Yup. Among many other things, like symbolicly punishing the youth for resisting their elders reactionary attitudes.
But Halloween's Michael Meye's is just a totally inexplicable evil from no where who hurts people to give suburbanoids the thrill of thinking they might come under threat.
One thing supporting the horror fan genre is a lot of them love the underlying psychology of these movies and will happily discuss it along the gore and b-horror casting.