A Guide to the HALLOWEEN Series and How to Watch It

The Halloween brand is without a doubt one of the most important titles in the history of American horror or—more specifically—the slasher. It is associated mainly with John Carpenter’s original film from the second half of the 1970s, but over the span of more than four decades as many as thirteen installments of the series have been made. Or rather, not even one series in the singular sense, because there are several Halloween canons. Successive creators drew from the 1978 film, freely adding their own stories to it, often ignoring the work of others.

I invite you to explore this guide to the Halloween brand, which I have divided into several conventionally named lines.

The Loomis Line

Includes: Halloween (1978), Halloween 2 (1981), Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988), Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989), Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)

The first, original series, in which every sequel follows from the previous one (with a small but in the form of the third film, which I will discuss later). The line begins with Carpenter’s now-cult slasher and continues the story of Michael, the killer in the characteristic mask, and his subsequent clashes with Dr. Loomis. It is precisely the doctor—dedicating his entire career to studying the Myers case—who, apart from the killer himself, is the character present in every installment.

Role of Michael: Michael, the silent killer with an iconic set of external features, begins in Carpenter’s film as a figure on the border between a maniacal murderer and an eerie boogeyman. Ultimately the creators decide to somehow explain his nearly immortal nature, introducing into the series the motifs of ancient runes and cults as supernatural elements driving Myers’s desire.

Greatest strength: interacting with the ever-growing, unintentionally comical psychosis of Dr. Loomis and discovering the next soap-opera-like solutions of the series will undoubtedly bring great joy to all fans of genre cinema. Especially since the brand was created over several good decades and perfectly reflects their atmosphere.

Greatest weakness: the uneven quality of the films that make up the series. The truly successful films (1, 2, 4) sit alongside the typically pulpy ones (5, 6).

The Witch Line

Includes: Halloween 3: Season of the Witch (1982)

After shooting Halloween and producing its sequel (and also independently creating material for it during reshoots), John Carpenter came up with a rather peculiar idea: to transform the brand into an anthology of horror films, connected by the unifying motif of the titular Halloween. This is how Season of the Witch was created, telling the story of two random lovers facing an ominous organization producing Halloween masks. And then… nothing more. The film’s poor reception led the producers to return to the character of Michael Myers, no longer consulting Carpenter.

Role of Michael: Michael appears briefly as the protagonist of the original Halloween, a fragment of which we can see on a television turned on in a pub.

Greatest strength: the opportunity to experience the most absurd sequel in the history of cinema.

Greatest weakness: the third Halloween is a poor, unnecessary film.

The Laurie Line

Includes: Halloween (1978), Halloween 2 (1981), Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998), Halloween: Resurrection(2002)

With the twentieth anniversary of the premiere of the original Halloween, the decision was made to return to the character of Laurie, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, the heroine of the first two films in the series. In doing so, the decidedly radical—but probably justified—choice was made to ignore the soap-opera-like sequels without this character. Halloween H20 is thus a direct continuation of Halloween 2 and creates a new canon, free of absurdities, neatly closing the series about Laurie’s battles with Michael in three successful productions.

Or at least that is what would have happened, had greedy producers not decided, four years later, to persuade Curtis into one more several-minute appearance, undo the ending of the previous film with an awful narrative backflip, and give us the decidedly worst film in the history of the series, which to this day remains the utterly pointless Halloween: Resurrection.

Role of Michael: here Michael is a psychopathic killer and boogeyman, in keeping with the spirit of Carpenter’s film.

Greatest strength: Halloween, Halloween 2, and Halloween H20 form a successful slasher trilogy…

Greatest weakness: …which is butchered by the awful Halloween: Resurrection.

The Michael Line

Includes: Halloween (2007) and Halloween II (2009)

The first film in this line is simply a remake of John Carpenter’s original in the interpretation of Rob Zombie. Zombie adds a very extensive childhood section for Michael, but ultimately remains fairly faithful to the key points of that story.

The situation is completely different with Halloween II, which is not a remake of Halloween 2. Zombie opts for a very auteur approach—on the one hand raw, and on the other almost dreamlike—to the universe of Michael Myers. At the same time he closes the fate of him and his family.

Role of Michael: due to the large role of Michael’s childhood in both films, he seems to be their main protagonist. The entirety has the flavor of the villain origin stories that were popular in Hollywood at the time (see: Hannibal Rising).

Greatest strength: Halloween II is one of the most interesting and most successful experiments born from Carpenter’s film. It will certainly not appeal to everyone, but it is a project worth attention.

Greatest weakness: Rob Zombie’s first Halloween, on the other hand, kills the magic of the original and is a completely unnecessary and unsuccessful remake.

The Allyson Line

Includes: Halloween (1978), Halloween (2018), Halloween Kills (2021), Halloween Ends (2022)

The fortieth anniversary of the series turned out to be an opportunity for the creators to begin a new canon. Halloween from 2018 tapped into the trend of so-called requels and legacy sequels, returning to the character of Laurie (again played by Jamie Lee Curtis), and also introducing on screen her daughter Karen and granddaughter Allyson. The series was continued in two further films, while ignoring forty years of brand development and serving as a direct continuation only of the 1978 film.

Role of Michael: with Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends, Michael became something more than a murderer—almost a mythical evil living within people and infecting them with cruelty, like the clown from Stephen King’s cult It.

Greatest strength: the new Halloween and Halloween Kills are, admittedly, rather absurd, standing halfway between a relatively serious slasher and almost its parody, but they offer the viewer a great deal of fun. Especially since these are very competently made horror spectacles, effectively using contemporary narrative and technical solutions.

Greatest weakness: unfortunately, the culmination of the series looks like a collection of the worst ideas that should never have left the computers of the (four!) screenwriters of Halloween Ends. The unpleasant aftertaste of this exhausting dud erases all the joy provided by the two previous installments.

As we can see, the Halloween brand consists, in fact, of five film series that not only exclude one another, but also intermingle. Which one should we consider the best? It is difficult for me to answer this question, because each seems interesting to me in its own way. The first one—named by me the Loomis line—undoubtedly reflects the spirit of the series most faithfully, while the last one—the Allyson line—may prove to be the easiest to digest for the contemporary viewer who simply wants to get acquainted with the phenomenon of Michael Myers.