Halloween: All Movies Ranked Best to Worst!

The original, the classic! The slow and brooding pace, the ground-breaking cinematography, and the constant suspense makes this the ultimate slasher movie. Its total lack of special effects makes it completely timeless, just as scary in modern times as it was back then.

The first time seeing Michael Myers is terrifying, and it's something you'll remember for a lifetime. The kills in this movie are simple, but that's the beauty of it. Unlike most slashers, this film is 100% plausible, which makes it extra scary to imagine that this could actually happen in real life.

Yes, some of the acting leaves something to be desired, but that's part of the charm here. Definitely the best!

This is basically a direct continuation of the original movie, starting immediately after the first movie ends and made only a couple years later. To me, this one can be watched back-to-back with the first movie for a pretty seamless experience.

The style is identical, the filming technology is basically the same so even the cinematic look matches the first one pretty well, and the Carpenter/Hill writing is still present. The kills in this movie are actually better than the first movie, in my opinion, although maybe a little less realistic.

It's not as groundbreaking after seeing the first one, but it's just as effective at building suspense, and is definitely worthy of the series.

Many don't agree, but I actually like H5 more than most other Halloween movies!

I love Tina, I think she really breathes a life into this movie that they tried to replicate with other teenagers in other films and usually failed to do. She's lively, can be funny, but also is serious when she needs to be.

The traumatization of Jamie really gives her a personality that she lacked in H4, and the kills in this movie were excellent as well. They also adequately explained the ending of H4 that led into H5 without any potential story problems...it makes total sense and there's no room for needing to guess about why this is happening here. There's really nothing I particularly disliked about this one, and I found it to actually entertain me more than some of the other entries!

This is a continuation of H2, and is not a bad one, though I do have a few gripes with it...

Firstly, the plot was mediocre. I don't think they did a great job of explaining how we got from H2 to H4...yes, there is a significant time skip, but I feel like they could've capitalized on that idea and really gone into Laurie's fate and all of that in this movie, even if her character isn't actually present. Instead, they chose to gloss over the absence of one of the three principal characters (in Michael/Laurie/Loomis) and expect you to just forget about it. They also gloss over lots of probably interesting things between H2 and H4 that involve Michael too...his rehabilitation from his injury, his time being incarcerated, etc. That's all I could think about through the whole movie, ha!

Aside from that, I felt that the pacing was a little off in this entry...at some points it felt like nothing at all was happening, in other parts it was really hectic.

The kills were still pretty good, as they always are, but the plot let me down a little bit, being a direct continuation of H2.

In order to fully appreciate this movie, I feel like you have to align yourself in one of two schools of thought: Either H4-6 didn't happen and this is a different timeline, or there were some extenuating circumstances between H6 and H7 (aka: H20) that allow it to be included in the same original timeline.

I'm a person who likes to reconcile timelines rather than ignore previous works, so I enjoy finding creative ways of connecting the dots. Thus, here is my opinion regarding how you can still include H4-6 and also H20 in the same timeline:

H1/2 definitely happened in both timelines, so that's a given...and H3 was unrelated, so forget about that one.

By the time H4 starts, Laurie has already faked her own death, adopted out her first child (daughter Jamie), moved away, changed her name, and birthed/raised a son. Let's then assume that she fools everyone and H4-6 happen in Haddonfield, while she is long gone. I'm sure the Haddonfield PD loathe their reputation after the events of H1/H2, as they repeatedly reference in subsequent films. It's plausible to assume that maybe the police covered up the murders of H4-6 and kept the news of what happened from making its way outside of Haddonfield, which explains why everyone elsewhere still thinks Michael died at the end of H2, including Laurie (and why nobody mentions the events of H4-6).

Whether or not you accept the T-Cut or P-Cut ending of H6, Michael's "death" isn't confirmed either way...it's ambiguous in the T-Cut and flat out disproved in the P-Cut, so let us assume that Michael walked away from the events of H6 alive either way. It doesn't really matter if Loomis was killed then or was transferred the "Thorn Power"...he was aging and likely would've passed away soon anyway. I'd like to think that he spent the last few years of his life as the "Thorn Master", covering up the historical/medical records regarding the events in H4-6 to hide & protect Michael, contributing to the earlier mentioned cover-up before he passed naturally?

(Another option is that maybe Loomis passed on the "Thorn Power" to someone else and that resulted in his eventual death sometime after H6, the same way that Wynn supposedly dies once passing the "Thorn Power" to Loomis at the end of the H6 P-Cut?) Or maybe he just died at the end of H6 as implied in the T-Cut...either way, Michael's alive at the end of H6, and Loomis dies sometime soon thereafter.

It was revealed in the H6 P-Cut that if Michael successfully kills the last of his bloodline, he would lose his power and it would get transferred to another person instead. I think the most plausible idea is that he tracked down the Strodes, killed them, and killed Stephen Strode, the baby from H6...but it didn't result in him losing his power and fulfilling his "destiny". Thus, at that point, he knew that Laurie must still be alive, and he starts investigating where she could be...by breaking into Loomis's nurse's office at the very beginning of H20. He finds information that leads him to where she is living/hiding now, like perhaps she had extended family or something in the California town she moved to, and he resumes his quest to finish killing the remainder of his bloodline there. BAM! Timelines connected (in theory).

As far as the movie itself goes: This is actually a successful sequel! It captures most of what makes Halloween scary, and the scene when Laurie slams the door then is face-to-face with Michael through the window is EPIC. You can watch this assuming that 4-6 happened (as explained above) or just treat this as the "Real H3", it doesn't really matter...it's worth a watch either way!

I thought about ranking this higher, but I couldn't justify it! The theatrical cut (which most have seen) is a bit wonky. They introduce all of this occult stuff regarding Michael, but really never explain it fully. Tommy gives some background on the ideas that you see, but you never learn anything about why there's a cult, where it really came from, why Michael is involved, or really any other information about it. It's just presented and you are supposed to accept it...which is hard to do with no real purpose or explanation!

The kills in this one are a little further on the less-believable side and I wasn't a huge fan of the Strode family actors. They just didn't do it for me...

Overall I don't think this is a bad movie, but it just fails in its main goal to clearly explain Myers' behaviors and motivations. In my opinion, it should either be left a complete mystery (which is pretty scary in itself), or they'd need to explain it simply and clearly.

I HIGHLY recommend watching the Producer's Cut of this instead. You lose some of the more violent kills, but you gain a coherent plot. You see flashes of what the movie should've been in the T-Cut, but everything (such as the cult, thorn, etc.) is fully explained in the P-Cut. Most of the actors who were in the movie even stated in interviews that they didn't even recognize the T-Cut when they first saw it, that they were all under the impression that it would be the P-Cut version that would hit theaters. It was only modified after some focus groups wanted less story and more gore, so the P-Cut is the actual original/intended cut of the film, and the fact that the plot actually makes sense proves it.

Note: This is the last movie in the "traditional timeline", so some might consider this to be the "last" of the original Halloween story, that timeline being: H1-H2-H4-H5-H6. These are all directly continuous (keeping in mind two timeskips) and they form a singular story/timeline. H3 was unrelated to the rest of the series, and the subsequent two movies (plus the two later remakes) exist outside of this core timeline.

This is probably the second example of a Halloween movie that SHOULDN'T be a Halloween movie. H3 just had nothing to do with the series, despite being an okay generic 80's horror movie. This one at least has Michael Myers in it, and it can fit into the continuity, it's just presented in a way that's kind of silly with poor acting throughout.

The first 10 minutes of the film is really all you particularly need to see. They finally bring closure to the Laurie Strode storyline at the very beginning of the film...it's a quick ending to that story but an ending nonetheless. That part of the movie is done in more of a classic style, so if you just evaluate the first 10 minutes...that portion is worth watching.

The rest of it is a silly "Internet reality show" with a lot of bad dialog and odd cinematography choices, as half of the film is spliced in from GoPro-style cameras on the actors' heads. It was obviously made to capitalize on the newly popular "Blair Witch Project" kind of style which was getting big at the time. I actually don't mind the "headcam" scenes as much as some people do...some of them look pretty cool. They really just don't give ole Michael much of a reason for showing up or whatnot...I guess "thorn constellation" (assumed) + Halloween night + people in his house = murder time?

I'd still rather watch this than H3 probably, but not by much...

To be clear: This isn't REALLY a "Halloween" movie. As a generic campy 80's horror movie, it's kind of entertaining in a silly way. However, this movie doesn't relate to any other Halloween movie in plot, characters, etc. Myers nor Loomis are anywhere in this film, nor is Laurie or anyone else in any previous (or future) Halloween movie.

I feel like it's a little unfair to always judge it up against the other Halloween movies, since it really should never have been included in the series in the first place, but it would've been a fine mediocre/silly horror movie if it was just titled "Season of the Witch" and H4 was just released as H3 instead.

The plot is silly but it's so over-the-top that it's entertaining, at least. It's definitely in the "so bad that it's not that bad" category. I'd be more apt to watch this if I was in the mood for a funny kind of 80's movie, but not if I wanted to watch a "Halloween Series" movie.

RZH2 contains most of the offenses of the RZH1, just thankfully slightly less time spent on them. Don't worry, this one has its own unique affronts too:

* Broken Rule #5: Michael should always wear the mask. Guess what: He's out of the mask for 90% of this movie! You'd think after they went out of their way to establish his psychological need to wear a mask all the time in RZH1, they'd leave him in one...but no, he walks around with a giant beard like a hobo in this one. He actually looks like a bigger version of Rob Zombie, to be honest...I'm sure that's just a coincidence...

* Broken Rule #6: Michael kills with no direct explanation required. Before most every kill in this movie, he's instructed to do it by his "ghost mom" to try to put their family back together. It's mainly just a cheap plot device to: a) Explicitly explain why he's killing people directly to the viewer, and b) A reason for RZ to hire his wife again.

This one is more focused on Laurie's devolution into insanity...which is a neat idea in theory, but it makes her kind of pathetic in this version. In the originals, she is actually a really resilient/strong character, who eventually (in H20) goes after Michael herself. In this version she spends the whole time running away and never fighting back at all basically, which kind of diminishes her character from "resilient survivor" to "generic scared girl".

There is less time spent on the "white trash/horrible family life" aspects of the story with this one, and you get a little bit more of the good stuff...with a thick layer of pretentious symbolism on top. I'd rather re-watch this vs. RZH1, but would probably prefer to watch any other non-RZ Halloween movie before I'd re-watch either of these.

This version of Halloween is...terrible. From a fan of the old-school Halloween films, this one is just BAD. Rob Zombie strips away everything that made the original scary and replaces it with blood...that's how I describe this film. I don't even know how to list it all, but here are the core problems:

* Broken Rule #1: Mike speaks. The first 45 minutes is spent showing Michael as a child, him talking, being with his family, in the sanitarium, etc. One of the scariest things about him is that you NEVER hear him make any sort of noise, especially not 45 minutes of conversing with people.

* Broken Rule #2: Mike's full history is laid out for you. The other thing that makes him scary is that you don't know what happened...nothing in his home life seemed to be bad in the original, he just snapped. He wasn't "bullied" into being a killer like in Zombie's, which kind of makes you try to sympathize with him. You shouldn't sympathize with him...he is pure evil, that's the point.

* Broken Rule #3: You shouldn't know where Mike Myers is. This movie practically follows Mike around the whole time, and he happens to run into people and kills them. One of the key parts of Mike Myers is that you never know exactly where he is...he stalks people, he appears seemingly out of nowhere...he starts somewhere then somehow ends up on the other end of the room. The tradition is to follow the victims, and occasionally see a glimpse of him...but by the time you know where he is, it's too late. He just bumbles around all over the place in this one, there's never a question as to where he is...it just strips out that entire mechanic.

* Broken Rule #4: Mike Myers is believable. All of the white trash abuse scenes are really annoying, poorly written, and totally unnecessary. We get it, bad home life...it's just way overblown to the point of unbelievability, as are many of the killing scenes. It's all just too crazy...not in the believable spirit of Halloween.

I'd pass on this, if you're a fan of the originals...or maybe just skip the whole first half of the movie. If the first half of the movie was just scrapped, it would be slightly better, in my opinion. It still is guilty of the above mentioned offenses, but many of them are worse in the first half. After Michael escapes the sanitarium, it gets a little better, but not by much.