An exploration and ranking of the films within the Halloween franchise.
**CONTENT WARNING: Violence, death, child/baby harm, animal harm, disturbing images**
In preparation to watch Halloween Kills, I decided that it’s time for this long-time horror fan to watch all of the Halloween movies. Yes, all of them. I had only ever seen the original and the 2018 movie before. Admittedly, slasher is probably my least favorite subgenre in the horror realm, so I was never well versed in the classic four slasher series (I intend to do Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Friday the 13th after this). Without further ado, here’s my take on the Halloween series.
Since the continuity can be a tad confusing throughout this series, here is a helpful graph detailing which ones are part of which continuities.
**Spoilers below**
Halloween (1978)
Synopsis
On Halloween night, Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her friends are terrorized by Michael Myers, the embodiment of evil who escaped from a mental institution the night prior.
I definitely can appreciate John Carpenter and Debra Hill’s intent with this one. Specifically, Carpenter wanted a villain who was in no way relatable, and in that he certainly succeeded. Throughout the series, Michael remains on an enigmatic level, even when additional details are provided about him along the way. I have a personal theory that he was still a mortal human until the moment where Laurie stabs him with the knitting needle. At that moment, his internal evil is so powerful that it allows him to transcend into a state of supernaturalism, and from then on the laws of nature no longer apply to him. As far as I recall, he did nothing particularly supernatural prior to that moment, aside from magically being an incredible driver who knew exactly where to go despite having been confined to a single facility since age 6.
Halloween was also relatively revolutionary in its time. While not the first slasher movie ever, it helped ignite the slasher icon trend that followed. Technically Leatherface came before Michael, but Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) was not nearly as popular as Halloween, and it was Halloween that inspired Friday the 13th (1980) and Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).
Taking all this into consideration and putting myself into the shoes of someone in the 70s, I can see where Halloween would have been quite chilling and fresh. However, when compared to the quality of today’s horror movies, the deaths are on the cheesy side. Also, there are only five deaths in the film, including the opening murder in 1963. The movie itself is extremely paced, with a sparse amount of content stretched into an hour and a half. I don’t necessarily dislike slow burns, and there are several amazing horror slow burn examples with minimal deaths that work really well. In this case, however, I would have liked it to move a little faster and up the intensity to some degree. I will concede, though, that the slow, creeping shots do add to the atmosphere and the sense that the teens are being stalked. I can absolutely see the inspiration David Robert Mitchell took from this filmmaking when he created It Follows (2014).
The acting is also on the cheesy side, but I do enjoy Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie and Donald Pleasance’s Dr. “Don’t Say I Didn’t Warn You” Loomis. I hadn’t realized that this was Jamie Lee Curtis’ film debut, apparently hired due to her connection to Janet Leigh in hopes that her name would bring publicity to the low budget film. Another actress worth noting is Lynda’s P.J. Soles, who similarly played a popular girl (Norma) in Carrie, neither of whom survive their respective movies.
All in all, there are aspects of this movie I appreciate, and I can see why it was so popular at the time, but it paled in comparison to movies made in the forty years since it came out. It also wasn’t bad enough to make fun of, which almost would have made it more enjoyable.
Score: 5/10
Halloween II (1981)
Synopsis
Picking up where the first movie ended, Michael continues his reign of terror on Laurie by slaughtering the staff of the hospital where she is being cared for.
I actually really like this one. It’s fast paced with all sorts of twists and turns and deaths. Since it starts the exact moment the first one ended, it wastes no time with the build up and dives straight into the action. While still cheesy in some ways, in this case it works well with the tone of the movie.
There are several moments that elaborate on the first movie, as well as introduce intriguing dilemmas the characters have to deal with. My favorite subplot is the accidental death of a man mistaken for Michael early on in the film. Of course, we know that Michael isn’t really dead, but the police and Dr. Loomis can’t really say with complete certainty whether there’s still a threat out there or not, due to the fact that the body was burned beyond recognition. The real kicker here, however, is the reveal of the true identity of this character later on in the film. Turns out this man is none other than Ben Tramer, Laurie’s crush and homecoming date from the first movie! I don’t believe anyone actually got around to telling this to Laurie, which is probably the only mercy she got the entire horrendous night.
Obviously the most notable elaboration in the series lore is the reveal that Laurie is Michael “Kill Everyone But My Intended Target” Myer’s sister. This retroactive inclusion clearly was not the intent from the first movie, but it does provide some extra context for Michael’s obsession with Laurie. Unfortunately, it also makes Michael retroactively incredibly awful at his job. In the first half of the first movie, Michael stalks Laurie, but ultimately spends most of his time across the street killing the occupants of a totally different house. At the time, it seemed like he may have been fairly random in his selection, perhaps only stalking Laurie at first because she was the first person he saw, then moving on to others as they became easier targets. However, knowing now that Laurie was his original target all along, he really went about this all in the worst possible way. By dawn on November 1st, Michael has killed over a dozen people, but Laurie still lives. If he had simply broken into the house she was in first, he probably could have taken her out before she became overly vigilante. By diverting his attention to her friends first, he alerted her to his presence and caused her to become virtually unkillable.
In any case, I still was intrigued by the fact that Laurie never actually knew until halfway through this movie that her stalker in the first one was Michael Myers himself. She apparently spent the whole movie uncertain who this mysterious figure was, a fact that didn’t occur to me until I witnessed her surprise upon hearing this news while at the hospital. While the relationship reveal retroactively made some aspects of the first movie make less sense, the identity reveal to Laurie retroactively made the terror of the first movie even more intense, because she literally had no context of what was happening or why.
Dr. “I Shot Him Six Times!” Loomis somehow gets even more dramatic this time around, and I honestly love him for it. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that for being such a Samhain expert, he hasn’t the slightest idea how to pronounce it. A common mistake, to be sure, but if you’re going to have a character know so much about a topic, you should probably make sure they know how to say the word properly.
Overall, this is one of my favorites in the series. It’s chaotic, it’s interesting, and best of all, it’s a fun time.
Score: 7/10
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
Synopsis
Unrelated to the first two films, an evil mask company schemes to murder thousands of children on Halloween night by triggering a magical component of their popular masks via a commercial.
Yep, this movie is as bizarre as that synopsis sounds. The intent with this film was to start turning the Halloween series into an anthology of various, unconnected stories set on Halloween. Unfortunately, this idea failed on a variety of levels. First, this movie was bonkers. It’s somehow a mashup of Goosebumps, The World’s End, and Vacancy, which are stories I never thought I’d see combined into the same movie. But even if it had been a good movie, I’m still not sure it would have been successful because the production order was problematic. I knew that Michael wasn’t going to be in this one, but a large portion of viewers had no idea going into it, which did not bode well for the movie’s reception. They may have still been able to pull this off if this had been the second movie, rather than the third. Had they started out with a movie about an emotionless, unkillable slasher, but then went immediately into a totally disconnected storyline, viewers might have grasped the concept that each movie would follow a separate story. Instead, we already had a sequel that followed the same characters as the first movie, which established the expectation that the rest of the series would follow suit. By changing directions in the middle of the series, it understandably threw everyone off kilter. Additionally, even with the foreknowledge that Michael wouldn’t be in it, I still expected a slasher film, but this turned it to be a completely different subgenre.
I won’t go too deep into my thoughts on this one because there’s not a whole lot that I was going to say that hasn’t already been covered on the review of this film by my favorite podcast, How Did This Get Made, which I highly recommend. However, while I wasn’t a huge fan of it overall, the ending had my jaw on the floor. While Daniel (Tom Challis) was able to somehow stop a few of the channels from airing the commercial, he did not succeed in stopping all of them. The movie cuts to black with the implication that tons of kids will go on to die, their bodies turning into poisonous critters that will no doubt attack their families. Yikes! The funny thing is that the whole movie I kept wondering how he’d possibly be able to stop the scheme entirely, but I didn’t actually expect the filmmakers to allow him to fail. It was definitely the best part of the movie.
One other thing worth noting is the return of Nancy Kyes, who plays one of Michael’s victims in the first movie. Here she plays a totally different character, which is odd considering the movie Halloween exists, as a movie, in this one. Could you imagine watching a movie and realizing one of the characters is played by you?
Overall, this isn’t a particularly good movie and I can see why they decided to return to the world of Michael Myers moving forward.
Score: 4/10
Jamie Lloyd Trilogy
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
Synopsis
Michael, who has survived Halloween II, returns to terrorize Laurie’s orphaned daughter Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris).
First, can I just say how adorable Danielle Harris is? I’m impressed by her acting at such a young age. We also get back Dr. “Almost As Hard to Kill As Michael” Loomis, which is awesome because I really thought he’d died in the explosion. Nowadays, he’s scarred both physically and emotionally by the traumatic events from the first two movies. The bummer, though, is that Laurie was killed offscreen in a car wreck between movies, despite surviving multiple attacks from an immortal monster with a specific grudge against her.
You know they had to subtitle this movie “The Return of Michael Myers” to make sure fans were well aware that they were correcting the misstep in 3 by leaving Michael out of it. Oh, you missed Michael? Don’t worry, he definitely returns in this one.
One thing I like about this movie is that the town finally listens to Dr. Loomis right off the bat. After the horrendous events on Halloween night in 1978, they are not about to be caught off-guard again. Unfortunately, they swing to the other extreme and blindly shoot at a shadowy figure before confirming who it is, accidentally killing an innocent kid. While that’s awful for the kid, it adds to the distress and chaos caused by Michael’s return.
The best part of the movie is the ending, where Jamie dons her mask and attacks her foster mother in a recreation of the opening scene from the first film. That scene alone elevates my score of this movie, because, sadly, these are about the only compliments I can give this film. The overall plot isn’t particularly engaging, the violence is still low quality, and it feels like a lot of the early deaths happened off screen—and I don’t just mean cutting away at the final moment, but not even showing Michael stalking the victims in the first place (or maybe I was just too bored to notice). Also, why would Dr. Loomis, after being so insistent every single previous time Michael was seemingly killed to check to ensure he is truly dead, simply assume he’s dead just because he fell into a cavern? It’s extremely out of character for him.
Score: 4/10
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)
Synopsis
One year after the events of Halloween 4, a traumatized Jamie has visions of Michael’s latest kills.
I spent the first thirty minutes of this movie angry because I misinterpreted a line in the opening and thought they were implying that Jamie never attacked her foster mother at the end of the last movie, but had just imagined doing it. Eventually it became clearer that she had truly attacked her, just not fatally, and for some reason everyone is just totally chill about this fact. So right off the bat, I was not off to a great impression.
They touched a little on the aspect of Jamie’s psychic connection to Michael in 4, but here they amp it up. I’m still not totally sure I understand why they have this connection in the first place, nor why she randomly didn’t “see” the death of her beloved foster sister despite “seeing” pretty much all the other deaths. In any case, since it’s known to the children’s clinic that Jamie suffers from these visions, Dr. “I Am the Problem Now” Loomis decides the best way to stop Michael is to consistently scream into the face of a nine-year-old who has so much PTSD that she literally can’t even talk anymore (I’m assuming? I mean, they don’t really go into why she can no longer talk, or why she magically starts talking again halfway through, so that’s my best guess). Dr. Loomis is completely unhinged by this point in the series, even using Jamie as bait in his Ahab-esque obsession with Michael “Dog Hater” Myers (no seriously, Michael has killed a dog in every single one of his four movies thus far—what did they ever do to him?). This could have been super interesting if they really dug into this side of Dr. Loomis, because going from the one trying to stop evil to a villain of sorts in the course of his pursuit is a really interesting character arc. It just doesn’t play out to its full potential in the process, which is disappointing.
And why is Michael back after getting seemingly blown up in the cavern at the end of 4? Well, thanks for asking. Turns out he slipped away before the explosion and passed out in a hobo’s lair…for an entire year. So apparently this guy was caring for a comatose stranger for one whole year? Or maybe Michael’s supernatural aspect meant he didn’t need caring for, he just kind of lay there the whole time, I don’t know. They really don’t explain much in this movie, not the least of which being Michael’s new tattoo or the shadowy figure following him throughout the film. They go more into these in the next one, but at this point I was so confused, especially since the Man in Black was credited as the same actor who plays Michael in this one. At the time these first came out, there was a six year gap between 5 and 6, so I can’t imagine viewers were particularly happy with these unclear additions before getting their answers.
Score: 2/10
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)
Synopsis
A celtic cult plots to traditionally slay Jamie’s newborn baby on Halloween night.
A huge gripe I had from the getgo was the recasting and prompt killing of Jamie (J.C. Brady). Considering Danielle Harris was basically the only redeeming quality of the last two films, this was not a great decision on the filmmaker’s end. Even ignoring the casting part of it, Jamie’s early death reminds me of Laurie, who survived the first two movies only to be killed off screen in a car accident between movies. At least Jamie got a little screen time in her third appearance, but still. I will say this much, however—Jamie’s death was the first kill of the series that made me go, hey, that actually looked pretty good quality.
I love Paul Rudd. Always have. But suffice to say, he was awful in this. I can’t totally blame him, since this was one of his very first films—the opening credits label him as being introduced here, although he does appear to have been in a couple minor other things prior, and Clueless came out around the same time. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that one so I can’t recall his acting caliber there, though I imagine he probably fit in better as a romcom love interest than a horror movie creep. Also, there’s this bizarre moment where he sees Michael approaching down the hallway, pauses, and seemingly smiles a few times before going back to attacking a door. I had to go back and triple check because surely he was meant to be wearing a frightened expression, but it really does look like a smile.
And then there’s Dr. “Cured” Loomis. His face is magically healed, with not so much as a throwaway line explaining why. I rewatched all of his scenes because I thought I must have missed a reference somewhere, but could not find anything. One article I found claims that he had plastic surgery, which is entirely possible, though I could locate nothing in the movie to support this. It’s such a bizarre thing to not bother addressing, when that was a pretty significant consequence of the events of 2.
Aside from the decent gore for Jamie’s death, the filmmaking is still not great. It keeps doing this weird thing where it fades out, sometimes in the middle of a scene, in the way that made-for-TV movies do, so I had to confirm this actually came out in theaters when it premiered. Oddly enough, several of the next few in the franchise use this same technique, so I’m not sure what’s up with that, but it’s super distracting.
I’m sorry, but can Michael enchant items now? They make this big deal about how the electricity is off, but the washing machine is running. What? Why? Obviously they wanted a reveal of the head inside, but why make it so confusing? Just let the electricity be on.
So the Man in Black turns out to be Dr. Wynn (Mitchell Ryan). I guess his cult has some weird tradition about cursing a child so that he’ll kill his entire family on certain Halloween nights, as this interpretation’s reasoning for Michael’s motivation. Not my favorite explanation. But at least we got those answer that 5 left open ended.
Score: 2/10
I really don’t have much good to say about this trilogy as a whole, aside from my continuing love for Danielle Harris herself. Between the confusion, low quality, and missed potential, it’s definitely the low point of the series.
20 Year Duology
Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)
Synopsis
Ignoring the Jamie Lloyd trilogy, H20 is a direct sequel to Halloween 2, set (you guessed it) 20 years later. Laurie has created a new identity for herself and is now a single mom who runs a boarding school, which is invaded by Michael on Halloween night.
This is the first time Laurie has been back since Halloween 2 (note: there is a photo of her in 4, and Curtis does uncredited voice work in 3) and it is such a breath of fresh air to have her back. In the 20 years since her film debut, Jamie Lee Curtis has taken on a new maturity to her acting and really elevates this film. Interestingly, this film is in turn the debut of Josh Hartnett, who plays Laurie’s son John. It was released a few months prior to The Faculty, but he wears the same ridiculous, sloppy haircut in both. Not sure if that was just a nineties style or what.
Since the events of 2, Laurie faked her death, supposedly by car accident, and changed her name so no one associates her with the tragic events on Halloween night in 1978. The mode of her faked death is actually the real cause of her death in the Jamie Lloyd trilogy, as a little throw back there. Apparently this originally was going to be a continuation of that series, but was changed during production, though the car accident aspect was kept.
The quality of the series is most improved at this point. This was the first movie in the franchise where I actually felt pulled in by the danger within the scenes. The violence was well done, and there really isn’t much to complain about in this movie as a whole. It isn’t mind-blowing, but definitely on the higher end of the spectrum. I heard that it got a lot of hate, and I genuinely don’t know why, because it’s far and above the Jamie Lloyd trilogy at the very least, and I found it to be of higher caliber than the quality of first two as well.
In that regard, let’s talk about some of the highlights of the film. First, I just want to mention LL Cool J as the school guard. I don’t know what it is about LL Cool J, but I kind of love him in everything I’ve seen him act in. He was the real star of Deep Blue Sea, and here he’s funny and interesting, albeit awful at his job. In most of his scenes, he’s on the phone with his supportive wife, reading his draft manuscript or sharing story ideas as he aspires to become a writer. Their relationship is so cute, even if we never actually see the wife.
Next, there’s Joseph Gordon Levitt. I’m so bummed he was only in one scene, because he really shone for those brief moments he’s in. Not that I should be surprised, since he is always such an incredible actor—though to be fair, I always thought that of Paul Rudd, too, until watching 6.
We also got this fun cameo of Janet Leigh, not only Curtis’ mother in real life, but the star of the original Psycho, so that was a neat addition.
Finally, there’s the final moment where Laurie takes matters into her own hands and steals Michael’s body in order to finish this once and for all. She ultimately decapitates him, which left me curious how they would be able to bring him back in Resurrection. The triumph felt in that moment is wonderful, and one of the best final moments in the series.
Now on to the downsides. For a movie called “H20”, there is a shocking lack of water in the film. I kept waiting for them to wind up on a lake or something. I don’t think there is a single drop of water to be found. They really should have either gone with a less misleading title, or found a way to incorporate water into the movie to make the title more relevant.
As with 6, this one attempted to shoehorn in some motivation for Michael’s Halloween slaughters. Here, Laurie makes a connection between her sister’s death on her 17th Halloween, her own attack when she was 17, and now her son having turned 17 mere weeks before. However, they never go any deeper with it than that. So we have a connective aspect between the attacks, but still no actual reason for age 17 to be of any particular significance. Why bother adding in that aspect if you’re not going to explain what makes the number 17 so special in the first place?
Additionally, aside from the few highlights mentioned above, I found the connective tissue to be rather unmemorable. Even the day after watching this one, while I recalled the overall vibe of the film, I had trouble remembering the actual overarching plot or specifics. For example, I remember feeling the danger in the tense scenes, but only have the vaguest recollections of how anyone was actually killed, besides Michael.
Ultimately, while this is a considerably high quality film as far as the franchise goes with a handful of highlights, there was nothing that specifically propelled it into the “great” category, leaving it floundering in the high-mids when it comes to the final scoring.
Score: 7/10
Halloween: Resurrection (2002)
Synopsis
A reality show hosts 6 participants to stake out one Halloween night in the Myer’s abandoned home.
Okay, let me just start off by saying this. I can totally understand why people wouldn’t like this film. The plot is very different than the rest of the series (although to be fair, there have been some wild plotlines prior to this one) and it reverts quite a bit on the quality scale compared to H20. But for me personally, I had an absolute blast. I wouldn’t call it an amazing film, but damn did I enjoy the ride while watching it.
One of the biggest instances that by all rights should be hated, but I found myself loving, was the explanation of how Michael survived the beheading in the previous film. According to this movie, Laurie accidentally beheaded the wrong person. Michael had woken before she stole the van and placed his mask on a paramedic, whom he choked out by crushing his larynx so he could not protest when Laurie prepared to kill him. It sounds like a really stupid way to change the ending of the last one, but there’s just something about it that worked for me. Perhaps it’s the display of Michael’s cunning in determining the best method of his escape from the situation. Not to mention the added level of absolute horror Laurie must have felt upon realizing that not only did she kill an innocent man, but Michael is still free to roam. John is not mentioned in this film, but I can’t help but assume Michael proceeded to slay him while everyone was distracted by his apparent death, since John was his intended target in H20.
Laurie is only in one scene of this film, one that reminded me strongly of Terminator 2—the previous heroine is locked away for years and fakes being tamer than she actually is in order to let the staff’s guard down. When Michael does come for her, I do not blame her in the slightest for wanting to actually confirm this time whose face is under that mask before killing him, even if that ultimately leads to her demise. After the strain of living with the death of an innocent man on her conscious, I would have hesitated to kill him until I was 100% certain as well. Although, I have absolutely no idea why she kisses him before plunging to her death.
This film marks a first in the series in that it is the first time, out of 8 movies where a director has returned, namely Rick Rosenthal who directed 2. This makes sense to me, as both fall into the same category of campy but fun with absolutely fascinating dilemmas for the character’s to encounter. He also inexplicably enjoys incorporating scenes in which a character attempts to flee, but slips on a puddle of blood to fall on their butt.
The aspects of this one that really appealed to me all revolved around the nature of reality shows, in that there is this inherit level of uncertainty for both the participants and the viewers of what is real and what is part of the show team’s design to make the live stream more interesting. In fact, halfway through the film, Freddie “Trick or Treat Motherf—er” Harris (Busta Rhymes) reveals to the remaining participants that he’s wearing a Michael costume to amp up the viewer enjoyment, and to not take the danger so seriously. Naturally, this backfires in the next scene when the real Michael shows up, and they’re unprepared for this reality.
Similarly, there’s an entire subplot following the viewers of the live stream at a Halloween party. They represent the real viewers of the franchise, commenting on the death “effects” and even cheering sometimes during the kills. It takes them a while to finally become convinced that people are truly dying because they expect Dangertainment to have faked everything thus far. Once they do come to that realization, they talk over each as they excitedly try to come up with advice to provide Sara (Bianca Kajlich) via pager to warn her of how to stay safe.
While, again, I could see where viewers might dislike such things I listed above, I thought they were an intriguing and fresh take on a standard horror story, and I thoroughly enjoyed the struggles both the participants and viewers endured along the way. I really don’t think this is deserving of the lowest IMDb score of the entire franchise. You can argue with me all you want about whether it’s a good movie or not, but at least admit it’s better than the Jamie Lloyd trilogy.
One last brief note, Katee Sackhoff from Battlestar Galactica has wonderful energy.
Score: 7/10
This duology was a step up in the series. H20 is the better quality movie, but if I was going to pick one of the two to revisit later, I’d honestly go with Resurrection for the mere enjoyment and memorability factor.
Rob Zombie Duology
Halloween (2007)
Synopsis
A complete remake of the original film, where Michael attacks Laurie (Scout Taylor-Compton) and her friends on Halloween night.
Rob Zombie took the franchise into his own hands with his iteration, which starts over from scratch by remaking the first movie. I’ve never been a particularly big fan of Zombie’s work, and sadly this was no exception. It’s as if he expounded on all the wrong parts of the plot. The first 35 minutes of the movie take place in the past, thoroughly exploring Michael’s backstory. Normally I enjoy learning more depth about a character, their motivation, and what inspired them to become the person they are now. Michael is simply the worst possible character to do this with. His entire point is that he has no reason—he is pure and total evil. By giving him a horrible home life and torturing him with bullies, it diminishes the terror that comes with the core idea that there is no reason for him to be this way. This is also the first time in the franchise that Michael speaks, though only in the past portions. I can’t say I cared for all that.
It had been a few movies since Michael last killed a dog, but this one doubled down on that concept by making young Michael a regular animal killer. I get that that’s a common early sign of a psychopath. It just came across more as shock value here than meaningful.
Michael’s first kill is not his sister. In fact, he kills three other people first. There are also additional deaths added throughout the rest of the story, and I do understand the desire to ramp it up a bit since there were only a handful of deaths in the original, but yet again, this feels like a core aspect that was straight up ignored for no good reason. I would have preferred if she had been first, followed by the other three. Also, how in the world did he thoroughly tape up his stepdad without him waking up?
Michael has a clear obsession with masks in this movie, which is fine. What doesn’t really make sense is the classic mask he ultimately goes with. This mask belongs to his sister’s boyfriend, so there was no particular attachment to it on Michael’s end, as opposed to the hundreds of masks he hand crafts while in the asylum. In the past, he swaps to this mask right before killing his sister, but then drops it before picking up baby Boo and returning to his own mask. Then when he returns home 15 years later (or 17, or 19, the movie itself can’t seem to decide), he goes to a particular spot and rips up the floorboards in order to retrieve this mask. How the heck did it get in the floorboards to begin with? Did he go back to it off screen between shots to hide it? Why? How did he get it so thoroughly buried in such a short time that he had to literally destroy the floor to get to it?
Once we get to the present day, there’s a patch in which several scenes are almost exactly recreated, including the angle of the camera and some of the dialogue. This threw me off because such a large portion of the movie is drastically different. It seems like you should either go 100% different, or mostly recreated, not this odd flip-flopping between design. The worst part of this decision is that one of the scenes they stay true with was the scene I was most looking forward to getting fixed. In the original film, Bob is killed by getting stabbed through the stomach and stuck to the wall, but there’s no way the butcher’s knife was long enough to have been able to do that. So why would you do that exact same death, with the exact same flaw in this new version? Especially when the other deaths were largely changed.
Scout Taylor-Compton does a fine job as Laurie, but Laurie herself is a totally different person than the one we know and love. Even from day one, Curtis’ Laurie is somber and cautious, while this Laurie is almost ditzy, matching her friends’ energy. Her boogeyman line also has a seemingly minor change, but it changed the entire tone of the line in the process. In the original, she says, “That really was the boogeyman,” while in this, she asks Dr. “Okay, But Did You See How Evil Michael’s Eyes Are” Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) “Was that the boogeyman?” I’m not sure how to express why that change irritates me, but it does.
Much like with the Jamie Lloyd trilogy, the highlight of this movie is the return of Danielle Harris, now portraying Annie. However, it was a bit awkward seeing her topless after spending so much time with her as a kid. I have no idea how she survives this movie. Michael historically finishes off his victims unless he’s interrupted in the process. There is no reason for him to have left Annie injured but alive while waiting around for Laurie to show.
Finally, you’d think with a more modern take on the film, the outdated dialogue would be improved upon. Instead there are a few lines that are so nonsensical I had to rewind to figure out what they were saying.
Score: 3/10
Halloween II (2009)
Synopsis
The sequel to the remake, Michael returns to haunt Laurie a year later.
At first, this seems like a remake of 2, starting off at the hospital. However, it swiftly jumps to one year after the 2007 film in such a way that I’m not entirely sure if anything we saw at the hospital even happened in the first place, or if all of it was just a nightmare. I’m guessing none of it is real, since they think Michael is still dead. Unfortunately, I think the scene where the coroner talks about wanting to screw a body just because she happened to be naked when they found her was, indeed, real. Gross.
Dr. “Bet You Thought You’d Seen the Last of Me” Loomis spends most of the movie annoyed at everyone for poking fun at his book, including, of all people, Weird Al for some reason. MacDowell is a decent choice for the character, but his role in this one felt the least Loomis-like in the series. Probably the most Loomis accurate part was his complete disregard of the emotional turmoil he caused Michael’s victim by revealing in his book that Laurie is Michael’s sister, a fact that Sheriff Brackett (Brad Dourif) intentionally kept from her to protect her. Smooth move, buddy.
Laurie’s birth name turns out to be Angel—interestingly, although they never reveal that in the 2007 movie, one of her friends does jokingly call her an angel. Naming the sister of pure evil Angel just feels so needlessly dumb.
Michael’s mask looks neat in this, with damage carried over from the last film. He also kills a dog one more time, and quite possibly eats it—the footage is too dark to tell for sure, but the way it’s cross cut with the family dinner does seem to convey that. Why, though? I don’t recall actually seeing Michael eat anything else throughout the series, so why a dog? Also, he once again injures Annie, only to leave her alive. She does ultimately pass away this time, but she’s still alive when Laurie finds her. What are the chances that the only character still obviously alive when he finishes his attack is the same person? Does he have some special connection to her because she’s Danielle Harris? I don’t get it.
You know what else I don’t get? Ghost mom and white horse. They even threw in a little explanation in the opening, and I still have no idea what that’s all about. What does that possibly have to do with this franchise? It’s one of the most bizarre additions to the series.
Score: 2/10
Halloween (2018)
Synopsis
Erasing all but the original film, 40 years after Michael first attacks Laurie, he escapes to terrorize Haddonfield one more time.
The maturity of Jamie Lee Curtis’ acting in the 20 years between Halloween and H20 was impressive enough. With another 20 years under her belt, she’s become an absolute legend. This time she’s joined by her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak). Even though most of Laurie’s trauma has been retconned, the events from the first movie were still damaging enough for her that she has lived the rest of her life thinking of little else. She ruined her relationship with Karen by forcing her from childhood to prepare for a potential attack, ultimately causing Karen to have been taken from her custody at age 12. While other films in the series have dabbled into the lasting effects of the trauma inflicted on Michael’s victims, this iteration in particular feels the most intense, possibly because of how strongly it effects her after such a long amount of time, and how much it has influenced her relationships her entire life.
These days, despite Karen’s reluctance, Allyson is trying to bring Laurie back into the family. The dinner scene with the whole family reminded me of Krisha (2015)—the family failure trying to reconnect over a holiday, but continually messing up and obviously lying all the time. And you can’t tell me this shot was an accident.
Another scene towards the opening made me think of Hannibal. When Clarice meets Hannibal, they intentionally filmed it so that there is only a clear wall separating the two, making it feel more like they are in the same room. When the investigative journalists visit Michael at the asylum before he is relocated, the inmates are all outside, individually chained to posts within a painted square so that the journalists are able to get close to Michael with nothing between them, while still being out of his reach.
This movie tries very hard to distance itself from the others, even going so far as to bring up the brother/sister aspect of Michael and Laurie and dismissing it as a cruel rumor that holds no weight in this continuity. The funny thing about this, though, is that it regularly references various movies throughout the series. For example, Michael uses a hammer to attack a woman making a sandwich, then steals her butcher knife. In 2, Michael stealthily steals a butcher knife from a woman making a sandwich around the same time that he kills someone with a hammer. Also, there is a brief glimpse of some trick-or-treaters wearing the three masks from 3.
While this is a sequel to the original, it is also in certain ways a semi-remake. There is a similar babysitting subplot, this time featuring Allyson’s best friend Vicky (Virginia Gardner). Upon killing Vicky, Michael covers her with a bedsheet that looks like a ghost, much like the one he wore when posing as Linda’s boyfriend in the original and Zombie remake.
Because of these similarities, this film was able to play a delicious trick on the viewers. This movie introduces Dr. “Not Loomis” Sartain (Haluk Bilginer) as Michael’s current caretaker. Naturally, the assumption is that Michael’s new doctor is essentially just Loomis 2.0, since they had to work around the absence of Donald Pleasance, rest his soul. Dr. Sartain even goes so far as to insist on accompanying the prison bus to ensure Michael makes it over to his new facility without a hitch. Or so it seems. You spend half the movie feeling bad for this guy who gets accidentally shot, only to realize that he’s the reason Michael escaped in the first place. Rather than harboring Loomis’ deep desire to stop Michael at all costs, Dr. Sartain is actually jealous of his predecessor’s first-hand witness of the events in 1978 and decides to take it upon himself to recreate the event so that he can experience it himself. This reversal is so well done that my jaw was on the floor when Dr. Sartain flips and stabs Officer Hawkins (Will Patton) in order to protect Michael. Well done, guys.
Speaking of jaws on the floor, that poor gas station attendant. In fact, that entire gas station scene is pretty gnarly, especially the moment where Michael reaches out over the top of the bathroom stall and drops the attendant’s teeth on the floor in front of Dana (Rhian Rees).
Another nice twist on a classic is the confrontation between Michael and Laurie in the finale. This time around, Michael knocks Laurie out the second story window and she lands sprawled on the yard. Moments later when Michael looks back, she’s disappeared, just like the ending of the first film, but with the roles swapped.
The finale has another fantastic moment where Karen begins crying that she can’t bring herself to shoot Michael. This feels genuine, because she’s spent her entire life intentionally trying to forget the survivor instincts Laurie taught her as a child. But when Michael is lured in by this, she switches expression with a cold “Gotcha” and shoots him after all. This gives me Your Next vibes, in which the survivor girl was unwillingly trained in the arts of survival, giving her the edge she needs to fight back when the time comes.
In the end, grandmother, mother, and daughter are driven away from the scene, with Allyson holding a bloody knife. Although Allyson doesn’t technically take on Michael’s evil, this final shot brings to mind the closing shot of 4 where Jamie coldly wields a bloody blade herself.
This movie is the best of the series. The atmosphere is perfect, the family is engaging, and the horror is well done.
Score: 9/10
For Halloween Kills (2021), please see my standalone review.
Themes
Now that I’ve seen the entirety of the Halloween franchise thus far, there are several recurrent aspects throughout I’d like to touch on.
Score
All of the films utilize John Carpenter’s original theme, the classic but simple piano melody in 5/4 time—if you’re not familiar with music theory, this is an extremely unusual rhythm, used in this case to cause an uncomfortable feeling.
Michael’s Motivation
Several of the movies attempt to explain Michael’s underlying motivation, whether it be a curse, a connection to the number 17, or a terrible childhood. Unfortunately, none of these really make sense, nor are they particularly necessary since they contradict the very foundation of Michael as a concept.
Retconned Endings
Almost every movie that’s a continuation of a previous film opens by changing some aspect of the previous finale, sometimes minorly but sometimes in a major way. Probably the biggest change is in Resurrection, which replaces Michael with an innocent paramedic as the beheaded victim in H20.
Different Directors
The first seven films all have different directors. Resurrection marks the first ever return of a director, followed by two from Rob Zombie and three (in the works) by David Gordon Green.
Michael
Thanks to Michael’s mask, many of the movies also recast Michael, with only a handful reusing the same actor. Another side effect of Michael constantly wearing a mask is that his age is not obvious. Before watching the series, I hadn’t realized he’s barely drinking age in the first movie at 21 (erroneously credited as 23 sometimes, but 6 + 15 != 23). It also isn’t always obvious how old he has become—nowadays he’s nearly old enough to qualify for Medicare. That’s quite the span.
Personal Ranking
- Halloween (2018)
- Halloween: Resurrection (I had fun, sue me)
- Halloween Kills
- H20
- Halloween II (1981)
- Halloween (1978)
- Halloween 4
- Halloween III
- Halloween (2007)
- Halloween 5
- Halloween 6
- Halloween II (2009)
If you liked Halloween, you may also like:
- It Follows
- It Comes At Night
- Better Watch Out
- The Babysitter
- Krisha
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