I love Halloween. The movie and the holiday. I saw the original film on TV when I was a kid late at night, and I was hooked ever since. Yeah, sure there’s the Jason movies and the Freddy movies, the Chucky movies and the Leatherface movies,
but Halloween has always stuck with me as my favorite of all the big franchise horror icons. I followed the story through each of the films as a kid.
In the first film, the opening scene is a girl getting stabbed by a killer in a mask. The surprising reveal — the killer is a six-year-old boy.
The boy is institutionalized, breaks out fifteen years later, and goes back to his home town. This is where he goes on a killing spree, stalking Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and killing her friends. She escapes, Michael gets shot and falls out a window, and when they look outside, he’s gone.
Part two is where the plot thickens. This is where some hardcore fans feel like the movie got ruined. It gives the killer a motivation. Michael Myers was initially a killer with no emotions and no purpose aside from murder. He was just an unstoppable killing machine. Turns out, Jamie Lee Curtis is his other sister, and this is why he was stalking her. So the movie picks up directly after the last one, and Michael stalks Jamie Lee Curtis in the hospital before getting shot in both of his eyes and blown up with his psychiatrist.
Reboot number one. Halloween III: The Season of the Witch
Michael Myers is dead. Shot twice in the head, burned up, end of story. The studios decided that Halloween was going to be an anthology series. Each new entry would be a totally different story centered around the night of Samhain. This forgettable movie (which I have seen numerous times) has an evil corporation creating Halloween masks and cursing them with a piece of Stonehenge so that it will kill the kids wearing them. Interesting idea. It has androids, it has snakes coming out of empty masks, it has a very annoying jingle, and it has no Michael Myers.
The next three are a trilogy of their own. Parts 4, 5, and 6. The Return, the Revenge, and the Curse of Michael Myers. Laurie Strode is dead. She died in a car wreck and left a daughter, Jamie Lloyd, behind. Michael Myers never died, just fell into a coma. He wakes up, goes after his niece, and we as the viewers learn about a cult that has been controlling Michael with the curse of Thorn, where somebody tries to kill all the members of his family. The final details of the cult come to fruition in part 6. Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, originally entitled Halloween 666: The Origin of Michael Myers. The final scene in this last film is a cliffhanger ending with ambiguity as to the whereabouts of the antagonist.
Reboot number two. Halloween H20: 20 years later.
Laurie Strode faked her death. Movies 4, 5, and 6 are ignored. This movie didn’t get a number in the title (then again, technically part 6 didn’t either). This one is the new part 3 of the series. A direct sequel to part two. Michael dies in the movie. The end. A great movie, a great finale to the series. This is the one where it should have concluded.
Halloween: Resurrection came next, Laurie Strode is killed in the opening scene, Michael Myers wasn’t actually killed (of course), and the worst movie in the series, even worse than part 3 was gifted to us by the money hungry studios. This one was so bad it officially killed the current continuity of the series.
Reboot number three. Halloween (2007). Rob Zombie decided to remake Halloween in his own image. We are introduced to the white trash dysfunctional family of a young Michael Myers. The overall story is the same, with a much longer introductory scene which shows his family, his therapy sessions, how he escapes, etc. All of these details were left as mysteries in the original film. Rob Zombie’s sequel came out a couple of years later, and it was nothing worth watching. I’ve only seen 2009’s Halloween 2 once.
And now we come to the movie to be released this Friday. Reboot number four. Halloween (2018). Laurie Strode is not Michael Myers' sister. Part 2 never happened. Parts 4, 5, and 6 never happened. H20 and Resurrection... nope. This is a direct sequel to the original Halloween from 1978. This makes it the third “part 2” in the series. I’m not sure what to expect, but critical reception is good. I won’t see it Friday since I’m going to a haunted house that night, but maybe Saturday or Sunday. Question is, should I try to cram a re-watch of the first ten movies before then? Shouldn't we all try that?
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