The Halloween series has 13 movies from the years 1978 through 2022 with no news on the next movie. John Carpenter, the director of Halloween (1978) , had a very low budget of $300,000 and the majority went to buy film equipment.The crew was made up of people aged 19 to 21 years old who wanted to gain on-site experience even Jamie Lee Curtis, who played Laurie Strode, was moving boxes around. Majority of the crew was voluntary or very underpaid while working 12 to 14 hour shifts.
After 20 days of filming Irwin Yaablan, the one who came up with the idea of Halloween, was now tasked with showing it on screen. He reached out to old partners from his job back at Warner Brothers, but no one was interested because they all thought horror movies would make no money. Little did they know how wrong they were. Yaablan decided to make a small release convinced that no one would watch it and he was right. Sales dropped for a week but then grew ten times. Turns out everyone who saw it loved it and ran home to tell their friends all about it, giving them free advertising. Halloween became super popular and changed the film industries with new horror movies for every holiday.
The first installment follows six years old Michael Myers killing his older sister Judith and being sent to a psych ward, escaping and setting his sights on Laurie Strode, a babysitter. Halloween II is a direct sequel continuing on the same day the first ended. Michael goes to the hospital trying to kill Laurie again and killing the doctors who were in the way. It is also revealed why Michael picked Laurie as his next victim. It’s because she’s his sister. In this movie he gets shot and pretends to be dead.
Next is Halloween: Season Of The Witch. It is not a sequel and this was Carpenter’s attempt at creating an anthology series. Next is Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, and Halloween 6: The curse of Michael Myers. They are very loosely a direct sequel to Halloween 1 and 2. The new films follow Laurie Strode’s 8-year old daughter Jamie. The new directors and writers killed Laurie in an off-screen car accident.
Nothing important happens in the fourth and fifth movies, but in the sixth movie Michael kills Jamie but spares their son. Needless to say, many people were horrified and hated the movie.
When Halloween H20: 20 Years Later came out, it’s like the sixth movie never happened; same with the movies three and four. Laurie’s back and it isn’t forgotten she died in a car accident. Instead she faked her own death, changed her identity and works at a prep school in California with her 17 year old son. In this movie instead of running away she stays behind and fights back.
In Halloween: Resurrection Laurie dies and this movie is supposed to be a sequel to the previous one but it’s widely rejected by fans. Laurie gets killed in the first ten minutes and it just doesn’t work. Halloween isn’t Halloween without certain characters.
Movies four through six only worked because Dr. Loomis was still going after Michael but the actor passed and the franchise continued without him and brought back Laurie. Now they’re both gone and it’s just a serial killer going on a spree killing a bunch of teenagers streaming online, then breaking into Michael’s old home where Michael intercepts them and kills them.
Halloween (2007) and Halloween II (2009) are sequels to the first two movies. Halloween adds a backstory of Michael’s home life before he snapped and went on a killing spree and Halloween II shows Michael’s and Lorie’s relationship psychologically.
Halloween (2018) takes place 40 years later and is a sequel to the first two movies. This one shows a paranoid Laurie Strodes and her daughter Karen preparing for his return, which he does.
Halloween Kills is a direct sequel to the previous but was a flop, and does not have much killing but lots of people yelling “evil dies tonight.”
Halloween Ends is the last movie of the franchise and takes place four years later. Laurie is finally living her life with her granddaughter Allysn but her peaceful life ends when Michael returns to Haddon Field but this time Laurie and Allysn fight back and end Michel Myers once and for all, or so we think.
Overall Halloween is a great franchise that made a big impact on slasher films today. There were some questionable parts but ignoring that, it was still enjoyable. Some might be worth the skip and others worth the watch. If you’re staying in for Halloween and want to know what to watch? Definitely watch Halloween. It’s a horror classic and a movie made about Halloween. It’s a perfect watch for a spooky day.
