[2/1/23 Update: Once again, I finally got around to watching Halloween Ends (2022). I included some description and commentary on that film. This was not the ending to this latest trilogy that many fans and critics expected. And thus, views on this Ends film are quite divided with some calling it a travesty and others calling it brilliant. I fall somewhere in the middle.]
[1/29/22 Update: Yes, I finally got around to watching Halloween Kills (2021). The diagram for the multiverse was updated to include the rest of the second internal reboot films. I also wrote more about Halloween (2018) and the Kills film. You readers can expect to see at least one more update to this post to include Halloween Ends (2022) after that comes out.]
This guide is intended as a brief introduction of sorts to the Halloween Multiverse. If you are an avid fan of horror films, especially of the Halloween films, there probably won’t be anything in this guide that you don’t already know. Again, this is intended as a brief introduction for beginners looking to dabble into this franchise who might be confused about its scope and the various conflicting timelines and spin offs. In case you didn’t know, now in 2020, we are 42 years removed from the original 1978 film; the one that started it all. And we’re coming off of 2018’s successful new sequel, which is actually one of the best sequels in the franchise. I’m sure you’ve all seen the Michael Myers mask, as it’s a rather ubiquitous feature in popular culture, especially around Halloween time. The 1978 film also has one of the greatest and most iconic themes and scores of any horror film.
If nothing else, the original 1978 film, Halloween, is an important entry in cinema history in terms of its influence on the genre, on popular culture, and on film itself. For one, while it did not originate all of the tropes and characteristics of the slasher genre, it did codify them and popularize them to a degree that hadn’t been seen before. For example, two classic proto-slasher films, Peeping Tom (1960) and Psycho (1960), both feature scenes that put the audience in the point-of-view of the killer. In that sense, the audience is able to see the victim through the killer’s eyes, and thus is put in the position of stalking the victim alongside the killer. Similarly, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) was influential in promoting and popularizing the trope of the ‘final girl’ who (often seemingly through her purity) is able to overcome, defeat, or at least ultimately escape the killer. Again, the original 1978 Halloween film did not originate any of these concepts, but it did package them all together and popularize them. And of course, it did all of these elements extremely well. This film made Jamie Lee Curtis a star, but it’s because her character of Laurie Strode is perhaps the most iconic ‘final girl’. And just as an aside, the original film was also a part of and a major influence in promoting the (perhaps unfortunate) fad in horror films of the time of having holiday or some type of event themed title. Examples include: Black Christmas (1974), Prom Night (1980), Friday the 13th (1980), Christmas Evil (1980), New Year’s Evil (1980), My Bloody Valentine (1981), April Fool’s Day (1986), etc.
As for the films themselves, the first thing to cover is that there are, to date, twelve films in the franchise. If you are a casual viewer, you might not realize at first that these twelve films exist in at least five different timelines or universes. That means that if you, the casual viewer, were to randomly select two films with the word “Halloween” as the title, it might not be clear how the films relate to each other beyond the most superficial level. And that’s because they might not at all. I’ve tried to explain the five universes within the greater Halloween multiverse to people in the past, and I’ve learned that it’s very difficult to do without some type of visual representation of the relationships. So I just went ahead and made one in flowchart style:
As you can see, I’ve color-coded each of the five universes and where they splinter off. Let’s just tackle these one by one, and without giving away too much, I’ll try to go through how these differ from each other, and where they went off the proverbial rails. We’ll generally follow the chronology of when the films were made, but that isn’t always easy to do. And just as a fun comment: Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode has a different child in each of the three universes in which she appears. So here goes:
Original Timeline
The original timeline contains five films:
- Halloween (1978)
- Halloween II (1981)
- Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
- Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)
- Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995).
In the original film, as a child, Michael Myers kills his older sister (by stabbing) on Halloween night in 1963. There is no motivation given, though it does occur after she had sex with her boyfriend. We then fast forward to 1978 where Michael Myers escapes from his psychiatric facility and is determined to return to his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois to continue his killing spree. While Michael Myers is capable of killing any type of person, he has a particular interest in stalking and killing babysitters or high school age girls (like his older sister). It’s now up to his psychiatrist, Dr. Loomis, to convince local police that Myers is a serious threat and help them track down the killer. Jamie Lee Curtis’ character Laurie Strode is one of these babysitters/high school age girls. SPOILER ALERT (but it’s forty years ago): As the final girl, though two of her friends are killed, she is able to evade Myers long enough for Loomis to shoot him and have him fall off the balcony of the house, seemingly deceased. However, the film ends on a famous cliffhanger where Myers’ body is missing after he was shot and fell from the balcony.
Halloween II (1981) is really just a continuation of the original film. It picks up on the cliffhanger from the original and continues, on the same night, as police try to locate the body of the missing Michael Myers. Meanwhile, Laurie Strode is taken to a nearby hospital for her injuries (physical and mental/emotional). Myers is of course eventually able to track down Laurie at the hospital and proceeds to kill his way through the night shift. Laurie and Loomis are able to evade Myers and lure him into an operating room where they are able to trigger an oxygen explosion that seemingly kills both Myers and Loomis. This film also (famously/infamously) retcons Myers’ motivation. We learn that Laurie is actually the baby sister of Michael Myers who was adopted out after the original 1963 murder. Myers’ ultimate motivation is thus to kill off the rest of his family/sisters.
After the side step of Halloween III, we return back to the original timeline with Halloween 4 and Halloween 5. I will talk about these two films together because they have a lot of similarities. Halloween 4 occurs in 1988, ten years after the events of the first two films. In that time, we learn that Laurie Strode was killed off in a car accident, but not before she had a daughter named Jamie. Michael Myers, who we learn has been in a coma these past ten years, learns of the existence of his niece, wakes from his coma, and proceeds to try to track her down and kill her. With the help of Dr. Loomis, who we learn also survived the ending of the second film, Jamie is able to evade and eventually defeat Myers in both the fourth and fifth films. Five is little more than a continuation of four, though it does occur one year later. Both films have rather bizarre tease endings that are unabashed sequel bait. The ending of four indicates that Jamie might take up the Myers legacy and become the new serial killer, but this is never mentioned again in any of the sequels. At the end of five, a mysterious figure breaks Myers out of jail.
While all of the sequels up to this point have been guilty of being increasingly derivative and adding more mythology to the universe, the sixth film is the worst at this and is honestly easily one of the worst films in the franchise. And that pains me to say, given that the film features an early appearance by Paul Rudd. So we learn that Michael Myers is possessed by this ancient curse, and there is a cult in Haddonfield that wants to try to better understand and eventually control the power of this curse. The mysterious figure at the end of the fifth movie that broke Myers out of jail is part of that cult. Jamie was abducted and was somehow impregnated and gives birth in captivity to a boy. Jamie is able to escape with the infant. Myers tracks her down and kills her, but not before she is able to hide the baby away. Paul Rudd portrays Tommy Doyle—the boy that Laurie Strode was babysitting in the original film. He discovers the baby, and connects up with Loomis and the remaining extended Strode family. Myers and the cult members capture or kill this group. The cult tries to convince Loomis to join them. Myers eventually turns against the cult, killing them. Tommy Doyle and some of the other survivors are able to escape in the ensuing chaos. The whole thing is pretty dumb, and this film is the reason why the original timeline was abandoned in favor of the subsequent internal reboot.
Unrelated Witch Universe
The witch universe contains only one film: Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982).
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) is related to the Michael Myers’ films only tangentially or superficially at best. The film has the same creators as the original film, John Carpenter and Debra Hill, and in one scene the characters in this film can be seen watching the 1978 Halloween film on television. Thus, this film occurs in a different universe/timeline than the Myers films. At the time, the creators imagined the possibility of the Halloween films as an anthology series of different Halloween-themed and centered horror films. Though the film did not do well commercially, largely due to the absence of Myers, it’s actually a decent-enough and rather enjoyable standalone film. It plays with and combines witchcraft and science fiction elements in original ways. It’s a bizarre film, but it’s worth the watch for its relative uniqueness.
First Internal Reboot
The first internal reboot contains four films:
- Halloween (1978)
- Halloween II (1981)
- Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)
- Halloween: Resurrection (2002)
After the disaster that was Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995) we were thankfully spared any further developments along the original timeline. Instead, the decision was made to break with the original timeline and present a re-imagining of the franchise that I call the first internal reboot. This universe contains the first two movies (1978 and 1981), and as such I will not comment on those further. This universe ignores the remainder of the original timeline (4, 5, and 6) and gives us a different direct sequel to Halloween II (1981). While Halloween 4 took place ten years after the original and tried to function as a ten-year anniversary celebration of the original, so does this series at twenty years, even going so far as to put it in the name.
Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) is the first new entry into this universe. We learn that instead of dying in car accident, Laurie Strode faked her own death and is living in northern California under a different name and is the principal of a private boarding school. We also learn that she has a son named John, who is portrayed by Josh Hartnett. Michael Myers has been missing since the events of 1978 and eventually tracks down and steals the secret file on Laurie’s secret identity, killing several people in the process (including a young Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Michael Myers then proceeds to track down Laurie at her boarding school in order to carry out his motivation of stalking and killing off his sisters/family, high school age people, and anyone who gets in his way. Jamie Lee Curtis absolutely shines in this movie as a more mature version of Laurie, and it is truly a welcome return to the series for her. This is easily one of the best sequels in the franchise, and even holds up as the first in the franchise of the post-Scream era. And on top of that, we get a wonderful ending (SPOILER ALERT for twenty years ago) that features Jamie Lee Curtis chopping off Michael Myers’ head in a most satisfying manner.
However, for all of those good things that I said about H20, absolutely none of that can be said for the next movie. Halloween: Resurrection (2002) is anything but a resurrection for the franchise. It is one of the biggest pieces of garbage that I’ve ever seen, and gets everything wrong from beginning to end. It is the only true competition with Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995) for the worst of the Halloween movies—and honestly, I’d probably give that dishonorable title to this movie. It deserves this dishonor for completely undoing the satisfying ending of H20. Instead of killing Myers, we learn that Laurie killed some random paramedic that Myers had disabled and changed clothes with. So, for the beginning of this movie, we instead get Michael Myers tracking down Laurie at the psychiatric facility where she has been committed, and he kills her. Yes, they kill off Jamie Lee Curtis in the movie!! It is unforgiveable!! From there we devolve into some contrived nonsense about a reality television show at the original Myers’ house (from the original 1978 movie). The show features Busta Rhymes and Tyra Banks. Yeah, this was a(n) (almost) franchise killer. This film is a hard pass, unless you really want to torture yourself.
Remake/External Reboot
The remake or external reboot universe contains two films:
- Halloween (2007)
- Halloween II (2009)
Following the embarrassment that was Halloween: Resurrection (2002) and caught up in the reboot craze of the 2000s, it was decided to reboot the franchise by remaking the original 1978 film. In comes legendary heavy metal front man and accomplished horror director in his own right, Rob Zombie. Rob Zombie served as writer and director of the 2007 remake and its 2009 sequel. And it should be emphasized that these two films are very much Rob Zombie films. They feature his aesthetic style and his penchant for visual gore and brutality. This was also the torture-porn era in horror films with the popularity of the Saw and Hostel films, and these two Rob Zombie Halloween films fit in that vein. The result is that these two films are easily the most graphic, brutal, and gory films in the franchise.
The 2007 Halloween film is a remake of the original 1978 film, but it also includes more. The 2007 film is approximately 20 minutes longer than the original, and where Carpenter’s original left mystery and ambiguity, Zombie’s film provides explanation and interrogation. Zombie adds much more of a psychological explanation of Michael Myers and the longer runtime allows him to include what amounts to a mini-origin story for Michael Myers showcasing his childhood. Dissenters will tell you that this explanation is in fact an unnecessary over-explanation, and that Myers was scarier when he was more mysterious. That’s one of those aspects that I go back and forth on. Anyway, while the 2007 film is a remake, Halloween II (2009) is in no way connected to the 1981 film also titled Halloween II. The 2009 film is a sequel that is entirely of Zombie’s own creation and continues along his vision of the story.
Just a few things to add about these films. For one, Zombie not only maintains but doubles down on the familial connection between Michael and Laurie. This connection and these themes are emphasized throughout the two films. Secondly, some people criticize the casting and portrayal, but I actually enjoy Malcolm McDowell’s more cynical take on Dr. Loomis. And lastly, fans of the original timeline will be pleased to see Danielle Harris return to the franchise. As a child actor, Harris had previously portrayed Jamie—the daughter of Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode—back in Halloween 4 and 5. In the two Zombie films, she portrays Annie Brackett, one of Laurie’s close friends.
Second Internal Reboot
The second internal reboot has (or will contain) four films. Three have been released to date, and the fourth has a planned released later this year, October 2022.
- Halloween (1978)
- Halloween (2018)
- Halloween Kills (2021)
- Halloween Ends (2022)
We have finally arrived at the present. What I call the second internal reboot is the most recent re-imagining of the characters and the franchise. This film intentionally ditches all of the mythology of the other sequels and instead returns to the simplicity of the original. In doing so, this one ignores all of the other films except for the original 1978 film. The 2018 Halloween film is a direct sequel to the original, occurring forty years after that film, and once again features a welcome return to the franchise by Jamie Lee Curtis. In the forty years following the events of the original film, we learn that Laurie has transformed herself into an armed survivalist, determined to protect herself and her family at all cost should Michael Myers ever escape to exact his revenge. The film features great multi-generational character dynamics between the three female leads: Laurie, Karen (Laurie’s daughter), and Allyson (Laurie’s teenage granddaughter). Myers escapes during a prisoner transfer, which we learn later was orchestrated by a Dr. Sartain who is a student of Dr. Loomis. Myers proceeds to stalk and terrorize the people of Haddonfield. The climax of the film sees a final battle between Myers and the three generations of women at Laurie’s house. She had set a trap for Myers at the house and is able to lock him in the basement while her house burns to the ground on top of him. The strength of the film is that it eschews much of the mythology that has been developed within the franchise since the original, and thus seeks to return to the simplicity of the original. It generally achieves that and represents one of the better sequels of the franchise. However, it does embrace the type of carnage that we saw in the Rob Zombie films, rather than truly returning to the relatively bloodless kills from the original.
Halloween Kills is the first sequel to 2018’s Halloween film. It takes place immediately after the previous film. However, it contributes little in the way of substance and largely feels like a filler movie that exists only to connect the 2018 film to a potential conclusion to the franchise or at least to this trilogy in Halloween Ends, which is expected in October 2022. In Halloween Kills, Myers escapes his fiery prison thanks to the local firefighters trying to put out the blaze. Myers of course kills all of the firefighters at the scene and begins his trek back to his childhood home in Haddonfield. He proceeds to kill everyone in his way, including the townspeople that have banded together to try to hunt and kill him. One of the significant flaws of this film is that it seems to grant Myers with superhuman abilities, as he repeatedly survives any amount of injury that would have killed a normal human being many times over. This constitutes a significant shift away from the attempted simplicity and realism of the 1978 and 2018 films, and instead leans into the seeming invincibility that was explained by way of a magical curse in 1995’s Curse of Michael Myers, which these films were supposed to be getting away from. That in essence is the core problem with this film and the trajectory of this second internal reboot. While the filmmakers say they want to get away from the prior entries and return to the archetypal slasher film that was the 1978 original, they also cannot help but continue to reference and draw inspiration from those inferior franchise entries that these films are supposed to be erasing. The invincibility reaches truly ridiculous levels throughout this film, from emerging from the inferno at the beginning relatively unscathed to the climactic battle at the end where Myers is attacked by a mob of like twenty townspeople. After being repeatedly beaten to a degree and with objects that would have killed a regular human being, Myers of course is able to resurrect himself and proceeds to kills all of the people that attacked him. In short, Halloween Kills truly veers away from the realism and simplicity that this second internal reboot was supposed to be about. And the weakness of this entry does not bode well for the inevitable conclusion later this year.
As you read above, I was not a fan of the previous entry, Halloween Kills, at all. Because of that, I was in no rush to see this conclusion to the trilogy. This film, Halloween Ends, ended up being a bit of an oddball in the series, which disappointed and angered some fans but also intrigued others. To call this film divisive is to put it mildly. Our story starts out one year after the events of the previous two films. We focus on a younger man named Corey who is brought in as a last minute babysitter to the house of a wealthy family in Haddonfield. He is just supposed to watch over the boy that lives there while the parents are out at a Halloween party. However, the kid tries to play a prank on Corey and it ends up resulting in the boy falling to his death. Of course the parents and the rest of the town blames Corey, and he is ostracized despite eventually being legally cleared of the crime. We jump ahead three more years and explore how the town has begun to come to terms with the events around Myers and how Laurie in particular has tried to move on from her obsession. She and Allyson live together, and she encounters Corey at a gas station while he is being harassed by a group of teenagers. Corey is injured in that altercation with the teenagers and Laurie brings him to the hospital and introduces him to Allyson. They hit it off and begin a relationship. However, this relationship further exposes Corey to the ire of the townspeople and this constant negative attention leads him down a darker and violent path. One of the strengths of the film is this narrative attention to the social production of extreme, violent, and ultimately psychopathic behavior. It tries to ask questions about whether violent people are born that way or whether they become that way as a response to the events of their life. Now these are all very interesting ideas and are fun things to explore in a horror movie. The issue for a lot of viewers was that Michael Myers is largely sidelined in this movie. If you go into this movie expecting it to be just another Myers centered hack ’em up, then you will be disappointed. However, if you watch this movie and try to appreciate this movie for what the bulk of it is as a romantic drama within the context of a horror styled character study, then you will get a lot more out of it. I actually find the Michael Myers parts of the film to be the most disappointing and the most distracting. The result of the film is a mixed bag overall because it is a number of different movies smashed together competing for dominance: There is the Corey descent into darkness story; there is the Corey and Allyson romantic drama; there is the Laurie and Haddonfield post-Myers story; and there is the forced final fight between Laurie and Myers that this movie was sold on. Your feelings about this movie will vary based on which of the myriad narrative threads you prefer and wish were explored in further depth and detail.
[Author’s Note: Feel how you want about the latest second internal reboot trilogy. Personally, I hope that Halloween Ends is truly the final film and that they finally let Myers and this franchise rest. But if they insist on resurrecting Myers and the franchise again, then I will continue to update this guide to Halloween multiverse.]
Doctored Entertainment 
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