Simply Cinema: Halloween Franchise Ranking

Hello! Oh, hi! And welcome to Simply Cinema. We are your hosts, Maximilian Simonelli. And Deadpool. That's right. That's right. No one else. No one else under there. No one else. Just the real Deadpool. That is correct. First of all, happy Halloween to all of you out there. We are filming this on Halloween day. Yes. Yeah. On Halloween, and it's just the best time ever. Yeah. Me and Wolvie. That's right. That's right. We're having fun. So, we have a little interesting episode for you today, but first, a little bit of sad news. Tragedy has struck. Let's go to the image here. We've lost one of the greats. We have. Sir Patrick Stewart. What a guy. Who will be forever remembered as Professor Charles Xavier and, of course, Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Thank you for the performances. You left us, Patrick Stewart. We'll be watching some of your movies soon. Hopefully, we'll be seeing you in a movie coming out in the near future. Yes. A nice Marvel movie. That's right. And there'll probably be a nice remembrance to him in the credits. Oh, I would have no doubt this movie is absolutely dedicated to him. Yeah. And I think it would only be fair if an upcoming episode of ours will be a filmography of him. That would be appropriate. Yeah. But anyway, we're not going to do that now. No. Back to us. So as I said, it is... The real stars. That's right. That's right. This is good. Yeah. Today is Halloween, and our episode today is going to be our rankings of a little franchise. Maybe you've heard of it. Maybe. Not sure. The Halloween franchise. That's right. Seen here starring... Michael Myers. That's right. Not the Austin Powers. No, not Mike Myers. Michael Myers. Yes. We have 13 films to cover. 13. If you want to split hairs, technically 12 and one extra film, but we'll get to that. Yeah. Some good, some bad. Yeah. Some worse. Some are really bad. Yeah. Yeah. But we're going to give you... Our rankings. Yes. So without further ado. Let's get into it. All right. So we have here image one. So we have here the. Typical tier, we have S, A, B, C, D, and F. And we're going to be placing these films into one of the categories. And, you know, talking about them, as we said, we have 13 films to cover, as seen below. And what do you say we just start with the first film? Yes, Halloween 1978, the classic, the original. That's right. Directed by John Carpenter. I'm going to turn it over to you, Introduced Jamie Lee Curtis to the world. It did. And I got to say, kind of kick-started its own type of franchise. This is really the first slasher movie. There had been movies that had used slasher scenes and some of the elements, like Black Christmas kind of used it. But this is the first, I think, example that we can all think of when, okay, there's an escaped maniac on the loose, going around killing teenagers who are getting up to all sorts of naughty deeds and whatnot. And, you know, of course, he can never be killed. He can't be killed. And, like I said, it really just kick-started its own type of franchise, because then you had, you know, you had Friday the 13th, and Nightmare on Elm Street, and, you know, you know, uh, uh, Hellraiser with Pinhead, but this is kind of the first one to bring this idea to fruition. Yes, and it did it spectacularly. Yes, and I mean, I'd say it's the best of the franchise. I would put this in S tier. So let's go ahead and put this, as we can see here, and Here we go. The S tier. Now, sadly, I'll say every film after this is, even the good ones. None of them surpassed the first film. No, this is going to be our only S tier film. Yeah, this is a franchise where the first film was the best, and it only goes downhill from here. Enjoy it while it lasts. Yeah, yeah. So, next film. Halloween II. Yes, the only real direct sequel, because it takes place on the exact same night. It picks up right where the last one left off. Michael Myers is still on the loose. He has not been killed by... Dr. Sam Loomis, Donald Pleasence's character, Laurie Strode, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, has now been taken to the hospital, but of course Michael Myers is still coming after her. This one, it kind of built on the first movie. It started to add some lore to maybe explain why he's so... hell-bent on getting her more than anybody else. Yeah. And, you know, it arguably hurts the franchise. It arguably strengthens it. You know, it was a creative idea. I kind of don't want to give away what it was. I mean, the movie's like, what, 40 years old? You know what? You make a good point, Deadpool. The twist being that Laurie Strode is actually Michael Myers' sister. Wow, what a revelation. Which I want to say John Carpenter did not like that addition. No, you're not. You know, he also, I don't think, really liked the idea of this movie. I think he was, like, involved with it, but he didn't really, he didn't like it. Did co-write the script. Yeah, yeah. But I believe he didn't at first appreciate the familial connection to Michael. It kind of takes away the spontaneity of the first movie being like, oh, she finds that like it's kind of like fate. In a way. Yeah, because the first film, Michael just goes after Laurie because he was on her property. Well, it's because she witnesses the crime because in a way, he kind of recreates the past. I'm going to go back to us for a minute. He kind of recreates his past where he kills two teenagers, one in the marital bed, and then he also kills another girl and puts the headstone of his older sister, the girl he killed in the beginning of the film, and it's kind of like he's recreating an image of I killed father, mother, sister, and now I have to kill actual sister. So like I said, it was a creative idea. I can appreciate it. It arguably does weaken the franchise. But as I said, I'd say this is probably the second best Halloween film. I don't know. What do you put it? I would say maybe B or even C. B or even C. Because Laurie is unconscious for like three-fourths of this movie. That is true. I will give you that. So she does absolutely nothing. I also do not like basically any character in this movie. Yeah. I mean, well, Jimmy was nice. He was okay. I guess. Yeah, it's a bag. I mean, Loomis is great. I love Loomis. Sure. He's what carries some of the later films for me. Thank you, Donald Pleasence. Yeah, no kidding. Alright, so let me go back to this. So, I'll tell you what. I wanted A, you wanted C. Let's put the difference. We'll put it in B. Good. Sounds fine. Cool. Putting it in B. There we go. So now, this is where the franchise gets interesting. We get to Halloween 3, Season of the Witch. Yes, we do. So, what happens is now, this is not, I don't think it's a bad movie by any means. Here's the problem. Again, they wanted to set up an anthology series. So Halloween 3 has nothing to do with Michael Myers or Laurie Strode. Funnily enough, at one point, a character is sitting in a bar watching a television, and on the TV, they play a trailer for the first Halloween film. So this could be set in the real world. So they wanted, again, my problem is that... Once they had established two, not one, but two movies of, well, this is what Halloween is, it follows this character, for the third movie to be called Halloween, and for it to have nothing to do with the characters we've established, it is, yeah. Like, had it just been Halloween 1 by itself and Halloween 2 been what this movie is, you know, it would have been less jarring, I guess. But I just think they shouldn't have called it Halloween, because the story's not bad. Yeah, no, I think this is a fine movie by itself. This is actually, it's funny, it is kind of connected to the second one, because the second one they mentioned the festival of Samhain, even though they call it Samhain. And they start to bring up the Celtic roots of what Halloween used to be and how they would sacrifice people to honor the gods and whatnot. So in this film, Halloween 3, go back to the image here, you can kind of see it down there on the far left. It's about a man who runs. A factory that makes kid masks, apropos of what we're wearing masks today, and he's going to sell them like, hey, it's eight more days till Halloween, we're all having fun. And his plan is to kill a bunch of children with these masks and make them a sacrifice to the gods to honor Samhain. So again, it's so not what the franchise was about up until now. Yeah. You know, it really was just another Halloween idea. Yeah. However, I do think the way that it's filmed and presented. Yeah. And even shot choices, lighting choices down to the script. I think it still follows kind of that Halloween-esque style. Yes. It was just so jarring that it broke away from what they already had established. Yeah, I don't mind this film at all. No, no, no. Like I said, I kind of wish it was just called Season of the Witch. Like, it was its own thing. Yeah. You know, his own thing. So, anyway, where would you put it? Honestly, I think B. B. Wow. Okay. All right. I got to say, personally, I think this is, like, at best, it's C. Because as I was saying to you, I rank these on, like, my enthusiasm for watching them. Right. Like, if you said to me right now, let's watch all these films, I don't know, this one is like, yeah, I don't know. I'd watch it, but I don't know. I don't have a huge desire. But what do you say we go with C? Okay. Let's go and see. We're going to fight about this afterwards, but we are going with... It's okay. Behind the studio. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So moving right along, we get to what I consider to be the last good Halloween film. After this, they're good or so-so or awful. This one I think is okay. It's Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. It's called that because they literally bring back Michael Myers Welcome back to us. They kind of, they try to move the story forward. What I mean by that is, so Jamie Lee Curtis does not return to the franchise. Her character is killed off screen. She died in a car crash. Yeah. But she had a daughter, played by Danielle Harris, who I think is actually really good in the film. I like her. So now it's like Michael Myers' attention has moved towards her. It's been 10 years since he survived the fire at the end of Halloween 2. And they also bring back Donald Pleasence, who also survived the fire somehow. He's kind of like a mix of a Professor Van Helsing and a Captain Ahab. He's like this scarred guy who's like, I'm always hunting this evil. Yeah, I'm hunting the shape. And he's, as I said, what anchors the movie for me. He's like, because he, I think he's still great. It may have just been a paycheck movie, but I really like him in the film. Here's the thing. It looks like Donald Pleasence is just taking this for the paycheck. I will. Yeah, I agree. But then again, I think that was also his mindset on the first film a little bit. Because I don't know. The first film does have a vibe of like... I don't know. I think... What do you think? For the first film, I think he did fine. I'm not saying he's sleepwalking through it. I think he does a good job. I just feel that a man, an actor of his caliber, I think that he took the film, you know, for it's like, all right, we know what this is. But it turned into something, hence he kept returning. Sure. You know, that's me. Yeah. Anyway, going back to the image here. So again, this to me, it still carries the same feel. Of a Halloween film. Michael Myers, I think, does look kind of weird in the movie. The mask is not great. The mask is different. And he's wearing like a... I think they said he wore like a... That's not William Shatner. No, it's not. He's wearing like a football player's gear under the suit to make him look buff, but it just looks like a guy wearing gear. It doesn't look right, you know? So... I don't know. I'd put this in B. Where would you put it? Oh, no. This is, uh... For me, this felt like a wholly unnecessary sequel. Okay. And just a gigantic cash grab. Fair enough. Um, I would put this in D, honestly. D? Ah, man. Okay, well, should we just put the difference and say C? I guess so. I guess so. Oh, no love for Halloween 4. What did we say? C? Yeah. I don't know. Like I said, I think it's the last good one because 5... I enjoy 5, but it does get... This is when it starts to get bad. This came out less than a year, Halloween 5. Some call it the Revenge of Michael Myers. It's not. It's only called Halloween 5. The tagline was the Revenge of Michael Myers, but people thought, well, the fourth one had the colon, the return of Michael Myers. This one is the Revenge of Michael Myers, but the title on the screen only says Halloween 5. Yeah. Just saying. So anyway. And you know what? What? We'll get into Halloween. Oh, okay. I'm getting ahead of myself. We're getting so excited. Right when we come back. Okay. Stay tuned. Yes. Where's the button? There it is. This one here? Yes. Good. And welcome back. Hello. So before we took a break, we were on, we had done Halloween 1, 2, 3, and 4. Now we're on Halloween 5. And as you said, we're going to have to do a speed run. Yes. Running short on time. That's okay. So we'll go back to the image one. So Halloween 5, this is when things start to get bad. They start to throw in like the Thorn trilogy. There's the man in black walking around. And, you know, you could tell they were just trying to like, you know, introduce some new lore. Yeah. I don't think it really works. It does not. I don't know. No. So, yeah, I'd say, what would you think? I'd say D tier for this one. You know what? In the interest of moving things along, I will agree. D. Now we move on to Halloween, The Curse of Michael Myers. They don't even have a number in this one. Just Halloween, The Curse. They dropped the numbers altogether. So, quick thing. There are actually two versions of this movie. There's the producer's cut, which is the only example of a producer's cut I can think of. And there's the theatrical cut. I've only seen the theatrical. Same. Both, I don't think, are very good from what little I've seen of the producer's cut. It looks like it's even more of a mess. Paul Rudd is in this movie. Early role of his. But now we're getting into just, I will say this does still continue the same timeline. It does, but I really wanted this movie to end. It's only like 90 minutes and I was really griping through it. So what do you think, D? Uh, maybe even F maybe. All right. Our first F of let's see, we have, we have no A so far. We have no A. So now we get to Halloween H2O 20 years later, which this was a cool idea. So Jamie Lee Curtis came back to those. So now she's an established actress. She's been in True Lies and a few other great movies. And, you know, it's like, okay, she's returning to this franchise that really made her a star. She even said at one point when she dies, her legacy will be her children and Halloween. Yeah. It's like, yeah. Yeah, so. This idea, Laurie Strode faked her death, and now she's running a school. She has a son, Josh Hartnett, and, of course, Michael Myers comes back. In his first film. Yes, that's right. Also, Joseph Gordon Levitt in an early movie. So anyway, she is still dealing with the trauma. Has she really put it behind her? Of course, Michael Myers comes back for one final showdown. Again, a cool idea. You said that this felt more like a Scream movie? Yes, this felt more like a Scream film. Yeah, because this came out after Scream, so maybe it was trying to capitalize on the feel of like, well, this is the movie of the day. Yeah, because it felt a little meta in its presentation. A little bit, yeah. It did. But I think this is probably the best offering we've had for a sequel, in my personal opinion. So, would you put it in A? I would put it in A. You know what? Let's put it in A. We finally have our first A-ranking H2O. Man, list is not going how I thought it was going to go. That's okay. Now we get to what I consider to be the absolute worst Halloween film. This is so bad. Halloween Resurrection. Now, the beginning I actually don't mind. Yeah, the first ten minutes of it are... It's a direct sequel to H2O. Laurie Strode comes back, and they... Spoiler, again, it's an old movie, I can tell. They kill her off. Michael finally gets her, and she dies. And that part of the movie, I think, it's sad, but it's still fitting. They also have a creative explanation as to how he survived. Anyway, the rest of the movie is, hey, we're going to put body cams on these people and have them spend a night in the Michael Myers house, kind of a haunted house thing. And is Buster Rhymes in this movie? Buster Rhymes, yes. He's supposed to be funny. I don't think he is. I think this movie is awful. I think he's improvising most of his dialogue. I would agree. And I think it really just, it makes a mockery of what the franchise, the franchise was going downhill. This turns it into a 90 degree drop. Yeah, it's completely unnecessary. I don't know why they made this thing. I'm putting this enough. F. Definitely F. This is F. Okay, moving right along. Now we have the first remake. So Rob Zombie, known and famous for his band White Zombie, made a remake of Halloween. It's different. Kind of. It is. He adds a lot of backstory to how Michael Myers grew up in a very troubled, problematic home. I don't mind some of the changes he made. I think as far as remakes go, it doesn't surpass it, but I like it enough. It's okay. Yeah, I mean, I'm not a fan of Rob Zombie. Fair enough. I will appreciate the added lore to Michael's backstory because we never got that in the original. It makes him a little more sympathetic, but you also see how he went from being a kid to just this mindless, in a way, drone to killing people. Right. So, but... It's creative. Like I said, I also like how he handles the teenage girls. I think they're less... I don't know. In the original, they feel like this is a 30-year-old man trying to write dialogue for teenage girls, and it just doesn't. work, in my opinion. This one, I think they're a little better. So, where would you put this one? For Rob Zombie, I don't know, man. It's C or D for me. Yeah, I think C. Best case scenario, C. Sure, we'll go with C. Now we get to, I think, what is also a very bad Halloween film. Yeah, it's... Halloween 2. Which is funny, I think he talked about how he said he'll make Halloween 2 if they let him out of the contract so he wouldn't have to make a third movie. Which is funny, he's the only one that negotiates down. Yeah. I'll tell you the truth, I think, so again, the Laurie Strode and the characters are surviving from the first movie. Also, Daniel Harris comes back now as a teenager, which I kind of liked. So, you know, I think it's a decent movie because it deals with the trauma of the girls. I kind of wish Michael Myers wasn't in the movie. I feel that this was a better trauma dealing with the horror of what we survived movie as opposed to Michael's back and he's on the loose. Sure, I can see it. I think this one Rob Zombie was just trying way too hard with it. It's like pseudo-experimental and it's also barely any plot to it. It's like maybe you get five minutes of plot to 40 minutes of just Michael killing everyone. Yeah. So it's just, it's one of my least favorites. Yeah. I'm thinking deep. Let's go deep. Let's go deep. Okay, and now we get to the sequel. Trilogy, I guess. Connected only to the first movie. So these next three movies are connected to Halloween 1, and they wipe out everything we've seen after that. Forget everything I've said up until this point right now. So Halloween 2018. Which, again, not called Halloween, like, The Return or anything. Just called, so Halloween is a sequel to Halloween. Yes, the original Halloween. Whatever. So, a creative idea. They wipe out the whole sister idea. Laurie Short is not related to Michael Myers. She was just a random victim. She turns into kind of like a Sarah Connor character. I bet, yeah. Terminator 2. She's been training for 40 years to kill Michael on the off chance he ever escapes. So, they caught him at the end of the first movie, you're supposed to think. And he's been in jail, a mental institution. He escapes, of course. Shenanigans ensue. You know the gist. So she's kind of a cool character. She has a kid now. There's an estranged relationship. It's actually not bad. No, I really enjoyed this one. Yeah, I don't know. I liked... There were details I liked. The movie I thought was okay. Very similar to the new Star Wars sequel trilogy for me. But anyway, where would you put... See, I would put this as an A for me. Okay. I actually really enjoyed this one. Fair enough. You know what? I will put it in A. We have two A. Okay. If you want to put it in B and split the difference. You don't like it. Yeah. I'm going to move it down to B. We can do that. We have the power. Incredible. Alright, so we have two films left. Yes. What do you say we take a short break? Let's take a short break. We'll be back soon. Stay tuned. Da-da-da-da. And welcome back. Oh, hey. Thank you for staying tuned. So, we would break it into Halloween films. We have two more to go. Two more, that's it. So, let's go to the image here. Oh, I should probably take our names out of there. There we go. So, last two films, again, part of the sequel trilogy that were only connected to the first film. Kind of a quadrilogy, if you will. I would say so, yeah. Now we have Halloween Kills. Ah. Now, I did like Anthony Michael Hall in this film. He plays Tommy Doyle, who was the kid that Laurie Strode was babysitting in the first film, and now he's also kind of like, when Michael Myers escapes, we're going to be ready. Yeah. You know, this film, aside from, like, the ending where they showed, oh, Michael is truly invincible and can't be killed. They kind of, they didn't do too much of that in Halloween 2018. Yeah. But this one showed, no, he can survive anything. He's indestructible. Yeah. So, you know, it was, and she was also in the hospital again. Yeah. So kind of, yeah. They got flashbacks from Halloween too. Yeah. Well, no, no, but doesn't she also go? She's in the hospital at one point. She is, yeah. She doesn't stay there for too long. Yeah, that's true. She actually does stuff. And she actually does stuff. So this one was, you know, it was okay. I think this didn't really do anything too much for the trilogy. Okay. It's a little intro scene followed by 90 minutes of just Michael killing people. Yeah, basically. That's the Halloween film. It's aptly named Halloween Kills because he just... Kills. That's the entire movie. Apt. Apt assessment. So, what would you say? D? D. D, I'll say. Okay. And now we come to the last film, Halloween Ends. Which is an appropriate title. So, I don't know. Someone said that this is actually a secret remake. Because it actually largely follows a different person. Trying to be a killer. And, you know, it's okay. So Michael Myers is still on the loose. I kind of like how... I like the idea that Laurie Strode is trying to move past all this and celebrate Halloween. Yes. But it also doesn't make any sense because she just trained 40 years to kill him and now he's on the loose. And it's like, well, we can forget about that. I go, what? If anything, the inverse would have made more sense. See, I think this movie has a great idea. Yeah. I think Halloween and Halloween Kills should have just been like a two-parter. Yeah. And then this one come like after. Yeah, I could see that. And I think there should have been like a twist like in the middle where like maybe we get conversations Him and his girlfriend, and then it's finally revealed that his girlfriend is the granddaughter. Yeah, that would have been cool. Honestly, we just wrote a much better script, I'll tell you that much. Thank you so much. And I will say, I did like how at one point they're watching on TV, they're watching John Carpenter's The Thing. Because in the original Halloween in 78, Carpenter was playing the original Thing from Another World from 51. So the fact that now we have Carpenter's own Thing in a franchise that he started, it was a cool little tribute. Yeah, it was. And I will say the ending is like... Okay, he has no way he survived that. Halloween ends, we're done. It is done. Yeah, although there might be another one someday. Someday. I'll pass. Apparently, they're making a secret one coming out in 28. Yeah, a secret that everyone knows about. So, I don't know. I'd say I might put this as low as F, but I could see like D. What do you think? Uh... I'd put it in C, but let's split the difference and say D. Put it in D, okay. And folks, here we have our final ranking of the Halloween films. Wow, there's a lot of crap. Yeah, basically there is, you know. But the important thing is for you to get out there and watch them yourself and judge. Yes, make your own opinions. That's right, because again, a franchise that did start off as a groundbreaking idea that kickstarted a whole franchise and launched the career of a young actress and so many years later is still going. It is, and it perseveres to this day. That's right. So get out there and watch. All of them. Every single Halloween movie. And rank them. Including the third. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And then watch some other Halloween films like we talked about. We have Trick or Treat, Hotel Transylvania. Yes, from Mass Appeal. That's right. Halloween Town. I would say get out there and watch some Universal Monster movies because I'll always be defending them. They are quite good. They are great. Yeah, they are great. And if you get out there, watch Deadpool and Wolverine. That will make sense why we're dressed like this. Ta-da! Yeah. And we're looking forward to Doomsday. Doomsday. That's right, which will be coming out. Yeah. We'll be reviewing that. Oh, yeah. Definitely. So, as always, happy Halloween. Happy Halloween. Get some candy. And don't eat too many razor blades. That's right. And to all a good night. Ho, ho, ho. Oh.