Movies: The Halloween Franchise

[shadow1]

This is so close to how I'd rank and tier them, I'm kinda scared. I'd probably reorganize the average/okay tier a little but that grouping feels right.

I haven't revisited 4-6, H20 or Resurrection in a long time. I plan to at some point but would be genuinely shocked if my opinion changed in any meaningful way on them.

The tiers are grouped by release year, so it's possible our rankings are identical...

 

[Osprey]

Happy Halloween, yourself, shadow1!

But please tell me that you're done reminding me about the latest trilogy.

 

[shadow1]

Happy Halloween, yourself, shadow1!

But please tell me that you're done reminding me about the latest trilogy.

I am Halloween'd out, so you won't have to think about the series for a while...



...until Malek Akkad announces "Halloween Returns" in two months, with James Wan attached to direct, starring Daniel Harris as Jamie, in a direct sequel to Halloween 4 that ignores parts 5 & 6...

 

[cupcrazyman2]

I

The original film from ‘78 >>> the rest.

I agree plus it's on You Tube for free.

 

[blueandgoldguy]

Thanks for putting those in-depth reviews of the Halloween movies out there. Much appreciated.

Regarding your tiers for the various Halloween movies, the only one I strongly disagree with is Halloween 3. That movie is pretty awful plagued by some pretty terrible writing for the characters. Chief among them is the motivations of the main antagonist - basically being evil for evil's sake. If his plan succeeds and the signal isn't cut off to millions of tvs across the country, he kills hundreds of thousands of kids across the country and hundreds of thousands of parents (assuming most aren't adept at avoiding insect and snake bites in their living rooms) and then what? He goes to jail and his plans for bringing back pagan rituals to kill children turns out to be one-off event? Some plan.

Another thing that make absolutely no sense happens after the main protagonist rescues his love interest in the factory who it turns out is an android designed to look exactly like her (what happened to the actual woman? Dies offscreen when she was kidnapped?). Following the rescue, he proceeds to kill everyone in the factory, including the main villain...and the android, despite being constructed to do the bad guys' deeds, proceeds to do...absolutely nothing to stop him. Instead, she waits until they are driving away from the factory to attack him.

It things like this that really annoy me about this movie. Just seems like a poorly constructed script for myself. I would have to rate it near the bottom of all the Halloween movies.

 

[shadow1]

Thanks for putting those in-depth reviews of the Halloween movies out there. Much appreciated.

Regarding your tiers for the various Halloween movies, the only one I strongly disagree with is Halloween 3. That movie is pretty awful plagued by some pretty terrible writing for the characters. Chief among them is the motivations of the main antagonist - basically being evil for evil's sake. If his plan succeeds and the signal isn't cut off to millions of tvs across the country, he kills hundreds of thousands of kids across the country and hundreds of thousands of parents (assuming most aren't adept at avoiding insect and snake bites in their living rooms) and then what? He goes to jail and his plans for bringing back pagan rituals to kill children turns out to be one-off event? Some plan.

Another thing that make absolutely no sense happens after the main protagonist rescues his love interest in the factory who it turns out is an android designed to look exactly like her (what happened to the actual woman? Dies offscreen when she was kidnapped?). Following the rescue, he proceeds to kill everyone in the factory, including the main villain...and the android, despite being constructed to do the bad guys' deeds, proceeds to do...absolutely nothing to stop him. Instead, she waits until they are driving away from the factory to attack him.

It things like this that really annoy me about this movie. Just seems like a poorly constructed script for myself. I would have to rate it near the bottom of all the Halloween movies.

Even though I love Halloween III, I agree with your assessment. The motivations of the antagonists make absolutely no sense, nor does the andriod scene.

I pretty much like that one for its atmosphere/music/visuals; pure style over substance.

 

[blueandgoldguy]

Even though I love Halloween III, I agree with your assessment. The motivations of the antagonists make absolutely no sense, nor does the andriod scene.

I pretty much like that one for its atmosphere/music/visuals; pure style over substance.

That's true. It did have a good score and atmosphere.

 

[GuymcG]

A agree with all this. Why do they have to make him so ridiculous? The first one was based in reality but now every movie he's taking full rounds to chest and killing large groups of people with ease. I know the director said he didn't want him to supernatural but his movie kind of says the opposite.

I still think the original and H20 are the best. I don't get why people don't like H20. I get the mask is awful but the story is on point.

Sup. I'm a fellow H20 fan here. I've been watching these movies for almost 20 years. Since 2018 it's become popular to hate H20. It's mostly bs excuses, some of which don't make any sense or can be applied to most of the franchise. Basically it's hated on, because it's trendy to do so.

If you ask me why people on this specific website hate H20, I wouldn't be able to tell you why. I didn't know this website existed till an hour ago. So beats me. However if you ask me why the fandom as a whole hates it, like I said, it's hated because that's the trendy thing to do.

Anyway I'll leave these pictures of the screen used H20 mask, because it's a great mask, and because why not. Enjoy these pictures of this underrated mask. Bye.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Sup. I'm a fellow H20 fan here. I've been watching these movies for almost 20 years. Since 2018 it's become popular to hate H20. It's mostly bs excuses, some of which don't make any sense or can be applied to most of the franchise. Basically it's hated on, because it's trendy to do so.

If you ask me why people on this specific website hate H20, I wouldn't be able to tell you why. I didn't know this website existed till an hour ago. So beats me. However if you ask me why the fandom as a whole hates it, like I said, it's hated because that's the trendy thing to do.

Anyway I'll leave these pictures of the screen used H20 mask, because it's a great mask, and because why not. Enjoy these pictures of this underrated mask. Bye.

Well, I've seen it on screen in 1998 and hated it instantly, but I'm ahead of my time on most things. My comments about it are on page 1 of this thread.

And welcome to HF.

 

[Osprey]

I think that it's safe to say that most people who aren't fans of H20 have been that way since before 2018. The idea that people have hated it only in the last 5 years because it's "trendy" doesn't add up.

In fact, the data contradicts it. H20's IMDb score was 5.3/10 in early 2004, 5.7/10 in early 2018 and 5.8/10 today, so feelings towards it have actually trended up over time, not down.

Checking Rotten Tomatoes, its audience score was 49% in early 2018 and 49% today. More importantly, the actual average rating increased from 2.8/5 to 3.3/5, so, again, opinions of it have gone up.

If anything, it's been "trendy" to positively re-assess H20, not hate on it.

 

[GuymcG]

Well, I've seen it on screen in 1998 and hated it instantly, but I'm ahead of my time on most things. My comments about it are on page 1 of this thread.

And welcome to HF.

I think that it's safe to say that most people who aren't fans of H20 have been that way since before 2018. The idea that people have hated it only in the last 5 years because it's "trendy" doesn't add up.

In fact, the data contradicts it. H20's IMDb score was 5.3/10 in early 2004, 5.7/10 in early 2018 and 5.8/10 today, so feelings towards it have actually trended up over time, not down.

Checking Rotten Tomatoes, its audience score was 49% in early 2018 and 49% today. More importantly, the actual average rating increased from 2.8/5 to 3.3/5, so, again, opinions of it have gone up.

If anything, it's been "trendy" to positively re-assess H20, not hate on it.

I did say I'm not sure why the people on this site hate it. The other sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit, etc, I've talked to and interacted with enough fans to know that the vast majority of the hate is fairy recently. I've also been a fan for 2/3rds of me life, so I would know.

 

[Osprey]

I did say I'm not sure why the people on this site hate it. The other sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit, etc, I've talked to and interacted with enough fans to know that the vast majority of the hate is fairy recently. I've also been a fan for 2/3rds of me life, so I would know.

Hundreds of thousands of ratings at IMDb and RT that have conclusively gone up over time outweigh the feeling that you've gotten from a comparatively tiny number of opinions that you've personally read elsewhere. You're probably just more aware of the criticism now because Facebook, Twitter and Reddit exist now and the vocal haters having more platforms makes it seem that the hate is a recent phenomenon.