Every ‘Halloween’ Movie, Ranked

Do not watch Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. It is one of the Halloween franchise’s most convoluted, empty installments. It’s upsetting, considering this is the closing story of the Thorn trilogy. By the way, the Thron trilogy refers to Halloween 4, 5, and 6, which suggests Michael is possessed by a demon mark that gives him his supernatural abilities. The concept starts tame before getting lost in the weeds. Paul Rudd is in it. It’s also the last performance of Donald Pleasance — a pillar of the franchise up until this point — ever. But even he can’t uplift this film. Those are the only redeemable qualities of this motion picture.

Rob Zombie did not want to make Halloween II, and you can tell by the finished product. Rob Zombie wanted to make a Rob Zombie movie, which is fine — but not when it’s supposed to be a follow-up to the first movie you made, which was a Halloween movie. Halloween II sets its own path after a pretty cookie-cutter remake of the original John Carpenter film. It takes some bold swings, like making Loomis unlikable, turning Laurie into a crazy person, and turning Michael into a savage killer and less of the enigmatic figure we’re used to. Instead of delving into how Michael affected the town, this film focuses on how much the survivors have changed. But most of those swings don’t land because these characters turn into people from The Devil’s Rejects or House of 1,000 Corpses. And although the movie has some trippy moments that seemingly have greater meaning, they’re all shallow attempts at elevating the material beyond what it is.

After the first 15 or so minutes of this movie, we turn it off. Resurrection is a sequel to H20: Halloween that throws all the goodwill earned from its predecessor into the trash. After Laurie’s satisfying victory in the previous movie, it turns out the person she killed dressed as Michael wasn’t Michael. And apparently, nobody could understand the confusion, so they threw her in the loony bin instead. Michael returns for her and finally puts her out of her misery. Then, we turn it off because the rest of the movie is about foolish teenagers deciding to film a web series in the Myers home on Halloween night. Everyone deserves what they get, except for the fans. Besides the starting 15 minutes, the only memorable thing about this flick is Busta Rhymes saying “Trick or Treat” to Mike and karate kicking him across the face.

The cool film guy’s favorite, the refined choice, the upper echelon of Halloween films to say you enjoy more than the others when discussing movies online. But in actuality, it’s not that great a movie, even in its own right. It’s a sci-fi flick about paranoia and being taken control of, a very common sci-fi trope during this era. It does nothing to reinvent this trope and has nothing of substance to say other than what’s been said about this trope a thousand times from better films. It serves as the franchise’s transition from Michael into an anthology series about the holiday. It’s a cool idea, but this was not the direction fans wanted then, and it does not reflect the franchise in any real way because there’s no connective tissue between previous installments. So instead of being an anthology series starter, it’s the red-headed stepchild of the bunch.

Halloween 5, much like Halloween Resurrection, completely throws away all the faith it built up from its predecessor to the wayside. There are many behind-the-scenes reasons behind why the film turned out the way it did, but it sees Jamie’s storyline completely dropped from her last cliffhanger. She’s now unable to speak, and our heroine from 4 dies unceremoniously. Stakes go from scary to slapstick in this sequel, even adding bumbling small-town sheriff music whenever the authorities arrive on the scene. Michael’s mask looks horrific (not in a good way), and the movie leaves us on a confusing cliffhanger that hardly pays off in Halloween 6.

Rob Zombie’s Halloween is a perfect balance of respecting the franchise while injecting your own flavor into the mix. Here, we get an origin story for Michael and the entire Strode family. It takes what Carpenter introduces and puts a magnifying glass into the situation. The first half of this film is strictly a Zombie flick, and it’s our favorite part of the movie. Daeg Faerch and Tyler Mane were excellent, as both iterations of Michael, the latter showcasing a hulking iteration of The Shape with an intimidation factor we hadn’t seen before. Unfortunately, the second half isn’t as great. Although we get an updated version of the classic ‘78 tale, it doesn’t mesh quite well with the injected Zombie-isms we saw at the beginning.

This is sure to be a controversial placing, solely because Halloween II is revered as the last installment Carpenter had any involvement in writing. It also cemented that Laurie and Michael were siblings, a plot point that drove the latter’s several sequels from here on in until Halloween 2018. It does well taking place directly after the first film, during the same night. The mask looks on par with the original (because they’re the same), and you still have Donald Pleasance and Jamie Lee Curtis attached to the franchise. Not to mention, the final set piece is one of the most iconic within the Halloween series. However, there are a couple of issues, primarily a meandering plot for Laurie (and a terrible wig) alongside ultraviolet kills that align with ’80s slasher tropes, a stark difference from the original.

Halloween Kills split the fandom upon release, but if you approach the film more as a fan of Halloween than just a fan of Michael Myers, you might walk away with a better appreciation for it. As David Gordon Green’s trilogy went on, it became more apparent that Laurie was not the center focus of his story and that Michael’s rampage affected not just the Strode family but an entire community. Twice. Michael infected the community with fear until the town became evil itself. Then the town lashed out at itself, creating a monster. Twice. Michael is the personification of evil, created by fear, and this trilogy is a cautionary tale about what happens when you let evil in. It’s everything that should have happened with Jamie during Halloween 5 but replacing the family aspect with a community aspect, which in turn is reflective of our world today.

So Michael is pure evil and infects others (as he probably was) through fear. Fear can only live if you keep conjuring it up, talking about it, and letting it in. Small scale, we see how fear dictated the life of Laurie and the ripple effect it caused her family. Now extrapolate how the return of this urban legend will affect the town after he kills more people in one night than he ever did before. Although these themes are handled a bit less gracefully than in its predecessor or sequel film, it has an interesting take on Michael’s effect on people. His kills are brutal in this installment, perfectly juxtaposed with how violent Tommy Doyle’s lynch mob has become. It all culminates in Mike killing everyone that crossed his paths between 1978 and 2018, solidifying himself as the terror on the tips of people’s lips in this town for the unforeseen future.

This film serves as the start of a new saga for Michael, as he’s finally off the trail of Laurie and on the path of his niece Jamie 10 years after the events of the first two movies. It sets the tone of Halloween well and decidedly focuses on the relationship between Myers and Loomis to great effect. And although Michael’s mask looks questionable, his superhuman abilities are at their sharpest in this installment, for better and worse. What makes the movie work, though, is it’s just a rehash of the original film’s beats with more budget for big things, like the concluding shootout by the lynch mob. However, the final, shocking cliffhanger solidifies this film as one of the better sequel films of the franchise. Michael passes off his evil (similar to Ends) to someone else via touch and becomes a killer. It’s well-directed, well-acted, and sold to perfection by Pleasence.

Laurie has been through a lot in this movie, as it continues her story set up in the original and its sequel. It’s been 20 years since that fateful night, but Laurie has not let fear dictate her life, and she has somewhat been able to move on. Laurie has a son, is the headmistress of the Academy he goes to, and has a saucy relationship with one of her co-workers. She’s moved on in ways her 2018 counterpart could only dream of, mostly because she got out of the damn town. But on the 20th anniversary of his appearance, Michael returns to track down his remaining family to kill them. It’s the Laurie vs. Michael show, and Laurie has Mike’s number in this one. Although he’s got some great kills and still knows how to get the jump on people, Laurie has nerves of steel and is ready to kill him back. And the ending is the only one in the franchise that’s genuinely celebratory for Laurie and the audiences alike.

Somehow, David Gordon Green was able to utilize the franchise reboot formula created by J.J. Abrams for The Force Awakens and apply it to the Halloween franchise. True crime podcasters look for Michael at an asylum after his arrest in ‘78 to try to understand (and profit from) him, like he’s just some regular serial killer. But he’s the Boogeyman, the persona of evil, and now he’s unleashed on Haddonfield once again, thanks to them. Michael makes sure to observe everyone using his name, living near his house, showing people his sister’s grave, or simply just trying to understand him, and punishes them for it later. Laurie never recovered from her fateful encounter with him: She’s living in a bunker, estranged from her family (and since the film ignores other sequels, effectively dropping the sibling storyline), is essentially just another scarred victim of Haddonfield. It’s not about Michael and Laurie in this movie; it’s about Michael, his hometown, and how much his presence taints it, starting with the Strodes.

This is the classic slasher that not only started a franchise but defined an entire sub-genre of horror. Michael isn’t a man in this film; he’s a force of nature, an eventuality. And once he escapes the insane asylum, he goes home — until a babysitter stops by his stoop on the way to school. Now she’s his prey. His latest obsession. Loomis is obsessed with Michael, Michael is obsessed with Loomis, and soon, that obsession will be passed down to Laurie, no matter what iteration you decide to watch. But here, he has no motive before he’s the town menace or the man trying to kill his whole family. There’s nothing to understand about him, no matter how curious audiences may be. And that makes his presence even scarier. It’s a simple story with the building blocks to be as complex as you want to make it once you understand the themes. And over 40 years later, talented folks in Hollywood have done just that.