sartain driving Michael and Allyson to Laurie's home before his death was proceeded by Allyson fleeing from Michael and the latter arriving at Laurie's home and having his first physical encounter with her in 40 years, fulfilling Sartain's desire to have the two reunite.[1] Later that night, after Laurie, Karen, and Allyson survive their encounter with Michael and go to Haddonfield Hospital, Allyson is questioned by an officer on how Michael knew how to find her grandmother, Allyson responding that Michael did not, and that it was Sartain who knew Laurie's location and "brought them together." Allyson furthers that the reunion was Sartain's "obsession" rather than Michael's. While Karen and Laurie are arguing and the latter asserts that Michael is after her, Hawkins objects to this and mentions that it was Sartain who drove Michael to her home.[2]
Sartain would be only the first person to help Michael and harm others. On Halloween, 2019, the one-year anniversary of Sartain's death, Corey Cunningham would accidentally kill Jeremy Allen when he kicked down a door the boy had used to lure him into a prank, and Jeremy was sent falling several stories down to his death. Three years later, in the days leading up to Halloween, 2022, Corey would encounter Michael Myers in a sewer and look into his eyes. From then on, he would emulate Michael, and by extension Sartain as like the latter, Corey purposefully attempts killing people, wears Michael's mask (although Corey's duration with it is much longer than Sartain's), and has some curiosity in his murderous tendencies, as Sartain wanted to see Michael in the wild while Corey orders Michael to show him how he kills when weakening Mulaney for him. Corey's death would also be similar to Sartain's, as both are killed by Michael as they lay on the ground and make a request of him, with Corey trying to stop him from taking the knife he dropped just as Sartain had on instructing Michael to say something four years ago.[3]
Personality[]
Sartain harbored a deep obsession with Michael, mirroring the interest Dr. Loomis held in the latter. However, whereas Loomis' obsession was rooted in wanting to prevent Michael from inflicting harm on others, Sartain's was that of curiosity which held no such heroism, culminating in him stabbing Hawkins to prevent the latter from executing Michael and surely denying Sartain the ability to see Michael kill people as his mentor had. His obsession had made him protective of Michael, as he argued that the Haddonfield police had a civic duty to bring Michael in unharmed due to him being property of the state. His protectiveness of Michael was also demonstrated by him falsely claiming Michael was deceased after he was ran over by Hawkins as the latter expressed his intent to shoot Michael regardless. Ironically enough, Michael held no such concern for him and Sartain's last moments, his instructing Michael to say something before the latter smashed his head, showed that his curiosity and fascination with regard to Michael mattered more to him than his own life.[1]
Sartain's main fascination with Michael was rooted in wanting to know what Michael's feelings, or lack thereof, where when he murdered people. Sartain reasoned that the effects of tragedy and violence on a victim was more often documented than that of the effects on the victimizer, which fueled Sartain's interest in wanting to know what Michael felt when he murdered others. Sartain, believing he had killed Hawkins later that night, thought that he was experiencing the same feelings that Michael had during the latter's murders. His choice to touch Michael's face as the latter laid unconscious and then briefly put on Michael's mask as he turned to Allyson can be interpreted as him feeling kinship with Michael as a fellow murderer.[1]
One key difference between Sartain and Michael is that while the latter kills indiscriminately and without motive, Sartain's only act of violence was brought on by Hawkins attempting to kill Michael and because he never demonstrated an interest in harming Hawkins leading up to their encounter with Michael, it can be inferred that he would not have attacked him unless it was to protect Michael. The same can be observed through his placing of Michael in the backseat of Hawkins' car with Allyson, as Sartain only tries to talk with the latter and never makes any attempts at harming her. While he had become similar to his patient in being willing to enact acts of violence, Sartain had to be given an incentive.[1]
Sartain also held some level of interest in Laurie Strode, as he revealed to her that he had read everything on her and Michael. While he appeared to speak about her with some humanity and concern, as evidenced by him not directly answering Hawkins' questioning of her mental state and noting that there were many ways for a victim to be changed by tragedy and violence, he also had no issue possibly placing her in grave danger when he began driving Michael to her home for the purpose of bringing them together. Sartain's interest in Laurie but lack of concern for her well-being illustrated his overt favoritism toward Michael, who he instructed Hawkins to not harm when they apprehended him, and showed that Sartain only cared about Laurie enough to narrowly define her by her relationship with Michael.[1]
Outside of Michael, Sartain cared little for the well-being of anyone associated with his murder sprees, as evidenced by him placing the unconscious Michael next to Allyson while they rode to Laurie's home, knowing full-well that Michael could have attacked her once he woke up. This is also supported by him arriving at the site of Michael's killings of Vicky and Dave and asking where Michael was and seemingly not inquiring on what had happened throughout the entirety of the time he was there.[1]
Sartain had many traits in common with his late mentor. They are both elderly men by the time of Michael's murder sprees who knew him for years and partner with law enforcement to find him. Their extensive history with Michael coerces the sheriffs of their respective eras to take their analysis seriously, as Sheriff Barker noted that Sartain knew Michael better than anyone and wanted his aid in a manner similar to Loomis' treatment by Sheriff Leigh Brackett during Halloween 1978. Sartain acknowledged Loomis as being the only one to see Michael in the wild, something Sartain himself would experience during Halloween 2018. Their only real deviation is Sartain not sharing Loomis' strong sense or morality that overrode any curiosity he may have had in studying Michael as long as the latter's terror needed to be stopped.[1]
Behind the scenes[]
Once the story was formulated and both writer/director David Gordon Green and co-writer Danny McBride knew where they were going with the story, having Michael Myers under the care of another doctor seemed obvious.
Green would elaborate. “The character just seemed to come naturally to the storytelling. Especially when placing Michael back in the sanitarium. Obviously, we knew that Sartain was going to be ruthlessly compared to Dr. Loomis and there was no avoiding that. So, we elected to make them very similar but also wildly different. They have the same mission but Sartain takes it way too far. Loomis was about restraining the evil, while Sartain was about exploring it.”
Notes and trivia[]
- Doctor Ranbir Sartain's character is similar to Doctor Terence Wynn from Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. Both of them are doctors who have worked with Doctor Samuel Loomis and aid Michael in his killing spree.
- Along with Aaron Joseph-Korey, Sartain is one of two characters to instruct Michael to "say something". Coincidentally, both were later killed by Michael.
- Sartain is the first named character to speak in the 2018 Halloween film.
- It is theorized that Sartain helped Michael escape the bus that was transporting him, thereby freeing him to resume his murder spree.
- Along with Laurie, Sartain is one of two characters to assault Hawkins, although Laurie accidentally struck Hawkins while Sartain's assault was intentional.
- Just as Dr. Loomis only encountered Laurie once in the 1978 Halloween film, Sartain only encounters Laurie once in the 2018 Halloween film.
- Sartain is the fourth character in the series to wear Michael's mask, after Myers himself, the Paramedic and Steven Haley.
- Karen Nelson is the only one of the three women to battle Michael in the film's climax that does not have any interactions with Sartain.
- Along with Oscar Berlucchi, Sartain is one of two characters to be killed by Michael in the 2018 Halloween film whose corpse is seen at Haddonfield Memorial Hospital in Halloween Kills.
- In 2021, Halloween Kills producer Ryan Freimann admitted to disliking the plot twist of Sartain helping Michael: "I'm going to go on record and say I was never a fan of the Sartain twist from 2018, fought that one tooth and nail but sometimes you get outvoted -- but fans react to certain things then it causes us to pivot certain storylines certain ways."