Michael Myers. The Shape. Whatever you call him, the one thing everyone agrees on is that he’s pure evil. As Sam Loomis told us in the original film, “I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up, because I realized that what was living behind that boy’s eyes was purely and simply… evil.” The young boy Loomis first met is long gone. Myers has grown old and wrinkled, but the evil remains. But are there limits to his villainy? There just might be.

In the new Halloween sequel — a direct followup to John Carpenter‘s 1978 slasher classic that strips Michael Myers of his supernatural powers (and familial connections) established in the sequels — The Shape is brought back to his roots as a force of evil, but when the masked murderer comes upon a baby crying in a crib in the midst of killing spree. But Myers doesn’t take the baby bait. He pauses, thinks for a beat, and then moves on. So why doesn’t he kill the baby?

That’s the question Collider’s Perri Nemiroff put to director and co-writer David Gordon Green when she sat down with the filmmaker to chat about the film. “Why doesn’t he? Because that would be so rude,” Green said. But does Michael think about it as an option when he stops? “I think it was a consideration,” he explained.

Green continued and explained the origin of the scene, which was a quick write-around after an unexpected road bump in production. “Yes, it’s terrifying in its own right. And it was a last minute idea — I mean, why is there a baby crib in the living room? It was gonna be her husband sleeping on the couch, but then he didn’t show up and we scrambled and put a baby crib in there. And then, yeah, I thought it was interesting to see one ethical choice that he made in the movie. So that’s the one ethical choice he makes.”

Michael Myers ethical thought leader? Probably not, but it’s definitely interesting that Green gives him a moment where you get just a glimpse inside the mechanics of his mind.