‘Halloween’ Franchise: All The Horror Movies Ranked

4. “Halloween II (1981)”
If Carpenter, Debra Hill, and Dean Cundey’s names appear in key roles that aren’t just “Based on Characters Created By…,” this equals a quality “Halloween” film. Though Carpenter wrote this follow-up begrudgingly (and reportedly intoxicated), it shows that Michael’s creator knows that best way to use him: stick to the shadows, voyeuristic and dread-inducing POV’s, and show him pop up in the frame with minimal sound. While “Halloween II” introduced the biggest point-of-contention for fans of the series (revealing Michael and Laurie to be siblings), it still manages to maintain that spark of tension, thanks to Carpenter and Howarth’s score keeping an unsettling atmosphere and Cundey’s gorgeous “orange-and-brown midwest fall” color palette giving it a visual to match. It’s a shame that Curtis is relegated to being unconscious after her star-making turn in the original, because the characters in the hospital don’t equal one Laurie Strode, and unfortunately do become simple fodder for the slaughter (the start of the subgenre’s inevitable downfall). But, from a staging and special effects perspective, it has hands-down one of the best death scenes in the series (who puts a hot tub in a hospital?).

3. “Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)”
There are two types of “Halloween” fans: the ones who will gladly put “Season of the Witch” at or near the bottom of their rankings because of long-standing bitterness over the gull that they made a “Halloween” film sans Michael Myers, or the ones who can push past that and realize that “Season of the Witch” – for all its faults – is weird, fascinating, and downright creepy. Hell, even the cast and crew are divided (watch the featurette on the Scream Factory Blu-ray to hear director Tommy Lee Wallace and stars Tom Atkins and Stacey Nelkin champion it, while producer Irwin Yablans thinks it was the dumbest idea to make a “Halloween” without Michael). Taking it on its own merits, “Season of the Witch” plays out like an extended “Twilight Zone” episode or EC Comics adaptation (between this and the underrated “Body Bags,” Carpenter never had good luck with anthologies). It’s filled with some of the most haunting imagery the series has had, the final act is incredibly ballsy, the score is one of Carpenter’s absolute best, and just try and get the Silver Shamrock jingle out of your head once you’ve heard it (it’ll haunt you forever). The midsection is admittedly saggy, and the characterizations are spotty at best (why every woman is into Tom Atkins’ character cannot be rationalized), but like the original, it sought out to carve its own path. It was punished for it in the box office, but time has been kind, and its reputation has thankfully been relatively redeemed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UygQSCY8ezw

2. “Halloween (2018)”
By ignoring the unceremonious reunion between Laurie Strode and Michael Myers in “Halloween H20” (and literally every other film aside from the original), Jamie Lee Curtis and director David Gordon Green take a rare second crack at bat at exploring the trauma that has scarred Laurie since that fateful night. The backbone of the latest “Halloween” is the familial turmoil that has been passed down through the generations as Laurie, a paranoid PTSD victim, is an armed recluse, both ready and terrified of Michael’s return. The relationships with her daughter (Judy Greer) and granddaughter (Andi Matichak) is strained at best. “Michael killed five people, and he’s a human being. I’ve been divorced twice, and I’m a basket case,” Laurie tells a couple of investigative journalists diving into Michael’s file. The emotional distress and gender double-standard gives this latest iteration its greatest strength. That and it returns Michael’s rightful nickname as “The Shape,” the unstoppable, unreasonable embodiment of evil. Where Carpenter obscured the violence, Green leans heavily into Michael’s uncompromising brutality, and it’s not a hindrance because the film is so genuinely chilling, engaging and character-based, that it earns its violence. It should also earn the title as the funniest “Halloween” film. Green and co-writer Danny McBride’s comedic background — coupled with Green’s naturalistic approach to telling stories in small-town Americana and understanding these communities — work strongly in the film’s favor by offering well-placed levity in an otherwise harrowing tale of the legacy of trauma and with many textured and emotionally cathartic and painful things about victims and survivors of brutal assaults. It’s a fresh angle for the “Halloween” series, and a fresh angle for any entry in a slasher franchise, with really only “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors” being even remotely close to attempting that kind of gravitas.

1. “Halloween (1978)”
As mentioned in an earlier capsule, “Halloween” is one of the rare horror films that makes daylight terrifying. The best horror taps into our basest fears, and the idea of a murderous shape – one who can’t be reasoned with – entering the suburbs, entering your own space where you are presumably safe, and murdering those who you know and love, is frightening. Before the series got bogged down in Michael’s psychology, who he was related to, his relationship with Dr. Loomis, et al, et al, Carpenter presented us with this simple premise, and that pure simplicity is what makes “Halloween” a horror film that has stood the test of time, against countless imitators spawned in its wake. Carpenter proved himself early on as an excellent craftsman – as a writer, director, and composer – and knowing that less is more. Very few drops of blood are actually shown in “Halloween,” but everyone remembers it as a violent film, because we imagine what Michael is doing offscreen and it’s way more traumatizing than what they show. Carpenter and Hill’s vision, Jamie Lee Curtis’ empathetic breakout performance, Cundey’s incredibly keen eye, superb soundwork and editing, and Pleasence’s panicked performance are all played perfectly in key. Later slashers would be content to dump blood on the audience like watermelon at a Gallagher show – which can have its own morbid charms – but Carpenter wanted to make something that would stick, and 40 years later, that holds true.