I wasn’t quite sure about whether or not to write this, mostly because it falls into a very predictable and obvious piece of work. But after some pondering, certain elements pulled me to wanting to write about it, but we’ll get to that down the road. I’m not going to waste any more time on this intro, it’s Halloween! The only thing I will say is that this list will not include the remake, the remake’s sequel, or the Curse of Michael Myers Producer’s Cut. We are simply sticking to the original series here, so let’s get started.

8) Halloween: Resurrection

    Michael Myers kills his sister in the first five minutes, then Busta Rhymes and Tyra Banks decide to make a reality show in the Myers house as Mikey starts killing people. Insert your own easy joke about him not being a fan of reality shows. I’m not going to put any effort into it the same way it feels like the filmmakers didn’t here. I already feel like I’ve spent more time on it than I wanted to. It’s stupid, lazy, and incredibly forgettable. And yes, Jamie Lee Curtis is in this because she asked to finally have Laurie killed off.

7) Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers

    Six years after the last Halloween, Michael’s back to kill his niece and her baby, because it turns out Michael is part of a cult that… gives him his immortality… and he’s the one who will stop the Thorn cult from killing others… and he is the only one who has to kill his next of kin, and they control him so…that… to…

    Okay, first the good. Donald Pleasance is still great and enjoyable, like always, though his age by the time this film came out is apparent (which is something we will get back to). Even so, and with his thoughts about the film in production, he does give a very sincere performance, more-so in the Producer's Cut as he was actually left in. .

    Everything else falls into the bad. The story is ludicrous, and works towards destroying the underlying mysterious and effectiveness of what Michael Myers meant and represented in the original (though something else didn’t help, we’ll get to that, too) The film is an obvious product of a messy production. As a matter of fact, that production is more interesting than the movie itself. Donald Pleasance signed on based on his excitement for the original script, which was one that was more psychological. Apparently, it was effective enough to have one Dimension Films executive say they couldn’t sleep after reading it. This was enough to have Dimension Films go forth with the greenlight, then proceed to go through eleven drafts, also going through re-workings during filming. The director even went so far as to edit back scenes with Loomis because he believed Pleasance was boring, because the director is a jackass.

    The film was shown for a test audience, who hated it, especially the ending. It should be noted that the test audience has been described as"mostly fourteen year-old boys." So reshoots were decided on, but unfortunately Donald Pleasance had passed away by this time, which didn’t stop them anyway. The best way to sum up the entire feeling of the cast and crew (who even went so far as to say they will never work a Halloween film again based on their experience) is one moment. In the mix of attempting to come up with a new subtitle for the film, higher-ups asked Daniel Farrands, the original writer, if he had any ideas. Farrands, himself fed up with the BS of the entire experience and referring to it, very sarcastically replied with ‘The Curse of Michael Myers.’ Yup.

5’s) Halloween 4: Return of Michael Myers/Halloween: H20

    Return of Michael Myers deals with Michael returning after ten years in a coma to kill his young niece, Jamie Lloyd, who is currently living with a foster family. Because what else would he do?

    Halloween: H20 follows Laurie Strode twenty years after the original night, teaching under a new name with her son, and Michael returns all killy-like. Because what else would he do? This one ignore movies 4, 5 and 6. So I guess Mikey was just wandering around for twenty years, looking for her. Early internet helped him in spades.

    I honestly had a really hard time figuring out which one to place higher. While, overall, there’s more I usually remember enjoying about H20, in terms of stronger aspects, the reason I tied them is because they’re both very slight movies. The end credits roll and you go, ‘…okay. I watched a movie, cool.’ Return falls victim to being quite a retread of the original, borrowing scenes from it wholesale as a ‘throwback.’ I am a fan of Jamie and her sister Rachel, as they have a good dynamic together. Donald Pleasance is also still Donald Pleasance, though, to me, this one feels like he was just kind of there on set. But he is still a good part of the film.

    H20 came at an interesting time. Full honesty, I’m not a big fan of Scream, but after Scream we had an influx of a very specific style of slasher-horror in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s. H20 is one of the more above-average slashers from this time, in my opinion. While Return has the issue of being a retread of the original, this one suffers from the fact that it is wholly forgettable beyond its few enjoyable moments. What makes H20 as good as it is is Jamie Lee Curtis, who brings her absolute A-game, and she’s incredibly badass. I really like her character arc here, suffering from PTSD style nightmares (though we only see that once in the beginning) and being an alcoholic, the effects of what had happened in the past turning her into an overprotective, controlling, paranoid mother. The best thing about the film is the final ten or fifteen minutes, from when Curtis goes back into the school to face Michael to when the end credits roll. It has a great franchise ending moment, even though it was ultimately undone. But that can be said for a lot of Halloween follow-ups after interesting endings….

4) Halloween 5: Revenge of Michael Myers

Mikey returns again to attempt to kill his niece. Again. The two also now have some sort of a psychic connection. Because sure.

    This one might be surprising to some, considering Revenge is usually ranked pretty low on lists I’ve seen ranking the sequels. Yes, it has stupid things, like the bumbling cops that are an homage to Last House on the Left (where they were awful, too), but Danielle Harris is still great as Jamie, especially since she barely speaks for a good chunk of the film. After being okay in Return, Pleasance is back to playing an almost crazed Dr. Loomis. He is so intense in this film that he makes it worth re-watching alone. But there is one other main reason I enjoy this one more than Returns or H20. That comes down to scenes such as Michael attempting to run Jamie over in a car, or one where he violently stabs at a laundry chute she is trying to climb to safety in. In this movie, I fully believe that Michael Myers is hell bent on murdering this child. This is tension that was very much missing from the two entries listed above. It’s not great, but it is worth another viewing without the skepticism some people go into the film with already knowing they wouldn’t like it.

3) Halloween II

    Continuing the night from the first film, Michael continues to stalk Laurie (who is taken to a hospital with only about 6 overnight employees and no other patients) while Loomis continues to hunt Michael. We also learn Laurie Strode is Michael’s sister.

    Yeah, I’m not a big fan of the sister angle. Though, I must say, I’m not someone who is bothered by changes, in the sense of internet-raging (cough). I just shrug it off and go with it. The obvious problem with this new revelation, of course, is that it messes with what made the original as effective as it was. John Carpenter himself has said that the idea of the twist came from late nights of writing and a six-pack of beer.

    Speaking of Carpenter and writing… When Halloween came out, sequels weren’t necessarily a massive ‘thing.’ Halloween wasn’t even really the movie that started the slasher craze, as that can more-so be pointed towards Friday the 13th, which made so much on so little that a sequel was in production, I believe, a mere four months after the first hit theaters. Producers heard cha-ching sounds and went to Carpenter and Debra Hill about a sequel. They didn’t want to do it, but the studio offered more money to Carpenter to write the sequel, and considering he has said he saw very little money that the original made, he agreed to the job. So it’s understandable he would write it with a six-pack a night.

    The movie also fell into a weird time, release wise. Director Rick Rosenthal shot it to be more in line with the original, in terms of suspense and tension (which is funny considering he didn’t do either when he directed Resurrection…). Carpenter wanted the same, but he also knew that the landscape of horror was changing, in terms of what the audience wanted to see. So, nervous that a horror film without blood, gore or nudity wouldn’t do well at this time, Carpenter himself shot a few quick scenes that were more attune to that. This, understandably, pissed Rosenthal off.

    The movie isn’t amazing, but it’s a more satisfying watch than a lot of the other Halloween sequels. And, despite the fact that it does try to fall more in line with what the slasher genre was doing, still feels like quite a proper follow-up to the original, in terms of its own overall feel.

2) Halloween III: Season of the Witch

    A doctor and the daughter of a murdered man go off to investigate Conal Cochran, the owner of a mask novelty factory who may be planning some… uh… supernatural... murdering... and children. 

    Okay, time has been the best friend to Season of the Witch. No, the plot doesn’t make a whole lot of sense once you think about it, and there are plot holes that make it crumble in terms of silliness, but none of that matters. The movie is so… Halloween, more-so than others. The others had pumpkins and costumes and the like, but the season seems to ooze from this movie.

    Carpenter and Hill had the idea that, with Michael Myers being dead, they would release a Halloween film every year or so with each one focusing on new aspects of the season. Of course, it didn’t do the best, and producers scrambled to get Myers back, and we got a bunch of repetitive sequels. I wish I could look into an alternate universe where we got the anthology format films. They would’ve been great, in a fun way. Even if some of them were lesser, it would’ve been great because they went for ‘it.’ It could’ve led to great, imaginary, nutso stories. This movie has assassinating androids! And it also gave us one of the most ridiculous ear-worm pieces of music, ever.

    Yes, the plot has issues, easily, but that’s not the point. The season is the point. The essence of it. And the film captures the essence of Halloween incredibly well. It’s fun, and that’s what Halloween, as a season, is really about.

1) Halloween

    A child murders his older sister, for some reason. Fifteen years later, he escapes a mental hospital, goes home, and ends up stalking a specific teenage girl. For some reason.

    It’s Halloween. A horror cultural landmark. The script from John Carpenter and Debra Hill is excellent. The acting is excellent. The filmmaking is excellent. It’s simple, but it shows that just because something is simple doesn’t mean it can’t reach amazing heights. It’s all about the way it is presented. I could go into this film more here, but some things deserve their own pieces, for various reasons, some possibly even self-indulgent… *cough*